TRF419 rebuild - Race on carpet they said, your car won't wear down, they said.

[GooneyBird 964]

So over the last weekend racing I noticed my car developing more and more play all over, so I've decided to give it a good rebuild and cleaning. Of course, I'll take you guys along. 

What this car has done since the last time I spent some time with it on my desk:
- about 100 batteries of practice
- 4 qualifiers
- 3 mains
- setting a lap record for 17.5t touring on my home track
- wore out 2 sets of tires
- wore out a body shell

The list of complains:
- The rear diff leaked like a sieve. It stopped last weekend, probably because it is now empty
- Play in the steering system
- Wobble in the spur gear
- stripped screw in the layshaft after it disassembled itself spontaneously last race
- the locating peg on one of the rear body posts broke off, so every time I do something with the body shell I have to realign it
- .... it's disgusting

So yeah, a good cleaning was due. 

The willing victim, spread out on my desk, ready to go. 

Seems pretty clean from the outside, right? 

I'll leave the electronics in. The ESC is barely a few races old, and the receiver is perfectly placed where it is. I quickly took off the shocks, and removed all the easily disassembled sections like the front bumper and the upper deck. 

Race on carpet they said, your car will remain spotless they said....

The ball nuts are all rather damaged too. I'll get a new set to place these. If you're gonna do it, do it right!

Also, the diff blades on the universal ends are worn out, I've got a set around somewhere, so that's one thing less I need to buy. 

On the left one of the C-hubs I took off the car. On the right a new C-hub. Aluminum things don't break, they bend....

Right steering knuckle assembly. It seemed fine, but the bearings are gritty and the C-hub is bent as well. 

The motor mount. The escaping layshaft did quite a bit of damage to the surface, but it's still straight and therefor, it goes back in after a deep cleaning. 

Other layshaft upright. You can see where the pulley nicked it on the way out. 

The pulley in question. 

20 minutes of wrenching later the shock towers, diffs, front and rear hubs and stabilizer rods are gone. 

The bare chassis, pre-cleaning. I love carbon fiber, and how it changes appearance depending on the angle you look at it. 

The previous owner of this car was a bit of a klutz. The top deck was originall shoved in there, tweaking the bottom plate. Apparently he spilt some super glue on the rear part as well. It's on a fairly invisible spot (below the rear lower arm, near the droop screw) so I'll leave it be. My TRF's a working girl, not a shelf queen.

Stay tuned for more teardowning. We've still got the diffs to do, shocks to rebuild (my least favorite part), clean the whole thing, get the replacement parts, and then screw the whole thing back together. 

The shopping list thus far:
- 51253 TA05 (I think) B-parts for the rear body posts
- New C-hubs. Plastic Tamiya ones are out, though maybe the TA07 ones are stronger, so a good set of Yeah Racing hubs, or Square if I can find them somewhere
- 53640 Ball Connector nuts
- 19804777 CS 2.6mm x 8mm screws to secure the layshaft. One is bent, and the other one I stripped accidentally. 
- 53601 5mm adjusters. I'm replacing all of them, just to be sure. 

[scoobybooster 392]

My experience with TRF419 is a little different from yours - at least in most of your points.
I race mine with modified 6.5T , also 98% on carpet. Like yours, i use it quite often and it will be used what it is for: hard racing, always at limit.
Agree with a soaking rear diff i had when new, but it was my fault because it was overfilled. So, once i refilled it "correctly", it never leaked again.
Mine has seen about 200 packs of hard practicing, only parts that need to be constantly changed, are C-Hubs (because of impacts). But i stay with original plastics because i prefer to have a predetermined breaking point. Apart from that, i have changed the following parts due to maintenance: Belts (once), ball connectors ( twice ). Of course, a racing car needs to be reshimed from time to time, that is part of the game, isn't it.
When i compare to the predecessor cars i raced before (XRAYT3, Durango DECT410, Schumacher), i would not complain at all, never had a car doing so good right out of the box. But that's just me, maybe i'm a lucky guy.

[GooneyBird 964]

That's slightly more power than what I'm putting through the car.

Don't get me wrong, I love my TRF to bits. The one thing we differ upon is how we look at C-hubs. I get why you'd want to have a predetermined breaking point, it doesn't bend so your setup stays consistent right up to the point where it breaks. For me though, a broken C-hub is the end of the race. A bent C-hub is an annoyance, a broken one is a DNF. 

I haven't had to replace a belt yet, despite that the front belt can rub the servo mount under certain conditions. I've replaced about 4-5 C-hubs before switching to aluminum hubs. And yes, reshimming happens every 20 packs or so. 

This was my first high-end racing car, and the one I use the most. It's joined by a TRF102 these days, but that one sees about 1/4 of the use the 419 gets.