Basic Clod bulletproofing ....questions???

[Offroadrc]

Just ordered a Super Clodbuster from my local hobby shop, I was wondering if I could get some input on what i can do to improve the survivability and some suggested hop ups for this vehicle. I already ordered the bearing kit with it. I don't plan on hammering it to death, I'm not rock crawling with it, I just want to replace weak parts that have a habbit of breaking to improve the "fun factor" so I'm not at the bench every 5 minutes. I own several Tamiya vehicles....no shelf queens... I like to run them and this one will be no different.

Thanks in advance, Sal

[Lemming]

Hi,

Basic weakpoints are the steering set-up.  The savers snap easily both front and rear.

The best change you can make for keeping it as standard as normal is to fit a servo on front and rear rather than the central on.  Twinset does nice kits for this!!!  ;-)

Hope this helps

Steve

[TWINSET]

Cheers Lem

Sal - you got mail.

 

One concern - will my servo mounts fit stock Clods?

From looking at the manual ([8-|]) it looks like the servo might foul the shocks??

I've never given it any thought before now, but I'm pretty sure mine won't work.

 

[mymonsterbeetleisbroken]

your wright andy, sadly your servo mounts are smack in the way of the stock suspension setup []

another part that you WILL want to replace with an aluminium hop up are the clods B 11 gearbox "anti rotation" brakets. the stock gearbox mounting setup means the axels are fixed to one suspension link, to stop the torque of the motors rotating the axels.

the stock plastic ones can break under the load of the motors, or if the underneath of a gearbox hits an obstical. they are simply 2 small L shaped brakets, one on each gearbox.

ally hop up ones have been produced, i decided to make my own out of some aluminium sheet i got from college. its a small make but well worth the effort []

 

[TWINSET]

Thought so, but not before today []

 

Ok Sal, if you want to ditch the stock servo savers, try

http://www.rcguy.com/products/steeringkit/steeringkit.php

 

or

http://www.junfac.com/option_servoplate.htm

With both of the above you may have to ditch the bumpers though, although RCGuy do a seperate bumper to compensate.

Or for serious hardcore alu prawn, try (x2)

http://www.junfac.com/option_bumper.htm

 

 

 

 

[Lemming]

Good point!  Have run RCGUY ones and the INETRC ones as well.  Both very good although 1 has a much thicker mounting plate (the other bends under "severe" impacts!  :-)

Will check it out later to see which is which...

Lemming

[Flerbizky]

Seriously homemade. 3mm aluminium and two short pieces of aluminium tubing for spacers.. All it takes is a vice, hacksaw and some sort of grinding tool... Took all of 25 minutes excluding a little polish afterwards. Works like a charm !...

[Edit:] Let me know if you need the (sort of) technical drawing...

[Offroadrc]

Wow....lots to think about....my buddy has one of these trucks and he is always upgrading, now I see why[] I love to build so this should be fun!! Will post to my showroom on my progress. Thank you to everyone for the info....it was most helpful.

[Lemming]

I think richytanimal (my bruv) will be posting a Clodzilla 3 up on Ebay soon.

Might be worth a look if you are thinking of upgrading the chassis at any point in the near future.

[Bigwheels_inc]

the other weak point is the spot lamps on top of the roll bar they snap off on a regular basis best to remove them for running

alloy anti rotaision brackets are available from model build on ebay and making a new servo mounting plate for the steering servos is easy but with a servo on each axel you will need a splitter lead for the servos to both run off one channel and twinsets reacent feature on rods is well worth looking at so you could easily build your own steering set up very cheaply

the chrome front bumper on clods does tend to break after several bad crashs but alloy ones were produced by a few companys and do come up on ebay from time to time and if you wheelie your clod alot as i do the tail gate and rear chrome bumper do take a beating so it may be worth investing in a wheelie bar or making one

hope this helps

cheers

pete 

[Mountain]

You would also want to get yourself a decent ESC as this combined with bearings will dramatically increase run times.  (No power lost as wasted heat through the resistor)

I like running the Novak EVX out of the E-Maxx, although you might need to upgrade your motors to handle 14.4V.  I have found out the hard way that the standard ones don't and you end up melting your battery packs as they draw too much current.

[Tamiya King]

The only upgrades I have in mine are Ball Bearings, ESP lift kit, ESP chassis stiffner, Traxxas TMaxx Dampers and X Star Motors. I bash the **** out of mine and the only thing I have broken was the  B11 part. (Look in Manuals to see which one)

Sometimes, you can find a aluminum after market part of this on ebay for not too much money!

Hope this helps!