Kraton Help: Completely submerged my truck in Sea water!

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TalionSWB

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Arrma RC's
  1. Talion
So today I decided to drive my truck on the beach and it tumbled into the sea. It got fully submerged while on. I turned the switch off immediately. But turned it on again to check if it was still working and the servo (Hitec HSB-9380 TH) just turned the wheels left and froze.

Needless to say I'm very anxious about the state of the electronics after coming into contact with so much salt water.

Does any one have any advice or experience that could help me save the electronics?

I have a Leopard 4092 installed and
Hired HDB 9380 TH servo so I'd be pretty upset of I totally ruined these.

Any advice is sincerely appreciated.
 
Turning it back on was probably a really bad idea since salt water conducts electricity. If it were me, I would remove the electronics and rinse everything off with distilled water to remove all the salt/minerals. Then use some compressed air to blow out everything and leave it all to dry. Don't do this to the batteries obviously.

The servo is supposed to be water resistant, but if the truck was fully submerged, I'm sure some water probably got inside. You may want to open up the case to check things out and dry if necessary. I would do the same with the ESC and receiver.
 
Saltwater and sand, bad combo for RC cars. But great for fun! :)

For the electrics, you can try and rinse them and dry them, but I would personally expect the worst. The motor is probably salvageable - nothing fancy going on inside that can.

Also - ALL BEARINGS will need to be cleaned / flushed / relubed. Any you miss will probably be rusted solid in a week or two. Same for the steel pivots - both the ball joints and suspension pins. If you don't have time for a full tear down, at least flush the whole car with clean water, then blast all bearings and pivots with WD40, then the next day wipe it all down and re-oil all bearings. You may need to pull the diffs to get to the inner diff pinion bearings...
 
This for sure, but I'm lazy and bearings are cheap - I'd just buy a new bearing kit instead.

Yep, buy a new set.

I ran mine in the shallow 2 inch water at the beach and then back onto the dry sand and back down to water, and so one. Not submerged, but coated in sand and salt. I held it up in the outdoor shower and completely rinsed it off. letting water pour over everything. My mistake was not blow drying it afterward, or re-oiling anything. Had to get new bearings and pillowballs, and I ran with rusty drive shafts for a while.
 
Turning it back on was probably a really bad idea since salt water conducts electricity. If it were me, I would remove the electronics and rinse everything off with distilled water to remove all the salt/minerals. Then use some compressed air to blow out everything and leave it all to dry. Don't do this to the batteries obviously.

The servo is supposed to be water resistant, but if the truck was fully submerged, I'm sure some water probably got inside. You may want to open up the case to check things out and dry if necessary. I would do the same with the ESC and receiver.

Hey CNK
Yeah turning on the electrics afterwards was a dumbass move. Not sure why I did it but I have a habit of doing it.

The servo does have some water in there, I took it apart and cleaned it with 99% Isopropyl Alcohol. Just hope it survived some how.
 
Saltwater and sand, bad combo for RC cars. But great for fun! :)

For the electrics, you can try and rinse them and dry them, but I would personally expect the worst. The motor is probably salvageable - nothing fancy going on inside that can.

Also - ALL BEARINGS will need to be cleaned / flushed / relubed. Any you miss will probably be rusted solid in a week or two. Same for the steel pivots - both the ball joints and suspension pins. If you don't have time for a full tear down, at least flush the whole car with clean water, then blast all bearings and pivots with WD40, then the next day wipe it all down and re-oil all bearings. You may need to pull the diffs to get to the inner diff pinion bearings...
Hey Jerry-Rigged

Yup the electronics do look beyond repair especially the ESC. The motor looks fine. The servo I'll find out soon. I cleaned them with 99% Isopropyl Alcohol. I hope it works.

Following your advice I decided to pull the whole chassis apart and it's currently soaking in 60% white vinegar and 40% water to remove the rust.
 
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