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Juls1

The Buggy Damper Thread.

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On 7/17/2022 at 3:59 AM, Juhunio said:

So I rebuilt them again, replacing the one-piece pistons with rods and pistons left over from a DF03 build (essentially the 50519 / 50520 sets). I used white TRF pistons on the fronts, and replaced the black o-rings with red throughout

They still stuck

So, is this just a 'thing' with the CVA buggy dampers? Has anyone else experienced this, or managed so solve it? 

Did the red o-rings stick less?  My DT-03 CVAs stuck quite a bit with the black o-rings.  I put red o-rings in, and while it stuck, it was a lot less.  I eventually went to the blue x-rings and I can't feel any stick.

Edit: I thought I put this in here, but didn't.  Between the black and red o-rings I polished front and rear shafts as well.  While the rears have obvious material on them, it seems the front might have a bit too.

Edited by SlideWRX

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10 minutes ago, SlideWRX said:

Did the red o-rings stick less?  My DT-03 CVAs stuck quite a bit with the black o-rings.  I put red o-rings in, and while it stuck, it was a lot less.  I eventually went to the blue x-rings and I can't feel any stick.

Maybe...a fraction. But not near enough to consider it solved

So the 42214 X-rings fit, and do the job?

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On 7/17/2022 at 10:42 AM, Saito2 said:

I've seen the lower body cap, that holds in the o-rings, with their holes drill off center which created a bind between it and the main body. This was on an original CVA 1 equipped Dirt Trasher though. My only other thought is the o-rings are getting compressed too much when the lower cap is screwed down. You could try loosening the cap (but not enough to allow leakage) and re-try the experiment. You've tried different rods but are both rod surfaces smooth?  I vaguely recall seeing both DF03 and fixed one- piece piston rods sometimes come in that dull un-polished blackish gray color (as opposed to the shiny polished silver look of most rods). If both sets you've tried are like that, they could be polished with some emery cloth.  

Thanks @Saito2, I'll try backing the lower cap off a quarter turn and see if that does the trick

The front rods were nicely polished, the rear ones definitely that duller grey colour. So polishing them would be my next step, though that won't solve issue with the already-shiny fronts 

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On 7/21/2022 at 2:07 AM, SlideWRX said:

Did the red o-rings stick less?  My DT-03 CVAs stuck quite a bit with the black o-rings.  I put red o-rings in, and while it stuck, it was a lot less.  I eventually went to the blue x-rings and I can't feel any stick.

Did the blue rings help oil leakage?

Are these the blue ones , I think there was another ones too?

3B63C9D7-4AA2-43A2-ACF3-85B6A17467D4.png

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10 hours ago, Rvl 2 said:

Did the blue rings help oil leakage?

Are these the blue ones , I think there was another ones too?

Those are part # 42115, 70 durometer.  part # 42114 is 50 durometer.  I don't know which would be better.

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14 hours ago, SlideWRX said:

Those are part # 42115, 70 durometer.  part # 42114 is 50 durometer.  I don't know which would be better.

 

On 7/25/2022 at 2:10 PM, Rvl 2 said:

Are these the blue ones , I think there was another ones too?

 

#42215, 70 durometer is for mineral based damper oil. 

#42214, 50 durometer is for silicon based damper oil.

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Does anyone know what pistons come with the 54028 Buggy aeration damper set?

I'm looking to add some extra pistons to my set to give me some more tuning options but it's not clear what diameter the holes in the included pistons are!

 

Many thanks 

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They don’t have the taper face pistons as standard so 53572 is the most likely candidate, they use 10mm pistons, same as pretty much all the touring car shocks. 
 

there is 58281 which would likely be the exact parts but good luck finding that. 
 

hope that helps. 
 

 

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Got the dt03/tt02b damper set

 The piston rods are too long for the cylinders , front is 53.4mm(5.8mm too long) , I can replace that with a 49.6mm. But the front rod is 41.5mm(5.2mm too long). Any suggestions on shorter piston rods?

21D857D1-49FB-4F3D-9FBB-676A323E2DC2.jpeg

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2 hours ago, Rvl 2 said:

Got the dt03/tt02b damper set

 The piston rods are too long for the cylinders , front is 53.4mm(5.8mm too long) , I can replace that with a 49.6mm. But the front rod is 41.5mm(5.2mm too long). Any suggestions on shorter piston rods?

21D857D1-49FB-4F3D-9FBB-676A323E2DC2.jpeg

I don't rember this being an issue with mine, once slid though the body you add spacers and an O-ring and the bottom eye which should take up any excess shaft?

Edit- the spring cup probably also takes up a bit of space that would stop the shaft hitting the top of the shock as well as the above

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2 hours ago, BuggyGuy said:

I don't rember this being an issue with mine, once slid though the body you add spacers and an O-ring and the bottom eye which should take up any excess shaft?

Edit- the spring cup probably also takes up a bit of space that would stop the shaft hitting the top of the shock as well as the above

Measured with the cup in place. Trying to maximize my stroke on my tt02b . Now I have 30mm and 19mm stroke on rear and front dampers.

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Does anyone ever experienced bottom eyelet unscrew itself from the rod after a crash? Happened to me twice with my VQS front damper, it's not broken or bend or anything, I can screw the rod back no problem. And it did hold well after that in normal running and bashing until another heavy crash (heavy enough to flip the car in both times). Since it happened to just one of the two front dampers (the other is fine in both cases), I think either the eyelet thread is stripped (from my own built mistake) or it was defective from the start.

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Sorry for double post but I found interesting video relevant to the topic (it's in Japanese but English sub available)

It shows that blue o-ring does work better and apparently you can easily turn any regular oil damper into aeration one by turning the diaphragm into oil seal?

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I have used the VG o rings in CVA’s along with nylon pistons in CVA dampers. The nylon piston makes more difference than the oring in my experience but in low pressure situations you can sometimes get away with a single VG o ring and a nylon guide bush. The VG’s are actually x rings and each seal has 2 lips. I did this to my CC02 shocks with proper shafts and high cap damper pistons, the results where impressive. 

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On 2/20/2019 at 3:01 PM, Juls1 said:

The only problem is the lack of springs available. The springs these are delivered with along with the Top Force hi Cap Damper set are significantly heavier than the springs delivered with 53036/7. Most other Tamiya springs don’t fit. However the springs from the modern GMade XD series seem to work well. 

Losi's springs work.

Max

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The original Hi-Cap dampers can be improved.
Personally I've done some work on mine and they are far away better now.
At first I polished the inside of the dampers, then I coated them again.
Then I rebuilt the piston plates, with self lubricant nylon and rounded edges. Diameters tolerance between piston and cylinder is the key.
Then I rebuilt the lower nylon spacers and added silicon o-rings
At the end gold coated Ti-Ni shafts and read top seals  complete the work.
They are still good dampers, after 30 years or more.

Max

 

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TRF spring can be fitted on DF-03 damper? #53975 #53974 have specs similar to #49431 (41/16mm & 71/16mm vs 40/16mm & 64/16mm) but they are too soft or too stiff?

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1 hour ago, vodka said:

TRF spring can be fitted on DF-03 damper? #53975 #53974 have specs similar to #49431 (41/16mm & 71/16mm vs 40/16mm & 64/16mm) but they are too soft or too stiff?

Yes the TRF springs work fine. External body measurement on the standard TRF aeration dampers is the same. 

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On 8/14/2022 at 6:34 PM, Gabranth said:

Does anyone ever experienced bottom eyelet unscrew itself from the rod after a crash? Happened to me twice with my VQS front damper, it's not broken or bend or anything, I can screw the rod back no problem. And it did hold well after that in normal running and bashing until another heavy crash (heavy enough to flip the car in both times). Since it happened to just one of the two front dampers (the other is fine in both cases), I think either the eyelet thread is stripped (from my own built mistake) or it was defective from the start.

I’ve had it happen on cartwheels. The arm is yanking down on the shock, and pulls the end off the shaft. A drop of medium CA is a quick fix, although you might want to replace the rod end if the car gets driven hard or frequently.

Droop screws help to prevent this on 1/8 scale buggies; in the 1/10 world, it’s just something we have to deal with occasionally.

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On 9/8/2022 at 1:36 AM, Juls1 said:

Yes the TRF springs work fine. External body measurement on the standard TRF aeration dampers is the same. 

I just bought the TRF, but they seem too soft .... I have no way to try on the car at the moment, but compressing with my hand the kit springs are much harder.

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5 hours ago, vodka said:

I just bought the TRF, but they seem too soft .... I have no way to try on the car at the moment, but compressing with my hand the kit springs are much harder.

The kit springs are very hard, if you go longer travel with sway bars you will want softer suspension anyway. I generally run a fairly hard spring up front and a softer out back. 
 

There is 2 different TRF front springs, one for trf201 the other for trf501. One set is much softer than the other. The df03 front springs also fit, the df03 set is the firmest of the three, I believe the new xv02 spring kits are just df03 front spring set, so of course the new xv02 spring kit is a option should you be chasing firmer springs. 

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On 7/17/2022 at 12:59 AM, Juhunio said:

I'm struggling with a set of CVA dampers at the moment; no matter what I do they 'stick' when the chassis rests. Chassis is a TT02B

I started with the stock TT02B dampers, essentially the 54567 DT03 set. They built fine but if I left the chassis for an hour or so they would stick solid and need a very firm push to 'unlock'

So I rebuilt them adding some green slime to the o-rings.

They still stuck

So I rebuilt them again, replacing the one-piece pistons with rods and pistons left over from a DF03 build (essentially the 50519 / 50520 sets). I used white TRF pistons on the fronts, and replaced the black o-rings with red throughout

They still stuck

So I ordered some new cylinders from Tamico (thinking maybe I had a duff set) and rebuilt them again.

They still stick

So, having started with the DT03 set, I have now replaced:

  • rods
  • pistons
  • o-rings
  • cyclinders

They're basically the CVA equivalent of Trigger's Broom :lol:

But they still stick

I've built plenty of the super-minis on touring cars and they never stick, but generally tend to upgrade to aluminium dampers on buggy builds (DF03 dampers on the DF03 and Boomerang, hi-caps on the Super Astute)

I've got a re:re Bigwig with yellow CVAs and they never stick either, and that can get left for months before I pick it up and run it again

So, is this just a 'thing' with the CVA buggy dampers? Has anyone else experienced this, or managed so solve it? 

I know this is my first post but I have been fooling around with this for a little bit. I did exactly what you have done above on a dt03 Racing Fighter and also a DT02 Sand viper. I used the stock springs throughout the entire process (except for one instance which i will talk about below) and never touched the clear hard damper oil (its 900cst and approximately 75wt and I think that would be too much so I did not try it. Yes it still stuck but less. TA silicone oil solved the problem.   The rear never sticks and the fronts look like they are sticking but practically blowing on the front fixes it.   This is after sitting for a half an hour or more.

I dug in my 15 year old toolbox of RC parts and found Associated silicone oil in 40 wt (500cts about the same green oil that comes in the DF03 aluminum shock kit) and also 60wt (750cts).  I drained all the yellow shock oil and put 40wt in the front and also 60wt in the rear.  

I solved this problem while working on a different issue.  My goal was to not buy df03 aluminum dampers until I have left no stone unturned with the stock CVA dampers and gotten just about everything I could from them.

Here is the story.

I built my dt03 and immediately had the sagging issue in the back.  I ran across a video on YouTube of some guy trying aluminum dampers and the drop test.  in his test the CVA dampers were better.  While he mentioned absolutely no settings for the stock CVA's  I froze the video and noticed how may spacers he was running and I was able to achieve the same thing.  I liked the damping power and it worked but was not the best (sticking and not plush) .  I purchased the DF03 damper rebuild kit (its on sale for 2 dollars on the Tamiya USA website by the way normally $11.50 and so I bought 10 sets for 20 dollars).  Before I go any further I would like to mention that after rebuilding with the df03 rebuild kit I found I did not need all of the spacers above the shock springs because now the CVA's were behaving differently/better.  For the front shock I used the thinnest spacer just to take up the slack/loosness in the spring so that it still sat on the spring perch at full droop. For the rear I ran no spacers on top of the spring.  I only used the longest shock rod spacer UNDER the spring perch.  This allowed the arms to be level front and rear.   I first rebuilt the shocks (front and rear) with the two hole piston but it was weaker than the stock dampers. I rebuilt it again (front and rear) with the one hole piston and it improved. the only problem is that it seemed the front dampening was great with a drop test but the rear slapped when dropped from less than a foot (I worked my way up in drop until it slapped). I first tried the DF03 rear spring and got the same exact results (i removed all the spacers so that it could sit level.  I was diss-satisfied and had to address this as I don't want to have some spirited fun and immediately break the chassis or transmission casing.  This is where the associated oil came in.  I first swapped 60wt oil in the rear.  The drop test was WAY better and no slapping in the rear. and since it was smoother I went ahead and swapped in 40wt in the front (tamiya yellow is about 35wt so its not much difference)  it felt about the same and hardly any sticking at all after sitting for 30 minutes.  testing at 15 to 20 minutes there was zero sticking in the front. 

 

My setup as it stands is:

CVA's with the rods and red orings from the df03 rebuild kit.

I used the one hole pistons that are included in the racing fighter kit for both front and rear

Associated shock oil 40 front 60 rear

thinnest spacer on top of front spring

thickest piston rod spacer under the spring perch in the rear and the thinnest spacer above the spring

I user the longest lower eyelet in the rear

I used the innermost lower damper hole in the front to get more droop.

For the DT02 sand viper its the exact same story except one minor detail.  I used the innermost lower damper hole in the front to get more droop but also the longest lower eyelet in the front for additional droop.  there are only two included in the kit so you will need to order spares or find leftovers from another kit.

this is where I currently stand.

There is still room for more tweaks.  I ordered the dt02/03 spring kit that comes with the RED/soft and Blue/Hard spring sets (the Racing fighter comes with medium springs

I also have the hard springs from the df03 damper rebuild kit and am wondering how stiff that is compared to the blue hard springs (maybe they are the same)

I just need to get out there and test it out but am going to wait on the last parts to arrive.

Hope this helps someone.  there really is no information out there except people just going for the df03 aluminum damper kit.  The little information that is out there had one person using hard springs but no mention of how the damper was built.  

oh I had to edit this.  The front shock slightly sticks when suspended on a rack with the wheels at full droop touching nothing.  when on the bench and the tires touching the surface it wont stick at all

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I have discovered the secret sauce for 2wd buggies with stock CVA's

Have you ever wanted to buy the tt02b/df03 aluminum dampers yet felt like you could just go buy another kit for not much more money?  Well you are in luck. Keep in mind the springs for this kit are for 4wd only and the build instructions will not work for a 2wd buggy. I found alternate build instructions in the dt02 ms manual and that's how the rabbit hole started.

lets talk about the sand viper and the DT02 ms

the front springs on both kits are the same, however the rear springs are the Blue springs from the DT02 hop up spring kit part number 53832.   (I confirmed this with Tamiya USA support.  The DT02 ms just had the springs painted white and are no longer available).

Build the CVA's with one hole front and rear and fill with Tamiya yellow shock oil. use the rear blue hop up spring. You wont need any spacers except maybe the super thinnest one front and rear on top of the spring to get rid of any slop (The aluminum dampers call for 2 hole front and 3 hole rear and the nylon pistons have a tight fit. The black CVA pistons do not have a tight fit so the front one hole is the equivalent of a trf two hole and the rear one hole the equivalent of a trf 3 hole. The rear damper has a larger piston than the fronts so a tad more gap)

when installing the eyelets you will notice you have two that are larger than all the rest.  They are meant for the rear and you will need 4 of these fitted front and rear.  (this makes the cva dampers the exact same length front and rear as the aluminum dampers built exactly to dt02 ms specifications).

That's how its done son. 

I have the tt02b/df03 aluminum damper set so I can vouch it feels the same.

One last trick you can do for rigidity and smoothness on the stock CVA is to remove the bottom o-ring and replace it with a TRF damper shaft guide part number 84292. you can also put a shim on top of the damper piston to get rid of the wobble. That part number is 9804198

the dt03 cva damper kit uses the same springs as the dt02 so its the same deal. however you will need to order Tamiya damper parts bag and that number is 9400414 (its on sale right now for 1.99 and comes with the damper rods you need to build the dampers like I mentioned above. you will also need some c clips and that part number is 50588

The Td2 avante 2022 uses the red springs from the dt02 spring kit and they are the weakest springs. I'm not even sure why Tamiya would do this. if these springs were on my dt02 or dt03 I would have a busted chassis or cracked transmission.

ill figure this out in February when I get my kit however I believe it will be the same story. besides the dt02 spring kit i might need the medium springs found in the sand viper kit and those part numbers are 9805484 for the front and 9805752 for the rear.

It can be said that those parts add up however if you are sourcing these parts for multiple kits it is no longer the case as you can upgrade 3 buggies for less than the price of one aluminum damper kit

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Great thread. Thank you @Juls1 for all your hard work.

I was wondering if anyone could explain the differences and when you'd use each type of o/x ring that is available? I've had a look round and cannot see this information anywhere and this seems like a perfect place to put it.

From what I can gather..

54384 - black o rings
42259 - red (orange to some?) o rings
53574 - TRF damper rebuild kit with clear o rings
42214 - blue x-rings for silicone oil
42215 - blue x-rings for mineral oil
42374 - blue VG o rings for diffs
42359 - navy blue VG o rings

I know the black ones are hard and great for perhaps shelf queens, but little else and I've always used red/orange o rings over these. I've never had any of the others and I don't find that the descriptions on Tamiya's site very helpful, so where would you use them and why?

Thanks all.

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2 hours ago, Cynan said:

Great thread. Thank you @Juls1 for all your hard work.

I was wondering if anyone could explain the differences and when you'd use each type of o/x ring that is available? I've had a look round and cannot see this information anywhere and this seems like a perfect place to put it.

From what I can gather..

54384 - black o rings
42259 - red (orange to some?) o rings
53574 - TRF damper rebuild kit with clear o rings
42214 - blue x-rings for silicone oil
42215 - blue x-rings for mineral oil
42374 - blue VG o rings for diffs
42359 - navy blue VG o rings

I know the black ones are hard and great for perhaps shelf queens, but little else and I've always used red/orange o rings over these. I've never had any of the others and I don't find that the descriptions on Tamiya's site very helpful, so where would you use them and why?

Thanks all.

I have heard that the black orings are good as dogbone spacers, internal shock spacers ect

they stick a lot and come with the cheaper CVA kits.  The aluminum damper kits come with the red orings and so does the sand viper.  the X orings are supposed to be better and not stick however many threads i looked at talked about leaks and fidling to try to stop the leakage.  My suggestion is to stick with the red orings and maybe on the stock CVA remove the bottom o-ring and replace it with a TRF damper shaft guide part number 84292

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