Grom Blx185 and a 540 motor in the little Grom 😈

[StephenSchandelmayer]

You may want to try taking some sandpaper and rounding the edges of the front wheels. That will reduce the bite and twitchy steering some.
Awesome little rig you put together!

I will 100% do that, makes perfect sense. and thank you very much, really hoping to get it setup good. Going to try to delete the servo saver and tighten up that area as well. I hope to get it very stable

The search begins
If you can't find any, just buy threaded rod and rod ends.

Fair point on the threaded rod, now some tiny rod ends

 

[Bustedaw11]

I will 100% do that, makes perfect sense. and thank you very much, really hoping to get it setup good. Going to try to delete the servo saver and tighten up that area as well. I hope to get it very stable

Fair point on the threaded rod, now some tiny rod ends

How tiny?
Look for shock end ball cups.. like what they use on a latrax tetons shocks. Those are small in length but still use a good sized ball. Small threads (don't know the size off hand).

 

[StephenSchandelmayer]

How tiny?
Look for shock end ball cups.. like what they use on a latrax tetons shocks. Those are small in length but still use a good sized ball. Small threads (don't know the size off hand).

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That's a very good idea. But I do have another idea that would kill 2 birds with 1 stone that I'm working on. Just need some more time

 

[Bustedaw11]

Need to snap some fancy pics of this truck for rig of the month imo

 

[Hammer Down]

Pretty cool! Idk how I missed this insanity..

Btw: I noticed the steering has an incredible amount of slop also. I wonder if you could do the heat shrink on the links trick?

 

[Just a hobby]

I didn't mention, this is in my oldest son's Dromida mt18.
I didn't mention it's not a arrma granite. Same size,all plastic gears.

 

[StephenSchandelmayer]

Need to snap some fancy pics of this truck for rig of the month imo

Might just be a little winner! I have more visions for this little guy so we will see in time to come. Thanks for the compliment though

Pretty cool! Idk how I missed this insanity..

Btw: I noticed the steering has an incredible amount of slop also. I wonder if you could do the heat shrink on the links trick?

Thank you thank you! But yes it is a huge amount. I dropped in a much stronger servo and it came with a metal arm so I got rid of the tiny servo saver and that helped a lot. I am thinking with such a small and light truck no servo saver should be fine? Maybe? What is this heat shrink trick you speak of, never heard of it

 

[Just a hobby]

I think he's talking about putting shrink tube over a ball that has to much slop in the rod end. Make sure to cut longer than the ball and heat, nice and tight. Then install and trim,just a little longer than the ball should be good.

 

[StephenSchandelmayer]

I think he's talking about putting shrink tube over a ball that has to much slop in the rod end. Make sure to cut longer than the ball and heat, nice and tight. Then install and trim,just a little longer than the ball should be good.

That makes sense but its also not the ball ends that are the problem (yet). The steering wrack just isn't a stout design and the tires can turn freely before the servo starts to take control. There is a little akerman bar on the bottom of the steering wrack and while of course that controls both sides there is still play and my thinking, which i started making some designs, is to make a larger and more rigid akerman bar to go across the top to tighten everything up. That combined with better servo and no servo saver I think would make things pretty perfect

 

[Hammer Down]

What servo did you go with? I’m torn cause there’s so many micros..

 

[Just a hobby]

That makes sense but its also not the ball ends that are the problem (yet). The steering wrack just isn't a stout design and the tires can turn freely before the servo starts to take control. There is a little akerman bar on the bottom of the steering wrack and while of course that controls both sides there is still play and my thinking, which i started making some designs, is to make a larger and more rigid akerman bar to go across the top to tighten everything up. That combined with better servo and no servo saver I think would make things pretty perfect

No way shims or o-rings to tighten things up? Didn't think shrink tube would help, great trick though!

 

[StephenSchandelmayer]

What servo did you go with? I’m torn cause there’s so many micros..

https://www.amazon.com/INJORA-Corel...37375&sprefix=micro+11kg+servo,aps,991&sr=8-5

I know I know basically half the cost of the darn truck but buy once cry once. Plus it came with the metal arm which I wanted and 11kg overpowered obviously but it goes with the idea of the truck lol

 

[Hammer Down]

I know I know basically half the cost of the darn truck

Don’t feel bad, I spent 1 1/2 times the value of the truck on the motor and esc combo.

 

[StephenSchandelmayer]

Don’t feel bad, I spent 1 1/2 times the value of the truck on the motor and esc combo.

lololol I guess my setup is like that too but I already had it in my spare parts so lets just say it was free

 

[Bustedaw11]

I think he's talking about putting shrink tube over a ball that has to much slop in the rod end. Make sure to cut longer than the ball and heat, nice and tight. Then install and trim,just a little longer than the ball should be good.

So I've got an old school trick all the t/c racers used to do for ball cup slop...
Used to put the plastic from a parts bag over the ball, then snap your cup on. Trim the extra plastic..
Worked a treat.
I've never heard of the heat shrink method until now, ill try that one sometime.

 

[Just a hobby]

Works pretty good on captured ball ends. Might be to thick for cup style ball ends? It's great for when you crash and only stretch a plastic rod end. When I do replace all the balls, I also replace all the plastic rod ends. Both new will last long, when you reuse the plastic rod ends with new balls will wear faster.

 

[StephenSchandelmayer]

I think I may have found a steel gear that is going to fairly easily replace the stock spur gear and change the pitch to .8 mod and make it substantially faster in the process. It's on order so I'll update as I go, fingers crossed

 

[adubbs87]

I bought the Grom and like many other obviously had to make a change! I had this blx185 and a 540 motor laying around and thought hey! This might work with effort. Sure enough I had to make a lot of changes but I am running a 5800kv motor on 3s and wowza it's a monster. The motor shaft is a 3.17 and I had 48p gears for that in my pile and it seemed to mesh pretty good and I have been running it and so far so good. I had to modify the motor mount a lot, cut the whole center brace out, and cut open the rear cover to allow the pinion to stick up. It's currently running a 32 pinion! The esc is obviously huge for this but it didn't have a home so here it went. My wiring is a crap show so don't hate me on that.

Im still in the process of trying to make it handle under the power because it's a squirly as hell. I just put earplugs in the diffs so we will see what that does. My other big annoyance is the slop in the steering. Trying to figure out something to help that. Might be time for a good servo as well. Anyways here it is and yes the body still fits
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I’m not sure about the gram but I know in my 3S rigs what I did to really help with the slop in the steering was I took 1/8” rubber gas line and I cut like fat size looking O-rings and I put them on the pillow balls. This tightened up the steering drastically on my 3s granite. I’m going to attach a picture so you can see what I’m talking about. I’m not sure if the grom uses pillow balls but if it does, this really helps because it takes all the slop out of that movement in the pillow balls.

 

[StephenSchandelmayer]

I’m not sure about the gram but I know in my 3S rigs what I did to really help with the slop in the steering was I took 1/8” rubber gas line and I cut like fat size looking O-rings and I put them on the pillow balls. This tightened up the steering drastically on my 3s granite. I’m going to attach a picture so you can see what I’m talking about. I’m not sure if the grom uses pillow balls but if it does, this really helps because it takes all the slop out of that movement in the pillow balls.

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Thats a good idea, doesn't bind anything up at all? The only thing is for now the pillow balls aren't the problem because I haven't used it much so they are still fresh. Also the balls are steel which is shocking and nice. We will see with time if the rod end stretches but this biggest issue at the moment is I think just the design of the steering wrack. I am in the works with @Tex Koder to see if we can make a solution

 

[adubbs87]

Thats a good idea, doesn't bind anything up at all? The only thing is for now the pillow balls aren't the problem because I haven't used it much so they are still fresh. Also the balls are steel which is shocking and nice. We will see with time if the rod end stretches but this biggest issue at the moment is I think just the design of the steering wrack. I am in the works with @Tex Koder to see if we can make a solution

Sounds good. I know even after I put brand new metal pillow balls on I still used that tubing. It didn’t cause any effects besides keeping everything nice and tight. It did help even with brand new pillow balls. I could definitely tell a difference. I put them on every pillow ball on the truck. Let me know how it works out for you brother. Wish I could tell you more. Unfortunately I had to sell all of my RC collection except my granite when I got full custody of my daughter. I’m hoping to see if I can save up to be able to get her a grom or Gorgon for Christmas. She absolutely loves her “monserfruck” lol as she calls it. It’s just too much power for her to drive.