RC10Talk - The Net's Largest Vintage R/C Community

I am looking to upgrade the ball cups and turnbuckles on my RC10 Dual Sport.

However I am not sure which brand to go with or what sizes I need as there seems to be a wide range

I am leaning towards all metal and I want to stick with black for both the ball caps and turnbuckles.

Any suggestions?

I DON'T KNOW WHETHER you wanna go with the vintage look or modern, but I can recommend Tamiya black metal rod ends that go on the Toyota hilux or super champ, they are strong as hell and very scale like but are small, than you could go with any modern aluminum ball/rod ends from rc4wd or use any crawler rod end hardware. take a look.

Thanks for the advice!

I checked out RC4WD and they have a pretty wide selection.

I am pretty sure I found what I need.

Is an M4 rod end overkill for an on road car?

YES, it is overkill, thats too big for what you need, the best performing rod ends are the plastic ones, they have no play and absorb shock very well. The aluminum ones are stronger and great to look at.

Get the standard M3 rod ends. Take a look at the tamiya avante, it has M4 rod ends, the plain aluminum ones, see the contrast between that and the 1/10 scale buggy. Well they act as linkages to the wheels so there they look great.

You're right, I see what you mean!

Will M3 plastic rod ends fit Associated turnbuckles?

I believe 4-40 rods are just a bit smaller diameter than 3mm rods (they're about 2.8mm). I have cracked a few AE ball-ends trying to install them on 3mm aluminum turnbuckles, but the opposite should work okay. You can probably install 3mm ball-ends on AE 4-40 turnbuckles.

you can install 3mm rod ends on the smaller than 3mm dis ball/rod ends, by first enlarging the hole to around 3mm, I, for good measure, tap the rod end with a corresponding tap, in this case 3mm tap. works fine.

ron wrote:you can install 3mm rod ends on the smaller than 3mm dis ball/rod ends, by first enlarging the hole to around 3mm, I, for good measure, tap the rod end with a corresponding tap, in this case 3mm tap. works fine.

Not for the smaller ones used on pan cars. I did that and a few of those AE ball-ends still cracked. They were new ones, too--not brittle old ones. Warming the turnbuckles up a bit with a hair dryer or heat gun might help too.