Three Shock Mounts Snapped In Three Days,Three different vehicles

[gravediggernz]

First of all just wanted to say thanks for the great forums. Really

good job being done here and an invaluable resource  to anyone

interested in RC gear full stop. So Thank You.

 Now I have 2 Bonzer Croos Tigers TL01b chassised monsyer trucks

and a Tamiya Dirt Thrasher.. I have been screaming around the back

yard, yes the 2 trucks are much quicker than the dirt thrasher, on a

small course I made with two  4inch jumps in it. Nothing too high

I thought. So why have I broke a suspension mount on each

vehicle.Do  all plastics get brittle after a while because I know

that the plastics from china are a bit inferior but I thought the

Tamiya would have no problems.

The problem with the monster trucks are they are Baja Champ buggy

chassis fitted with big wheels, 550/560 motor and a wild dagger body, I

have looked at the Wild Dagger chassis and the shock stuts are much

stroger looking. This i can fix by making a aluminium braket out of

sheet aluminium.

The dirt thrasher is beyond a bracket fix so is the an after market

part that is much stonger available?, it is the front shocky mount.

One of aluminium would be good otherwise Ill have to buy the

parts  tree.

 Also I am trying to find out if a wild dagger or the sngle motor

version (cant remember what its call at the mo.)  chassis has the

same internals as the TL01b. This chassis has a much stronger shock

mount  setup, It is a solid block instead of two off set arms to

mount the shocks to.

[jimbo858]

hiya gravedigger!  sorry to hear about the problems that you're having.  lemme know how your custom shock mount for the TL01B comes out. I'd like to get one made that'll allow for 4inch or 100mm shocks.  Anyways, the internals of the Bonzer/Baja Champ are totally different from the internals of the Wild Dagger/Twin Detonator.  The differentials might be similar and the bevel gears I think are the same. But the gearbox, chassis, etc. are different. even the body mounts are different. hopes this helps.  OH and if you want... go to the manual section of theWild Dagger or Twin Detonator to compare them with your Bonzer. They've helped me a great deal!

[DJTheo]

I am sorry for you, but in the end once again it prooves that there is no thing like free lunch and in the long run cheap stuff often gets more expensive then paying more at the start, somewhere the costs have to be cut, material and design in this case, Tamiya knew what they did when making changes to create a monster truck from a TL01.

Cheers

[mud4fun]

Usually it is the lower wishbone mounts onto the chassis that snap, when they snap it means a whole new chassis and with the awful design of the TL01 that means a complete strip down and rebuild.

The TL01 chassis is a cheap touring car chassis and is of no use whatsoever for any sort of rough use and abuse. Bigger wheels and longer suspension arms just place even more stress on an already weak design. My daughter had a TL01 chassis'd buggy for about  a week before it broke its chassis and that was with relatively gentle use compared to my proper buggies.

Alloy parts may help but in the end, as DJTheo correctly points out, the cost of all the hop-ups needed just to give this chassis some ruggedness will be higher than buying a proper buggy that was designed for use and abuse on rough ground and jumps. A buggy has much longer suspension travel for a start which means it can absorb much harder landings without the suspension bottoming out and transmitting all the force into the chassis.

I would say a Mad Bull was a better 'buggy' for messing around with than any of the TL01 based vehicles and despite its few flaws it is a very rugged and very cheap buggy. It was after all designed simply to be a basher car for kids. You won't believe some of the abuse that my daughters mad bull has taken and it is still in one piece, not broken any chassis parts yet. True it is not designed to handle well or be a race car but it can be made to go pretty fast and is lots of fun.

 

One other thing though, you say you broke the shock mounts whilst jumping? could it simply be that you have not run over the jump in the corrct way meaning you have landed on the front wheels which puts much more stress into the chassis. The correct way to take a jump, and needs some practise, is to keep the accelerator on EVEN WHILE IN MID AIR and only back off just as the vehicle touches down. By keeping high revs on the motor it tends to keep the front of the chassis up and in most decent buggies it always means the rear wheels land first. This places much less strain on the chassis and on most proper buggies the rear suspension has more travel than the front so it can absorb bigger shocks.

[jozza]

The lower wishbone mounts are a weak point on the Baja Champ/TL-01 chassis, with the extended arms of the Baja Champ there's a lot more stress put on them, especially when you jump.

 

You could try strengthening that area with some fibreglass tape and resin, might help. I've run a Baja Champ for a while and taken some pretty high jumps with it, so far have only broken the suspension once. It has better shocks on it, which might help. I would think that the friction shocks supplied with the kit would put more strain on the shock mounting points and wishbone mounts. I certainly found the handling over jumps was vastly improved with oil filled shocks.

 

I agree with mud4fun about the Mad Bull - it gets a lot of stick, but IMO is one of the most unbreakable lower cost buggies I've seen.

[gravediggernz]

Thanks for everyones input. Yes this chassis is a bad design with its

shock mounts being part of the chassis. And the gear boxes don't seal

up that well. I have a spare chassis that I bought new of the guy I got

the truck off. But the same thing will only happen again. I have had my

truck at the skate park 3 times before the first truck broke. I changed

the spings on the other truck and it broke that day. So Id say they are

**** springs.  Installed kyosho friction springs on front of mine

and ,Snap. So oil damper shocks will be the way. I have head that the

Stadium Thunder is a good jumper, Can anyone confirm, deny this?