Rained out again

This’ll be a quick post because there was no racing this weekend. A few of us showed up at the track regardless, Mike F., Mike M., Scott, Tadd and myself. Later on Ryan and Mike B. showed up for a bit and Ryan ran his new Losi Strike in a couple spots. Most of the track was being worked on by us, so a lot of it was dug up or loose dirt. I’ll leave the real surprises for everyone to see Saturday, or earlier if anyone runs by. I will say the adjustments we made are fun, and the track seems a bit faster now too

I took a few laps around the track, even though it was pretty muddy. I had fun with the changes and hopefully I’ll master the track quick. I stopped running due to a nice grinding sound from the truck. At first I thought it was the front left wheel, but after I got close to it, I thought it was in the center drive shaft. When I tore down the truck to get to the diffs, I was unable to find anything, rocks, chunks of mud, etc… So I am hoping it’s just the nasty build up I am finding on the bearings on the diffs. The bearings had a nasty gunk built up on them, especially the rear. One side of the rear looks and feels like grease from the diff may have squeezed out, but it’s tough to tell when everything is black and gritty from mud. Tomorrow I’m hitting the store for some oil and grease, and hopefully two diff rebuild kits so I can replace the rings on the diff.

I also changed the caster on the front wheels, thanks to Mike B. for another suggestion, and after some reading from the Slayden article on tuning the Revo 3.3, I moved the hollow balls on the toe links as well. Just from playing around a bit with the axle carriers, I noticed a huge reduction in the bump steer. That’s always a good thing, especially when the track is so bumpy.

That’s about it for now. Once I get the truck rebuilt I’ll post something I am sure, maybe with some pics of the steps I took or something. I also ran across some video on the Horizon Hobby site from their 2009 Horizon Shootuout. I watched the whole thing and I really am impressed with that track. It looks massive, and like a real blast to drive. I also noticed the track looks like it’s solid as rock. It would be nice to try out some racing on that kind of track, not sure what it is, but I really like the bumps and ruts on our off road track. It seems more like a real off road race that way. It also adds a nice challenge when you have to account for the constantly changing track conditions. I’m also still trying to figure out what to choose for a 1/10 Buggy for next year. I am back to having the XXX-4 G+ at the top of the list (I really want to try out a belt driven setup). I also found the Schumacher Cat SX, but that’s a bit pricey and kind of overkill for someone who is still new to the hobby, and not racing pro. I don’t know of any other belt driven buggies out now, with the exception of the XX-4, but that’s harder to find, and similar to the XXX-4 obviously. I am finding no shortage of 1/10 Buggies, I guess I just need to pick one, order it, and go with it.