savage 3 speed utter junk!!!

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savageboi

Well-Known Member
Messages
210
hey. once again my tranny went AGAIN!! only the 5th time now and its getting old not to mention expensive.

what am i doing that could be breaking it all the time?

i replace the idler gear and drive gear yesterday and to day they were destroyed! my slipper isnt too tight, iv shimmed it to remove the play in it (i made sure the shims were not too tight) i don't know what to do.

I'm going to phone HPI tomorrow and say that I'm not happy with the product!

what else can i do???


oh and to top it off the pin that holds the clutch to the shaft has rounded off! any ideas how to get that out so i can once again rebuild the piece of #@?!

thanks for any help, advise and or guidance.

a very angry and upset brad. :cry:
 
are you brushless or nitro? Might just be too much power for a 3 speed setup if your brushless, or 2 speed for that matter. Most brushless setups have a center diff for that reason (too much power). I'm also a bit confused when you say the pin that holds the clutch on the shaft has rounded off? do you have any pictures?
 
I'm nitro my friend. no, no pics at the mo. il try get some up.

if you take the tranny out to remove some of the gears you have to remove a grub screw then under the grub ther0se another screw with a pin, thats the one thats rounded off. hope that makes more sense. probably not lol.
 
did you get all the metal shavings out when you last destroyed it? if you didnt they will cause binding. I have only ruined 1 gear in my 2 speed once. some guys would disagree with me but I don't see a reason you need to shim your trans. there are not ring/pinion gear type setups inside there, they are all gear on gear and a little side to side play is ok on them. they don't touch other gears in the different sets inside. I think you should keep your trans as stock without shims. call me wrong but at this point what do you have to lose?
 
if you take the tranny out to remove some of the gears you have to remove a grub screw then under the grub ther0se another screw with a pin, thats the one thats rounded off. hope that makes more sense. probably not lol.

it sounds to me like your describing the grub screws that adj the shift point
 
I'm nitro my friend. no, no pics at the mo. il try get some up.

if you take the tranny out to remove some of the gears you have to remove a grub screw then under the grub ther0se another screw with a pin, thats the one thats rounded off. hope that makes more sense. probably not lol.

I know yhe pin youre talking about. Its the pin that locks the gear on the shaft. It has a grub screw with locktite bihind it to help prevent backing out. You can try an eze out, or may have to just drill it out.
 
it sounds to me like your describing the grub screws that adj the shift point
its the one next to that screw frddy.

did you get all the metal shavings out when you last destroyed it? if you didnt they will cause binding. I have only ruined 1 gear in my 2 speed once. some guys would disagree with me but I don't see a reason you need to shim your trans. there are not ring/pinion gear type setups inside there, they are all gear on gear and a little side to side play is ok on them. they don't touch other gears in the different sets inside. I think you should keep your trans as stock without shims. call me wrong but at this point what do you have to lose?

and that is a very good point maybe after each demolition of the tranny i didnt clean it out good enough.

this is its last chance. I'm going to completely strip the whole thing down clean and rebuild after that if it goes again il have to put the two speed back in and see how it goes from there.

now i just need to get this screw out! i tried to drill it out tonight but all my small drill nits snapped!!:cussing: il have to try again tomorrow after work.:cussing:
 
if it is just a pin that slides in I would get a punch and bang it out. wrap the shaft in a cloth keeping the pin and hole exposed obviously and put it in a vice. bang out the pin.
 
an eze out?? sorry come again?!

An eze out is basically a tapered, reversed drill bit. They give you a specific size hole to drill in the screw head. Then you use the eze out in the drill on reverse and it will bite in the screw, while the bit is going in reverse, and will back it out.
 
no offense triple six but thats not gonna work on that pin. its too small and those eze outs don't do much if you don't have some sort of head on what your taking out. even though you drill down they still don't work
 
oh ok. I'm not sure that id be able to do that now because iv started drilling it. thanks for the info tho trip6.
 
a left handed drill bit works like a charm, same as an easy-out, it will grab and turn the bolt. use a very low speed ;)
 
Il shoot down the hardware store after work that's frddy!
 
Right Update! Drill bit snapped in there so now I'm well and truly screwed. really don't know what to do. may be il have to bite the bullet and buy a new tranny.:Nolol::stressed:
 
I broke about 3-4 3 speed this year, i just went on ebay and got a 2 speed. Its way beefier to comparison with the 3 speed, idle gears are twice as thick. I love it, havnt broke yet.
 
Strange. Mine is about 15 years old, has an STS .30 driving through it and works fine. Never missed a beat.
 
Same here fitted my 3 speed conversion when it first came out & never had anything break, I’am just trying to work out adjustment & tune on my new engine so I can clearly here gear changes! ??
 
Same here fitted my 3 speed conversion when it first came out & never had anything break, I’am just trying to work out adjustment & tune on my new engine so I can clearly here gear changes! ??

You only really hear the changes if you allow the truck to build speed gradually. Otherwise, the gear changes happen in such quick succession, they're very hard to hear over the scream of the engine! ?

I spent a few minutes setting the change points after I first put it together, then hit the track with it. One of the best upgrades you can get for the Savage IMO.

Mine is actually 16 years old. IMG_20200423_165749.jpg
IMG_20200423_165558.jpg
 
Yes totally agree you can usually only hear when rpm is lower, that’s when I heard for the first time in years when my son was having ago & only giving it half throttle, so was now trying to set it up so they change a lot later in rpm band! ??
 
Same here fitted my 3 speed conversion when it first came out & never had anything break, I’am just trying to work out adjustment & tune on my new engine so I can clearly here gear changes! ??
You only really hear the changes if you allow the truck to build speed gradually. Otherwise, the gear changes happen in such quick succession, they're very hard to hear over the scream of the engine! ?

I spent a few minutes setting the change points after I first put it together, then hit the track with it. One of the best upgrades you can get for the Savage IMO.

Mine is actually 16 years old.
Yes totally agree you can usually only hear when rpm is lower, that’s when I heard for the first time in years when my son was having ago & only giving it half throttle, so was now trying to set it up so they change a lot later in rpm band! ??


You can either watch the whole clip or just skip to about the 5 min mark and clearly hear both shifts. Been chasing a tune most of the day (north fl weather is all over the place). I "locked out" 3rd so it wouldn't shift and worked on the 1-2 shift til it was set, then started on 2-3 shift. Took days to get them both set. Luckily, the 2-3 shift can be adjusted through the hole in the trans case.
 

You can either watch the whole clip or just skip to about the 5 min mark and clearly hear both shifts. Been chasing a tune most of the day (north fl weather is all over the place). I "locked out" 3rd so it wouldn't shift and worked on the 1-2 shift til it was set, then started on 2-3 shift. Took days to get them both set. Luckily, the 2-3 shift can be adjusted through the hole in the trans case.

Your change points are set pretty late. That said, it's pretty cool to hear car linger in each gear and reach peak revs before changing. ?

With mine, I had to set them so that the Savage was hitting top speed by the end of the longest straight for any given track. My STS engine has a lot of torque and will be in 3rd within 3 seconds if I'm giving it full bore, even on 19/47 gearing! ?
 
Almost that whole night of runnin the truck, it was runnin rich. As the temp went down when it got later towards nighttime, it started to lean out more. That's the one thing that sux about runnin nitro in northeast fl, temp and humidity can change drastically in a a matter of minutes.
 
Almost that whole night of runnin the truck, it was runnin rich. As the temp went down when it got later towards nighttime, it started to lean out more. That's the one thing that sux about runnin nitro in northeast fl, temp and humidity can change drastically in a a matter of minutes.

Here in the UK, for 6 months of the year, it's cold & damp with occasional sub zero, which isn't great for the successful running of nitro engines. That said, the half tank leaning issue that Savage owners had to contend with is much less of an issue if you run a low CoG set of TVP's - that inch lower engine position effectively raises the tank, relatively speaking. ?
 
Anyone know where I could find a 3 speed for my Savage? I broke mine a couple years ago and when I went to buy one I found out the news about HPI and was in utter shock. I'd even be find with a 2 speed if that's all I could get.
 

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