Kraton Haastnooits Kraton 6S EXB

[Haastnooit]

Guess I will be starting a new project soon, I obtained a Kraton 6S EXB in a special way. I am currently selling all of my fitness gear and yesterday evening a guy came to collect the latt-pulley machine I sold him. I had some of my RC cars stalled out in the living room. He saw them and mentioned he has a Kraton 6S EXB he was willing to unload and asked me if I perhaps was interested in any way.

So eventually we negotiated a price reduction of 250 euro on the latt-pulley machine and he is sending me the car this weekend. Really excited to add the Kraton 6S to my stable … it is a bit off a gamble as he could not say exactly what electronics are installed. But on the picture he showed me, I think I saw a Hobbywing switch … don’t know for sure. Last time he used the car, it was fine he assured me. Hopefully that is really the case and everything functions OK and there are no hidden damages.

Fingers crossed … to be continued.

 

[MisterEMM]

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you, that the Kraton is good. Many defects are not clear to a seller himself an you only discover them when screwing.

Do we have to worry about your fitness when you sell everything ?

 

[Tex Koder]

Guess I will be starting a new project soon, I obtained a Kraton 6S EXB in a special way. I am currently selling all of my fitness gear and yesterday evening a guy came to collect the latt-pulley machine I sold him. I had some of my RC cars stalled out in the living room. He saw them and mentioned he has a Kraton 6S EXB he was willing to unload and asked me if I perhaps was interested in any way.

So eventually we negotiated a price reduction of 250 euro on the latt-pulley machine and he is sending me the car this weekend. Really excited to add the Kraton 6S to my stable … it is a bit off a gamble as he could not say exactly what electronics are installed. But on the picture he showed me, I think I saw a Hobbywing switch … don’t know for sure. Last time he used the car, it was fine he assured me. Hopefully that is really the case and everything functions OK and there are no hidden damages.

Fingers crossed … to be continued.

Since it's a transaction, sight unseen...
Hopefully.. everything is as promised/described.
Difficult to judge every little detail from photos alone.

Well, we'll find out soon enough..
If you end up with a Dumpster Fire also!

 

[Haastnooit]

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you, that the Kraton is good. Many defects are not clear to a seller himself an you only discover them when screwing.

Do we have to worry about your fitness when you sell everything ?

I will be doing that … to keep in shape

Still have my roadbike, I cycled roughly an average of 10.000km a year the past three years. I will be good …

Since it's a transaction, sight unseen...
Hopefully.. everything is as promised/described.
Difficult to just every little detail from photos alone.

Well, we'll find out soon enough..
If you end up with a Dumpster Fire also!

The guy seems legit and honest, therefore I dared to take the gamble. We will see how it turns out, at least I have something to do

 

[Haastnooit]

Well the Kraton 6S EXB showed up, and I must say the first inspection left me with some mixed emotions. The car is well used but also seems to be decently maintained. Some ghetto glue applications on the chassis near the ESC plate and receiver box will need further inspection to see what is going on there.

First impressions:
Positive: The chassis looks perfectly straight, all difs function as they should, the driveline sounds acceptable, the electronics (ESC and motor) are Hobbywing as suspected, some RPM parts (front arms, wingmount) are installed. Some NIB spareparts are included in the box.

Negative: The body is severely damaged, everything is really dirty and greasy, some of the diffcups are a bit worn, front bumper is busted (NIB spare included), chassis bottom is pretty scarred.

My plan is to fully disassemble, inspect and rebuild the K6 one sub-assembly (see below) at a time. I will order replacement parts after inspection of each sub-assembly, then rebuild as the parts are in and then move on. This way I hope to keep everything organized, and not have parts scattered all around my hobby room. I know this method probably results in more time waiting for parts, but hey … I am not in a hurry, so all good.

The menu:
1. Body, wheels and tires
2. Front clip
3. Rear clip
4. Chassis, center driveline
5. Electronics

Offcourse I will try to include lots of pictures of everything relative, but can not guarantee that I will succeed in that. I tend to forget taking them as I get more involved in the rebuild.

Body, wheels and tires
First step to get in the flow of the rebuild is an easy one. As mentioned the body is completely torn up and not usable. I ordered a new black prepainted body to replace it. Unfortunately the body was not in stock at the moment, so patience is needed. I did salvage 3 of the 4 bodyclips retainers for my spare parts bin

The wheels and tyres are re-usable, there is no damage to the hexes, no cracks in the rims what so ever. Very nice …. Just cleaned them up and reglued the bead where needed. I did change the venting method on the wheels, I taped the existing ventholes on the rims and made 2 new ventholes in each tyre with my Dremel.

 

[Tex Koder]

Hey,
Not Bad at all!
It's still all put together at least!!
(You've seen mine right? Haha)

That body just need some Duck tape and it's as good as new.

If anything, I'd cut the frontend off and 3D Design & Print a New front clip for it.

And than send some pics of your new refreshed Kraton back to the previous owner..

 

[Haastnooit]

Frontclip disassembly
Today I started working on the frontclip. Before cleaning up and the disassembly I made a closer inspection. I noticed one of the lower arms has some damage near the hingepin and the Ackermann plate has a slight bent to it. Nothing too serious … it seems.

In good mood I started the clean up and disassembly, everything went fine at first. All screws attaching the steeringlinks were glued in with crazy strong glue. I had to heat them up to get loose. I straightened the Ackermann plate, smooth sailing …. The shocks and shocktower came off easy, I checked the straightnes of the shocktower and it is 100% straight.

I found the first hidden damage when removing the arms. The hingepins on the lower arms are bent, I was expecting this so I am not surprised. Went ahead and tore down the diff housing. Lots off grease inside, real dirty work, grease everywhere on the workbench. The diff itself is perfect, smooth, filled up, no damage to the gears. Real happy about that… the bearings on the diffcups are also good and can be re-used. The bearings on the piniongear however will be replaced.

Things changed for the worse when I went ahead and disassembled the arms. One off the front hub nuts has a destroyed hex socket, I tried to get it out but ended up with a ball-hex driver stuck in the hole. I had to cut the steeringblocks to get the hub nut and the pillowball out. No problem cause a NIB set steeringblocks was included in the box fortunately. I will need to get some new hubnuts as I am now 1 short.

Turned out all hub nuts and pillowballs on the arms are glued in with some kind of industrial strength superglue. I used heat to try and break down the glue bond. It needed so much heat the plastic started melting around the pillow balls. I broke my 2.5 mm hexdriver, I sheared of the ball end of a 2.5mm ball hex allen key (silver one), warped the short side and warped another 2.5 mm allen key in the proces …

Luckily I managed to get the broken ball end out of the hexsocket of the pillowball, so those can be re-used in the rebuild. The previous owner must have had a glue fetish or worship because the diff housing also had been glued together at some point. There are traces of glue on the seems of the different parts …. All in all I will be replacing lots of parts because of it … below everything that is in the bin right now.

Ordered the following parts:
Suspension Arm End Cap (ARA330645) 7 euro
Gearbox Case set HD (AR310854) 13 euro
Input Shaft Cup Sleeve 4pcs (ARA310976) 7 euro
Hinge Pin Lower 4x67.6mm (2pcs) (AR330381) 8 euro
Front Lower Suspension Arm 135mm (ARA330656) 16 euro
Front Upper Suspension Arms, 120mm (ARA330655) 15 euro
Aluminum Front Hub Nut (Red) (4Pcs) (ARA320467) 15 euro

Total 81 euro. Ouch … not the way I hoped to go.

 

[MisterEMM]

I'm sorry you still have to put money in. Talk to the seller, maybe he will give you something, show him pictures.
When I buy a used vehicle, everything is also disassembled, repaired, lubricated and cleaned. It's nice when there's an almost new car.
Until the first trip - then everything is very needed again.

 

[Haastnooit]

I did get some NIB parts with the car he never talked about when I bought the car. There was a bumper, rear wing, steering blocks and rear hubs all in original packaging included in the box. So I will let it slide for now … when I run in more mischief perhaps I will contact the seller. I knew it was a gamble ….

I did not really need to get all the parts I ordered. But figured I rather have a complete new diff housing and arms in stead off a mixture of used, different brands and new parts. For example I could re-use the hingepins after straightening, the input shaft cup sleeve is usable but ugly looking (low cost part), the upper arms could be cleaned up to be used again. As RPM is sold upper and lower left or right side in one package, and Arrma is sold upper left and right or lower left and right separately. I would be stuck with a mix of brands on the arms. I don’t really like that idea, so I decided to order a complete set new arms. Also the red endcap for the lower arms could be left out.

That would have saved 37 euro on spare parts, but I probably would regret doing so when the truck is fully rebuild.

 

[Haastnooit]

Frontclip assembly part 1

Today I finally received all the parts I ordered for the rebuild of the frontclip.

Started off with rebuilding the front bulkhead/diffhousing, as mentioned in the disassembly post I am re-using the bearings on the diffcups but wil be replacing the bearings on the piniongear. Those are not running smooth at the moment, I plan on cleaning and refurbishing them later so they can be used as spares in the future.

I de-anodized all red and black aluminium parts on the frontclip just to have a different look compared to my Notorious and FT. I hope I made the right choice in doing so, and will not regret it when the car is fully rebuild.

I used the free steeringblocks I received with the car and replaced the brass bushings in the steeringassembly for bearings. I did have to replace one rodend on the steeringlinks because the eye was worn down or stretched out and the ball popped out to easily.

Brandnew parts out the package and right in to the de-anodizing fluid … that felt a bit weird I must say. First pic was taken within 30 seconds, the second pic after a few minutes. Because off the foam I regularly get the parts out, rinse them in water to check the progress. Leaving the parts in too long could damage the aluminium surface, so better to check then to be too late.

 

[Haastnooit]

Frontclip assembly part 2

Today I went ahead with further assembly off the front clip and installed the new arms to the diffhousing. I replaced all the bearings in the steeringblocks, again the old bearings will be cleaned up and refurbished later for future spares.

I de-anodized the shocks as well, they were in need of a rebuild. All parts were loose and sloppy. I refilled the shocks with Losi 80wt (1014cst) shockoil, no leaking and they feel pretty good.

I need to order some longer shock mount pins for the lower arms, apparently the RPM arms use shorter pins as stock Arrma arms. For now the frontclip is done, I will grease up and install the front bumper when remating the frontclip to the chassis.

Next step will be disassembly of the rearclip.

 

[Haastnooit]

Rearclip disassembly

Just finished the disassembly of the rearclip, not as much work as the front as it has less parts you would think. However some building choices made by the previous owner cost me some delay.

A too long screw was used on the wing mount that caused damage to the thread in the plastic, due to the length and a bend in the screw it did not screw out. I did have to break it off and drill it out the remaining part. Broke one drillbit in the proces.

Further more the bolt, nut and link ball of the upper arms on the chassis side where all glued up with a very strong glue. I used my torch to heat up and break the glue bond. The RR suspension mount had a slight bend to it that was easily straightened out.

The diff housing is missing the cover to hold down the swaybar and has 2 stripped screwholes so that has to be replaced.

I will be using the new rear hubs and wing that came with the car. The hingepins are completely straight, also the lower arms are re-usable. But I decided to replace them with new parts and add the used arms, rear hubs and hingepins to the spare parts.

Ordered the following parts:
Gearbox Case set HD (AR310854) 13 euro
Hinge Pin Lower 4x67.6mm (2pcs) (AR330381) 8 euro
Rear Lower Suspension Arm 148mm (ARA330654) 16 euro
Composite Suspension Mount Set (AR330379) 10 euro

Total 47 euro for the rearclip. But 24 euro in parts are in fact “spares”.

 

[Haastnooit]

Rearclip assembly

This morning the new parts for the rearclip were delivered, so when I got the chance I started the re-assembly.

First task was de-anodizing all red and black aluminium parts. The rear shocktower had a pretty hard anodizing, it took way longer as usual. When de-anodizing you can tell the shocktowers are a different grade aluminium as they turn dark. When done with the de-anodizing I rebuild the shocks, one shock shaft had a slight bend which I managed to straighten. I think it will be OK, if not I will have to replace it later on.

Just as the front differential, the rear differential is also in good shape. Smooth, filled up and working properly. I suspect they were maintenanced not so long ago. I will re-use all bearings as they are like brandnew.

The RR mount needed some attention, I flattened it when I disassembled it. But it was also bent laterally, I had to reshape it and sand down the edge to get it to fit the plastic suspension mount piece. Time consuming but I did not order a new part, so it had to be done.

I replaced 2 rodends, both the longer ones on the chassis side, as the ball was a bit sloppy in them. One of the driveshafts needed a bit of hammering to straighten out. I used the new rear hubs I got with the car, and put in new bearings all around. The old ones need cleaning up and some oil and will be good for spares in the future.

Installed the swaybar and shocks. And then started on the rear wing, I was planning to re-use the RPM wingmount, but managed to destroy one of the plastic “dogbone washers”.

I screwed a sockethead screw completely through the hole, deforming it completely … dumbass. I used the powerdrill until the end, normally I do the last bit by hand. But for some reason I did not do it that way …

Luckily the Notorious uses the same wingmount as the Kraton, so I could use the spare one I have for the Kraton.

I forgot to install the wheelhexes and bodymounts before making pictures of the “finished” rearclip, I will install them tomorrow. Below some pictures of the finished rearclip and both front- and rear together.

Next up is chassis and electronics disassembly, I already did some work on the electronics while waiting for the necessary parts. Moving along nicely …

 

[Haastnooit]

Chassis disassembly

Today I started with the disassembly of the chassis, I already took out the ESC earlier to do some work on it. More about the ESC later, my starting point today.

Everything changed for the worse when I started a closer inspection of the chassis. Before I bought the car I asked if the chassis was straight, and I was assured it was. Well you can probably guess what the problem is… a bent chassis !

It is pretty obvious on the pics above, however when the truck was fully assembled I did not notice it. I even held a straight edge to the bottom ... ? I suspect the T2T brace kept everything in line, disassembly freed up the bent to be exposed.

I contacted the seller and send him some pics, no response yet. Hope he will be reasonable about this and we can come to a solution of some sorts. If I knew this before I would not have bought the car.

On to the rest of the parts … The ESC tray has been tortured in the past and the radio box is cracked. I will be replacing both parts. As I will need a new chassis I will probably replace the sideguards and batterybox as well. The batterybox is slightly deformed and the eyelets for the batterystrap underneath the tray are broken.

Well my misfortune did not end there. I tried to take the motor out of the motormount, but again some serious glue is used. I used heat on the screws but could not break the glue bond, only 1 screw came loose. I used so much heat I could no longer hold the motor in my hand for longer time. Not a good thing for the motor.

I F’d up really bad and stripped out the hex on two screws trying to get them out, one on the mount and one on the motor. I have decided to give up on trying to get the motor out. Guess the motor mount will be the only red part on the truck then …

[edit] 23-03-2023 received payback for the bent chassis

Ordered the following parts:
ESC Tray Set 6S (AR320430) 12 euro
Radio Box Set (ARA320604) 14 euro
Composite sideguards (ARA320189) 11 euro
Battery tray large (ARA320351) 20 euro
Aluminium chassis 7075T6 LWB black EXB (ARA320570) 120 euro

Total 177 euro for the new chassis and parts, of which 43 euro on the plastic parts could be re-used.

 

[MisterEMM]

I'm sorry that you're so unlucky with the Kraton.
Try to cool the motor with a wet cloth while you heat up screws. And hit the screw head with a tool ( carefully ) when the cool down after you take the heat away. Otherwise, I can only think of drilling out as a solution.

 

[Tex Koder]

...

Well my misfortune did not end there. I tried to take the motor out of the motormount, but again some serious glue is used. I used heat on the screws but could not break the glue bond, only 1 screw came loose. I used so much heat I could no longer hold the motor in my hand for longer time. Not a good thing for the motor.

I F’d up really bad and stripped out the hex on two screws trying to get them out, one on the mount and one on the motor. I have decided to give up on trying to get the motor out. Guess the motor mount will be the only red part on the truck then …

I KNOW Exactly what you are fighting against!!!!!!!

I had to wear gloves with fiddling with those exact Damn screws ,with a plumber's blowtorch in one hand and a hex driver in the other.
Finally got the threw screws loose on the bottom holding it in the chassis...
So I can deal with the two stupid top screws..

The trick is the two top screws actually has a "gap" before the threads actually screws into the motor mount...
Try to get your flame into the gap so it heats threads Directly instead of just shooting flame at the head.

Wear some thick gloves.
Good luck!
Keep us posted.

 

[Haastnooit]

Thanks guys, but I will leave it as is for now. Don’t feel like drilling out the screws right now, I will deal with it if I have to in the future. One thing I know for sure is the gear mesh will be perfect for ever

I will get a bolt extractor set to add to my tools in case of future mishaps like this.

 

[Haastnooit]

I received word of the seller … and it is a positive sound Singing mode “ It‘s a beautiful day, sun is shining … “

He feels really bad about the bent chassis and was not aware of it being bent he claims. Big apologies and he payed back half of the discount (= 125 euro) I gave him on the latpulley. So I will be ordering a new EXB chassis this morning what a fabulous way to start the day … I feel happy now !

 

[MisterEMM]

I'm happy abaout it. Is is always nice to see that people are not as bad as the news conveys.
And in the end you will have a Kraton that is better than new.

 

[Haastnooit]

Electronics restoration

As I am awaiting the delivery of my new chassis I will post some work I have done on the electronics. I started working on the ESC earlier when waiting on parts. Reason for that was the damage to the housing of the max8, it was a real challenge to figure out what to do to get it restored to a usable state.

Unfortunately I dove right in to the challenge and forgot to take pictures of the starting point. For reference below a picture of a complete max8 ESC.

So you will have to do with a worldly description of the starting state of my ESC. The top half of the housing which covers the bullets and caps on the sides and also incloses the fan in the center was completely shot to bits. It was cut up at the sides (part above the heatsink of the lower case) to make room for a replacement fan that did not fit properly. The center stepped part was cracked in one of the corners of the vertical wall on both the bullet and cap side. The center top section was cracked at 3 of the 4 screw holes.

It was quite a challenge to figure out how to make something decent, here is what I came up with.

I shaved down a bit of the ESC heatsink on the lower case so the aluminium fan fits perfectly on top and between the taller heatsink edges. I glued the cracks in the vertical walls on the stepped parts, completely removed the top center part of the top housing and 3D printed a new top plate to compress everything down.

Also repaired several damaged spots on the isolation on the wiring. After I made a top plate for the ESC fan I also 3D printed one to fit the Integy fan on the motor heatsink.

The car came with a PowerHD 30kg servo that will be re-installed in the car, good condition, no problems there …