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Oh Dear.... (Bruiser clone)

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This seems to be the case with the RTR.

The assemblers obviously are paid a bowl of rice to assemble a dozen or so an hour and have no clue on why screws are binding or even if they have the right screw in the right hole.

I like many others bought the kit and while it's true that fit and finish is not great, it's workable.

The wheel bearings are easily set with Loctite 680. The tranny definitely works fantastic once disassembled and greased.

The drive shafts are quality beyond what you expect from a clone so no complaint there. The Shocks however are a joke. At first i decided to just replace them with original rere Bruiser shocks, then decided that with the crappy springs supplied to go with Gmade RSD piggybacks so suspension tuning made sense.

Is this clone worthy?.....it really is.

Now with that said, i do have a rere Bruiser built and ready to run, and have another new kit just because, along with enough spare parts to probably build a whole re re.

I took almost every new part in my stash and swapped them with parts on the clone and they fit perfectly. Transmission gears on the lower shaft are exact match and will get used if the clone pops a tooth.

The upper shaft is definitely a good attempt to copy the re re, but where Tamiya used plastic gears on the 2 drive cogs, the clone uses sintered gears that are known to break. The guys that have broken these sintered gears are the guys that are trying to shift on the fly.....It's not a drag racer, so shifting on the fly is pointless. The sliders are different too, but the shaft,gears and sliders can be replaced with Tamiya. The tranny cases are almost identical which tells me that the clone was a good copy, or they used molds that were mold copies.

Case pieces are virtually interchangeable.

Like many others here, I will always want Tamiya kits in the original form, but i have to say, this clone kit makes for a good start for those who will never spend the money for the real deal.

And yes, i bought 2 of the clone kits just because I always have to have 2 of everything like this.

With the right tools for the hexes and phillips screws, I have not had anything stripped or cross threaded.

I wouldn't be too surprised to find that Tamiya may have even been behind the development of this clone. Get 'em to buy and enjoy the clone, and surely a few will want the real deal.

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Well my clone is very well stripped and to the dismay of the wife it's all on little plastic trays on the dining room table, so far I've rebuilt the gearbox and I was going to replace the bearings in said gearbox but they honestly look and feel fine so I re-greased it all and that's it for now probably next weekend I'll strip the axles and probably will put in better bearings simply because I have a load of ceramic bearings that have been in the toolbox for ages and I have half a dozen Uj's I've unwittingly collected from my re-re SRB'S🤔 then I'll start on the suspension and replace what I think looks rubbish and then the body I've bought the tamiya driver figure and photo etched Toyota hilux badging. This is quite an interesting project because like said before it's not tamiya quality but with a bit of fettling I think I'm gonna have a good crawler that I can bash around without having spent a fortune (and more Importantly looks so good)

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On 3/2/2019 at 3:18 AM, nowinaminute said:

It's definitely different tooling. Just copied to a relatively high degree of accuracy.

The quality definitely isn't the same. It's maybe 90% of the way there but that final 10% makes a big difference, the finish is rough around the edges in comparison and they are often poorly assembled with no threadlock etc.

Out of the box the clone definitely needs some work doing to it, it's sloppy, poorly assembled and has awful bearings and servo savers etc. You can get it to a much better standard and still save a fortune vs a genuine one but it definitely needs work. Anyone who says it's close to a bruiser out of the box is delusional. You might get 1 or 2 runs out of it in stock form before things start going wrong.

If you like to tinker then it can make a good project, especially if you cannot justify the price of the genuine version but if you want Tamiya quality right off the bat then there's still only one choice.

I got one and it's a good runner now but it took some work. A lot of stuff you can upgrade cheaply. The bearings for example, the stock ones are awful, you can easily upgrade by buying different bearings that are still cheap and Chinese but not as awful. The ones in this truck are honestly the worst I have ever come across.

The 2nd speed pinion gear disintegrated on mine, seems like a common problem, badly sintered metal. I replaced it with the equivalent tamiya part and it has been ok since then.

The servo saver "springs" aren't springs at all and just metal so when they bend out of shape they stay out of shape and you get loose steering and gear shifting. Easily fixed with better servo savers, even basic tamiya plastic ones are an improvement. The servos themselves aren't awful but you can upgrade the steering one to something like a Towerpro MG996R for a few £. I also did the servo front relocation mod to get rid of that entire stock mechanism which causes a lot of slop even with the genuine version.

I changed the stock, rock hard tyres to cheap Austar crawler tyres which made a huge difference and I took 2 springs out of each corner to improve the articulation.

All those things combined with using threadlock to put it back together has made it much better to drive and more reliable for trailing etc.

I'm for sure over 20 packs now, but i also made sure to shim and grease the diffs. I also don;t much rock crawling with it though. 

Havent touched the trans(which is smoother than Re-re for some reason:) and got rid of the servos right away. paid under $200 US and for that price there is no way i'd consider getting the real deal especially when i just had to spend a few hours getting it trail ready.  

 

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On 3/3/2019 at 9:05 AM, mikem65d said:

 

 The sliders are different too, but the shaft,gears and sliders can be replaced with Tamiya. 

 

Can you swap the entire shaft with tamiya gears, sliders and shaft to the clone case and be able to use the tamiya slipper kit? I think this slipper kit requires those Tamiya designed sliders. 

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3 hours ago, magnumb said:

Can you swap the entire shaft with tamiya gears, sliders and shaft to the clone case and be able to use the tamiya slipper kit? I think this slipper kit requires those Tamiya designed sliders. 

This might be on interest:

 

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6 hours ago, magnumb said:

Can you swap the entire shaft with tamiya gears, sliders and shaft to the clone case and be able to use the tamiya slipper kit? I think this slipper kit requires those Tamiya designed sliders. 

Yes.

It's not cheap though. I bought all the parts to completely build a whole re re tranny. I bought all the parts at different times when i placed orders with RPP. Was more than if you just buy a whole p407 kit....LOL It's all about fun though regardless of what you spend right?....well that's what i keep telling myself.

The shaft and all the parts that ride on it along with the sliders and shift forks need to change out too. 

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3 hours ago, nowinaminute said:

This might be on interest:

I'm going to try this as well. Dennis is a super nice guy and answers questions to help others.

The slipper kit is being sold by RCMart on their site for 30.00. 

I'm trying this mod too and 

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Sweet mod....would love to see someone design a 3D printed part to make this a bit easier. 

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Well I've completely took it apart and looked at everything! drivetrain, suspension (shocks etc) body, electrics and yes it's not the quality of the bruiser/mountaineer  but for the money its really very good indeed all the greased parts I cleaned and re-greased with tamiya grease (it was already very well greased with some sort of red grease), the bearings I changed not because they were rubbish far from it I've kept them I just had ceramic bearings in my tool box so I used them also the Uj's I changed (admittedly the SRB Uj's feel a little tighter and better quality) the stock leaf springs are a bit rubbish but work I will change them eventually! I then changed the oil in the shocks one of the front shocks had leaked down to the fact nothing was tightened up so I refilled and tightened all of them and up to now no leaks then thread locked every nut bolt and screw on the chassis. A couple of things I did notice was the castings are actually sprayed alloy inside the gearbox and axles you can see the actual raw colour of the metal (is tamiya's castings sprayed 🤔 I genuinely don't know) and that steering is just so awful I know the bruiser/mountaineer is a naff but this is in a different league🙄 obviously the rubbish servo and plastic servo savers are a good part of the problem and today they will be changed!. So overall (and don't shoot me down guys) this is a fantastic rc well worth the money I've had it in the house and bouncing around the garden and it drives fine slips through the gears perfectly 

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Bringing this thread back from the dead...I finally found some time to put my HG P407 KIT together.  I got this on a business trip to China last year, price was too good to pass up.  For what it is it's a pretty nice little truck.  Got the kit version so I could make sure everything was assembled correctly.  Took apart the gearbox to oil everything and it's nice and smooth, shifts great as well.  The shocks are junk as are the leaf springs/leaf spring mounts.  I ended up buying new Tamiya springs and mounts, much better than the crappy clone parts.  

Only deviations from stock are front wheel spacers to get the track width even between the front/rear (looks much better this way) and relocated the steering servo to the front of the frame, that made a world of difference in the steering.  I also used an aluminum horn on the shift servo, once I dialed it in on my radio it was perfect, shifts between all three gears nicely.  Using the motor that came with is and a Hobbywing 1080 ESC.

Painted the body in a period correct metallic bronze, I really like how the color came out.  Added full LEDs as well.  Also went with the Mountain Rider look using a rear window and Tamiya roll bar.  Being that it's a clone I wont feel bad running it, so we'll see how she does.  After building it it really made me want a new Mountain Rider kit, but for the price I could build 2-3 other trucks that I would get more use out of.  If they ever get under $500USD I'll pick one up and build it box stock for the shelf.

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7 hours ago, 87lc2 said:

Painted the body in a period correct metallic bronze, I really like how the color came out.  Added full LEDs as well.  Also went with the Mountain Rider look using a rear window and Tamiya roll bar.  Being that it's a clone I wont feel bad running it, so we'll see how she does.  After building it it really made me want a new Mountain Rider kit, but for the price I could build 2-3 other trucks that I would get more use out of.  If they ever get under $500USD I'll pick one up and build it box stock for the shelf.

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That is a very nice paint job you have there. Can you tell me what paint you used? 

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Thank you, I apprecaite it.  I used Krylon Fusion Dark Metallic Copper and Rustoleum Crystal Clear Enamel clear coat.  Both out of spray cans.  The bed liner was done with Rustoleum truck bed liner.

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15 hours ago, 87lc2 said:

Bringing this thread back from the dead...I finally found some time to put my HG P407 KIT together.  I got this on a business trip to China last year, price was too good to pass up.  For what it is it's a pretty nice little truck.  Got the kit version so I could make sure everything was assembled correctly.  Took apart the gearbox to oil everything and it's nice and smooth, shifts great as well.  The shocks are junk as are the leaf springs/leaf spring mounts.  I ended up buying new Tamiya springs and mounts, much better than the crappy clone parts.  

Only deviations from stock are front wheel spacers to get the track width even between the front/rear (looks much better this way) and relocated the steering servo to the front of the frame, that made a world of difference in the steering.  I also used an aluminum horn on the shift servo, once I dialed it in on my radio it was perfect, shifts between all three gears nicely.  Using the motor that came with is and a Hobbywing 1080 ESC.

Painted the body in a period correct metallic bronze, I really like how the color came out.  Added full LEDs as well.  Also went with the Mountain Rider look using a rear window and Tamiya roll bar.  Being that it's a clone I wont feel bad running it, so we'll see how she does.  After building it it really made me want a new Mountain Rider kit, but for the price I could build 2-3 other trucks that I would get more use out of.  If they ever get under $500USD I'll pick one up and build it box stock for the shelf.

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Stunning! and I just love the Matt black goes perfect with the period brown, this thread is called "oh dear...(bruiser clone)" should rename it just "bruiser clone" yes they are not the quality of genuine tamiya but for the money they're pretty **** good and together with what guy's do with them makes them even better I find with my original bruiser other than a change of colour I tend to want to play safe and go stock but my clone I've tended to really mess around with it I put a 13 turn motor in it a few weeks ago!..........very interesting is was!

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My original is the grey one the maroon like you is a genuine Toyota colour although I don't know if it was used on the pick up and if I'm honest the clone does tend to change gear a lot smoother (sorry tamiya 😒)

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Both of those colors look great with the original decals, nice work.  After some work the transmission does shift perfectly every time, drivetrain is really smooth as well.  We'll see how it holds up, but to be honest I probably won't use it too much.  I do a lot of trail running and rock crawling and there are just so many vehicles that are better for that than the old Bruiser.  I'll definitley take it on a mild trail run, but even being a clone I wont abuse it.  I'm sure I could find the weak points fairly quickly if I treated it like any other modern trail truck.

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BUMP!!!!

Yeah I bought one of these clones and it arrived today.

The Good: The picture of the one I bought was white, but I really wanted a black one. The one they sent me was black.
It goes ok. It was cheap. As it is a clone I don't care too much about what happens to it so I feel quite liberated as to what I can or will do to mod this thing.

The Bad: The dampers.....dear lord are those....Hornet shocks? Ok going to replace those when I can, for dampers that actually do something.
Steering: Uhhhh, servo not strong and steering not working very well, if anyone has any idea what a good replacement is fire away.
The leaf springs at the back weren't attached properly.

All up though, for what it is I'm quite happy with it. It's main purpose will be teasing my 1 year old nephew anyhow. (he's obsessed with cars).

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Pablo68,

  You can salvage the shocks if use pipe tape on the shock caps and either TF blue O-rings or the Translucent white competition (?) O-rings. The seem to dampen fine for me and have not leaked. I would highly recommend to tear down the transmission and grease the gears, there are I think two sintered metal gears that can disintegrate due to heat and look at adjusting the shift servo for proper engagement due to sloppy linkages. From the three I have had the insides of the front and rear differentials seem lubed well enough but the ring and pinion on both should be lubed as well. Other that those issues mine has been fine. Don't know if its a one off thing but the wheels are kind of brittle so be cautious when tightening.

 

Have fun!!!! they are a blast.

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On 12/12/2019 at 10:45 PM, unixphreak said:

Pablo68,

  You can salvage the shocks if use pipe tape on the shock caps and either TF blue O-rings or the Translucent white competition (?) O-rings. The seem to dampen fine for me and have not leaked. I would highly recommend to tear down the transmission and grease the gears, there are I think two sintered metal gears that can disintegrate due to heat and look at adjusting the shift servo for proper engagement due to sloppy linkages. From the three I have had the insides of the front and rear differentials seem lubed well enough but the ring and pinion on both should be lubed as well. Other that those issues mine has been fine. Don't know if its a one off thing but the wheels are kind of brittle so be cautious when tightening.

 

Have fun!!!! they are a blast.

Righto, did you leave the top brass floating piston thing in the dampers? TBH I've ordered some other dampers anyway, but I'd like to give these a go.
Anytime I put oil in them they just locked up, got really stiff.
I removed the springs from the dampers as well.
I spent some time on my 3D software and 3D printer and made a bracket to front mount the steering servo. The difference in steering is night and day now.
I will have a look and the lube situation in the trans and thx for the heads up with the shift linkages.

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3 hours ago, Pablo68 said:

Righto, did you leave the top brass floating piston thing in the dampers? TBH I've ordered some other dampers anyway, but I'd like to give these a go.

Funny story, I went through the process of getting these shocks to work nicely, got 3 working and o the 4th one the shock body was just too narrow for the piston to move properly!

 

3 hours ago, Pablo68 said:

Anytime I put oil in them they just locked up, got really stiff.

I solved this by sanding the piston discs slightly, they are supposed to have 2 flat sections around the edge but the moulding flash normally fills the space. If you sand of the flashing they should match the profile of the originals:

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Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand, BUMP!

I recently put a 25kg(I think?) steering servo in my Faux Bruiser, steers better now, but the steering keeps pausing or cutting out.
I think it's that problem that others have stated before about the more powerful puling too much power from the receiver.

How do you get around this?

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8 hours ago, Pablo68 said:

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand, BUMP!

I recently put a 25kg(I think?) steering servo in my Faux Bruiser, steers better now, but the steering keeps pausing or cutting out.
I think it's that problem that others have stated before about the more powerful puling too much power from the receiver.

How do you get around this?

You'll need a glitch buster by the sounds.

Basically a capacitor you plug into your RX.

Can buy one ready made pretty cheap ($10-$15). Or make one for a dollar or 2 (Jaycar).

Google 'servo glitch buster'.

 

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You might also need an external BEC with a higher current rating, like 5A or 6A, than what the ESC's BEC can provide.  These higher-torque servos can draw a bit of current.  I have one of these (https://hobbyking.com/en_us/hobbykingtm-compact-20a-watt-meter-and-servo-power-analyzer.html) to check current draw from servos, and even a moderate servo can pull up to 3A or 4A peak under sudden direction changes.  Depending on much current is drawn, the BEC in an ESC might not keep up, and so the result is the voltage on the BEC drops momentarily.  It shows up as steering-related erratic motor behavior, steering glitching, seeming loss of transmitter-receiver connection, etc.  The glitch buster capacitors can help in some cases, but when necessary I've just added a sizeable external BEC to provide enough current to the steering servo and receiver.

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I've also had issues with the low voltage cut-off on the ESC.

Current draw of motor combined with the load on the servo has caused it to momentarily drop below the LVC threshold resulting in 'dead' car for a fraction of a second.

Only experienced this on my race-spec M03, but that is the only race car I have with sub 120A ESC being control 35A ESC.

Fixed that by turning off LVC. Running timed qualifiers and mains it never drained the LiPo below storage Voltage so wasn't an issue.

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Is that using the stock battery? Because it is really just 2 18650 li-ion "vape" cells inside a plastic case. They have a very low c rating and the voltage sags a lot. Switching to a better pack could help.

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