MadAnt

Ok, I tried to do some shopping on rcMart and now they lost my potential business. They suck, search is flawed and the items in my cart keep getting deleted. Hmm... maybe that free shipping for orders over $75 is related some how? The items in the cart getting deleted kept getting on my nerves, so now rcMart is on my special poo word I can't say list. I will revisit my search for some JC Racing wheels in the future, but for now I'll try other things and sources I have better luck with. rcMart gets no stars from me, it's two mid- ahem, thumbs down, I do not recommend them.

You betcha! Tires and locked diffs make a huge difference off-road. I'm running the Dirt Grabbers from RC4WD on my CC01 Bronco, which works very well for multi terrain use. https://store.rc4wd.com/Dirt-Grabber-19-All-Terrain-Tires_p_216.html

I'm sure Tamiya will keep it around in some form or another for a bit longer. There are a few models left, but it is amazing how long Tamiya kept the CC01/XC going despite it's almost 31 year old design.

Test drove with the new setup today, had the Banditos on it for the asphalt and it was... HOLY COW! I did not expect such a big change in the on road handling, but it was different, in a good way. The Hotshot 2 was way more predictable when cornering and reaction was a bit more sharp, I was not used to this, but it was so easy to adapt my driving style. With the three shocks up front the weird wobble bounce was gone and since I still was using the front sway bar, the body roll was well under control just lifting the inside front wheel sometimes while cornering. I'm happy with this result so far.

Coffee cans, Chinese food containers, cookie tins, a jar for old oils. We've all used stuff found in the kitchen.

Worked on the Hotshot 2 a little bit more, mostly taking care of some issues. The smaller stock wheels were rubbing a little bit on the control arms and screw pins, oops! With 2.2 wheels it's not an issue, so now I notice it. Easy fix, I just ground down and shaped the control arm, then ground the pin shorter and repositioned the upright spacers. The rear wheels seem to have some wobble, so to eliminate most of the play I put a 5x8x2.5 bushing in-between the bearings on the axle shaft. Saving those old bushings came in handy, that's why I keep them in my bearing stash. Anyway, I installed a new cage so the original can be saved and have a stronger wing mount. Also, there were some other parts on the sprue I wanted. While it was looking like a whole buggy again, i changed the front springs to soft touring car springs to get a reasonable firmness and ride height. The shocks on it now are just temporary and will be upgraded, but I can still get an idea of how the car handles. Also, the oil I put in the mini CVA shocks seemed a bit too thin so I put the original front shock on for some extra dampening and weirdness. I have to get a new set of wheels and tires. I would like to use modern 2.2 buggy wheels, on RC Mart I found those 2.2 hotshot wheels from JC Racing that @Andreas Wmentioned. I don't have any experience with RC mart, I might give it a try.

As stated before, toe in rear uprights. Tires may be a good upgrade too, along with a spring set to dial the suspension in.

Beetles are cool! Rally Bugs are cool too! And baja bugs!

You really can't bash with an old Sand scorcher like you can with the Arrma Typhon. If a reliable and rugged runner is needed, then get the Typhon and just slowly restore the old Sand Scorcher on the side. Also, in that pic, the Original Sand Scorcher is the one in front of the original Super Champ, the wheels have been painted silver. Most hard body cars I paint now get a good clear coat, I use Tamiya or Testors model rattle and brush on paints. Automotive paints work well too and are great when you want certain other colors, but fine spray tips should be used for decent quality. BTW, the painted driver has a normal mustache.

It's a standard Traxxas rod end just without the ball, I then cut a nylon tube as a bushing to fit snugly inside which takes up all the play when the screw is in.

I measured the shocks on mine, keep in mind these are ballpark numbers because I used a measuring tape. Front: 70mm Rear: 58mm Looks like a crusty car you are dealing with. Since you are not staying 100% original you can definitely substitute the hardware or something shiny or stainless. Tamiya gives you the sizes for the hardware, that makes aftermarket solutions easier to find. I bet there is even an aftermarket stainless screw srew set for the re re sand scorcher, but most of the hardware should fit. As for the other miscellaneous parts, like the antenna pipe, ebay may be a good solution for that. Look at parts lots and buy multiples from one seller to get better bang for you buck. Good luck!

Ok, it's late now and I'm done messing with the Hotshot 2 for tonight. I have the new Supershot/Super Hotshot/HP shock towers installed. The shocks I have on the car now are just for mockup, but things are evolving and looking good. I'm going to try and keep the front swaybar, that's if clearance is not an issue for the shocks. That's right, I'm still using the Traxxas Bandit rear lower control arms.

The track owner says metal caps only. I may have gotten away with running plastic for now, but for the future the shock caps need to be metal. They probably had some issues with oil on track at some time, IDK, so everyone cannot run with plastic caps now.

If you have the original parts, just measure them. Also, identify if it's from "1979" or not. If true or is an early design from 79 or 80 or something with the original black bumper, some parts and other early SRB designs are different. So you can do a vintage restoration or a correct vintage restoration, or a resto mod, a vintage resto mod. Post some pics of the car, like the front and rear suspension ask the rest of the questions.

Well... I bought some more parts, this buggy is going to evolve into what the Hotshot 2 should have been, but better than that. No really, in stock form the Hotshot 2 is not much of a step up from the regular Hotshot. Think about it, we have the Hotshot, Super Shot and then the Hotshot II. The Hotshot 2 is more like a Hotshot 1.5 in my opinion, really Tamiya could have done better, like giving it a bell crank steering system and fixing the bump steer, have adjustable rear camber links and maybe just give it the HP suspension package from factory. Anyway, spending as little money as possible or getting the best bang for the buck upgrade has always been my goal, but... sometimes us RC hobbyists get carried away. Thankfully I still don't have a money pit as far as upgrades go and not including radio, wheels, tires and stock replacement parts, I have maybe $50 USD of "upgrades" into this buggy, with some of the parts from my collected stash. Ok, If you include everything, I've spent much more, but that's on parts for repairs and whatnot, so whatever. So, after the shock blowout at the track, I starting thinking about the direction of this project. I could just put the shock back together and run the buggy normally in the parking lots and do light off-roading, but if I wanted to test and tune the Hotshot 2 at the carpet track again I need shocks with metal caps, because the shock oil is a PIA to deal with on the carpet. So if I'm getting new shocks, why buy 3 when I can get four? If I'm buying four shocks, why not try something else and go to the next level? Well... you see... umm... ok, let's do it. Now I am not making a Super Shot, I won't let it count as that, but it will be better. Now I don't have shocks yet, but after seeing @Mad Ax's Hotshot with the cheaper aluminum shocks, I know what color I want to go with. The TT02B shocks should fit my needs with little modification, or at least I assume based on measurements. The problem is everything I find in red is well... cheap. I love cheap prices, but usually that means cheap quality from my experience. So any suggestions is appreciated

Another Clodbuster update! We have improvements and it's very noticeable. So the modifications and adjustments I have made to the steering in the other post have worked. It's still far from perfect and I have the left steering EPA at 110-115%, but it's a positive result with way more controllable handling. There are still issues though, which is why I need more servo travel going left than right. These particular issues could be ignored, but I do have a plan to partially fix them. One issue is the sloppy steering rod ends, this Clod was used and abused for years, so things are a bit worn-out. The other issue is the flex of the plastics. Were the servo sits, the blue Suspension parts attached to the ladder bars and the servo horn all flex. There are a few things I can do about the flexible areas, but it's not something I feel needs attention right away. Also, if you see in the pic, I changed the front aluminum shocks I had to these vintage yellow units. I'm going to try and retro fit my aluminum shocks to something else, so I figured it was a good time to dig the old yellow CVAs out of the parts box purgatory and give them new life after a major wash and scrub down making them look good from 10 feet away. Stay tuned, I have some more plans.

Well... I have no more servo savers anymore. It's just the steering arm/bellcrank with almost no give now. I think the one in the photo you posted will be a good upgrade over stock, just replace the spring with a spacer and tighten the screw and nut down and you will have a bell crank/arm with no more servo saver effect. Below is what I have on this clod. If you buying from ebay or wherever, the shipping prices and taxes may vary depending on location. The set from UK Monsters look pretty good too with the bearings and steel shaft. Of course the best steering you are going to get is from an axle mounted servo conversion. There are multiple kits out there, but the servo clearance to the chassis is an issue. A BAS conversion like the kit from J Concepts can resolve the some of the clearance issues with the frame.

Sounds like a skill issue, lol🤣

Some goodies came in. I was pricing out large quantities of 3mm locknuts on ebay, it seemed better to just get 4 packs of 20 from A Main along with everything else I ordered. Ebay's fees plus shipping costs can really make a good deal into a bad one, so that's why it pays to shop around. Finding a JIS screwdriver in the wild here is like trying to find Bigfoot. Nobody knows what they are and the people that do know swear by Tamiya's screwdrivers.

Well... no more power/economy switch, I broke it, or just had it come apart. After seeing the very small amount of contact the electrical connections had in the switch, I decided not to fix it and just have the motor wires directly plugged into the leads from the HobbyWing 880 like normal. Below is the switch, after seeing this, I'm not trusting it. Anyway, Everyone who owns a Clod knows how bad the factory steering is. Running anything more powerful and faster than the stock 27t motors and the clodbuster's steering becomes a sketchy mess at higher speed and under acceleration. Mine was still sloppy, I had replaced the servo saver/steering arm in the front with something that does not give unless you crash it hard enough, but I never did the rear, so the rear wheels just went wherever they wanted when I put the power down sometimes or when turning. So I installed the metal arm kit which is made of multiple parts and the screw and nut needs to be extremely tight so the washers can bite well enough into the metal surfaces. It seems jank, but it works. Of course that's not enough, so I upgraded the servo as well from the Hitech 645MG to an Eco Power WP110T. Well... High torque servo options in general have gotten cheaper or more abundant over the years and we now have more options than in the past in the more affordable $30-$40 USD price range, so last year or so I picked a few high torque metal gear servos for upgrades and future projects. Anyway, this new servo gives me a massive step up in torque going from 133 oz-in at 6 volts with the old 645MG to an 280 oz-in at 6 volts with the WP110T. The hole positions for the pivot balls on the new servo horn are asymmetrical to give less steering and more torque to the rear wheels. While I had the rear axle out, I decided to finally install the ball bearings that I bought some time ago. The gears still had a coat of grease on them, but some aluminum had mixed in from the old pinion gear. Rather than scrubing the gears clean, I just put a tiny dab of grease and left it alone. Trust me, it's fine, it spins so smooth and now a bit better with the ball bearings instead of bushings. Also, I changed the pinion gears a long time ago to steel gears, so everything has ran fine for years, I just had not seen the inside in a long while. Back to the steering. With the goal of making rear steering less prone to instability, I positioned the linkages on the steering arm to give even less steering which means it would have less leverage to fight the servo in those dramatic driving situations. For the front steering I was already at full lock and since I had less steering in the rear now, I should try to get more steering angle. The steering knuckles have these little nub stops on them, so I cut the front facing nubs off to get just a little bit more front steering angle. At full lock the tires are now a little bit more closer to the front bumper In the pic below you can now see the differences in steering angles for the front and rear wheels. I'm sure the turning circle is a little bit larger now, but that's fine as long as the truck is more stable. I'll need to test drive it and maybe dial in the steering a bit, I'll update when after I see how it goes.

I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I was finally able to get the Hotshot 2 on the carpet track for a test and tune. The bad news is the Hotshot 2 only lasted for about 2 1/2 laps before breaking and ending my session. What a bummer, it was not even driven hard and the jumps were small, very small. I bent a front dog bone shaft, blew the left rear shock and crack the left front upper control arm where the screw pin threads in. This may be easily fixable, but it's still a bummer. I don't trust the shocks now if the caps can blow off this easy, I will be upgrading those now and maybe a few other things as well(coming soon). I did at least get to experience the handling of the buggy, which was not ideal and had loads of understeer thanks to the factory tires, so I'll put new tires and wheels on the list for next time. The funny thing is, my Hornet held up much better and handled way better, lol. I do have better spike tires, the Ampro double wishbone front suspension installed and custom tuned front shocks, so that might help the Hornet a bunch. I will have get that out next time again, it's just so fun. I'll make a new thread for that.

That's a pretty cool 6x6. The Sassy Chassis are cool, very old school.

Oh yeah, it's a handful. I thought about running it on a 3S LiPo for a second, lol. The steering is a mess at high speed and trying launch straight is a challenge with the rear wondering. It would be so much better if it had the BAS steering and rear steer lockout like my other Clod has. Stay tuned, I have some things to try with the old sort of original steering.

Ok, I did a little test session, it took over an hour and I broke a couple of things. The rear bumper bracket and the front anti rotation bracket had broke on me this time, but I at least had some fun. I'll do an inspection and update later, but it was pretty fun having power and economy modes using the 19 turn motors. The steering is well... terrible, at least in coo-coo power mode. In eco mode the Clodbuster is very controllable and still has enough torque for some fun low speed driving. Since I was running the much faster 19T motors, I slapped on one of my lexan bodies just incase I had a crash or rollover, but having the truck on economy mode made the Clod slow enough that a crash or rollover never happened. I forgot how much power it had, it was really fun doing wheelies.

Back when the Clodbuster made it's return as the "Super" Clodbuster years ago, I made the decision some short time after to save up and purchase one. I found it's old school looks, massive tires and MOA drivetrain to be very cool. It was an outdated different animal to what was out at the time, but with it's 80's charm and a retail price under $200 made it more attractive at the time. Back then there were as many aftermarket upgrades for the Clodbuster as there are now. Imex, ESP, Thunder Tech and New Erea were a few a of the well-known brands that made upgrades and accessories for the Clod platform at the time. I would drool looking at some of the expensive monster truck chassis you could buy knowing it was out of my price range, but it was still very cool to see. Over the years I had plenty of fun with my Super Clodbuster. I had originally painted the original body a satin metalic red which I think worked well with the blue shocks and bumpers and chrome wheels, then I did some repairs and it was repainted black. With the damage being to much on the hard body, I started using lexan bodies, which one is on a crawler and the other is on my other clod now. I have a hard body waiting to be finished, but I really don't want to damage it, so maybe I might pick up another lexan body in the future. Anyway, I've been thinking about slowing the Super Clod down. I have two Reedy 19T motors in it right now which I feel is too fast on 2S LiPo. For years I've ran two team Orion 17T motors and broke stuff multiple times. Before that I had the 23 turn 550 Titan motors, which had plenty of torque, but needed more voltage to be faster. 8.4 volts was pretty good, while running at 14.4 volts was a little crazy and was too much for the stock resistor and Mechanical Speed Controller. So now wanting to go slow again, I find myself messing with the Power/Economy switch and making it work with the ESC I have right now. I did plan on using a HobbyWing 880, but I'll get back to that. Just making the Dynamite 60A speed controller work with the Power/Economy switch is an easy task, as it turns out I have everything I need to get it done. I've collected and saved the wiring needed, although some insulation make look a little bit melty on a couple of wires thanks to me using the crazy 550 setup in the past, they are actually very usable. Time to open the manual and see how this mess goes together. As it turn out I modified some things in the past, probably to make it easier to swap speed controlers and bypassed the Power/Economy switch. Above is the bypass Y harnesses I had made in the past. That's right! No soldering was done, I know some people reading hate crimp connections, and they see this and what was done now too as a an RC sin. I can hear the arguments now, but there are a few things those know it all's should understand. I know what I am doing, it's fine for this application and most important, this is my RC truck.😂 As it turn out, I had some extra factory wiring that a friend gave to me so making this work should be simple. It's simple-ish, but it works. I now can have the dual motor circuits go from parallel to series with just a flip of a switch again. Sweet, but now I think it's time for a new ESC, I don't want to hurt this one like two before it and the new HobbyWing 880 that is meant for this application has a BEC that can supply 6 volts which should get me a little more torque from the steering servo since the the Dynamite ESC has a 5 volt BEC. So to make the 880 work with the setup I have now, two Y harness adapters with two male and one female bullet connectors are needed. Oh what! I just need to crimp a male bullet on the each of the Y harnesses I already have. Now they can work as 2 into 1 harnesses and well... it works. Stay tuned!