Noob with a hpi savage flux

[mutton]

Hi guys, I like your forum!

I received my flux last night, waiting on the batteries. Looks like they will be delivered tomorrow, but I'll be out of town and unable to sign for them, so it'll be monday before I get them.

I've never had an RC car, I've been playing with planes and then helis for the last year or so. I didn't think I'd like a car, but my father bought a Slash and let me borrow it.... it's a lot more fun than I thought. finding that I can't keep myself from trying to jump it off anything/everything, aft er 2 weeks of reading I decided I should get a Flux.

Anyways, it looks like my right front shock is leaking. Pretty good size wet spot in the box, and while all the shocks are a little wet, that corner is drenched and makes noise when I compress it.

I think I'll email HPI about it, but should I just go ahead and order some oil?
I was hoping to drive it a bit and break it before I started learning to work on it, but since that's not going to happen, should I use anything other than stock oil weight? I don't know anything about working on this, but I think everything I may need was included in the spare parts bag minus the oil.

I'll mainly be driving it on the grass in the yard, and my field behind me that I've been mowing for a landing strip. It's fairly bumpy. Also there is a gravel pit across the road from me I've never paid much attention too.... until I got interested in this thing.... now it calls to me...

Just destroyed my plane this morning... it's going to be a boring weekend waiting on parts

Thanks,
mutton

 

[Shaun]

ya the shock oil they put in it is crap,go with a silicone shock fluid this way it never looses its consistency,"when its hot it doesnt thin out and isnt stiff when cold" the stuff thats in them stock is just machine oil and equals to about 20 wt oil as hpi states and thats to low anyway i think as to what weight fluid for a flux I'm not sure,on my savage x I'm running 35 wt silicone shock fluid and its just right for me but its not a flux lol and I'm not sure why it would be leaking right out of the box,hopefully someone here has a little more incite into this for you anyway just wanted to welcome you to the forum........

 

[frddyj]

welcome Mutton, its your forum too and welcome to it!

hpisfgreen

 

[mutton]

Thanks guys.

I'm going to order some 30 and 40 weight I think. Anything else I should add to the cart? I was thinking about pinnion and spur gears as I've read plenty about needing them, but am unsure if most of what I have read is for an older version of the truck and has been fixed by new hardened gears or not.

 

[AllanQ]

Welcome to the forum!! HPI has great customer service and will take care of you. Post up some pics to our gallery when you get that flux running.

 

[Larsenracing]

Welcome aboard. we are great to have ya. Take a look at the some of the builds of the FLUX's to get a few great ideas.

I filled mine with 30wt Team Losi Silicone oil but wish I had went to 35wt. So I would recommend getting that and replacing all of the oil in then.

The pinion and spur will hold up for a little while and get you going. Yes, your diff should have the Bulletproof diffs to solve many issues.

You may want to check if they are shimmed properly which there are some how to's on the forum somewhere to help with this.

What battery's are you going to run? If your going 2S LiPos you should be fine on the stock settings but if your going 3S set you will want the castle link software to get into the ESC. It's also good to get the voltage cut off to 3.1V or 3.2V/cell to be on the safe side if you stay in the auto-LiPo setting.

 

[mutton]

Awesome thanks for the quick replies guys, I'm going to order some 35wt oil and 75075 silicone o-rings as I don't remember seeing them in the spares kit. Hopefully they get here Monday when I get the batteries. I'm sure HPI will take care of me from all I've read, but this is how hobbies go for me so I've learned to just fix it and move on. Plane shows up with burnt electronics, heli parts never show after months of waiting, etc, etc, etc.

I ordered batteries before the truck actually. I wasn't quite prepared to drop the $ yet, and knowing I was going to get them from HK they would take longer to ship. Of course then the CC statement showed up letting me know I'd have a month to pay.... so I bought the truck.
Then I read about delays in shipping from HK and mine hadn't shipped after 5 days, so I panicked and ordered another set from MyAtomic last weekend, which have yet to ship....
good news is the HK order is in the states now!

So I have on the way
2x #T5000.2S.40/10305 Turnigy 5000mAh 2S 40C LiPo Pack variations = $60.22
2x #T5000.3S.40/10306 Turnigy 5000mAh 3S 40C LiPo Pack variations = $91.56

and eventually
Sport-Max 7.4V 6000mAh 28C Case LiPo, Deans (SUM6028LD)

I'm not really sure I'll need to go to 2x3s, but I thought I would order a set. I can't have the box sitting there telling me it can do it, and not be able to try it right?

I do have the Castle Link software, really neat stuff, and fast to change too.


thanks again, I'll try and get pics and maybe a vid of my first few runs. Being new they should be pretty entertaining I think.

 

[mutton]

Thought I would update.

I thought I knew how to solder pretty well... took me over 2 hours to get the deans on my first two batteries 12 gau... not sure, but i think that was worse than putting the 10 gau into EC3 pins for my planes, though I had a lot of trouble with those as well. I decided not to do the 3s ones, it was such a pain, and I probably don't need the extra power yet.

I did receive the SMC batteries, they're nice. Seem to run a bit hotter than my turnigys, but not bad, might have been what I was doing with them. I think I will move to only hard-shell batts when I can, just for piece of mind.

I went ahead and ran it quite a bit so far on the bad shock, still waiting on oil for that. Used to be I could order parts for things and have them here in a couple days, seems like every place takes almost a week anymore no matter where I order. I think I'll order the big bores as suggested here eventually.

This thing is a ton of fun! way better handling on my bumpy lawn and field than my fathers slash, it just sticks to the ground...mostly. I let him run it and he nailed a fence post breaking an A-arm, no big deal it snapped right back where it should be and is holding fine while the replacement is on the way. I find myself saying I shouldn't bash it due to it not being in top shape quite a bit, followed by going through with whatever popped into my head anyways... I can't really stop myself...need to build a up a spare parts/tool set for this thing, I'm getting there.

 

[J1A1H]

i heard those turnigy wires require a very hot soldering gun, plus deans are quite fiddly to work with... I just changed everything to bullets as they can handle more amps more effciently....

A arms are meant to break... i brake them all the time. Cheap to replace, quick to replace... and i prefer them braking than anything else... like the Bulks or hubs...

Get those 3s batts done soon... and tell us what you think

 

[frddyj]

.

This thing is a ton of fun!

no doubt my friend!

 

[gofastturnleft]

Great choice for your first R/C car! $10 says your dad will be ordering one shortly!

 

[mutton]

I got it over to the gravel pit across the road and ran a set of batteries through. Really hard to keep it going straight there, but I got a few decent jumps in. Pit is just a big bowl, with edges vary from ~3' to around 7' or so. I did get the shocks all fixed up with 35wt and no leaks. The springs seem to bounce off the bottom caps they rest on a little more often. Before just the leaky one would do that.

I decided I would put ends on the 3s batteries and try them out. Got about 2 minutes out of it before it sheared all the teeth off one side of the 18-23 drive gear, and 3 teeth off the 44t idle gear I think my slipper was too tight? Lesson learned I guess.

Took me a very long time to get the bottom gearbox out. I kept thinking there had to be a way to get it out, but ended up having to take everything around it plus both differentials to get the dog bones to let up, along with splitting the box itself in half to get it out of there...

The Idler Gear 29t and Drive Gear 32T looked fine at first, but looking close they look cracked to me on one side. Is this a seam from casting? I see what looks like meandering cracks on each spoke on one side of both gears. Are the lightweight replacements stronger?

Took me around three hours to get everything apart. I'm pretty lazy for this kind of thing... but I've got a pretty good setup now where I can work on everything while in my normal recliner in front of the Tv and computer So I think I'll stick with it. Plus the manual is really good.

I'll post some pics of the pit, my truck, and my work area in the gallery some time this week. I took the whole week off for the hell of it, now its too crappy outside to fly and my truck is broke lol.

Great forum, I donated to the fundraiser just to support it, don't really care about the prize.


-- Oh, and TCS Crawlers is the absolute best. 2-3 days to my house, I would buy there even if the prices weren't great. Waiting 11 days now on the A-Arms to fix my first breakage from another retailer.

 

[FluxPower]

Welcome Mutton, just a heads up, your rear hub carrier will snap often at the tie rod joint, I snap mine 3 times within 2 weeks period. Get this instead Integy Silver Rear Hub Carrier.