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bullhead69 wrote:

... The chassis has two broken motor brackets. I thought I'd have a go at making one by hand. One done one left to do. See what you think...
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I think they all do that, but that looks like a pretty tough fix

Yep, nice work. Looks solid.

bullhead69 wrote:

Fantastic! V much a fan of fix-it-yourself! Nice job too!

Cheers, I do try and fix things myself. It saves money (though not time) and is more satisfying.

Uncharacteristically I've managed to get on and do the other side. Here's the finished articles, not pretty but should do the job. They are chunkier that I'd intended, I was after 2mm ally to do the job and found some 3mm angle that seemed right so I used that.

Looks good to me.
I take it you already know that B+Q stores usually have a section with useful aluminium/brass/steel round/square/solid/hollow/angle/tees etc in a variety of sizes/thicknesses? Prices seem more or less the going rate too, so you're not just restricted to special model shops & Ebay etc.
Gathering old roadsigns used to be my material source of 2-3mm ally, but the monkies make them out of steel nowadays, except ice cream signs, but you're unlikely to walk off with one of these in the height of summer....

The speed control plate thingy for my Wild Willy was actually made from aluminium pipe cladding, left over from an industrial trace-heating job

Well the parts arrived and I even managed to find time to put them all on. The changes are; 4600mAh vapextech battery, mtroniks rv11 ESC and two silver can motors. No one part on it's own seemed to make a big difference but I happy with the combined result. It now goes forward at a very reasonable rate for a big lump. It's still very slow to start in reverse but gets up to speed after a while. It's much more fun to drive than it was.

Overall I'm happy with the changes and thanks to all that have given their time and advice.

Of course I have another (inevitable) question - the steering! I quite understand that you only steer as it's moving (just like a real car) but it seems to steer far more from the rear than the front and that doesn't seem right, or is that normal? I did get a 'high torque' servo from the same place as I got the silver cans from and intend to try it out at some point, though that's not a job for today.

bullhead69 wrote:

...it seems to steer far more from the rear than the front and that doesn't seem right, or is that normal? I did get a 'high torque' servo from the same place as I got the silver cans from and intend to try it out at some point, though that's not a job for today.

I don't know if it's "right", but I think it's pretty normal - my Clod certainly does it. You can get the front wheels to turn a bit if you let off the power

Yeah mine used to do that too. You can make it a bit better by moving the rear linkage on the steering arm(s)/horn(s) to a position further from centre for the front & less from centre for the rear, but the main problem is the huge amount of slop in all the steering linkages & the soft/twisty/weak suspension linkages - the oversteer at the rear is akin to what you get steering a normal car in reverse.

There are kits out there for mounting steering servos directly on the axles, which sorts the steering out. Not so much nowadays, but there also used to be a lot or crawler-esk 5-link suspension/chassis mods available too. To be honest though, with anything like that, you'd probably be better off looking at pics & doing your own version of it, as any of these type of mods usually have a high price tag to buy as a proper kit.

Glad to hear the truck's a bit more lively now!
The "Slow pickup in reverse" thing is ESC related (I can say that now you're not running tuned/timed motors)- the FETs in them are never rated as high for reverse as forward. I noticed the same problem using ESCs over MSCs - all of a sudden I didn't have the power to back out of the bushes, or rather there was less beans available to get it out compared to what put it there in the first place!

I've now fitted the higher torque servo and it turns the wheels quicker, i.e better response. I tried choosing a hole further out on the servo arm but it didn't make too much difference. I may be able to go slightly further out and try that but it'll be another night now. The more I drive it the more I'm getting used to it's quirky steering and perhaps that just part of it. A bit like the lunchbox steering much better one way than the other (sorry did I actually use the word better? ). I probably won't go too much further with this vehicle and go back to tweeking the others. I must also note that in all the testign I'm still on the first charge of that new battery. I'm impressed with them...

I'd have a go at fiddling around with the servo horn, even though it looks quite specific.
But it is the most direct way of influencing front and rear steering angles...