So at the beginning of the month I picked up a new Traxxas Summit for beating on in the woods and hill area's that I live in.
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Then that pesky upgrade itch kicked in and I installed a few minor upgrades:
Shock socks to help keep the dust and dirt out of the shock seals:
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I also put in the rear chassis brace to help stiffen it a little:
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While stiffening up the chassis is all well and good but what protects it? Well... Skid plates!
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I'm not willing to pay $120 for the aluminum center skid plate yet but it is on the list.
Had to do a little tweaking on the stainless steel front and rear skid plates to eliminate the gaps that became grass catchers but nothing a set of plyers couldn't handle.
I don't like servos that stick out the bottom and the only thing protecting them was a flexible plastic guard.
So I needed to fix that concern:
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Some aluminum servo guards were my go to for this one.
Next came the need for the GF to have one so we can run them out in the yard together with the dog. So I got her a Arrma Granite that you can see one of the body's for it in the next Pic. Well the white, red and orange body was just an eye sore so she ordered a blue body for it and is why the other body is in a bag on its box.
Then came the need for a GO box. In my early 20's I had a Plano tackle box that had a deep top compartment, 3 drawers and the bottom one was deep enough to allow me to keep the charger in it with battery's and soldering iron and a few other things in it and I looked high and low for another one and found one of FB market place but in New Jersey. I contacted the guy and offered to pay double asking cost and all expenses for shipping and he blew me off So I spent days running around looking at tackle boxes and tool boxes. Finally one day I said enough is enough and put the transmitter in my hoody's pouch and I set off looking for the perfect for me box. On my second trip to Harbor Freight my GF noticed this wood box with drawers and it locked. I'm still wondering why there is a mirror in the top but, Oh well. This box was 1lb. lighter than the Yukon tool box I was looking at and could fit more in it so... It came home with me. I also grabbed some tools that would fit in the box like a small multimeter, angle finder for setting camber, a rechargeable Pen flash light to stick in my mouth to see what I'm working on, a magnetic 4" tray, a small telescoping magnet to grab them small screws in tight places and a few other odds and ends. Check out this box:
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Now this wasn't enough I needed a flat out race speed demon to keep up with my friend with there gas powered cars So a Maxx Slash followed me home and I made the mistake of feeding it 2x 3 cell Lipo battery's. Now its here for good. This thing is impressive, I've yet to to hit top speed with it but it should do 60+mph when I have the room to get it up to that speed.
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OK now I needed to try and drive this thing so I charged up the battery's and went out to play in the driveway and yard. All went well for about half a battery pack and as I was coming in to the driveway the pinion gear set screw came loose. Mind you this is a fresh out of the box truck. Well I had no breaks and ended up clipping the corner of the dumpster. Here's the damage report:
1x broken front skid plate. 2 new sets have already been shipped. Currently held together with ca+ glue.
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Bent shock shaft. I thought all was good after gluing the skid plate but after cycling the suspension a few times and putting the body on I noticed the right front corner was lower than the left so after inspection here is the photographic evidence of why that side was sitting low.
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Now I'm positive that the spring should push that shock out with no weight on it but not so much with a bent shaft. Ordered up 4 shocks to change the color of them to green as I'll do green on the chassis and blue body, for now, but at $129 for a new unpainted body I'll hold off for a while on that one.
As you can see in the next set of pictures the body took a hard hit and it didn't help that I hit the dumpster right on the corner of it. There is a raised eye brow on the right side of the hood where the body got dented in. There is spot on the front where a crack is going to start because the body is gouged both on the inside and outside.
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SO now I am packing up and heading to the GF because like a brain dead old fart I forgot to change the shipping address for my shock order and 2 of them will be delivered to her house tomorrow instead of mine.
The go box and trucks are going with me so I can play while waiting on my new shocks so I can play with the new beast. The Maxx is down for now but I still have the Summit to beat on for a while. I was able to bind the 2 trucks to the same radio transmitter so that is one less thing to haul around.