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Show me your bent aluminium...

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For months I’ve put my model through it’s paces and I'm surprised how much it can take relative to it’s scale / chassis type.

I have understood from the start that certain metal parts are seen as bling, unnecessary and even seen upon like boy racer exhausts. From what I’ve learnt metal pieces bend, crack, transfer impact energy to plastic parts and break them etc.

So far my feeling towards these pieces are only positive, I have 4 GF01s and tons of extra accessories. One is built to spec with oil shocks and a sport tuned motor, out of the box there’s a lot of wobble on each of the wheels, lack of toe-in adjustment, self tapping screws work their way out now and again.

The other which is my daily runner is the one with the ‘bling’, Yeah Racing components, shimmed the wobble out of the wheels, free movement of swing arms. Regular fast jumps, a few tumbles, head on collisions with soil banks thinking there was enough of an angle to jump. No bent parts, I’m not worried about things getting scratched, just using it.

Is this feeling towards metal parts learnt from people back in the day (80s-90s) with cast aluminium components that were un-anodised, and this knowledge has been passed on?

Has someone recently suffered a component failure from a jump or collision, did it also affect the chassis, what was the speed of impact etc, any photos?

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I must stress that this is not mine, but something I found online. New TC-01 chassis with the genuine Tamiya aluminium steering bridge...

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Aluminum front or rear uprights I can grasp, same with steering parts (mostly) and motor / servo mounting points. Suspension TOWERS yes, although lightweight carbon makes more sense, but suspension arms which bear the load...no. That's where parts bend, sometimes very subtle over long periods of use, but can affect the tracking and driveshaft angles etc. Plus uncle Tamiya likes to design the suspension mounts in such a way that if they were to break, your whole chassis is trashed (looking at you TL01, WR01/2, WT01, GF01 and many others).

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@ChrisRx718 Yep, saw this posted on Facebook, by design the part that’s failed looks weak to me, perhaps it happened to high flying buggies in the past? I cannot find bent aluminium swing arms when I google search, and you haven’t got any bent swing arms yourself?

Aluminium shock towers here, I’ve had a WR-02 suspension mount crack due to over tightening a step screw. 

By the way, I will absolutely fall on my sword if something fails, I’ll post it here and try to give info on how it failed.

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Generally speaking Modern Yeah racing parts are quite good quality and are durable enough for regular running. 

most Tamiya parts are good too, however no part is indestructible. 

back in the day eagle racing and Gpm where the 2 main alloy hopup makers. GPM parts where pretty average, made from buttery alloy that bends/breaks relatively easily. Not only that but the new parts would arrive bent or manufactured so poorly they are unusable.

Interestingly after 20+ years they are still going and still making soft bendy out of alignment alloy parts.  

having not being able to take my own advice I recently bought some gpm parts for a dt03, attached is the kind of quality Gpm seem to still be coughing up, this is a alloy front suspension arm mount to fit dt03, note both hinge pins leaning one way, they should be either straight or both leaning opposite directions. This is a brand new part, I noticed this before it even got to the car.. so never even screwed into the chassis. I thought maybe I’d done something wrong like the inserts varied or something, but no luck the part was already ruined at the factory... junk!

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So there’s a number of things that contribute to an aluminium part failing, the quality of the metal used, the design including thickness, if the part has been anodised or not?

It looks like the size of the parts in my kit being generally small are helping it take the strain.

I have searched more, no metal swing arms but found a plastic Traxxas swing arm crack where the pin goes through attaching it to the chassis.

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Busted probably hundreds of suspension arms over my life, all of them plastic, including many rpm arms. A majority break at the hinge pivot. 
 

have never broken a alloy arm as I’ve never used one in anger.  On a touring car they are probably going to be fine as there is little leverage and a lot of material. Buggy arms are another thing though with all the extra leverage. Will they break? Maybe not, bend? Most likely. Few manufacturers make aluminium chassis that don’t bend under modern bashing demands. 
 

the problem has always been its very hard to buy accurate aftermarket alloy parts. Until 3racing and yeah racing came along, accurately made aluminium parts at an affordable price didn’t really exist. 

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Nearly all of the complaints I've heard about aftermarket aluminum suspension arms have had to do with failures of the plastic part to which the arm is attached, not the aluminum parts. And as mentioned above, when the mounting bosses for the arms are molded in as part of the chassis or gearbox (as in nearly every Tamiya model), it's just not worth the risk, unless you feel like rebuilding the whole car after a minor crash.

This was discussed ad nauseam back in the 90s, when the aftermarket alloy craze really took off. Aluminum C-hubs would break the plastic suspension arms, so you'd upgrade those. Then the aluminum arms would break their plastic mounts, and so on. She swallowed the spider to catch the fly... The general consensus became that the anodized alloy parts are not worth the trouble unless you built a whole car out of them, which of course some people did. The rest of us went back to stock arms on Tamiya cars, and started using RPM nylon parts on others, which are orders of magnitude stronger than stock parts (and most aluminum parts, for that matter).

I personally would never bother with aluminum parts in place of plastic, because I don't like the look. The only anodized aluminum colors I really like are black or clear, with an exception made for gold, but only for RC10s and certain Kyosho cars. But if you like the shiny blue stuff, more power to you.

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Thanks for all your thoughts on this! Nice insight into your reasons why, never really got used to the blue – it’s not the blue.

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