Re-re Hotshot II suspension

[ucacjbs]

Firstly, what a wealth of knowledge is here! Thanks all for sharing. 

Having recently got my feet wet (they’ve been dry since owning an original Grasshopper back in the mid 80s) with a midnight pumpkin that my 6 year old is bashing to death, I decided to build one of the 4wd models I couldn’t afford as a kid, so enter the Hotshot II. 

 

I’ve  built the suspension arms with e-clipped suspension pins in an effort to avoid stressing them with the screw pins.  Do folks still recommend getting the  front suspension brace to strengthen that area, even if I didn’t use the screw pins?

I did use the two shortest screw pins to attach the mounts for the front damper - they seem to be actually fastening the mount to the lower arm rather than just being a pivot - I heated them before fastening. Is that a known point of failure or generally okay? 

Last question - does anyone know where some of those e-clips fly off to now and again? Hope it’s somewhere nice. 

it’s been a fun build so far (tho just about to assemble my first ever CVAs, perhaps my opinion will shortly change) - only thing bugging me is that 3 of the 4 corners have wonderfully floppy suspension (before dampers are on!) but back left seems stiffer - bottom left arm was tight around both hinge pins I tried in that spot. No doubt it’ll wear in (or not even matter when the dampers are in place), it just offends my sometimes overactive sense of symmetry.

 

[Saito2]

Hi! Welcome to the forum.

To answer a few of your questions, are you referred to the front arm brace that joins the inner pivot points of the top arms? If so, when that style of brace was introduced way back in the 80's its wasn't necessarily for strength as those points were no more vulnerable than the other pivot points. Tying those points together offered support and cut down on slop and wear.

While there has been speculation over the years, no one can say for sure where e-clips go when they fly off to destinations unknown. Some say they go to e-clip heaven, where they never rust or get bent out of shape again. Others claim they get reincarnated as other fasteners like nuts and screws. If the e-clip was bad, it becomes a press-nut or worse, a c-clip, like the ones used on the original Tamiya 4wd outdrives, supposedly.

Its odd the left rear arm is dragging. Tamiyas are usually built with a bit of slop from the get-go. Perhaps the molds are getting tired. CVAs are pretty pain-free shocks, just watch those e-clips on the piston though.

[ucacjbs]

1 hour ago, Saito2 said:

Hi! Welcome to the forum.

To answer a few of your questions, are you referred to the front arm brace that joins the inner pivot points of the top arms? If so, when that style of brace was introduced way back in the 80's its wasn't necessarily for strength as those points were no more vulnerable than the other pivot points. Tying those points together offered support and cut down on slop and wear.

Yes, that’s the spot I meant, thanks for working it out (apologies for the vagueness!). Just gave the arms a forward/backward wiggle and see what you mean about the possibilities for slop reduction.

1 hour ago, Saito2 said:

While there has been speculation over the years, no one can say for sure where e-clips go when they fly off to destinations unknown. Some say they go to e-clip heaven, where they never rust or get bent out of shape again. Others claim they get reincarnated as other fasteners like nuts and screws. If the e-clip was bad, it becomes a press-nut or worse, a c-clip, like the ones used on the original Tamiya 4wd outdrives, supposedly.

Wow. Their little (after) lives have so much more than I expected 🤣

1 hour ago, Saito2 said:

Its odd the left rear arm is dragging. Tamiyas are usually built with a bit of slop from the get-go. Perhaps the molds are getting tired. CVAs are pretty pain-free shocks, just watch those e-clips on the piston though.

In fact I had the electronics box to finish up first. While I guess the answer is “stiffness”, I do wonder what problem the designers were trying to solve when they cooked that up. With the HobbyWing ESC switch being not-at-all close to the Tamiya switch mounts, this one will be a “turn it on and off using the battery connector.”

thanks for your insights!