nikko f150 hobby grade conversion

[Hawksquawks 17]

Hi all so I have started converting my nikko f150 to brushless, so far it's been very fun to bash so far. Everything has worked out pretty well except my biggest worry being the gearbox, it's not the most healthy sounding, it has a really loud whine. I am hoping to ball race the whole thing at some point in the future I have been following @nowinaminute builds but without access to a means of lathe that will have to wait. I was wondering does anyone know if the gears in this truck clone any tamiya gears and is so what ? I know Nikko used to use Tamiya gears around the time of this truck. 

[nowinaminute 2815]

The gears are unique to this truck.

If they are just whiny then it's normal. The gear ratio is low which is always noisier but also the gears have huge mod 1.0 teeth which is more commonly found in 1/8 scale vehicles. I don't think the tolerances were quite so good by the time production was shipped out to Malaysia and Singapore so the gears may have an element of asymmetry to them too.

It's worth looking inside the gearbox though just to check everything is well but mine have always been noisy but no problems so far.

Just an example of another low ratio truck that makes a lot of noise:
 

 

[RetroSaurusRC 0]

I am hoping to achieve something similar with an old nikko f150 I've just picked up, looks like it has the same wheels but with the longer body, didn't realise these were actually so huge! Inspired by the model grade modded nikko videos on YouTube. The f150 as standard is even slower than i expected, iv got 2 nikko storms that are pretty nippy and they're still both standard and look like they run on a smaller motor. I had visions of upgrading them but decided to opt for the bigger truck because it seemed more worthwhile upgrading. The video I've seen of it with model grade gear in looks amazing and 10x more powerful!

 

May i ask if you have any tips for these models?

Aiming to for 550 motor, pinion, model grade radio gear, esc or manual sc, strong steering servo to sort the flappy wheels. 

Any insight would be much appreciated 👍

 

 

[Nikko85 3455]

Interested in this thread, I've got my little Nephew a Vulcan and one day I'll convert it for him so it's got more power and speed, I've had an email from his mum asking where I got it, as a few of the local parents have taken notice and want one too - so glad it's getting used.

Can I ask how the servo addition went? I never looked into this before giving it to him. I was thinking of just Hobbywing 1060 and better lower turn brushless motor. It's low geared, so not too worried about burn out. 

Andrew

[nowinaminute 2815]

The reason they are slow is they have a bespoke Mabuchi motor that is 40t but the thickness of the wire is the same as the Mabuchi 80t so it's almost like half an 80t motor. It only has half the cross section of wire inside that a 540 normally has. Very underpowered but also impossible to kill which I guess was the idea. Same motor is used in the Scorpion, Thunderbolt, Aero Thunderbolt and some others (although interestingly, the Radio Shack version of the F150 has full fat 27T Mabuchi motors.

I think a 550 would be a good choice for the long wheelbase version as it weighs a lot more. I used a 15T 550 motor in mine. About the same RPM as a 20t 540 but more torque.