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nowinaminute

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Everything posted by nowinaminute

  1. Just began rebuilding an old Bullhead I've had laying around for ages and I noticed the B12 part is missing. It seems to have been doing ok without it but I wanted to check how vital it was. Seems to just be a spacer tube to go between the plastic bushings but the gear itself has seats moulded into it, so I can't quite work out the purpose of it? Maybe it's as backup if the plastic bearings start to wear out? Like I say, it has apparently been running fine like it until now, and I'm converting it to bearings so there should be plenty of strength there. Just don't want anything to implode!
  2. Even that Nissan Titan truck can look a lot better with the right paint. That really surprised me!
  3. Wondering why everyone is laugh reacting to my latest photo. It's making me paranoid
  4. That's disappointing to hear. I wonder if it's a Wales vs UK thing? Either way, at least Plaza looks safe! Will be making an order shortly.
  5. Well I suppose it's inevitable, just seems to be taking longer than other countries but that may be down our unique post brexit import system. Hopefully soon. Although I was more concerned about the fees than the actual shipping cost. Like you said, the right kind of order can still easily leave you laughing and even pay for itself with a couple of items to sell on. Ok that's good to know. Seems like they are simply assuming anything under the threshold has been sorted already, just like Royal Mail. Now that IS interesting! Good to know.
  6. Japan post website So just to confirm, you have made several orders using fedex and none of the ones under £135 have incurred a charge? Absolutely. A lot of stuff is as little as 1/4 the price plus many UK sellers charge £4 for shipping anyway, so if you order enough of the right things, you could still end up saving 50% easily inc postage. That's why I was eager to know about the fees.
  7. Just went to make an order and noticed there's still no Japan post economy or standard air. Seems they have brought it back for many countries, but not the UK, still stuck with DHL and FEdex. JP resumed EMS on the 1st July for the UK but the normal air options remain out of reach. Guessing this is partly down to the wonderful brexit and how awkward we made international shippping? If you go through the older updates, many countries already got Air back. A fresh round of resumed services coming from tomorrow. But guess who still isn't invited to the party? Question: Has anyone been hit by DHL or Fedex for fees on an order UNDER £135 AND made SINCE the obligation has been on the sender to collect VAT? I realise it was a gamble using those two shippers before brexit, but the new rules now, even as stated on the DHL and Fedex websites, is that they won't collect VAT on the on the customer end. But we all know DHL and Fedex make a significant amount out money from fees, so I'm not sure whether to trust it. Obviously, Japan post stuff comes via Royal Mail and they just seem to let anything below £135 in now, even without any kind of invoice on the package. Not sure if DHL/Fedex are that lax, though. Sorry, I know it's a long and meandering question, just wanted to try and judge whether it's worth the risk, again. Just to clarify again, I'm talking about orders delivered with those two couriers AFTER the responsibility to collect VAT fell to the seller for items under £135 . If in doubt, I'll probably just wait an hope.
  8. It's true. So subjective. One person could drive an RC very harshly for years with no issues and another person be relatively gentle but happens to do something that highlights a flaw in the RC. A lot of people think their own experiences are universal. Like I say, mine was OK for a fair amount of time then I started driving it differently and problems started. I guess it's applicable to driving RCs in general. All too easy to let a first impression of an RC taint your feelings about it but they can be like a totally different vehicle in other situations. I hated my Blackfoot when I drove it around a rough car park and it kept tipping over. Once I drove it on dirt though, I suddenly loved it.
  9. Love it! That looks like awesome fun. Don't get anything like that round here, sadly. I actually managed to backflip my dump truck at the skate park but my daughter who was filming just completely missed it. You can even hear me whining about it. The parent/child dynamic temporarily switched 🤣 I tried to do it again later but the battery was getting low and it inevitably faceplanted I to the tarmac 🤦‍♂️ It does jump fairly well on proper ramps. Not so much "in the wild" where you try to use the scenery as improvised ramps, that's when the Mad Van begins to show it's strengths.
  10. I'm inclined to agree. The thing is it's a lot more dynamically capable, despite originating from an on-road chassis. It just encourages you to do bigger jumps an flips etc, so you're already driving at much greater limits than the Tamiya before you start getting the reliability issues IMO. That being said, I have taken my Heavy Dump truck to the skate park a few times lol. And now that it has wide arms, it's better still. But it's still not as a "chuckable" as the mad van and doesn't land as well etc. I'll be having a go at switching the mad van over to Traxxas CVDs soon. They are tough, affordable, and because they are telescoping, no dog bones and cups to worry about popping out. Early days but hopefully it works out. Needs a bit of A team style customisation so wish me luck lol.
  11. All I will say about the Mad Van is maybe take a look at some Facebook groups etc and get an idea of the kind of issues that regularly crop up. For the most part, it's pretty robust but there's a few drive line issues that may or may not be an issue, depending how you drive it. Mine was pretty solid for quite a while, got a decent amount of runs out of it with no issues, although I noticed one of the outer drive cups was getting progressively more chewed up (first common complaint) The first time I took it to a beach, the cup rounded out completely after less than a pack. Chances are it was nearing the end anyway and I just pushed it over the edge. That being said, I changed the plastic cup for a new one, and hit the beach again. It started off great so I got a bit bold and started doing some jumps and flips etc that's when the outer cups started quickly getting chewed up again and after approx 20 minutes I had another one rounded out. Again, I suspect if i had just kept on the ground most of the time and avoided stunts, it would have lasted a lot longer. But that's one of the things with these vans, they do big jumps and flips etc really well and have pretty of power for it, so it's hard to resist, especially when they are beating the snot out of one on sand in the promo vid! I decided having cups give up the ghost after every hard bash was no good, so I bought the pricey hop up CVDs. I noted as soon as I fitted them that they didn't seem to engage with the inner diff cups too well when at full droop or full compression, but told myself off for being paranoid and off I went. FIVE MINUTES later, I stripped out an inner cup. I also broke 2 teeth of the front diff ring gear....(another common complaint) So currently I'm waiting for a new ring and input gear for the front end. While it was apart, I popped in a set of upgrade metal front cups just to see how they looked. Once again, the pins on the dog bone end of the CVD seem perilously close to popping out of the inner cups. The crazy thing is there's plenty of space for it to go further into the cups. Obviously on any rig, at full droop, the pins protrude most at the top of the cup and the least at the bottom. And usually there are limits to how far the ball can be inside the cup before the pin will bottom out on the lower slot like in this ridiculously bad drawing: But on the mad van, the weird thing is there is tons of room, the lower pin isn't close to bottoming out, so the upper pin is needlessly close to the edge. More like this: It genuinely makes me wonder if the CVDs haven't been made a few mm shorter than nominal. I swear if they were 3-4 mm longer, they would engage better and still not bind up. Either that of if the arms were 3-4mm shorter. You can't do much to shim the cups outward, because they aren't splined or slot fit like a lot of Tamiyas but instead, a pin inside the diff housing goes through a shaft attarched to the cup, you can't really adjust the distance of the cup from the diff housing. And on the wheel side, you can't really shim the CVD to be closer to the inner cup, because whatever you shim by, recuded how far the wheel adapter engages into the wheels, and they are already only 1/2 the thickness of a traditional hex. I can't even drive it again until I get new gears, but I already feel like even with the upgrade CVD AND metal cups, that they are going to want to pop out and start chewing the cups up. I'd honestly prefer to try and switch over to traxxas or Arrma style telescoping CVDs because there's no dog bones to worry about, but it would take a fair bit of experimenting and customisation. Anyways, sorry if I come across as negative, and for a lot of people they are probably quite durable for every day use. I got a good amount of runs out of mine before I started pushing it harder and suddenly things started to fail. For example, I got plenty of sessions like this: The thing is, everyone's situation and usage scenarios are different. For a long time, I was one of the guys saying "I dunno what the badword you do to yours, but mine has been fine!" But then when my usage changed slightly, I had a sucession of issues in a very short amount of time! Just some food for thought. I still love my van, its just a bittersweet experience as it's incredibly eager to be bashed but seems to have a couple of flaws that make it difficult to get it reliable when you're taking full advantage of it's power and agility. I said I would make a thread about it and I probably still will.
  12. Nah it was fine lol. You'd be amazed at the contortions that happen to some parts and you'd never notice without a freeze frame. That being said, the mad van unfortunately has some well known weaknesses in the driveline but moreso related to stuff like the plastic drive cups wearing out very quickly, dramatically so in sand. Really not fit for purpose on such a powerful vehicle. Plenty of people on the Facebook group had them give up on the first run. Before I hit the beach, the front outer cups were wearing out pretty fast but I had got maybe 6 runs out of it. The first beach run they lasted approx 20 minutes! Managed plenty of back flips etc with no issues but doing some high speed passes etc and they rounded out after 10 minutes or so. Took it home and put brand new cups in, went back to the beach and this time just ran it around on flat areas, no stunts etc and one rounded out again before I could get through a pack. I had even turned the steering end point down as advised. So I ended up getting the rather pricey "HD" CVD set, fitted them, back to the beach. This time 5 minutes of gentle running and the INNER drive cups went! Now waiting to fit metal inner cups. So ironically, I got 20 or so minutes from the stock plastic outer cups, including a load of stunts and got 5 minutes after getting the expensive CVDs! I love it but for something they advertised as a powerful basher and show pounding around at the beach in the promo, it's been a bit of a wimp so far. Can't even blame the plastic cups really, my DT02 and 03s have plastic cups AND driveshaft but it took years of beach runs before a cup totally rounded out! I'm on the verge of just trying to hack a traxxas or similar CVD to fit because they attach with a grub screw at the diff end, the kyosho CVDs still have a dogbone on one end, and they don't seem to engage inside the cups as far as I'd like. The inner cups have always been fine but switching to CVDs seem to have moved the weak point to the insided. Blimey this escalated🤣 Anyways, the wheels stay on just fine, it's the rest of the stuff that's the problem🤣😅 It's a weird RC. It has plenty of get up and go but it's a bit flawed. Like an Olympic gymnast with brittle bones! Maybe ill make a dedicated thread about it, as I know a lot of people here are intruiged by the mad van.
  13. Thanks! Glad you liked it! Thanks! Happy to give some hints. Thank you!
  14. Tried dry lube but it does nothing to stop it getting into places and binding stuff. It could well be a factor of grain size, plus I tend to run in the very dry sand that kicks up in clouds everywhere. Seems to affect different vehicles differently, too. I don't recall ever having a problem with my Lunchbox or heavy dump truck, for example (apart from now and then it will get into the steering link ball joint on the dump truck) But certainly the Thunder Dragon has done it every time I've taken it out. In particular it gets stiff in these places. There's such a small contact area I was in disbelief that it was sand at first but after cleaning and reassembling again, it went back to being smooth as silk. Then I ran it again and the same thing happened. But after adding grease, it would make it through a run without binding. I also had the same thing with the TD steering assembly. Although to be fair, this has happened after running in fine dirt as well, so not exclusive to the beach. But the same kind of thing where sand seems to get in and seize it up, preventing it from centering properly after a steering input. Again, only adding some grease seemed to prevent it. You can see in the photo where grease has caught the sand, but has also stopped it getting further inside, assessed on the mechanism still being free after several runs whereas before it got stiff and "crunchy" after every run. I suppose like most things in life, there's a thousand variables at work simultaneously so there's no catch all answer for every scenario. I still general avoid greasing for the most part, but in some cases it certainly seems to help. On a side note, I've taken my Kyosho Mad Van to the beach just 3 times with no grease and look at the ball joints on the front uprights 😳 That part has never seen grease and it's getting nicely chewed up, still.
  15. So, commonly accepted wisdom that most people avoid greasing most of the external points that Tamiya suggest in the manuals. I'm talking stuff like dog bones, suspension arm pins etc. The idea being that grease will only trap dirt/grit/sand and create a grinding paste and accelerate wear. I've generally followed this practice and it has seemed to work OK. Dirt will still eventually get ina nd wear places but it seems to happen at a slower rate than with grease present. But recently, I've noticed some things, especially when running at the beach a lot. I've noticed that without grease, suspension arms and steering cranks can often become seized up from fine sand/grit getting stuck in there and causing a lot of friction. Imagine if you press the car down and there's no rebound, it just sort of stays where it is. And with the steering you can never quite get the car to stay centered because that little bit of slack has gone, even with the servo disconnected, the steering assembly is firm/stiff and not free moving. I've been taking my Thunder Dragon to the beach a lot recently and the first few times, the suspension arms and steering would both get stiff and not move freely after a while and when taken apart, were bunged up with fine powdered sand. Had similar experiences with various other RCs inc DT02/03, kyosho, Nikko you name it. I've also noticed that no grease combined with all plastic ball joints (ie: where the ball itself is plastic) leads to very fast wear. Anyways, I decided to try adding a little grease, just to see what would happen and lo and behold, everything was moving nicely after the run. Although grease will trap sand, it also hinders it from quickly making progress into small places. Just like I use a bead of grease around the seams in gearboxes to stop sand making it's way in. I also found plastic ball joints don't seem to suffer so quickly, as long as you clean and relube before further use. I'm sure if I just left it was it was, the "grinding paste" scenario would eventually come true. But I'm wondering now, if for stuff like beach runs, it might be wiser to use grease, as long as you clean out and replace it again after the run, as opposed to leaving it to gradually absorb more sand/grit etc. Anyone else had similar findings?
  16. I love it but it's a bit pricey for me, more to do with my budget than my assessment of value. I love how it looks and I think it's one of the most "Tamiya" buggies for years if not decades. Divisive and controversial, just like other models have been in the past. I think it will be highly regarded in a couple of decades. Seems like a classic example of people getting what they ask for, then hating it. Then the icing on the cake: People taking away all it's personality and distinctiveness and making it look plain, the very thing the complain about. Or worse still, putting TRF colour vomit tribal tattoo stickers on, the very thing they moan about when it comes to stuff like Traxxas, and then saying "that looks MUCH better now!" I like everything about how it looks with the possible exception of the wheels, I thought they were a bit cheap/lazy.
  17. Finally got to take my HBX T6 "out out" It's quite hefty and I don't drive, so I've been limited to just local places it could go under it's own power so I've only taken it out about 5 times until now. But thanks to a cheapo hiking backpack on ebay, I can now take it anywhere I want. Rear wheels poke out the top a little, but I'm not grumbling! Being able to take it places is amazing. Of course the first place I scurried off to was the beach 😁 https://youtu.be/cRLjn1qZKg8
  18. Is that back with the 380 again? They do get super hot even with the low gearing. Grasshopper is the same with the 380 and small pinion, motor gets thermonuclear if you give it good thrashing on high drag surfaces.
  19. That guy is great! Certainly not setup for high speed running but it terms of realism at scale speeds, his mods are second to none! You can get somewhere in the ballpark sometimes with softer springs etc but nothing quite matches the visual realism of piling the weight on. This was the first video of his that I saw. Simply mind blowing!
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