Buying a Traxxas Tmaxx

[steelo]

Hi everyone, so I’m buying a Traxxas TMaxx from a friend for $200. It’s never been used and he bought a crapload of ‘upgrade’ parts, most of them unnecessary I believe. I’ve been slowly adding these ‘upgrade’ parts to it…here’s the list. Aluminum fuel tank, aluminum servo mounts, wheelie bar, aluminum radio box, tuned exhaust, RPM front and rear bulkheads, RPM top and bottom swing arms for the front and rear, slightly smaller wheels and tires, big bore shocks, aftermarket cooling head and aluminum hexes for the wheels. The truck has yet to be started, I want to get all of these parts on before starting it to avoid everything getting coated in oil.

 

How many of these parts are really essential? I just finished installing the RPM rear bulkhead and what a PAIN that was. This is not an easy model to work on and there were moments where I almost threw it through my window. Finally, is there anything I need to watch out for with this truck? I have yet to break it in, but what I’m most worried about is the gear mesh since I had to remove/reinstall the engine several times in the build process. I’ve used the ‘paper’ method before, but how do I ensure that the gears are aligned perfectly….I seem to have very bad luck with spur gears for some reason. I bought a Kyosho DBX 2 a few years ago, left it completely stock, never touched the engine mounts and it stripped the spur gear while I was breaking the engine in…I never even gave it full throttle!

 

Thanks for your help!