Saito2

Do you have any contact info?

Thanks! Those are exactly the gears posted on here 4 years ago. I wonder if he still makes them?

I know this is wishful thinking but about 4 years ago I asked about the possibility of upgraded axle gears for the TXT series of trucks. There were some prototypes made but I haven't seen anything more about it. Anybody hear anymore about it or an upgraded center star shaft as well?

I've never really done Ebay for selling. I've had it on here for many months awhile back but the cost of shipping is a deal killer, plus I'm in the US. The best offer I got would have netted me $40 US, so I kept it. I'm going to give the trans one more chance and keep the motor a silvercan. If it fails, I'll replace the trans with something else (and the chassis too, as I won't cut up an original Madcap one.

Me too. The Saint Dragon is the same as the Madcap. The King Cab is the same as the Astute. My only guess is despite both having 540 silvercan motors, the Astute was seen a more "racy" and might need a tighter diff with a hotter motor that might be installed at a later date. The King Cab might be down to the greater load imposed by the bigger tires. All just a guess. I've backed off running Madcaps due to the diff but I have so many spares and no one shows much interest in buying it so I decided to run it anyway. Beats sitting around collecting dust.

So potassium will add hours to my day...hmmm. lol, j/k. Honestly, thanks for the advice. I'll look into it.

After going through my pairs of diff housings, I can see why its possible to shear of one of the diff housing halves. The casting is incredibly thin at the recessed "ears" where the three screws go through. One of mine actually had a small hole in the casting at this point. The next pair I had were badly warped. The pair after that were perfect, except it was run its whole life (by the PO) in a Madcap with the stock bronze bushings. Now the area were the bushing/bearing rides is worn about 0.010" undersized. The forth set looked usable. Sigh. Incidentally, I grabbed an Astute manual when going through the diff on the bench as I am using the Astute/King Cab style of thrust bearing and now I see it differs from the Madcap manual in respect to adjustment. The Madcap doesn't use the shims in the standard setting (though one is depicted in the assembly picture, probably to show orientation should one be added) and states one could be added for adjustment if necessary. The Astute (which uses the same diff except for the "assembled" full metal, thrust bearings), simply shows two shims going in as standard and states more or less of them could be used for adjustment. More certainly sounds like a bad idea.

Ok, I'll try one on each side.

No, other than both being Japanese model companies at the time, there is no connection. Boxart was an important feature of Japanese models with certain artist being sought after. Tamiya seems to have pioneered the concept of a mostly white box with minimal to no background. Their earlier efforts did have full backgrounds. The "white box look" must have proved popular as many RC manufactures adopted it back then to varying degrees of success. Kyosho was certainly a hold out, preferring to stick with nice studio shots of the completed model. Marui probably imitated the "Tamiya look" better than anyone, even down to their kit presentation at times. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery they say.

I have a couple of Madcap diffs I'm rebuilding. Whats a good starting point for the number of shims to install? The manual calls for 2 (one on each side) but but states more can be added for adjustment. I was thinking of starting with 4 (2 on each side) as I'm working with old, but usable parts. I'm aware over-shimming will simply distort the pot metal, cast diff side housings so I'm cautious about going over 4 (also know to use proper ball diff grease). Also, what grit paper should I use to sand the diff rings flat. Thanks.

It will be interesting to see how these axles work out for you. They look great! The standard AR60s are one of the major things that keeps me away from using them or buying an SMT10. From what research I've done, the standard gears are cheap cast zinc that wear out, the tubes crack and need internal sleeves, the C-hubs/knuckles are vulnerable and even the axles and driveshafts can have issues. I wish TXT axle hardware was easier to get.

I have only vague recollections of them. They weren't out as long as a lot of Thorp's other diffs. IIRC, you adjusted them by turning the large knurled section on the end of them (6001 in the pic, I think). This made them hard to adjust as you had to tear the whole gearbox down to get at them to adjust them. I *think* I recall some folks complaining that they would come loose, but then again a lot of Thorp diffs would come loose. It got bad enough that Thorp bent the adjusting screw on their conventional diffs (not like the Clod diffs you have) to try to get them to stop backing out. On one occasion I remember them telling a customer to intentionally "gack" the threads on the screw with pliers to keep it in place. At any rate, Clod diffs didn't self-destruct like ORV diffs so I imagine that plus the difficulty with adjustment made them shorter lived. You could try searching other monster truck specific forums for possibly more in-depth answers. Hope this helps.

Interesting. I'm actually working on the same project at the moment with a similar story. I bought a Twin Detonator just after you got your Dagger for similar reasons. I also had similar criticisms. I'm also going 2wd and narrowing the truck with WR02CB arms. It will be interesting to see where you go with this.

I had a supervisor once who made a lot of money by doing pretty much nothing. He knew how to delegate. It was his favorite word . Delegation is a good suggestion under normal circumstances. In my world, there's just me, my wife and my child. There's no one to delegate to (my wife certainly does her share) and I can't pay others. I've learned not to trust most folks and when it comes to getting things done right, so its best to just do it myself. I didn't know how to lay flooring or redo countertops two years ago. I do now . I also speculate whether something is falling through the cracks when I hear stories of these amazingly productive people. If had to do a chore like dishes, I'm not pushing it off on my wife. She needs attention and consideration just like my child. Or I could be wrong and these folks really do have it all.

After listening to and reading about how others spend their time, I've come to the conclusion that either I'm horrible at managing my time or these people secretly have more than 24 hours in their days. One example was a gentleman who had a day job, ran an RC track later in the day/weekends, had 3 kids, horses and a vintage motorcycle hobby. How is that possible? Granted, I have a special needs child which consumes a great deal of time. I work full time of course. On the other hand I don't watch TV of any kind, have pretty much whittled my hobbies down to RC, have zero friends (outside my wife) or social life. Between fixing/keeping up with the house/chores, working and raising a child, the idea of multiple hobbies or just a vacation is so alien to me at this point. So how do these folks do it? I never seem to get anything done or rather, the incoming life projects (not hobby/fun related) stack up quicker than I complete them. I couldn't fathom adding one of my old hobbies back in. My wife says I'm constantly doing something and truthfully, I'm only "idle" when I'm on this forum. So, what's the secret?