Performance steering kit

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olds97_lss

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Dekalb, IL 60115
Anyone else have this conversion/"upgrade"? Curious if you changed it back to stock after wearing out ball joints and snapping off bolts.

My flux came with the kit and without any of the original parts. I have bought the original upper arms, hinge pins, hinge pin plates, but I'm not sure if I can use the axle carriers/c-hubs that come in the kit with the stock upper arms. My upper ball joints have a retarded amount of slop in them and it seems every other run, I snap off a 3mm bolt holding them on anyway, then I lose the fiddly aluminum spaces they have as well and have to stack up 10 washers to make up the difference.
 
I'm not sure what the upgrade is that your referring to.. but I was having a crazy amount of slop from all the ball joints and steering linkage on the $100 basket case I just rebuilt. Then I found a stripped stock servo in there to top it off. I ordered a new steering/servo saver setup with all the tie rods and ball ends included for the whole truck. It was $20 but on flea-bay. Then I put a Savox 1256tg servo in and it whips those trencher Xs around no problem.
 
Sorry, it wasn't "steering" specific, but rather a suspension conversion kit:
http://www.hpiracing.com/en/part/87245

The guy that had my flux must have installed this kit and removed all the anodizing so everything is silver. Unless you take the hubs apart, you can see in the bearing recess where it's purple still.

I have a lot of slop in the upper a-arm turnbuckle ends. It has a ball end on both ends of a 4mm turnbuckle (I think it's 4mm) and at the chassis side, it uses a 3mm bolt for the ball end, which is very weak since it's not a captured bolt like it is out by the wheel and they tend to bend and snap off. That combined with excessive slop in the ball ends makes for a lot of slop in general.

I bought the parts to replace the upper arms with stock arms, but I'm not sure if they are the right length to work with the conversion kits c-hubs. Guess I can go through the hassle and find out.
 
Oh yea got it.. looks like nice stuff, but my experience with aluminum suspension parts is that with heavy bashing they always wear at the pivot points and end up sloppy. The holes that act as pivots get progressively ovalized and seem to lose material faster than plastic parts do. I love the look and stiffness when the parts are new, but always feel let down when the truck ends up clicking and sloppy a few months down the road. For offroad r/cs, if the stock stuff isn't good enough, and RPM doesn't make parts, its not a good basher.
 
I guess I skimmed over the part where you said its the ball ends causing the slop.. that should be a pretty easy fix, I don't know if the stock upper arms will fit with those billet bearing carriers though. Looks like they're made to work with ball end rods.
 
I guess I skimmed over the part where you said its the ball ends causing the slop.. that should be a pretty easy fix, I don't know if the stock upper arms will fit with those billet bearing carriers though. Looks like they're made to work with ball end rods.
Yeah. Kind of what I thought too. I didn't look to see how they would fit in the upright, just held them up to compare for length. They look like they would fit length wise. Guess the only way to be sure is to try it.

Worse case, I replace the front hups/carriers with stock and get integy ones for the rear like my SavageX. At least then I can get rid of the tiny 3mm bolts I keep bending/breaking on the inside mounts.
 
i always ran the aluminum c hubs and uprights from hpi with older 25 arms as they are stronger than x type and will fit each corner instead of x type only 2 corners. then run bulkhead braces. mine are bashcatrc ones as i'm the maker of those and they are the strongest ones out there. with this set up the truck is strong and will only break the arms when hit hard. as for steering, tho a tiny bit more sloppy i went back from bearings to the plastic bushings that are original and only upgrade is an ace servo and hd servo saver spring. upper arms are stock but i run adjustable upper arms instead of original steering tierods. i needed to make the truck as strong as possible as i jump houses with it and only run goliath tires witch are stupidly heavy.
 
Why not drill oit the ovaled out holes and sleeve them back down to the needed size with a brass sleeve? Or drill them out and use good quality us made larger bolts so they stop breaking? Try Mcmaster carr or grainger or Takoma screw for hardware. You buy a box of 100 and have a 10 year suppy.
 
Why not drill oit the ovaled out holes and sleeve them back down to the needed size with a brass sleeve? Or drill them out and use good quality us made larger bolts so they stop breaking? Try Mcmaster carr or grainger or Takoma screw for hardware. You buy a box of 100 and have a 10 year suppy.
I have a feeling that regardless what I do, snapping off bolts will be a permanent issue. Unless I can find 4mm ball ends that fir the upper arms. Most of my slop is from the ball ends being worn. To replace them, it's a $15+ parts tree. Then I'm still stuck using 3mm bolts.

I really need to get off my butt and just remove the parts and put the stock upper arms/pins/pin holds on it. Was going to do so many things this winter... just got my butt handed to my be work and when weekends roll around, half the time I'm logged into work, the other half, I'm a piece of furniture on one end of the couch when I'm not awake. I wanted to swap out the arms and install a lst shock conversion that I won on here or RCNT years ago.

op is lazy.
 
Cant drill out to 4mm bolts? I just cant picture this not having a fix that wont break the bank.
 
I probably could drill it out, however, drilling out the ball ends would be an issue. I don't know any off hand that are 4mm ID. Also, there's not much room in there for the stupid nut and you have to have the spacers or they rub on the shocks.

2018-0209-SavageFlux-UpperArmBallEndFront.jpg

2018-0209-SavageFlux-UpperArmBallEndBack.jpg

2018-0209-SavageFlux-UpperArmBallEndShockClearance.jpg
 
Yeah that ball end aint big enough to take the load and thus becomes a wear part. Just go back to the stock type arms. They make adjustable ones. I have a set on my x.
 
Yeah that ball end aint big enough to take the load and thus becomes a wear part. Just go back to the stock type arms. They make adjustable ones. I have a set on my x.
Yep. I just need to do it. I have all the parts, pins, pin retainers, stock upper/lower arms. My truck has RPM lower arms, so will try to keep those at least. Sucks because you have to take the stupid diffs/bulks off to get the alloy piece out. Then if the upper arms aren't the right dimensions for the carriers... I'll have to sort something out.
 
Well, I guess I answered that...

2018-0209-SavageFlux-SuspensionConversionCarriers-StockUppers-Fitment.jpg

2018-0209-SavageFlux-SuspensionConversionCarriers-StockUppersFront.jpg


Stock uppers are too long and he axle carriers are raked back further than they would like. So... now I go with stock carriers/hubs up front and integy in the rear, or try to find some adjustable HPI uppers and hope they work even with the carrier raked back a bit.

So, I get rid of one ball end at least on each corner and do away with the stupid 3mm bolt that snaps off. Hoping the adjustable arms allow to be short enough as I'm guessing they are designed to replace stock arms on a stock rig. Even if they do fit, I'm guessing the strain of the rake is going to cause issues... oh well, $15 shipped for the adjustable arms wasted if that's the case.

Off to ebay I go.
 
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Get the carriers. Those adjustables are stock replacement but adjustable for camber only.
 
Get the carriers. Those adjustables are stock replacement but adjustable for camber only.
Yeah, I know. I dug through my spare parts and I have a couple new sets of carriers/c-hubs as well as the ones from my X on the rear when I put the integy ones on it that didn't use turnbuckles. So, will probably install those for now and keep the adjustable upper arms I ordered as spares since I will no longer have spares.

I may try to fashion turnbuckle eliminators for the rear, but will have to wait until tomorrow. It's too late to start sawing on metal in my RC room... office.
 
Well, back to stock suspension:

2018-0211-SavageFlux-OEMSuspension01.jpg


These upper arms seems so flimsy. At least I have a set of the adjustable ones one the way for backup. Had to adjust the toe in quite a bit. Front end looked like a duck after getting it back together with stock parts.

Decided to go with some rear turnbuckle eliminators instead of getting the integy ones.

2018-0211-SavageFlux-OEMSuspension-XBuckleEliminator.jpg


Should probably get a few axle carriers on hand as I now no longer have backups. I hate not having backups.

I mentioned the stock upper arms being flimsy feeling... however, I can't recall every breaking one on my X and that thing has seen some serious abuse over the years. Wonder if the additional flex of my lower arms being RPM will exceed the limitations of the upper arms being HPI... guess I'll find out.
 
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