5mm Reinforced Adjusters 54869 - tell me I am missing something!

[Pylon80 2628]

So last night I started making turnbuckles to retrofit my car with the "all new", so TRF grade, "5mm reinforced adjusters 54869", the spiffy ones that are open ended etc. I used brand new coated 5mm balls (53869 etc) while I was at it.

Well the connections have virtually no friction, which is wonderful but they also have a ridiculous amount of free play. You can push and pull on the parts with your fingers and feel and hear the ball clicking back and forth inside the adjusters! I used them for camber links so now my camber will measure whichever it wants depending on what the ball connection wants to do that day. I am disappointed in these, does anyone has any tips or advice or perhaps a different experience?

Marc

[Fabia130vRS 2098]

I have seen people put small sponges in between: because the balls are 4.8mm and the caps are 5mm. So you have 0.2mm of play there.

have a look at this.

https://www.rctalk.com/forum/threads/ball-joint-sponges-gator.113575/

 

the sponges are probably there to keep the dirt out. But also could reduce the slop

[Pylon80 2628]

11 minutes ago, Fabia130vRS said:

I have seen people put small sponges in between: because the balls are 4.8mm and the caps are 5mm. So you have 0.2mm of play there.

have a look at this.

https://www.rctalk.com/forum/threads/ball-joint-sponges-gator.113575/

 

the sponges are probably there to keep the dirt out. But also could reduce the slop

Thanks for your answer. Tamiya makes these:

https://www.rcmart.com/tamiya-dust-cover-for-adjuster-53980-00028003

They are to keep the dust out as you said; the XV-01 comes with them for example. I could try them to see if they help with slop.

So...am I the only one who finds it a wee bit strange that Tamiya call their ball nuts 5mm but everyone knows they measure at 4.8mm, then the adjusters are sometimes snug (for example the old short adjusters 54489) sometimes crazy loose like the ones I just tried?

 

[Raman36 1655]

Sponges are good for off road. For on road we use o-rings. For instance you rebuilt your shocks and replaced the o-rings, save those and pot them on the ball end 😉 

Slop and play go bye bye 

[KEV THE REV 2310]

46 minutes ago, Raman36 said:

For on road we use o-rings. For instance you rebuilt your shocks and replaced the o-rings, save those and pot them on the ball end

I do this quite a lot to remove slop

[qatmix 794]

Are you mounting the connectors properly? They should only be applied one side (with the marking). This is to stop them getting unnecessary slop. 
 

My 420 / 07msx and SR all have these and they all are fine.

[SupraChrgd82 1425]

Tamiya makes 2 different size pivot ball and ball cups.  Offhand, I don't know the measurements but swapping ball cups may be ideal to attain a tight fit.  

 

I found this out the hard while assisting my friend with his M06 build.  Some fit just right, some fit way too tight, and some were sloppy.  We went back to the destructions and looked closely only find that we used pivot balls from the wrong parts bag.

[Jonathon Gillham 4605]

1 hour ago, Raman36 said:

Sponges are good for off road. For on road we use o-rings. For instance you rebuilt your shocks and replaced the o-rings, save those and pot them on the ball end 😉 

Slop and play go bye bye 

Are you able to post a picture of this? I can't work out what you mean, but am interested to know. I haven't noticed slop on my TA07 but its probably because I don't look - if car was going well at a meet it gets put back in the box til next time in case I get rid of the luck by making changes I don't understand

[berman 5315]

3 hours ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

Are you able to post a picture of this? I can't work out what you mean, but am interested to know. I haven't noticed slop on my TA07 but its probably because I don't look - if car was going well at a meet it gets put back in the box til next time in case I get rid of the luck by making changes I don't understand

[Jonathon Gillham 4605]

1 hour ago, berman said:

Thanks, its so obvious when you see it!

[Pylon80 2628]

17 hours ago, qatmix said:

Are you mounting the connectors properly? They should only be applied one side (with the marking). This is to stop them getting unnecessary slop. 
 

My 420 / 07msx and SR all have these and they all are fine.

Hey Qatmix yes I did, inserted from the side with the marking. I went in and read the instruction manual of the 420. So it does use the exact same combination of parts that I used but only on the steering link (between the servo saver and the steering bridge namely 54869 mated to 53869. I can't see how this would not have a huge amount of play. And I mean, visible rattle kind of play. You feedback on this would be appreciated!

The rest of the 420 uses different ball studs that may measure slightly different.

17 hours ago, SupraChrgd82 said:

Tamiya makes 2 different size pivot ball and ball cups.  Offhand, I don't know the measurements but swapping ball cups may be ideal to attain a tight fit.  

 

I found this out the hard while assisting my friend with his M06 build.  Some fit just right, some fit way too tight, and some were sloppy.  We went back to the destructions and looked closely only find that we used pivot balls from the wrong parts bag.

So I measured a few Tamiya ball nuts and ball studs and found some difference: aluminium ball nuts measure around 4.74 (out of the 5mm advertised...) and the steel ball studs (the one the TT-02 Type S uses as the top kingpin) measures right at 4.8.

On the other hand, the short adjusters (50797) seem very tight. I use them on the steering turnbuckles and steering link.

Finally, my F104 ver.II has yet another combination of adjusters and ball studs and is virtually play free.

I suppose it will take some experimenting. The car I am building right now is a TT-02 tinker project that is not using kit parts so I can't just follow the instructions, there are none

 

PS: I also tried the CVA o-ring trick (red o-ring) and it came out way too tight, almost locked up

Marc

[Pylon80 2628]

On 6/14/2021 at 3:48 PM, SupraChrgd82 said:

Tamiya makes 2 different size pivot ball and ball cups.  Offhand, I don't know the measurements but swapping ball cups may be ideal to attain a tight fit.  

 

I found this out the hard while assisting my friend with his M06 build.  Some fit just right, some fit way too tight, and some were sloppy.  We went back to the destructions and looked closely only find that we used pivot balls from the wrong parts bag.

I did a bit of compatibility testing to see which ones work best. So far one is so loose it is unusable, some are ok (slight slop) and one is actually binding.

[qatmix 794]

I use the adjusters on the blue aluminium, steel and fluorine ball connectors. All fit fine with no slop. 
 

I’ve just gone and checked my 420 again to see if I was imagining it, but it’s fine.  

[Collin 1956]

Great testing. I had my mind on this lately.

This o-ring trick only works with ballends which builds up a bit higher (brass ones and so..). With the short ones, such as aluminum and this shiny coated ones it will block, there you use foam rings.

In my opinion, the gray low friction 5mm adjuster work pretty good and tight.

[Pylon80 2628]

Qatmix thanks for checking this.

My ball nuts come from either a type S carbon sock tower or are the 53640. All brand new stuff.

I can’t imagine how the adjusters could be bad, they all come from the same mold I suppose.

[Collin 1956]

metric and imperial balls & cups mixed ?

[SuperChamp82 743]

I always thought the kit gap was deliberate ? 

Easy to iron out with (relatively) cheap consumables for racing ?

Easy to build for amateurs trying to force an adjuster onto stock ball connectors w/o needle pliers ? 

And a weak tolerance is cheaper to initially manufacture - forcing tighter / better high margin hop ups 🙄

[rich_f 233]

A long time ago on some very sloppy steering links on my ta02 that I raced, I remember putting a sheet of very thin plastic (like shopping bag thin) between the ball and cup then popping it together so the sheet goes inside the cup and fills the gap. Worked for me, and might be a solution to your 'unusable' ones. 

[Pylon80 2628]

11 hours ago, rich_f said:

A long time ago on some very sloppy steering links on my ta02 that I raced, I remember putting a sheet of very thin plastic (like shopping bag thin) between the ball and cup then popping it together so the sheet goes inside the cup and fills the gap. Worked for me, and might be a solution to your 'unusable' ones. 

If all fails, I might try that. Perhaps Teflon tape, the really thin one used for plumbing. It just looks messy :/