Dampers and Shocks Maintenance for On-Road RC Car VBC Wildfire D06

Today I am going to share some experience of Dampers and Shocks Maintenance for RC cars.
Now, as always, Pics up first.

Let's take all 4 dampers/Shock Absorbers out from car kit.
Before maintain the damper and shocks, let's check the swing arm first.

Lift both front and rear arms up side by side, verify if other side can lift up freely as well.
If not, you probably got something blocking the arm from moving. you have to check suspension blocks, pivot cups, arm pins to find out if anything broken. Re-lubricate them if needed.
If the Arm cannot swing freely, it will provide negative effect to the function of Shock/Dampers and Anti-roll bars, so do the weight balance and weight transfer.
Now, if everything going alright, let's deal with this damping systems.

We need to clean up the surface of all 4 shock/dampers with brush.

After clean up, we have to squeeze the shock-damper to verify if it needs rebuild.
Put your ear close, if you hear bubble or friction sound when squeezing the shock. You are more than likely have to rebuild the shock.

Now, let's take the shock damper apart:
First of all, release the spring by remove the down stopper cap.

If you got a chance, you can also test the re-bound situation of damper as well.
squeeze to the very end then release, see if it can rebound back to pre-load distance. e.g. 10%,50% or 100%.
Well, if you set it up as 0% rebound, you don't have to do this test.

OK, now twist the top shock cap and open it. For the damper fail to rebound to preset value or got friction sound when squeezing, you will probably found the shock oil get dark and some load of bubbles inside. This is because the damper is no longer sealed and you definitely need to have it rebuild.

Pour out the oil inside, use shock shaft clamp to hold he shock shaft. Twist the shock end to release itself.
Be careful to not damage or scratch the shock shaft.

After you take the bottom shock end out, you have to push the shock shaft in from bottom and take it out from upper side.

After that, take the bottom sealer Alum cap apart, take out the shaft guide and O-Ring, clean the dust if needed. Verify if there is any wear out part, If O-Ring is deform, replace it.
Then we put the O-Ring into a small bottle of silicone shock oil.
You don't have to take piston apart unless you have to replace with another type or it is damaged (highly unlikely). But you do have to verify if the shock shaft is bent. Replace if needed.
Now, let's carry on the rebuild process, as always, we recommend green slime from AE to seal the damper with best result.

Before you put the Shaft Guide into the bottom of damper, apply a dip of green slime to the inside.

After put the Shaft Guide in, we put the re-lubricated O-Ring back.

Apply a little bit of Green Slime onto the inside of O-Ring as below.

Befrore cover the O-Ring with Shaft Cap, apply a bit of shock oil on it to guarantee it is fully sealed.
Then tighten up the Alum Shock Bottom Cap.

Dip a bit of shock oil into the inside of shock body, insert the shock shaft with piston from inside and push out.

Now, twist back Shock Bottom Connector, Mark down the length of each shock shaft with Digital Caliper. You have to build each shock with exact same length.

Fill 80-90% of shock oil into the shock body and put it into Damper Oil Remover device.
Repeat the same process on each shock. Now we have all four shock-damper ready.
Suck the bubbles out with Damper Oil Remover, you could see the bubbles rising and explore quickly from shock body. Repeat the sucking process a couple times until you are sure that there is no more air bubbles inside by move the shock shaft up and down.
PS. If you do not have Damper Oil Remover on hand, never mind, move the shock shaft up and down to release bubbles and wait 5-10 minutes and then repeat. The purpose of doing so is to ensure the shock is fully sealed. Damper Oil Remover can make the whole process a lot quicker.

Now, it is time to pre-set the rebound value. We recommend you use this Aluminum Damper Rebound Adjusting Tool from YR. You can pre-set the same value of rebound of each shock-damper precisely.

Now, you have 4 shock ready with the same pre-set rebound value.

 Top-up shock oil into the shock body and cover it with Oil Sealer Cap, blend the cap evenly, don't worry about the oil that spill over, just clean it later with tissue. This process is to make sure there is no air bubbles remain on the top of shock-damper.

Put the Shock Top Connector onto the cap and cover the Shock Body Cap, twist is to sealed.
Final check out: we can squeeze the shock shaft to test the rebound of each shock. If it has been setup correctly, you will got same rebound for 4.
Set the spring back then all done!
Thanks for watching.

<<-Visit SpeedyRC Online eStore

Battery placement tips for RC Touring Car

Here we introduce LiPo Stick battery placement tips for RC Touring Car

As beginners who just step into RC On-road Racing, you may find out that no matter how carefully you drive, your expensive TC chassis still got scratches on the battery placement side.
You may wonder how and why. The reason is simple: the Chassis will flex left and right when cornering. Hence it will force the battery to do movement. If the battery has been setup tight with battery tape, the friction between battery underneath surface and Chassis will become very strong. The result is obvious.
To solve this issue, there is a very efficient way: Place something in between battery and chassis to eliminate the scratches but still allow the battery to "float" on the chassis but stay tightly.
have a look at the picture, this is my solution:

I have placed 2 short single sided foam tapes and 1 long one on and stick the chassis as above.
There is free space between battery and chassis to allow chassis flex.
The single sided foam tapes are 1.5mm thick 15mm wide.
Continue on 34/03/2014..
Battery placement can effect the weight balance as well.
Have a look at below, You will find out that the Center of Gravity (CG) is not in the middle of the stick battery but somewhere further away from Battery plugs.

Hence, different placement of battery will slightly effect the CG of whole car. If you want to give the car a little bit of rear grip, use battery lay-out below:

If you want to make the car a bit more steering and loosen up the rear wheels a bit, use battery lay-out below:

Thanks for watching.

<<-Visit SpeedyRC Online eStore

Maintenance of Driving System for VBC Wildfire D06 (DCV drive shafts and Bearings Cleaning and Lubrication)

Today I would like to share the experience of Driving System Maintenance for VBC Wildfire D06 RC Touring Car.

First of all, release the screws shown on below to take your drive shafts out.

Now, you have successfully taken them out. Investigate the shaft in detailed. Verify if it is bend or damage. Normally you won’t get this thing happen unless you’d just experienced very serious accident on Racing.

Now let’s start to clean the Double Joint (DCV) drive shafts. We use some cotton sticks to wipe out dust and grease residual. Pay more attention to clean the slot of pins.

Remember we need to spin the drive shafts while we clean. Note that some points may got black color faked out, those points request to take extra care to lubricate later. Also we need to make sure there is no glitch sound when we spin.

You can spray some WD40 to make your cleaning task easier but I would not do this cause WD40 can also prevent new grease apply on the drive shaft. Well, yes, you can re-grease with air-dryer, I admit.

While in the middle of cleaning, we have to give a glimpse on front Spool Drive Cup. Investigate if it is wear out or broken. Replace them if needed.

Now we move forward, I bet you 100% need to clean the bearings. Remember, bearings are the parts that you always need to keep an eye on.

From the pictures we can see, we definitely need to take them out to clean.

Now we insert Hex driver into the gap between two bearings, then push out the outside one.

If you have this bearing tool, it can help you push out another one easily. If you don’t, a pencil can help.

Look at how dirty they are.

To clean the bearings, you can use WD40 and cleaning bottle from YR to spray and shake out dirt. Re-lubricate afterward. We won’t talk too much about it here, I may publish a new post about how to clean and re-lubricate RC car bearing in future.

 Now we have bearings clean. Put it on your bearing tool to test if it can spin freely. By the way, a pencil can do the same job.

Now we finish the cleaning jobs for front drive shafts. I know you are more than likely to clean rear drive shafts as well, don't you?

After took out the rear drive shafts. You may notice that the Shaft End Shoes are wear-out badly. We have to replace them. Unscrew the top set-screw, push out the pin then release the wear-out Shaft End Shoe. Bear in mind that you don’t have to tear it out and push a new one in with force. It will damage your plastic parts.

After carefully clean the rear drive shaft joint. We know that we have finished the whole cleaning job.

Now let’s put grease paste back on drive shafts. Use your hex drive to dip a bit of grease and apply it on the pin slot first. Ensure the slot point has fully greased, and then we apply grease on other places. 

If you have your factory grease run-out just like me. You have to go buy some. My recommendation is: you don’t have to go to your LHS to buy those expensive one just with a little amount in bottle. Go find some for your real car, which can also do a brilliant job. Something like below will be enough for your whole RC live.

Grease it, spin it to make sure all moving parts are lubricated.

Use tissue or towels to wipe out the bleeding grease, then you finish.

Happy racing!

<<-Visit SpeedyRC Online eStore