Lunchbox servo saver advice

[ThunderDragonCy 7876]

Picked up a vintage lunchbox on eBay a few weeks ago. Fixed it up but steering is all over the place. Knowing what a difference Kimborough servo savers made on my other cars I want to get a replacement. Before I do though does anyone have any advice on whether to get something high torque or bigger than the tamiya item? Or should I just get a Kimborough 114 and have done with it?

Cheers!

[topforcein 1764]

Any hightorque servo saver should work well with a lunch box as there is hardly any weight on the front

[Munchbox 100]

Steering isn't the Lunchboxes strong point. Actually performance in general isn't it's strong point. 

With that having been said a drop of super glue on the stock servo saver and a zip tie around the front arms will help tighten everything up. A couple of thin washers between the wheel and wheel nut can relieve a little more slop up front. Some even go so far as to center up the steering servo, evening out the left and right steering. I find that I generally don't have enough grip on the front wheels for any of those mods to matter much. Maybe a set of spiked Chevron tires would help here..?

Anything hotter than a sport tuned motor makes it a wheelie queen and then throttle control is the name of the game to keep steering.

[ThunderDragonCy 7876]

I know that steering isn't great but the saver on there is the original and it's clearly had a hard life! 

[berman 5315]

I had a cheap and nasty acoms as17 in my lunchbox with the factory servo saver and the slop was unbelievable.

Most of mine was between the servo saver and the nylon servo spline. 

I upgraded to a metal splined servo and a tamiya high torque saver and the majority of the slop went (the remainder was in the rod ends).

Only problem with running a high torque saver is any impact on your front wheels gets taken up by ripping the bearing carrier in your front wheels out instead of the saver taking the brunt of it.

[ThunderDragonCy 7876]

Thanks for the advice. I did wonder about load coming back the other way. I found same as you; all the slop in the split ring to servo horn. I glued it up last night so we will see how that goes.

[ultraburger 1]

On 3/26/2017 at 8:30 PM, berman said:

Only problem with running a high torque saver is any impact on your front wheels gets taken up by ripping the bearing carrier in your front wheels out instead of the saver taking the brunt of it.

This is my fear with adding SOME metal parts.  You're only as strong as the weakest link and the stress needs to be relived somewhere.  Considering the whole chain from servo to rim, a plastic servo saver might be the best place to setup a plastic part for failure.

[El Gecko 1343]

38 minutes ago, ultraburger said:

Considering the whole chain from servo to rim, a plastic servo saver might be the best place to setup a plastic part for failure.

Yep, that's it. The purpose is in the name: a "servo saver" is meant to "save your servos" as well as other more expensive parts on the car. The servo saver is meant to be the "wear item" or "disposable part" of the whole assembly. The Tamiya savers are just weak, and a Kimbrough will do just fine. I use one on my Blackfoot for postal racing along with upgraded tie rods, and after shimming the wheels, the only steering slop comes from my suspension pivots.

Also, I recently had a wreck that damaged the gears on a brand new servo and broke a servo mounting bracket (first time ever doing so on any of my ORVs). I doubt either one of those would have happened if I hadn't been running the stronger tie rods and Kimbrough saver.

[berman 5315]

6 hours ago, ultraburger said:

This is my fear with adding SOME metal parts.  You're only as strong as the weakest link and the stress needs to be relived somewhere.  Considering the whole chain from servo to rim, a plastic servo saver might be the best place to setup a plastic part for failure.

I've actually gone back to a standard servo saver on my lunchbox now. I also have about 4-5 stock servo saver sets in supply, so yeah it is better for it to be the weakest link as it's the cheapest part. I am running a metal geared servo and a locktited machine screw though, so it doesn't undo itself 😎

[Albert Attaboy 141]

Kimbrough servo savers!

Thread can be closed, thanks

[Dakratfink 967]

Have a standard servo saver in my Pumpkin and a Kimbrough 124 in my Hornet, I really should flip them though , but I don’t feel like disassembling