shadycuz
Member
- Messages
- 7
Am I too old to own my first savage? Is it too late to convert it? Never. 
I haven't run 1/8 scale in a while, which is kinda funny because that is where I started. I then moved to 1/10 and then 1/16. The cars are cheaper, the parts are cheaper and I find I can run them in more spaces.
That was on the east coast though. I moved out west to Las Vegas and this desert beats my little 1/16ths to death. They bounce around like pinballs. I started looking around on ebay and craigslist for something bigger. Now to be honest I'm a truggy guy. I own a 1/16th Revo and 1/16th LOSI mini eight-t. I'm also a cheap-o, so I was looking for something old and beat up that I could get for cheap and fix up.
On June 16th I found some rollers on craigslist and for $100 I owned an HPIMoney Pit Savage 21.
Now I did not buy this lot for the Savage. I actually bought it for the buggy. The ad only showed the one roller with motor, the extra chassis was thrown in on the spot. I had already done my research and I knew they made a XT2 Nitro and XT2-E brushless. I also knew the brushless motor mount bolted straight up to that nitro center diff. Converting the buggy was going to be cheap and simple.
I didn't have any plans for the Savage. If it wasn't for the only XT2-E motor mount I could find online being on the other side of the world... and the shipping being 30+ days... and my best friend who did this conversion 6 years ago telling me how easy it is and how many parts there is... You might not be reading this and I might have 400 more dollars in my checking account.
But you are reading this... and I could have bought a working flux for what I put into this conversion so far... so let us get into it already?
The first thing I did was disassemble, clean and oil everything. I'm hoping I can make $60 bucks off the nitro stuff from all the vehicles, but probably not. ^
I first noticed that this thing was missing about half its screws, kinds like its new owner. I didn't really know how to convert this thing. I knew it wouldn't be as simple as the buggies. My friend insisted I buy a Kershaw kit like he did... that's when the trouble started. I couldn't find a motor mount for this thing. Not new, not used. Nothing. I started to panic, which is odd now that I think about it, because it was just a $30 dollar roller. I could have cleaned it and sold it on ebay for double that. But I had already gotten this idea in my head that I would have a brushless Savage.
I also wanted to use this guide... to bad I didn't read the last page.
So I looked for like an hour a day for the next day or two and out of nowhere someone posted an early Kershaw kit. Motor mount and battery boxes used ( Like this one ). Without thinking about if I should... I bought and then I bought some more...
Next thing I know my table looks like this. ^
The first thing I started to do is rebuild that transmission with hardened gears. That is where we hit our next roadblock. My transmission has the reverse module and I'm currently waiting on the shaft to "delete it". Also my transmission is not the same as in that guide. So that idler shaft doesn't fit my case. I got it to work but with some modifications. It's late and I didn't take pictures of the transmission. When I remove the reverse module I will take some pictures of the finished transmission and of the modification needed. The ETA on the parts is July 1st at the earliest.
Today while I had time I removed the LFT shafts on the one side of the vehicle and switched them with right-hand threaded ones. I then removed the bearings for all hubs and gave them a nice cleaning and oiling. Then I reassembled with 17mm hexes off of a flux. Looking back now I wish I had bought adapters with a bit of extension (5 or 5mm), but I had thought I was going to run a wide offset wheel. Turns out it can be a challenge to get the wheel and tire combo you want.
I haven't run 1/8 scale in a while, which is kinda funny because that is where I started. I then moved to 1/10 and then 1/16. The cars are cheaper, the parts are cheaper and I find I can run them in more spaces.
That was on the east coast though. I moved out west to Las Vegas and this desert beats my little 1/16ths to death. They bounce around like pinballs. I started looking around on ebay and craigslist for something bigger. Now to be honest I'm a truggy guy. I own a 1/16th Revo and 1/16th LOSI mini eight-t. I'm also a cheap-o
, so I was looking for something old and beat up that I could get for cheap and fix up.On June 16th I found some rollers on craigslist and for $100 I owned an HPI
Now I did not buy this lot for the Savage. I actually bought it for the buggy. The ad only showed the one roller with motor, the extra chassis was thrown in on the spot. I had already done my research and I knew they made a XT2 Nitro and XT2-E brushless. I also knew the brushless motor mount bolted straight up to that nitro center diff. Converting the buggy was going to be cheap and simple.
I didn't have any plans for the Savage. If it wasn't for the only XT2-E motor mount I could find online being on the other side of the world... and the shipping being 30+ days... and my best friend who did this conversion 6 years ago telling me how easy it is and how many parts there is... You might not be reading this and I might have 400 more dollars in my checking account.
But you are reading this... and I could have bought a working flux for what I put into this conversion so far
... so let us get into it already?The first thing I did was disassemble, clean and oil everything. I'm hoping I can make $60 bucks off the nitro stuff from all the vehicles, but probably not. ^
I first noticed that this thing was missing about half its screws, kinds like its new owner. I didn't really know how to convert this thing. I knew it wouldn't be as simple as the buggies. My friend insisted I buy a Kershaw kit like he did... that's when the trouble started. I couldn't find a motor mount for this thing. Not new, not used. Nothing. I started to panic, which is odd now that I think about it, because it was just a $30 dollar roller. I could have cleaned it and sold it on ebay for double that. But I had already gotten this idea in my head that I would have a brushless Savage.
I also wanted to use this guide... to bad I didn't read the last page.
So I looked for like an hour a day for the next day or two and out of nowhere someone posted an early Kershaw kit. Motor mount and battery boxes used ( Like this one ). Without thinking about if I should... I bought and then I bought some more...
Next thing I know my table looks like this. ^
The first thing I started to do is rebuild that transmission with hardened gears. That is where we hit our next roadblock. My transmission has the reverse module and I'm currently waiting on the shaft to "delete it". Also my transmission is not the same as in that guide. So that idler shaft doesn't fit my case. I got it to work but with some modifications. It's late and I didn't take pictures of the transmission. When I remove the reverse module I will take some pictures of the finished transmission and of the modification needed. The ETA on the parts is July 1st at the earliest.
Today while I had time I removed the LFT shafts on the one side of the vehicle and switched them with right-hand threaded ones. I then removed the bearings for all hubs and gave them a nice cleaning and oiling. Then I reassembled with 17mm hexes off of a flux. Looking back now I wish I had bought adapters with a bit of extension (5 or 5mm), but I had thought I was going to run a wide offset wheel. Turns out it can be a challenge to get the wheel and tire combo you want.
