View Full Version : Rebuild of Tamiya Bullhead monster truck
with 3 days of no-work ahead of me, ive made a commitment to completely strip down and rebuild my Tamiya Bullhead monster truck. the next 5 pages on this thread will be a documention of the rebuild and i will try to give as much attention to detail as possible with pics and write ups, but, keep in mind that Tamiyas are very straight forward to build with very neat layed out manuals.
the monster truck currently has plastic bushes through-out and a manual sloppy speed control... lets upgrade that in the rebuild process too.
here goes....
an hours worth of work, and im spent for today. tomorrow i will head to the hobby shop to buy ball bearings.
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BALISTC
23-01-2005, 09:27 PM
I'm rebuilding mine at the moment, its looking a whole lot messier than that though......Savage's are a lot more complicated!!
i dont suppose youre taking pics as youre going along? it would be interesting to see the progress of it all.
James
24-01-2005, 09:08 AM
matt, i love the first pic... "an hour of work and I'm stuffed" and all you've done is take the wheels off.. HAHAHAHA. slacker!
funny
ha, i thought it was funny too. i was watching a movie on the TV at the same time so it did take me longer than normal to get the gearboxs out and open...
here is an update, pic taken monday morning.
what you see here is 20 bearings, and 2 tubes of gearbox grease (the Bullhead has 2 gearboxes and i wanted some left over for the race buggy when i strip down and rebuild that gearbox).
what you see here is $52 worth of products.
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ive dissambled both gearboxes into a tray. vasoline was originally used on the gears by the person who owned it before me, and this has to be removed. i will CRC everything to break down the vasoline then use high pressure water to blast it clean.
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each peice was coated in CRC and wiped over with a fine brush, then blasted with high pressure water.
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BALISTC
24-01-2005, 11:47 AM
Matt, I havent taken any pics, because a guy on Savage Central forums took pics and wrote a step by step pictorial on how to disassemble and rebuild a Savage...so I'm just copying that :)
James
24-01-2005, 12:01 PM
Mr Hart, what a messss ! haha, nice. loads of gearbox parts! damn
im going on a schedule: by night tonight i want to have both gearboxes done and have them ready for mounting back onto the truck. tomorrow i will rebuild the chassis and rewire the electrics (and i plan to hide the wiring and so forth, inspired by one red pulsar i know).
the last hour was spent reassembling gearbox #1, pics follow. im now going to grab some lunch and will then re-assemble gearbox number 2.
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James
24-01-2005, 02:29 PM
nice! how you gonna hide wiring? in conduit or something? haha. top secret!
good stuff. more ppl on the site should post stuff like this :)
and last updates for the day (its 6:30pm SYD time as i write this). the drive train is done, and i will resume in the morning on the chassis and electrics.
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my work area. out on the balcony.
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pic.
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tuesday update:
ive just discovered something bad. ive missed a nut when re-assembling the gearbox, and now something has to screw into the gearbox and theres no nut for the screw to screw into.
this means, i have to open box gearboxs to put in one nut.
this is going to set me back at least an hour today.
James
25-01-2005, 09:37 AM
aaah the trial and error of hardcore gearbox rebuilding. you can do it matto, we're sweating here for ya...
update: i started the day with rebuilding the motors and cleaning them up nice....
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i was outside on my balcony when the rain decided to POUR down in true Sydney style. Onya Sydney.
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the rain meant i was to move my setup inside the apartment. to clear up the issue i had earlier today, i was installing the motors into my gearbox and i needed to screw in a small bracket onto the gearbox which would then later attach to a control arm of some sort. i inserted the screw and it wasnt threading... because the nut it should have threaded into wasnt in the gearbox. i thought it may take an hour to open both boxes and insert the nut ... but it took about 30 minutes which isnt bad.
this pic is of both drive trains, complete, with cleaned motors, and ready to be attached to the chassis.
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the next part is to grab some lunch (its midday here), and then work on the chassis. clean it, and install the electrics.
the truck should be running tonight.
tomorrow - cleaning the rims/tyres and body shell which should be an hours worth of work.
i will update again in the next hour or two.
matt.
updates, updates.
the chassis has been dissambled, cleaned (using CRC + high pressure water) and re-assembled again. now all that is left is the electrics. pics below...
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chassis fully reassembled here. there is a tray that sits just above the steering servo that you can see here, and the tray holds the receiver and electronic speed controller.
im aiming for a "hidden wiring" theme as i install the electronics.
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James
25-01-2005, 02:33 PM
very cool updates! love the look of those Kisbey motor's mmmm Kisbey's. So the ESC is going in and replacing the manual control? NICE. I reckon you should invest in a high-torque metal gear servo for it one day too, get the thing really turning quick.
thats a good idea mate! i dont know how far i want to go with this thing, but when i was at the hobby shop on monday i saw 13x2 motors for $40 new and man i was temped to grab 2 for the truck. one day... only day i think i'll go a little more mental on it and install a high speed high torque servo.
now im working indoors so the picture quality has degraded a little.
this pic is the speed controller mounted and the receiver loosly fitted to where it will go. ive turned the assembly sideways for the pic...
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this shows the speed control/receiver holder upside down and how ive just used masking tape to tape up the wires. it does the truck... er... trick. haha.
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James
25-01-2005, 04:54 PM
looking good, very neat. go the ESC !
and here is a wrap up for tuesday. the chassis is complete, the electronics are in and i am pleased on how the hidden wiring has turned out. i have connected a battery to give the truck a test squirt and the motors made an aweful grinding noise - i didnt put any oil on the bushes and i think its a bad thing. i dropped a small bit on the endbell bush and the noise has cleared but does make the noise occasionally. small problems to be ironed out.
ok, ok, so i was so eagar to see how much of a difference the ballbearings and an electronic speed controller would make. i charged a battery and took her for a squirt up the street.
we need to take into mind that this monster truck is geared down, its torque heavy and not a speed machine so there should be no huge expectations for it to get up and leap now... it does weigh 4 kilos after all. full throttle and she got up and lept like a bee had stung its arse. it was quite impressive and ballbearings are such an awesome upgrade.
tomorrow, i clean the tyres/rims and bodyshell and its all done. the next drama i have is that i really dont want to drive it anymore because its SO CLEAN. yeah, im quite serious. too clean to drive.
pics follow.
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toxxic
25-01-2005, 06:59 PM
Jeeze, that is really coming along. Looks great.
thanks mate! i has taken a solid 2 days to get it that far, there is a considerable amount of time taken in cleaning the bits and peices and as i reassemble it i am paying attention to detail - im measuring to the very mm the length of steering arm rods and so on.
day #3, Wednesday, Australia Day, and work continues however all that is required is a clean up of the tyres, bodyshell and its done. when reassembling the motors yesterday, during the test run they made an aweful scratching/grinding noise and in no way was i happy with this. at the first sign of light (about 5:40am syd time) i woke up and pulled apart the motors and applied high temp grease the bushes. because this monster truck is 4x4x4, theres two of everything... a big pain in the arse because it meant disassembling two motors blah blah.
this pic shows where i left off yesterday, chassis fully reassembled and clean.
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tyres just after a wash. i have a problem, water has gotten in through the breather holes in the rims and because the tyres are glued i cant get the water out easy enough. the solution i have thought of is to leave the tyres in the sun for a bit to let the water warm up and evaporate.
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and now with a clean shell.
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more updates for today (wednesday)
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all done. she is way too clean to take out, i have a feeling this truck may become what they call a "shelf queen". will see what comes of it.
all up, this excercise took two and a half days. (up until yesterday i was still cleaning off the limestone shit splashed up from Ryper's Track, James)
the feeling to complete such a project is awesome, with some really cool upgrades such as completely ballracing the monster truck and installing a Novak electronic speed control (thanks Balistc, it works GREAT!). the speed controller is capable of 250A peak which is needed since the beast has two motors to drain current in parallel.
here it stands, looking so clean and shiney.
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BALISTC
26-01-2005, 10:37 AM
Awesome work!! I wish I could do my Savage in that amount of time, but I'm still awaiting on a whole bunch of parts from the USA.
I'm glad the ESC is working great for you too ;)
toxxic
26-01-2005, 05:22 PM
Looks really sweet! - i wish i could be bothered doing that to my cars ;) but hey - they are nitro, you will never keep em clean (well thats my excuse anyway).
Top job.
James
26-01-2005, 10:32 PM
flashy! how does it perform with the ESC?
very responsive, the manual speed controller was jerky, laggy, daggy.
the Noval electronic speed controller doesnt have reverse which is limiting because its easy to get the monster truck into a situation where you need this feature (ie, when the truck flips and sits on its arse after landing). not a big problem, because the brakes on it pull up real hard and firm.
an update on this for anyone who was following :
i have now taken out the novak speed controller and put it into my racing buggy because the specs were better than the futaba speedy i had in my buggy and, your best parts should always be in the car/buggy/truck you race. the novak speed controller also did not provide a reverse function and this was a huge draw back because a truck of this size easily got itself stuck and needed to reverse. the Futaba speed controller in my buggy did have a reverse option so it was logical to swap the two.
the two Kisbey stock motors have been removed and now tuned to be race motors for the buggy. there is a technical reason why i have pulled the 2 motors out:
stock motors are fixed at 24 degrees advanced timing. one of the gearboxes on the Bullhead has the motor running in reverse (i think its the front one) and 24 degrees advanced timing on a motor going in reverse becomes 24 degrees retarded timing. what a drawback! so, ive had the motors tuned and dyno'd (they rev high - 35,000rpm!!) and im on the hunt for modified motors because the timing on a mod motor can be advanced or retarded. retarded timing on a motor going in reverse becomes advanced timing.
yo!
ive had the bullhead sitting on the floor doing nothing for the past 6 months. ive run it out on the front lawn probably twice and took it out on a bash day with BB, Propane, Nitro_LST and the boys. the Bullhead just isnt being used.
so, with this, I am going to sell it. i'd very much prefer a local sale because of the sheer size of it. it comes with box and manual. currently its dusty from the last run, but it has been looked after as you will see from the level of detailing i go to with my RC cars. i will spend some time cleaning her soon.
she is up for sale, im looking for $350 and thats with radio gear + electronic speed control (no reverse) and twin Venom 15 double motors. it is also fully ballraced.
if you are interested then feel free to drop me a PM :)
matt.
BAGES
24-01-2006, 08:35 AM
Good luck with the sale Matt - I too have the same dilema with the Hotshot - I never use it for fear of damaging it, so have moments where I think I should sell it. Its also why I have never got around to doing a rebuild as I first planned when I bought it - I know if I do there is NO chance I will drive it again........
Propane
25-01-2006, 06:40 PM
Nice matt... Dont sell it....
Can we take it out this weekend and launch it of a cliff for a new video me and bb are working on :)
<span class='smallblacktext'>[ Edited Wed Jan 25 2006, 05:41PM ]</span>
fellas this is now for sale. see the For Sale forms for details and whats included with the sale!
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