JupiterTwo's Axial Ryft kit build

[jupitertwo 1484]

Hey there,

First time build thread here. At @toyolien's suggestion I thought I'd give it a try

I've had an Axial Yeti for a few years, a fun truck, but not run it that much. Great fun in large clear spaces such as a beach, where it was very much at home with sand paddles on. Less so in my small back garden with curious toddlers around. The Ryft is a new for 2021 Rock Racer which to me seems like the Yeti's successor. With most of my RCs being Tamiya and 1:10, I often look lustly at the bigger trucks. When the Ryft came out I like the raw look of the body, and once again was tempted. However I resisted for a while, but a 20% eBay voucher saw me click the buy it now button. Kids are getting older, I might be getting a bigger garden...

The build is going to be stock at the moment, I've not seen the need (yet) for hopups. The main weaknesses seem to be around the axles of the RTR version, which have been improved apparently in the kit. Likewise the trailing arms, the kit comes with strengtheners. The other common complaint seems to be from people bashing them too hard. The jury seems to be out whether a 'rock racer' should be stronger, but we'll see. The only damage I did to my Yeti was a cracked rim and a stripped spur. The spur was due to me getting the transmission all bound up in long grass, but not realising how badly. Lots of Treal stuff taking my eye, but it all soon adds up. I've been pondering some SSD wheels, but I'm waiting to see the kit built to get an idea of the colour etc. I quite like the grey/white of the body, though plenty folks are rit dying it to good effect Never tried that either, so perhaps...

On to the pictures.

Kit and electrics:

I went for a nice beefy servo. Never had a Spektrum before, but it seemed a nice balance of power, speed and price. The micro servo is for the hi/lo gear settings. I've decided to give it at try, given the power plant I've picked up. The AXE 550 motor is 3300kV. A little high perhaps, so I might be sticking to 2s for the first part. However if the hi/lo works out, then 3s/4s could be on the cards. I run Futaba radio gear, so I treated it to an a new receiver.

 

What's in the box:

A lot of bags, and a lot of bags in bags. The Axial way is to have a bag for each step, so no hunting through or little chance to mistake a 8mm screw for a 6mm etc. Nice idea, but it does seem a little wasteful with all that plastic.

 

[jupitertwo 1484]

The manual:

A glossy affair, so feels odd after so many paper Tamiya ones

Similar break down of recommended parts, and they've gone to town on the icons. Tamiya seem to go for two shades of gray to tell you which sort of grease, Axial went a little bit further.

Each step corresponds to one bag, with all the bits or sauce required inside.

[jupitertwo 1484]

First steps, diff assembly:

All together nice and easily, no confusion over washer sizes etc. Included is a diff locker, for your choice of diff. I've left it out for the moment to get a feel for the truck.

 

 

 

 

[jupitertwo 1484]

Time for the spider gears and the gloop. The diff oil is 1000000 weight, first time I've dealt with any that high. Sticky stuff, which had leaked out of it's container. Not a great issue though, as I needed to apply it with a tool anyway.

Gears in, gloop applied. Plenty enough to fill the diffs.

All done up and ready to proceed. The diff cases are plastic, and I think I've nerfed the thread on one of them. So more care was taken after that. I can see the locker going in anyway in the future, so if one does leak, the locker will resolve that.

That's the end of bags 'A', 1/7 sections done.

[jupitertwo 1484]

Lets carry on with Bags B, section 2/7

More bags in bags

Simple contents. Threadlock, Diff Grease, two bearings and the outdrive

 

Simple stuff for B2 too, pair of bearings to add the diff in.

Time to put the diff cover on. Threaded diff metal diff cover, so threadlocked on and a nice fit. No frills on the diff cover - I might have expected an Axial logo etc, perhaps that's their own hop up coming. Certainly ones available from the aftermarket, but not cheap.

B4, bit more to do. Hubs to attach. These are labelled and slide on to a rail on the axle. Bolt on with locknuts. Little screws for adjusting the steering throw.

Drive shaft time. It was getting late by this step, and I found the diagram a little playful on the eyes. So managed to get them upside down. Once the right way up things rotated nice and smoothly

With things the right way round, time to lock them in place. Again the plastic seems fairly soft when tapping the machine threads in on small screw. No mention of a thread tap that I can see, but care needs to be taken.

Final step for B, the lower links.

[jupitertwo 1484]

With that, section B is done.

The front axle seems nice and chunky. I've not found any measurements yet to confirm if it is beefier than the RTR, or if I've got a non beefed up version. Not sure yet what the two remaining screws are for yet, seems odd to me for them to be there given everything was just enough before.

Toolset required so far has been pretty simple. Bearing tool was just to be nice given I had one, pliers were to get the pins out once I'd realised I'd assembled the wrong way round. Flat head driver was for applying diff gloop. Cutter was for opening all those plastic bags

It's been fun so far, I'll be carrying on with this when I can grab time of an evening.

[toyolien 4680]

Tea and biscuits at the ready. Thanks for taking the time to do this, much appreciated.

[Grumpy pants 4485]

9 hours ago, toyolien said:

Tea and biscuits at the ready. Thanks for taking the time to do this, much appreciated.

I’ll 2nd this 😎

[Badcrumble 4203]

I’ll 3rd it!

The absence of an Axial logo on the diff cover might be a reaction to how many SCX10ii covers get replaced. Then again, that might be because the are RED and have the logo on them. The same ones in black aren’t so shouty.

Looking forward to seeing the rest of the build. It is whetting my appetite to build my SCX10iii. And maybe get one of these…?!

[jupitertwo 1484]

Some time tonight after ‘movie night’ which is of course just an excuse for kids to ask to stay up late. Clone Wars series though, so I don’t protest too much 

Onwards with Bag C. Links and rear axle. 
 

Initially Mr Axial seems happy to go with one bag, one step:

All nice and simple, though I disagree where the silver ball end goes, and lined it up with the servo end. They all seem nice and meaty, hard to see why a hop up could be required. Then I remember folks run this with 4s, so the energies are a lot higher than a Lunchbox might see. 

[jupitertwo 1484]

Servo time!

The Ryft is quite light, so this might well be overkill, but it’s dinky and silver, so hides away on the front axle nicely. 
 

All in, but that’s a pause for the front axle. I’m due the correct 23t aluminium servo horn tomorrow, so bag C5 remains sealed.

[jupitertwo 1484]

Next up, the rear axle

nice and chunky, and similar in assembly to the front axle.

 

Diff from the first section ready to go, 1000000 gloop already in. My Yeti is locked at the rear, so I should get a bit of understanding doing a back to back drive. 
 

Time to put the diff cover on, thread lock at the ready

Quickly on to the rear driveshaft.

Slots in easily, and while the end pieces aren’t labelled, they only line up one way. 
 

Time for the link mounts. These are possible to get the wrong way round, but the manual makes a good effort to alert you and describe the orientation.

[jupitertwo 1484]

Time for some links

you might notice the appearance of my second parts tray. Seems the packing chap got bored and bundled C12 and C13 together. 
 

Quick check that I agreed with the ball orientation, and onwards. The hole in the shaft helps greatly with the assembly, I guess Tamiya are too small to accommodate that?

[jupitertwo 1484]

Trailing arms next, in the confusingly labellled bag C13 for step C14 

 

while we are building two of the same here, to make things look pretty, don’t forget to flip the orientation so the nuts are on the inside.

 

And with that, we’re done for another evening

It’s going together very easily, my only hiccup so far being that centre diff. 
Next step is the gear box, including the two speed. I’m interested to see how well that goes, as on my SCX10 III the dig and two speed were a bit clunky. 
Its one reason why I plumped for the spektrum micro servo, so to avoid doubts about fit as I used power hd ones in the SCX10. It also saves ordering the extra servo part.

 

[toyolien 4680]

To say it's your first build thread here, it's EPIC! I really like the Ryft. And as I said my only reservations are the axle casing breakages I've seen and also the bent shock shafts. Both of which may be down to either bad driving or bad landings I guess. 

[jupitertwo 1484]

Yeah, looking at this video

I can see that the axle housings i have are the first iteration design. Reading some threads there's talk of a different type of material in the kit version to the RTR.

I've not been able to confirm a case of the kit versions being weak, but I don't use facebook, so perhaps there's more chatter there.

[jupitertwo 1484]

I should stay away from all the crawler forums. Soooo many hop ups to tempt me

My ebay cart is quite unhealthy at the moment.

Tempted by some SSD wheels. I have some 2.2 tyres ( I think ) that I could never get to fit properly to the wheels on my Yeti. I'll have to investigate if they're a good match for the Ryft and what wheel would fit.

[jupitertwo 1484]

Postie dropped this off today:

A tight fit on to the servo, but attached easy enough after that.

[jupitertwo 1484]

D-Bag time, and it's 2 speed set up.

Getting the 4mm e-clips on is a bit of a fiddle. I like my 2mm tamiya tool for that, but the 4mm multi tool is foldable so a little trickier to put a lot of pressure on.

Once assembled, it's nice and sturdy.

D2 is nice and simple, just slip the gears on.

Everything is nice and chunky.

 

[jupitertwo 1484]

D3: Time to assemble the transmission case

 

Two speed gears and centre diff installed. One speed gear providing the support.

Time to add the shifter.

I'm not sure how they really intended this to go together, with the gears in place. Thread the shifter then attach it to the arm with a spanner?

Bit of fiddling though and it's on.

Onwards to D8! (skipping the steps for assembling it in one speed)

The other side of the transmission case

Bearings in

D9 is the beefy motor mount, popping the bearing in place.

Time to bring it all together

In my jiggling to get the shifter on, I unseated a bearing. That meant the motor case wouldn't fit. Once resolved, it's all snug.

[jupitertwo 1484]

D11 secures the transmission case together. 4 to the motor plate and one between the two halves

 

D12 is all about covering the shifter hole. Not for us, so D13 instead

A rather tasty spur gear. Mod 1, so big teeth.

All attached, ready for the motor.

 

[jupitertwo 1484]

For the motor I've gone with a  Hobbywing Xerun Axe550. 3300kv. I miiiiight have got too much power here, but we'll see.

D14 attachs the motor, D15 the pinion.

The manual thinks this is a 32dp pinion, which is incorrect

In anticipation of too much speed I've ordered some smaller pinions from the good folks at RCBearings.

[jupitertwo 1484]

D16 - time to cover up that rude spur

 

 

[jupitertwo 1484]

D17. Shifter arm. I chose to mount the upright first, then to the pin. Not sure if this was best, as it was fiddly to get the mount on.

[jupitertwo 1484]

This is wear our tale takes an unfortunate turn.

The shifting servo.

After using PowerHD micro servos on an SCX10 III and them not fitting ideally, plus having to source the servo saver mount, I thought I'd do the simpler thing of buying their recommended servo.

Sure enough, in nicely, all lined up correctly.

D19 parts ready, oh, hang on, I've not centred the servo.

Sadly, this photo is the one I've provided in my return form on eBay. DOA servo, not a squeak from it. Tested in two receivers and in multiple ports.

New one ordered, at the pace I'm building it hopefully shouldn't block anything.