Suggested replacement for king cab tranny?

[dirtburglar 0]

I have a king cab and like most of them the transmission slips like mad--rather than trying to find those paper thin washers and cobbling something together, can anyone recommend a replacment tranny that fits and has a gear differential and not the crappy slip kind?

[kingeddie 0]

i too have had stress with this, much like all cab/lux owners, havnt had any joy finding alt parts yet either. got exited a few months back at how close a 959 gear diff is but its 1 tooth bigger and too wide when built up[]. the super astute full gearbox internals will fit but the strange slipper cluch is even worse. my next move is to lock the diffs on my 2 cabs.

[Disco 88]

Hi, I don't have any problems with the diff on my King cab, but its well documented that there are many that do, my main problem with the truck is keeping the battery in it!

I am running a tamiya super stock 23T motor in it and it is plenty fast enough, i have two extra shims in the diff, i have couple of spare diffs and parts as i thought that there would be a problem with them , but not so far.

Are you guys running hotter motors? maybe that causes the diff to slip more and destroys it.

I was wondering if the diff out of a vanquish would fit?

[rroodd 0]

I have cooked the guts of one of my King Cabs' diffs a while ago. Literally melted the balls into the plastic ring.I found it cheaper to find/buy the Astute diff parts/gear bag to rebuild, as they are the same thing.

Maybe there is an aftermarket/better diff for the Astute, and so would fit the King Cab..??

I always wonder if there's other car's diffs/gears that are a close enough match, that they will slot into other cars.... Surely some people have experimented with gearbox bits' from other Tamiya cars, or MRC buggies, or even the Futaba cars.....

Would be good to find something to fit the King Cab, that's for sure...

Rod.

[kingeddie 0]

nope, not really hot[:I] running a speedgem 13x2 and using monster beetle tyres, guy in LHS says i only have self to blame[?]. seriously though, the diff was all new about 6 months ago and lasts about 8-10 batteris before i have to rebuild it. quick clean, new grease, good nip up, some thread-lock, and its good as new..........for a while[]. it is obscenely fast and well worth the maintanance though.

[miramar 4]

Why not use the (geardiff) transmission of the Super Astute? It was even available as a hop-up set for the Astute-series of cars, though probably a "little" hard to find now:

53087 T.T.C. (Tamiya Torque Control) Gear Train Set

[kontemax 1725]

Hi people,
I use the King Cab and have met all problems you wrote here.
Here are my experiences:

1st You destroy the diff gear because is underdimensioned for a truck. Gears and diff are for a buggy
2nd You destroy your diff and gears because you use hot motors and, major reason, bigger tires like monster beetle ones (in your opinion why Tamiya designed special tires to fit King Cab only?)
3th If you lock the diff you will destroy the little gear of the spur gear.
4th If you lock the diff you will destroy the plastic gear retainer inside the gearbox (that one that fit on the middle iddle gear)
5th if you lock the diff you will destroy the wheels hex hubs. The wheel shafts will spin inside them.
6th if you lock the diff gear you will destroy the shaft pins, the diff and wheels cups. Thet will wear out in few batteries.

Do you like all this?

Here some solutions if you use a medium hot motor (no more than 23 turns) and Monster Beetle tires:

1st change the internal plastic gear retainer with an alloy one. Thorp made them but they are very rare. Plan to built one buy yourself or by some cnc machinist.
2nd built by yourself a thicker motor mount (3 millimeters). Screw the alloy gear retainer directly on it (original motor mount nuts could be snatched away). You need only a saw, a driller with 2.5 mm drill point, a 3mm tread cutter and a file. TAKE CARE YOU MUST ADD A 0.5 MILLIMETER SPACER ON IDDLE AND SPUR GEAR OR THEY WILL TOUCH YOUR 3MM MOTOR MOUNT. Make some lexan 5mm round washers.
3th you can add some 0,05mm spacer in the diff but diff metal parts will broke. You can use the Egress alluminium diff housings cutting and turning the longer one side. Or you can built them with cnc machinery by yourself (as I made).
4th change the wheel axles with a King Blackfoot ones. Add a spacer tubing in internal part of KB axles and use new hex hubs. With the pin they will not spin.

With these solutions you can use your King Cab with low problems.

Here some solution if you wanna use hot hot motor and Beetle tires:

1th Built buy your self a slippery clutch from new (as I made. See my showroom)
2nd don't use the Super Astute TTC. The gear teeth are too smaller, they will wear out soon. You can start from TTC and adapt King Cab gear on it. King Cab gears have bigger teeth.
3th Change the drivetrain. You can use some Asso (not B1) or Losi or other brand cause they have slippery clutch.
Also you can buy the LETHAL WEAPON 2 belt drivetrain (with or without slippery clutch) but is a rare find (search on internet).
All solutions need mods and work.

Another good solution is using smaller tires. Proline made some interesting models like tractagator and similar.
I preffer bigger cause on jumps they work better (see my showroom) but they will need a lot of works.
Hope I helped you.

Massimo

[Disco 88]

My King cab has an alloy bearing retainer that kontemax describes, maybe that why its not broken the diff? I an also using some HPI truck tyres similar to the blackfoot ones

[kontemax 1725]

Your special alloy part surelly helps to avoid breakages in your transmission.
After several breakages, repairs and mods finally I understood that King Cab tranny needs to be totally modified or replaced if hot motor and big wheels are used.

Kontemax

[dirtburglar 0]

Wow--go away for a weekend and lot of replies--thanks! Out of frustartion, I locked the dif with some crazy glue but it only held for a little while (ran great in the meantime except for my WIDE turns). I'm going to see about getting an astute tranny and seeing if that will work--I know the vanquish won't as I have one right here and they are different sizes. I've also heard that an rc10 tranny will fit close but again, its a ball slip diff meant for a buggy so i don't hold out much hope.

[kontemax 1725]

Anyway you MUST use some slippery to avoid breakage. Try with some transmission with slippery clutch from some Associated or Losi truck. If you are able try to adapt King Cab gears to TTC Super Astute transmission case. This could be a good solution. Astute geartrain is almost indentical to King Cab geartrain so you will not solve your problem.
Vanquish or Avante rear diff gear is longer in one side. You must cut it and turn it to fit on the king cab. The gear diff will never slip but your transmission will be under risk of breakage.
Massimo

Visit my showroom
http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.asp?cid=4709&id=24

[kingeddie 0]

doesnt the avante diff have 1 more tooth?[?]

[El Mexican 1]

I too expereicned some kind of trouble with the diff.

Here´s what I did:

-Completeley rebuild the **** thing.

-Use silicon grease, NEVER molybdenum or ceramic grease for the ball diff.

-Use every shim included in the kit and be very careful of how you place them. This step is PARAMOUNT for the diff to work correctly.

As a side note, I use Losi ribbed tyres in the front and Proline Roadhawgs in the rear when running and jumping on pavemente surfaces. When running on dirt I change to some HPI spikes in the rear, which are practically the same size as the original ballon threads of the King Cab. A Dynarun ST (13 turns) motor is fitted, as well as compete bbs.

The King Cab is by far my favorite Tamiya. I heartly reccomend you to fix those small problems in the diff to get a fantastic handling and fast truck.

[kontemax 1725]

This is curious. I never counted the Astute and Avante diff teeth, so don't really know about it.

I will count them soon.
I mounted the Avante diff on the King Cab and it worked fine.
Now I switched to Lethal Weapon 2 belt transmission so I solved all my problems.
Cheers

Max

[quincey 0]

ive seen a king cab using an associated stealth box, but the drive shafts are the main issue with that set up,i think they used associated shafts as well,losi xx boxes dont fit,other than that run a stock motor.

[dirtburglar 0]

I've never seen the extra shims "out in the wild" i.e. at hobby shops--where would i get extras? I'm pretty sure the king cab i bought had some tranny work done previously and it wasn't put back together right. Also does anyone else's squeal like a piggy when running? I though I had the pinion too tight to the spur but there is the normally accepted amount of play there..

[El Mexican 1]

It squeals like a hog if it´s adjusted incorrectly--that´s a good observation. Make the **** thing tight!

[Tamiya Tim 0]

I'm working on putting my old RC10 6 gear tranny in mine... fits almost perfectly... had to fabricate a new carbon plate out of aluminum, and mount the rear swingarms a little wider to give the dogbones a little more room...

[bluhoney 0]

Just dug out 2 old King Cab's from the attic from when i was a kid, and started doing them up as my first "project" getting into the hobby as they could have been better treated in the past.

One of them runs beautifully at the moment with a 23turn motor, diff fits really well and makes very little noise, but needs the occasional tighten as has a habit of working itself loose.

The other's diff has a problem mentioned above, the bearings have melted into the plastic pretty much killing the diff.

Probably quite noobie questions so I apologise if i've missed other posts mentioning or covering this..

1) Whats the best long term fix for the general diff/transmission problems the king cabs seem to face, don't mind spending a fair bit getting it going as i rather like these cabs. Preferably something that will actually last me..

2) What would be the recommended limit for the stock diff as far as hopping up motor/pinion etc before your running the risk of melting the whole thing?

thanks very much for any help you can give, just getting into the hobby again now i'm old enough to appreciate it and finding it difficult to get to grips with the masses of info about, and the rarity of specific info/bits for the king cabs

[bluhoney 0]

Picked up a TTC gear train set for one of them fairly cheap, gonna see how that works out..

also noticed that the egress gear bag has 2 of the plastic diff's identical to the king cab in them, so if nothing else i now have replacements if i do burn through any more

anyone has any issues with the TTC gearing?

[HILUXMR 0]

Hi, I also had allot of diff problems with my Hilux, from what i have read the plastic ball holder's are prone to melting and are better replaced with thrust washers from the astute diff.

In the end i solved all my problems by getting a LETHAL WEAPON 2 tranny with slipper clutch, i have been using this set up for about 2 years now with no trouble at all. There are some members using the TTC tranny and they seem very happy with it, i think the only problems with the TTC was the pinion choice is limited but that might be better now. Kontemax has come up with a solution for pinion choice problems on the TTC tranny by adapting the spur gear, if you look though his showroom he has it shown in there, his showroom also has some nice info on the king cab and the time and effort he spent trying to make his the ultimate racing monster.

If you are interested in the Lethal weapon tranny mine is in my showroom Here Also if you like i can give you the email address of ware i got it from and you could see if he still has some more but they are not that cheap I think i payed about $110 mine.

Kontemax's super astute spur gear mod here

Cheers

Stewart

[bluhoney 0]

Thanks for the info, I'll see how I get on with the TTC gear set as it should be arriving tomorrow! kinda excited tbh, see how it works out... already the cab i've been working on is a fair bit faster and handles well with just the ballrace/suspension/tires upgraded

the leathal weapon tranny looks nice, will add that to the list of possibles for when i go to upgrade number 2

Have to say your hi-lux looks great!

thanks again for the help

[HILUXMR 0]

Thanks for the info, I'll see how I get on with the TTC gear set as it should be arriving tomorrow! kinda excited tbh, see how it works out... already the cab i've been working on is a fair bit faster and handles well with just the ballrace/suspension/tires upgraded

the leathal weapon tranny looks nice, will add that to the list of possibles for when i go to upgrade number 2

Have to say your hi-lux looks great!

thanks again for the help

I built a TTC tranny about 2 months ago to put in another King cab i am building i must say they seem quite good and they fit straight in the KC unlike the LW2 tranny, i am sure the TTC will make your KC great.

Thanks for the comment on my Hilux i brought it about 4 years ago for £25 off ebay, it was a bit off a wreck with a busted chassis.

I should think i have replaced most of the truck over the years but it is great fun, It's not as pretty now though as i took it to a skate park last week and broke the name/number plates and my C/F battery holders also lost part off the big decal off the roof, but it was fun.

I think Monster racers make great runners the main trouble i have is keeping oil in the shocks, i am not sure how to solve this as i used new O ring's and bladders in mine but still after a few big jumps all the oil has squirted out the tops of all 4 shocks.

Good luck with your King cab's

[bluhoney 0]

TTC tranny in, and finished ballraced it while i was doing it also and it runs like a charm... need to play with the pinion a little now as it's clearly got more to give, not stressing motor or ESC in the slightest and it's a load quiter now also very happy with the hop up

off to the local BMX track tomorrow for it's first real run in, i've also replaced tires with foam filled truggy tires from an HPI i think, and shocks with some 95mm ansmann alloy ones which i had to add spaces and drill new mounts in between the old pairs the cab has as standard, but it seem a whole load more rigid now im done... will see how it fairs upto some jumps with the changed shocks, see if I get the same issue as yourself.

anyway, finishing the new body for it tomorrow also (didn't wanna crash and ruin the originals so bought a replacement to wreck!) and will stick up some photo's, so far it's turning into a real fun little racer and very capable when it gets rough too. Absolutely tears up my gravel driveway so hoping for some good things tomorrow.

Thanks again for your help fella, nice to get someone replyin so swift and to a real new member hope you can get the hilux back to it's glory

[HILUXMR 0]

No problem mate , if i hadn't of read this very tread and asked kontemax some questions i would have chucked out my hi-lux, I'm so glad i didn't now.

Cant wait to hear how it goes down the BMX track, out of interest what body shells are you using for running? Frewer still make a king cab shell that looks good, Kamtec are also looking into making one but that might be some time away yet as he needs to make a mould and stuff first, but hopefully there will be a supply of repro body's in UK soon.

I have ordered some stuff to fix my hi-lux so that should look nice again for a bit , but i still need to get a shell that can be abused as the price's for original one's are getting silly now allot more then the £20 i payed for the one on there a few years back.

I think my problem with the shocks is mainly down to the fact they are the original CVA's the truck came with from new and just need replacing, i should have some nice alloy ones on the way so they my be hear in the morning.

As i said they make great runners the only car i have that come's close to it on fun value is my RC10B3 but that's not as versatile or a Tamiya.

Stewart