Upside down steering servo

[bkeith85]

Hey guys, I have a question. I wish I had a picture, but I started taking it apart already. My friend bought a pile of RC10 cars and parts and I am trying to piece together a couple. The car I claimed as mine has a weird steering servo setup. I thought it was a cool idea at first, but now I am having second thoughts about it because I haven't seen another car like it. Instead of being mounted on it's side lengthwise, it is mounted upside down and crossways, with the servo horn facing the pan. There are four threaded standoffs holding it to the pan. There are countersunk holes in the pan for the standoffs. It seems like a pretty solid setup. It uses a short turnbuckle link to connect to the stock steering parts.

Was this a legitimate kit at one time, or was this the handiwork of a previous owner? I can't find any mention of it anywhere. If it was a kit, was it a good setup to run?

On one hand, I think it is a neat setup and gives me plenty of room for a full sized LiPo battery. But, it isn't the usual OE setup. This car will be used, but not trashed. I will drive it some, but I feel like I should try to preserve it as much as possible. I built an RC10T recently that is perfect for bashing, so there is no need to have another car like that.

[XLR8]

So the servo shaft is vertical? I've never seen anything like that before. I would imagine it will be hard to fit a buggy body over the servo -- if that's what you're building.

[bkeith85]

Yes, the shaft is vertical and points down. I thought it would hit the body too, but it's a small servo, so it just barely fits. I tried a buggy body on it and it pretty much sits right on the servo. I'm thinking now that this could be a problem. It wouldn't take long for it to rub the paint off in that spot. That may decide it for me.
I was willing to keep it if someone said it was "xyz steering mod" and was the hot ticket back in the day. But since I hadn't seen it anywhere else, I didn't think that was likely.

If I don't use it, I have four extra holes in the pan. We have 3-4 other pans, but this one was pretty nice otherwise.

[jwscab]

Servos work in any orientation, and some cars do place the servo vertically, such as the losi xx4. Nothing wrong about any servo installation from a function standpoint as long as it's secure, can travel without binding, and allows for a symmetrical range.

It may not look right, and shaft down is certainly unorthodox for the gold pan. The Tamiya lunchbox and others mount the servo tipped or mounted downward.

If it works for you, then stick with it. If not, there are quite a few ways to do it.

I don't actually like the standard sideways mount on the rc10. The rc10 b2 and others that turn the servo side to side can give you more room to mount batteries.

[bkeith85]

Yeah, that's why I liked this setup, because it went side to side. To fit hard case batteries in my RC10T, I have to use servo tape to mount it and cut the ears off one side of the servo. Not that that's a bad thing, but you really can't reuse if for anything else after that.
I'll have to check how it fits with the body again. If it touches too much, that may change my mind.
But also, the RC10 is such an iconic car, and one that I lusted after when I was a kid. So, I kinda don't want to deviate much from stock and just use it sparingly. I'll post pics of my 10T in a minute. That's the one that I really play with the most. I think it is a semi early one, so I replaced all the white parts with later black ones so I wouldn't trash the originals.

[bkeith85]

Well, I wanted to post some pics of it, but I can't get it to work. I am linking them from google pics and I get a broken image placeholder. I'll try again later.

[bkeith85]

RC10T with Protech body. I was inspired by another thread on here. The buggy body doesn't let the pan fill up with dirt like the truck body does. I love this thing, it's fast and seems to be almost bullet proof.

[XLR8]

Very unique. Looks great!!
Is this the one with the stand-up servo?

[discgolfer72]

I want those tires for my brushless runner lol they look sweet

[bkeith85]

Very unique. Looks great!!
Is this the one with the stand-up servo?

No, this is a 10T that I got a few months ago. It's setup per the manual, with the servo mounted with tape on it's side. I just did a cost breakdown to get one of these buggies put together and I didn't like the number. I probably spent the same or more on this truck, so I guess that's just the cost of whipping one back into shape.

I am tired of seeing "This part has been discontinued" whenever I need something.

[bkeith85]

I want those tires for my brushless runner lol they look sweet

They are Proline Trenchers. The closest thing to a knobby tire you can get now. Everything else is almost smooth. Blah.

[XLR8]

Sorry, I don't want to hijack the discussion but, speaking of Proline Trenchers, I think they look awesome on this Bruiser clone.
I want a set for my TF2.

[bkeith85]

I love Bruisers. I was always in awe of those and how realistic they were. Now with all the scale crawlers you can get, they don't look that accurate anymore. They were always way too expensive for me to even think about having one.

By "clone", did you mean that it is one of the new Chinese knockoffs? I've seen those. They are much more to affordable. Supposed to be VERY close to the original. That doesn't help Tamiya much though.

[bkeith85]

Ok, here are some pics of the upside down servo mount that this thread is supposed to be about. Sorry that I let my own discussion get off topic.

Not sure how to rotate the first one. It's straight on my pc.

[GoMachV]

The geometry is good- better than stock, id put some better looking hardware on it and call it good.