Broke my Team Associated MT10

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Velodromed

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory!
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Arrma RC's
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It was a nice day out so I took it to the park and halfway through the first pack it briefly started grinding big time. Then it stopped. Drove it for a few more minutes and it started grinding again so I shut it down.

I’ve never really tried to work on this car except for replacing the servo. I don’t know anything except Arrmas so guess I’ll just start taking things apart.

Figure all these screws should go.

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And these two…1.5mm?? Really? So I pulled out my MIP 1.5mm, which I’ve only used a couple times, pulled the last screws and and after a bit of wiggling the cover and motor just kind of popped out.
And then it was obvious, the grub screw on the pinion had completely backed out and bounced around inside the housing catching between the spur a few places chewing it up. No loctite was used on the grub screw far as I can tell 😑

So now to figure out how to get the spur out. It’s only like 7-8 bucks to replace. But man that’s irritating. A dab of loctite would have stopped that from happening. I know…should have checked it.

Huh…does not look like a 5mm motor shaft?
 

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So I got the center diff out and filed the damaged spur. I ordered a new one, just $7, but meanwhile I’ll try to fix this one. I also opened and cleaned the heavy stock oil out and replaced with 10k for fun.

It seems I got the spur filed good so will reassemble and test. Dang this thing is different from my 3s cars. Several 1.5mm bolts use and it’s kind weird. Easy to work on though as I’m getting used to it.

It went together relatively easy and I made sure to use loctite on the pinion. So will test shortly.

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Looks like 1/4 shaft. Or 5mm. Definitely not a 8mm bore.
3.2
Ugh, it sounds like the mesh immediately gives. Horrible grinding. What am I doing wrong…oh. Maybe this spring drew should be tightened after setting the mesh. I think i get it. It wasn’t tight before but it holds the mesh so maybe part of the issue earlier was also that.
Time to test again.
 

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It’s still grinding so I’m doing something wrong. Snd I woke up the kid testing it so tomorrow I’ll have to finish.
 
That spur is dickered. No point in fighting with it till you replace that.
Nah…it’s something else 😑
I messed with it awhile longer last night and tested it again this morning. It still grinds a bit. Less then at first but bad enough to be undrivable. After looking at the open spur case closely while turning the wheels I realized what’s wrong. Either the pinion or 3.2mm motor shaft bent. Since it’s doubtful the pinion bent, most likely it’s the motor shaft. Figure when the grub screw jammed between the pinion and spur it bent the skinny motor shaft. This thing will grind no matter how much I mess with it. So I will email TA about this. At minimum loctite should have been used on the pinion grub screw. I’m sure whatever warranty there was has expired but still…

I do have a couple extra blx motors. Just need to figure out if the spur is .08mod or not. Looks like it but need to confirm so can get the right pinion if needed. Also, the motor connectors look smaller then 4mm but that may just be my eyes playing tricks. But if they are, I’ve an extra blx esc also.

Guess I’ll be putting a little bit of Arrma in my team associated 🤣
 

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Good. The spur is 32dp and cheap. So just need to check on the motor wires to see if the esc will work with an Arrma motor. Also gotta pull the motor again and confirm for sure my findings.

So different then working on my 3s Arrmas. It’s nice to see how working on those have helped me understand another brands RC car. Man…I was really impressed with the mt10 up till now. This is a bit of a bummer.

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I didn’t catch that the motor mount was bent earlier. Just didn’t occur to me not being familiar with this critter. Got the answer for it though…

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Well the motor shaft is not bent. Just confirmed that. And the motor itself tests fine. I flatted out the motor mount good, reinstalled the motor and even with the damaged spur (I filed it down decent) it cycles around ok. But something else is off, causing it to turn squirrelly and lock. It appears to be the center diff. There must have been a tremendous amount of pressure when the grub jammed. The cracking sound was very loud. It would make sense if the center diff took some damage. I guess.

I ordered a new spur for $7 and it’ll be here mid-month. Meanwhile I’ll pull apart the center diff this week and inspect everything, see what else I need to order.
 

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I didn’t catch that the motor mount was bent earlier. Just didn’t occur to me not being familiar with this critter. Got the answer for it though…

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Well the motor shaft is not bent. Just confirmed that. And the motor itself tests fine. I flatted out the motor mount good, reinstalled the motor and even with the damaged spur (I filed it down decent) it cycles around ok. But something else is off, causing it to turn squirrelly and lock. It appears to be the center diff. There must have been a tremendous amount of pressure when the grub jammed. The cracking sound was very loud. It would make sense if the center diff took some damage. I guess.

I ordered a new spur for $7 and it’ll be here mid-month. Meanwhile I’ll pull apart the center diff this week and inspect everything, see what else I need to order.

So far I must say that this is a relatively easy RC to work on. I’m enjoying it actually. Think I’ll crack the front and rear diffs for service while I’m doing all this.
 
So out of frustration I did reach out to Team Associated. When I bought it I signed up for their customer service account because it came with a bad servo. The responded in about 36 hours and replaced it and the whole steering assembly. They even sent a new hub to replace the one that I’d cracked on a playground pole (hence the TBone bumper). I’m very straight forward about damage I cause so they did the extras just as part of their service.

I fully expected the warranty to be expired. I’ve had the car several months and wouldnt have been surprised if it was simply denied flat out with no other response. So I was pleasantly surprised the other day when my phone rang and it said Associated Electric on the caller ID.

The guy was extremely nice, informed me that the warranty was expired but give me a discounted price for broken parts. I told him it was fine that I’d already ordered a spur and had determined the motor was not damaged, that it was the center diff most likely. He then took about 10 minutes talking to me about things to check and giving a few recommendations. I appreciated that.
I appreciate the Arrma two year warranty a bit more though 🤣

Anyway, I’m still waiting for the new spur to come in and I’ll start tearing apart the diff and looking for a whatever’s bent. See if I can figure it out. It was just nice, in the days of no direct customer service or crap customer service, to get a phone call. Don’t get me wrong, I much prefer to do things online and for the most part dislike talking to generic phone service people. This was just fun and I got a kick out of it. The dude was even into RCs and had several so we spent another few minutes just talking about cars. Imagine that! An RC guy made the call, not a generic phone person.
 
So I got my new spur gear in a few days ago. Decided to partially pull the car apart again last night and work on it. These little cars are pretty easy to work on. Basically unscrew the retaining screw, the one with the spring, and then unhook the motor mount from the chassis. Then flip the car over, remove those bolts and the entire rear end separates, Exposing the rear differential and allowing access to remove the center diff. They use a mix of screw sizes. From 1.5 to 2.5 so I was using all three of my MIP drivers.

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Next I pulled the center diff and removed the spur gear. The existing gasket tore so it’s nice that they include a new one with the new spur. I topped off the oil that I had refilled last time end put the new spur on.

Then I turned my attention to the rear differential. I looked and inspected everything best I could in the center and rear diffs, drive shaft etc and could not find any other damage aside from the spur gear. So perhaps that really is the only issue. I hope.

The rear differential is really installed in there and I did not want to take everything apart. The metal CNC gears are awesome and look high-quality. Simply cleaned out with towels and those things you stick in your ear to clean them and was able to get it mostly clean. I fully inspected it again best I could and found no issues. I packed it full of finish line ceramic grease. On Arrmas, with the plastic gears, I use bare minimum greece. Since these are metal I packed that stuff in there well.
Lastly I put everything together. It’s a little difficult getting the center drive shaft to take connect with the driveshaft since they’re all hidden but I got it. When I first bought into the hobby I accidentally bought a set of MIP ball tips. I don’t use them very much but when I do, in situations where it’s too tight for a straight driver, they are incredible.

The spring screw that secures the motor mount cannot be reached with a regular MIT driver. My ball driver saved the day. Setting the mesh is quite a bit different from a 3s Arma, so I took my time and am pretty sure I got it set well. I hope. Then I finished getting the car together and put it up for the night.
I will test today and my fingers are crossed. If something is still grinding I will take the entire car apart 100%. But I’m hoping all is good.

I now have a new respect for these team associated cars. It’s raised my hopes for when the MT8 will finally be released. I want to see if it’s just as nice to work on and if the price point isn’t awful I will consider it.
 

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Well I drove it today and the spur alone was the issue. But…I should not have messed with the center diff oil weight so much. I’ll open it up here soon and go back to 10k.
 
So I took it apart. Again. It’s so much easier 5th time in a row. Why they use every size bolt, just look at this. Big button heads tiny button heads medium flat tops big flat…well you know. Used all my MIPs in one sitting 5 times over.

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It’s cool how the rear end finally unbolts all at once. Getting it back together the first few times was difficult, but I got it down now.
Cleaned out the center diff of the 30k oil and put 8k in. Also realized I’d put the diff togethor slightly wrong. I’d noticed two tiny holes that leaked last time on the spur. There are two small bumps on the rim of the diff case that must align with the time holes. Weird. But I got it this time.

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You know what? I just caught on tgat the motor mount is two pieces. I straightened out the one that connects to the motor but not the other piece. I think it’s bent and that’s why the pinion looks ever so slightly off when turning the spur and sounds weird when driving no matter how well I set the mesh.

Ugh, I’m not dropping $20 on this thing right now so will pull it apart…AGAIN…and try to hammer out both pieces flat.
Stupid car 🤣

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Velodromed would you buy the rival again, if you had choose one granite or the rival
Nope. Not near as much fun for me and I rarely drive it, regulated to a guest car now. It’s smaller, lighter and just doesn’t ‘feel’ as good as the 3s cars. Drives great with the center diff but not for me.
 
This thread describes my experience with my MT10 pretty well. I had the same issue, but also had a radio failure. TA was quick to dispatch a new one, which I'll use for my old Stampede, I got a DX3 so I can have a brake dial on the controller.

Its not a bad truck, the drivetrain has so far been reliable, only got pebbles on the spur gear, making an awful noises. I since upgraded the motor and ESC to 3s BLX spec. With the 15t pinion, its very very fast. The old REEDY stuff made it into my old 90s stampede, works perfectly for that application.

Overall the MT10 is a good truck, but it is not invincible.
 
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Once a TA fan boy guy many years back. The Kits.
My last TA RTR rig was in 2018. The ProSE 4x4 SCT. ( based on the "Superlight" platform)
Was discontinued soon after I bought it. What a mess. Could not get parts ( diffs etc) I even grabbed every single TA upgrade alloy part available. $200. in upgrades. All for naught.
TA RTR's will always suck in my book. I won't touch them anymore. Their RTR radios (XP120's) are horrible toy grade Stuff. All their RTR stiff is cheap and way over priced.
Owned by Thunder Tiger now, they ruined this TA Brand company. All their RTR's are just money grab to compete with other RTR brands. Much hyped based only on the Associated Name. Even LHS's still brag about marektting them this way. All the TA RTR's share nothing in common with TA's Race bread kits which are very popular and $$$. At least the cost is justfied here with their race kits.
 
This thread perfectly describe my experience with my MT10: always broken and out of commission, but I also had a radio failure. TA was quick to dispatch a new one, which I threw away as its junk anyways.

There was so much hype towards this truck, but I can't seem to appreciate it as I rarely finish one battery pack without issues. I can't believe the Youtube personalities launching the thing and not breaking it. I also bought a Vorteks at the same time and it drives WAY better and I find its much more fun (though I hate how the power module is designed as it has to come off often)

I would not recommend the Team Associated mt10 to anyone over an ARRMA product.
Nah it’s a solid car. Great for someone that just wants an rc to mess around with but not have to deal with. TA sent me a new servo and it’s been solid since. I was launching mine 2 stories up at the skate park. I bent the mount, blew a shock and broke a wheelie bar and the parts cost was reasonable. It was frustrating to work on because I only have Arrma cars but It’s fixed now, except for a slightly bent motor shaft so it sounds like a little weed wacker. I’ll throw a new motor I have in eventually.

Now it’s the guest/spare car and dog chase car. Nothing else has broken now that it’s driven kind of normally. I put in a spare slt3 tx/rx for fun and it’s better then the stock one, which cracks me up. I’ve never maintained it at all. Diffs, bearings anything. Bought it abused it and it just keeps going.

Recently got a JConcepts body to hydrodip and paint it rainbow for my daughter. Little thing has rather grown on me.
 
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