Mad Crusher upgrading all rod ends to proper steel heim joints

[00:00:01]Finally got around to cleaning this thing, giving it a good inspection and some TLC. Uh, I've been running into a lot of problems lately with rod ends breaking. These are um LST rod ends, Losi Super Truck Rod rod ends, and they've worked pretty well, but now they're breaking all the time. I don't know if it's just a matter of age, and I don't just mean age on the truck like being worn out. I mean, like just the plastic being old and drying out over time because they used to seem stronger and now they seem like they're all glass. And another thing I have is I kind of fake double sheared them with mounts like this where I made these little funky S-shaped thingies that go in. And the thought process was if I had a hard nose dive or pogo stick landing, you know, it would press up against here and it would relieve some of the pressure off of that side. Except if I hit hard enough, it acts as a fulcrum on the inner fourlink bars and it could pull out, which these do nothing to help with. And then we run into a situation like this.

[00:01:11]So, what I'm doing now is I'm making these truly double shear by taking two sets of the plastic mounts like this and cutting them to shape. The problem is I don't have too much room to work with here because these hot racing housings have such wide pumpkins. There's just a sliver there. Uh, and I'm scared once I put a screw in there to, you know, keep it clocked and oriented right, there'll be such little material it could rip out. So, I need to shave these down even more to give myself more meat there. Um, here you could get a good view of all the extra bracing that I have on these to make them as tough as they need to be with aluminum and steel straps and everything like that. So, rather than taking this side apart to slide it out, I'm actually taking the whole housings off and putting them in this way.

[00:02:00]Here you can get a visual of what I'm doing. So, that should make it a true double shear setup. and toughen that up a lot. And then for the rod ends, I actually found um steel ones on Amazon, not aluminum, cuz the aluminum ones have never worked out for me. They always just get loose and get a whole bunch of slop and then the little brass fittings that are in them to hold the ball in place always pops out. So, I'm trying these heavy duty steel ones. I'll put a picture in to show what's coming and we'll see how that works.

[00:02:36]starting to make some headway. I have the front lower links done. I ordered 30 of these rod ends, which is enough for everything and some spares, but for whatever reason, 10 came today and the other 20 are coming on Sunday.

[00:02:48]Um, so hard part's done with fabricating these. Uh, my steering bell crank brace used to go to these screws, but now that's in the way, so I need to redo them.

[00:03:02]I'll have to do the same thing in the back. Um, these have enough angle. They don't bind or anything like that. They seem super solid. And I was really lucky. They're like maybe half a millimeter shorter than the other ones.

[00:03:14]So, I don't need to make new um rods for the links. I could just add in a little washer and they'll be the same length, which is totally cool. Doing the rear lowers now. Uh, when the rest come, I'll do the upper links. They won't require any modification or anything like that.

[00:03:31]That'll be basically a bolt-in replacement because the hard part was doing these and taking the housings apart and everything like that to get to them. Not sure yet if I'll use them for the steering just because it's extra weight that's not really needed when those don't take too much um abuse.

[00:03:45]These steering rods I'll definitely do it on in the front and rear cuz they take a lot of abuse cuz they're not, you know, helped by the servo saver. When you do a nose dive or a pogo stick landing, it's just everything compressing in on itself. Um I break them just as much as I break these guys.

[00:04:01]All right, all the lower foil links are done.

[00:04:05]Hard part with getting these all made and narrowed so that way they fit with the pumpkins. And I had to remake and reweld these because they used to go to those holes.

[00:04:18]But now that's in the way. So that's all done. When the rest of the links come, I'll do the upper four links and I will do the steering linkage on the axle.

[00:04:30]I'll leave these as is just because they're light and thin and work good and they don't take much impact with the servo saver.

[00:04:40]Well, finally have all the parts to finish the job. Long story short, I ordered three 10 packs of these on Amazon in the same order, just 10 packs, quantity of three. And for whatever reason, they went out in three separate shipments. The first shipment came like as expected, like in three days or really a day delayed. The second shipment came like after a week. The third shipment got lost in the mail and then I had to contact Amazon customer support and then they just replaced the order with another set which arrived yesterday, but work was too busy. Didn't get to it. So now it's time to put the uh remaining links in the axle side steering linkages. Uh, definitely not going to do the linkages going from the bell cranks to the servos because, well, like I said before, they don't really need it because they're protected by the servo saver. [clears throat] So, why add the extra weight when it's not needed? Um, yeah, I'll get them thrown in now and finally finish this.

[00:05:37]All right, got the front done. That took longer than I expected. I had to stick with M3 screws here. Um, just because there's not really enough meat on these knuckles to uh drill and tap to M4, which is fine because that's a good fuse. If something's going to break, that's a cheap easy thing to break. I went longer on the screws so that way when they do inevitably break, I could just twist it out or grab onto it from here with a pliers as opposed to messing with it and trying to extract it. Um, I actually in order to make that work, I used um these little things that come with servos that go between the rubber and the screw that holds the servo in.

[00:06:16]They're brass and they function as a good little shim to take up that slack with the M3 screw and the M4 hole. I also had to not sure if I could see it here.

[00:06:29]Make these spacers for room here on the bell crank so that way they don't bind up with each other. And then go with longer screws here and then jack that up so that way the longer screws aren't hitting here when everything turns. So, took some figuring out, but it's getting together.

[00:06:52]Getting there. Finally have the steering links installed. All the steering links.

[00:06:57]Boy, was it a wild endeavor getting here though. Um, a couple of these bolts were stripped, so I had to do hela coils.

[00:07:06]That was a fun little detour. Um, then speaking of these bolts, I used to have these braces here to keep the bell crank from flexing around going into this and this, but now I have this double shear setup and that's in the way. So, I had to cut and reweld and refinigle these things to mount here. Uh, yeah, they look ugly. They're on the bottom of the truck. They get beaten the crap out of all the time and they've just been, you know, kind of mangled over time, but they serve their purpose just fine. So, I had to do that in the front and the back. So, yeah, had those little detours. Uh, finally starting to wrap things up now. Looks like there's another side quest after all.

[00:07:58]My trick with uh this is you got to make sure you pickle them afterwards.

[00:08:05]Now uh rehardening it. And I use old motor oil for this because it has carbon in it, which is good for surface hardening, too.

[00:08:15]All right. Oh, it's straight now. Now I got to polish my shaft. That's a two-hand job. Giggity.

[00:08:22]I think that came out all right.

[00:08:24]Hopefully um the heating it and bending it and quenching it in oil didn't mess with the metal energy too much where it's not too brittle or too soft. I'm not exactly a metallergist, but uh should be good for the time being. I'll probably just end up ordering another set of these and using these as spare parts.

[00:08:41]Okay, I think I'm finally done with my last side quest. While looking at the shocks, I noticed the uh left rear the um bump stop was about to fall apart. I actually use um automotive vacuum tube for the bump stops, but they've been breaking still. They're not as strong as I had hoped. So, I might use automotive fuel line or maybe even automotive fuel injected fuel line with that like fabric woven into it. Maybe that'll be stronger. It doesn't need to be super soft, just not hard like metal, just something that dampens that final bottom out a touch and is strong enough to last.

[00:09:19]Finally, finally, finally, finally done for reals this time. Came out pretty good.

[00:09:30]All the links are in. Everything's double shear. Everything's clearanced.

[00:09:36]Everything fits.

[00:09:38]You know, normally with a um normally with like a durability mod like this, I wouldn't expect it to drive any different, but these links are so tight.

[00:09:51]Not like binding tight, but tight in regards to zero slop, zero play. I think the truck's probably going to drive a lot more precise. There is the only slop in the wheels is the bearings. And I did all the wheel bearings, too. There is zero zero slop in the steering.

[00:10:06]Hopefully they hold up and they stay that way. Not where they get all loose and sloppy after a couple of runs, but uh time will tell.