Well, I couldn't resist the siren song of another EXB and here she is.
First things first, I went through and checked the differentials - all of them weren't bad, but still needed a top off. I swapped the front diff fluid for 30K, added some 200K to the center diff and rebuilt the rear diff and filled it up with 10K diff fluid.
I realize Arrma's fix was to add the diff plates as well as the large washer - and a solution proposed on this forum was to use 12x18 shims from McMaster-Carr. The were some posts here of how people had snapped off some of the metal ridges on the back of the sun gear that hold the cross pin in place. So I started fiddling with using some of the circular diff plates to help support the back of the sun gear. I placed a shim between the sun gear and the diff plates to eliminate any possible fluid interaction between the features on the back of the sun gear and holes in the diff plates, added two circular plates and then shimmed the rest up with the 12x18 shims. Pretty much as described below, but I ended up using a 0.1 mm thick shim for the shim that touched the sun gear.
Here you see the ridges fully supported by the diff plates:
and a fully shimmed sun gear:
Once that was put back together, I went through the rest of the vehicle and did the following upgrades/changes:
1) Swapped the steering bushings for rubber sealed bearings and replaced the steering post screws with M4 SHCS
2) Swapped the droop screws for Tekno droop screws so I can adjust droop from the top and the bottom and I didn't want the set screws that came with the vehicle to dig into the chassis
3) Swapped the button head motor mount screws with flanged M4 SHCS
4) Drywall taped and Shoe-Gooed the body
5) Added closed cell foam under the body mounts
6) Swapped the EXB chassis braces for m2c braces. Aside from a better grade of aluminum, the m2c Mojave/Talion braces have the locating feature whereas the EXB braces do not.
7) Added the m2c rear shock tower brace
8) Swapped the wheel nuts for enclosed nuts to keep debris out of the cross pin set screws
9) Added T-Bone Racing read mud guards
For electronics, I went with a Hobbywing MAX6/4985 combo, an SPT5435 35 kg servo and a Spektrum SR315 receiver. I fitted the 4985 with a 23T SAFE-D pinion and a Hobbywing C2 heatsink/fan combos by slightly stretching the heatsink out in a vice and slid the motor in.
I mounted the ESC on a m2c plate but I will be swapping it out for a Basherqueen mount as that mount has a place for the switch that the m2c doesn’t have.
I also added a Dusty Motors Universal XXXL shroud - we'll see how that works and what temperatures everything gets up to.
First things first, I went through and checked the differentials - all of them weren't bad, but still needed a top off. I swapped the front diff fluid for 30K, added some 200K to the center diff and rebuilt the rear diff and filled it up with 10K diff fluid.
I realize Arrma's fix was to add the diff plates as well as the large washer - and a solution proposed on this forum was to use 12x18 shims from McMaster-Carr. The were some posts here of how people had snapped off some of the metal ridges on the back of the sun gear that hold the cross pin in place. So I started fiddling with using some of the circular diff plates to help support the back of the sun gear. I placed a shim between the sun gear and the diff plates to eliminate any possible fluid interaction between the features on the back of the sun gear and holes in the diff plates, added two circular plates and then shimmed the rest up with the 12x18 shims. Pretty much as described below, but I ended up using a 0.1 mm thick shim for the shim that touched the sun gear.
Here you see the ridges fully supported by the diff plates:
and a fully shimmed sun gear:
Once that was put back together, I went through the rest of the vehicle and did the following upgrades/changes:
1) Swapped the steering bushings for rubber sealed bearings and replaced the steering post screws with M4 SHCS
2) Swapped the droop screws for Tekno droop screws so I can adjust droop from the top and the bottom and I didn't want the set screws that came with the vehicle to dig into the chassis
3) Swapped the button head motor mount screws with flanged M4 SHCS
4) Drywall taped and Shoe-Gooed the body
5) Added closed cell foam under the body mounts
6) Swapped the EXB chassis braces for m2c braces. Aside from a better grade of aluminum, the m2c Mojave/Talion braces have the locating feature whereas the EXB braces do not.
7) Added the m2c rear shock tower brace
8) Swapped the wheel nuts for enclosed nuts to keep debris out of the cross pin set screws
9) Added T-Bone Racing read mud guards
For electronics, I went with a Hobbywing MAX6/4985 combo, an SPT5435 35 kg servo and a Spektrum SR315 receiver. I fitted the 4985 with a 23T SAFE-D pinion and a Hobbywing C2 heatsink/fan combos by slightly stretching the heatsink out in a vice and slid the motor in.
I mounted the ESC on a m2c plate but I will be swapping it out for a Basherqueen mount as that mount has a place for the switch that the m2c doesn’t have.
I also added a Dusty Motors Universal XXXL shroud - we'll see how that works and what temperatures everything gets up to.
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