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Nikko85

QD monster truck - widen and add 12 mm hex

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I thought I'd share an update on my widened QD monster truck.

The QD are great monster trucks, but when fitted with a faster motor they tend to roll quite a lot.

With that in mind I thought about updating the QD to widen a little so it's won't roll so much, the proportions are more in line with the GF01 and I'm less worried about damaging an increasingly hard to source wheel by adding 12 mm hex and GF01 wheels.

First job was to take off the rear wheels and add a 7 to 12 mm 3D printed hex converter. This simply pops over the brass 7 mm hex. Add some GF01 (or WR02 etc.) wheels and away you go.

yrnchsg.jpg

NzVUHin.jpg

 

pkqODVG.jpg

New wheel on the right, old on the left. As you can see the finished track width will be a fair but wider than it was before, this means you need to widen the front to make it look in proportion. 

There probably is a way to do this with front wheels from the WR02, but I was making do with what I had, so I used GF01 wheels

I used aluminium tube with an 8 mm OD and 5 mm ID to sit over the original axle. A 12 mm bearing sits perfectly in the 12 mm hex space. Then an M4 washer fits on the other side of the wheel, with a standard nut.

ZpBuU9b.jpg

JEm9l5Q.jpg

xvf1YXe.jpg

This means there is only a bearing on the inside of the wheel, but it's a QD truck. Even with a brushless motor it's not going to be going insane speeds, a little grease should be fine, as well as checking for dust and dirt every now and then.

For good measure I also replaced all the screws with M3 hex

kynHejb.jpg

And now it's done

TckNVUz.jpg

 

 

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Quick test shows a big improvement. The car is now really hard to roll over, where as before I'd have to slow right down before attempting a turn.  Turning hard under full power has probably been compromised due the large offset, but it'll take slightly worse corning for not rolling any day.

The brushless motor worked well too, I've gone for a 2S Li-Ion battery, which seems to give it some kick.

Super happy with this now, it's a great car, and now it'll stay on all four wheels most of the time too.

 

 

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Sweet . I got some of those 7mm to 12mm adapters and modded a scientific toys Ford Raptor and converted the front to Kyosho / Tamiya hybrid axles - it's got WW2 wheels on it

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15 minutes ago, KEV THE REV said:

Sweet . I got some of those 7mm to 12mm adapters and modded a scientific toys Ford Raptor and converted the front to Kyosho / Tamiya hybrid axles - it's got WW2 wheels on it

Nice one, do you have a picture please? Sounds cool.

I'm debating if WW2 fronts would work, but I'm not sure about the offset etc; I have a feeling it would make the car too narrow.

I can live without a front bearings really - the wheels still spin freely (for about 5 seconds after spinning by hand) so I'm not convinced there is too much drag, and it has gone from 8 x AA batteries into a 280 motor into a 2S Li-Ion brushless set up, so I think I can loose some 5% to some additional drag.

Overall the car is working nicely, it's surprisingly good off-road, which might be the light weight (1.6 kg) which makes it float over the grass. I'll take it to the dust pitch tomorrow and see what the top speed is like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I'll pull the truck out and I'll get some pics   :)

I also took out the dud 3x AA = 9.6v pack and installed a 9.6 flat pack

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@Nikko85 thanks for documenting this, really helpful. Good improvising to get a solution too. Seems you have a great solution now. 

I said in another post I’ve purchased two Street Combers but haven’t worked out what I will do with them yet. I’ve also got this coming which should be fun to do something with:

49F81B66-75F9-4BA8-B585-D0C2BBE5B573.jpeg.e7db724d110df0f3457f429f174e7bfa.jpeg

 

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@Nikko85My two Radio Shack cars arrived today. Until now I thought the Radio Shack and Tamiya QD just shared body! I hadn't realised they were basically the same chassis, etc. Are there any differences beyond cosmetics?

Radio Shack

 

Radio Shack

 

Radio Shack

 

 

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5 hours ago, GeeWings said:

@Nikko85My two Radio Shack cars arrived today. Until now I thought the Radio Shack and Tamiya QD just shared body! I hadn't realised they were basically the same chassis, etc. Are there any differences beyond cosmetics?

Radio Shack

 

Radio Shack

 

Radio Shack

 

 

Can you take a photo of the underside?

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27 minutes ago, Nikko85 said:

Can you take a photo of the underside?

Of course. Here you go:

Radio shack 2

 

Radio shack 2

 

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1 hour ago, GeeWings said:

Of course. Here you go:

Radio shack 2

 

Radio shack 2

 

Very nice.

They are different, but very similar. The gearbox is different, with the QD having stronger gears and the ability to add bearings. The chassis parts are all also slightly different dimensions. Essentially they copied the car (or the same company made both) but it's not the same mouldings. 

Some parts are close enough to be identical. The bumper can we swapped around between the Tamiya and Radio Shack, as can the bodies, roll bar and shocks. Bodies are even made with the same mounting holes and system. Windows sadly cannot be swapped. 

They are fine enough trucks, but personally I think the QD is a better made design - so I've used by Radio Shacks to create spare parts for the QD and GF01, both my GF01 and QD now sport RS bodies, bumpers and roll bars. My actual QD body is now on a MF01x.

I might be wrong on the gear box internals - they did mix and match a little sometimes - I've not seen a car exactly like the black one either. The battery compartment looks clean, so personally I'd swap out the electrics of the black one, add a 370 motor (the same size as the 280 in there) 8 AA batteries and new servo and see what happens. Although the gears aren't amazing, they should take a 370 motor, it's just if you were going brushless I might worry.

Another option is to add a grasshopper or similar gearbox on the back, and run it at 540 size.

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Thanks @Nikko85 I appreciate the detailed response. I initially bought them just for the bodies, they were too cheap to pass up and I wanted some hard bodies to play around with and put on one of my GF01 chassis. I’ve also thought about one as a hot rod/rat rod but think the bigger Proline ‘66 shell would be better for that. Different scale though obviously and different chassis needed.

Anyway, given what you’ve said I think I will try and update motor and electrics at some stage.

Thanks again!

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That's the first time I've seen another XGO Pumpkin since I got mine about 10 years ago! Exactly the same as the QD Pumpkin, just stickers being the main difference and the controller.

Easy way to widen the rear of these QD trucks is to fit a Grasshopper rear axle, then you can also run a silver can 540 motor, which what I did to my QD Clodbuster. Fitting rear shocks is a bit of fun, but I managed to get round that. With a 540 motor, these things really fly! 

I also have some of the QD Buggies, I fitted a brushless motor to one of them, huge fun! Wore out a set of rear knobbly tyres in a few battery packs though!

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Thanks @lupogtiboy. I didn’t know what the model was called as there were so many different stickers on it!

Thanks for the advice and tips. Do you still have yours?

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This might also be of use, if you want to go down the 540 route.

It's not a QD, or a RS/Tandy but a third option - the Scientific Toys. Great little truck this! 

I'd say the GF01 route is still the best way to get a really high quality car from this, especially if you flip the rear arms, but there is fun is experimenting too, and they do have the solid axle appeal. 

 

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3 minutes ago, Nikko85 said:

This might also be of use, if you want to go down the 540 route.

It's not a QD, or a RS/Tandy but a third option - the Scientific Toys. Great little truck this! 

I'd say the GF01 route is still the best way to get a really high quality car from this, especially if you flip the rear arms, but there is fun is experimenting too, and they do have the solid axle appeal. 

 

Yes, I think at some stage it would be fun to tinker with one. I can see these being a bit of an addiction given how cheap they can be found. There don’t seem to be lots around on this side of the world though.

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7 minutes ago, GeeWings said:

Yes, I think at some stage it would be fun to tinker with one. I can see these being a bit of an addiction given how cheap they can be found. There don’t seem to be lots around on this side of the world though.

Nope, when I look on the USA sites they are full of them, in the UK just a few too, although more than you.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/294815628983?hash=item44a4617eb7:g:C-AAAOSwAEtiDAX5

This version looks pretty terrible.

 

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@Nikko85 you’re right, that is pretty bad 😂

Soon, I’m heading back ‘home’ to England then to France to see my dad. Perhaps I need to take some empty suitcases with me ;)

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22 hours ago, GeeWings said:

Thanks @lupogtiboy. I didn’t know what the model was called as there were so many different stickers on it!

Thanks for the advice and tips. Do you still have yours?

Here's mine in my showroom

46012: Clod Buster from lupogtiboy showroom, QD Clod with Grasshopper Box! - Tamiya RC & Radio Control Cars (tamiyaclub.com)

I haven't run any RC cars for over 5 years now as they are all stored away, hoping to get back into running them all again soon! 

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On 2/22/2022 at 8:55 PM, lupogtiboy said:

Here's mine in my showroom

46012: Clod Buster from lupogtiboy showroom, QD Clod with Grasshopper Box! - Tamiya RC & Radio Control Cars (tamiyaclub.com)

I haven't run any RC cars for over 5 years now as they are all stored away, hoping to get back into running them all again soon! 

Very cool. I would love to get a QD clod at some stage. I picked up the grown-up brother (super clod Rere) a while back (too good a price to turn down) but the QD version is so well proportioned I reckon.

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On 2/19/2022 at 12:25 PM, Nikko85 said:

Nice one, do you have a picture please? Sounds cool.

I'm debating if WW2 fronts would work, but I'm not sure about the offset etc; I have a feeling it would make the car too narrow.

I can live without a front bearings really - the wheels still spin freely (for about 5 seconds after spinning by hand) so I'm not convinced there is too much drag, and it has gone from 8 x AA batteries into a 280 motor into a 2S Li-Ion brushless set up, so I think I can loose some 5% to some additional drag.

Overall the car is working nicely, it's surprisingly good off-road, which might be the light weight (1.6 kg) which makes it float over the grass. I'll take it to the dust pitch tomorrow and see what the top speed is like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some pics 

20220405_114119.jpg

20220405_114149.jpg

20220405_114228.jpg

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On 4/5/2022 at 11:43 AM, KEV THE REV said:

Here are some pics 

20220405_114119.jpg

20220405_114149.jpg

20220405_114228.jpg

Looks cool, will keep an eye out for one.

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38 minutes ago, KEV THE REV said:

Came with this size rock hard wheels and tyres

20220406_194931.jpg

20220406_194954.jpg

Yuck, such an upgrade!

 

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