Laggger164

I had my Tamiya Trail Master monster truck for literally 11 years when it was my 7th birthday (yes I am 18 y/o) , but most of it it was put on a shelf, not being used. Today I found it and want to bring it back to life.
I charged the NiCd 750mA 9.5V battery to see if it still works. And it does!

These are the things I want to do:
1. Do proper maintenance.

Since it has been 11 years since it was maintained other than wiping dust off of the top, it needs maintenance.
Can you guys provide a video or something to show me how to properly do a full maintenance?
2. Glue the back tires.

I noticed that the rim of the tire is spinning when the tire itself is blocked or it has opposite momentum. I want to glue the damn thing in place, what would I use to do so? Epoxy? Hot glue? Superglue? Something better?

3. I want to upgrade the receiver and my transmitter.

Since it still uses the old 8 channel system, it is actually illegal to use it in my country. That's not what I care about, but what I do care about is that my transmitter's antenna is bent and the receiver's antenna might have a frayed cable, but I am not sure about that one.
The point is, I have problems controlling it. The problems worsen when as the battery gets drained, which seems obvious, but i thought I'd mention it anyways.
I was looking at one of those FlySky FS-GT3C radios since their receivers are dirt cheap and the transmitters look pretty nice.
This car is the only one I have at the moment, but I want to get into RC since my father is a long RC modeller, mostly with planes, but I want to expand that to cars as well. Boats maybe but I wouldn't have anywhere to drive them.

4. Upgrade from Ni-Cd batteries to Ni-Mh or Li-Ion or Li-Po.
What would I need if I wanted to upgrade into one of those? What circuits, what battery, [Insert anything here].

Thank you for your time, I made a post a week ago on DIY RC cars and this community has been very helpful so far!

RetiredRoadThunder

Sitting shouldn't be too hard on the old r/c stuff, but a can of 'dust off' or similar can get all the deep down dust out of the circuit boards. I just bought a futuba pr3k receiver and transmitter combo and seems to work just fine (I picked it because it was the cheapest setup with 2.4ghz and fhss).


Going to a NIMH from NICD can be done with no modifications to the r/c but the battery needs a charger for NIMH.

I run venom 8.4 5000mah batteries because they are about as cheap as you'll find, upping the voltage increases speed at the risk of burning stuff up. My truck came with 7.2v and I ran it like that for a couple years, the plugged in the 8.4v battery and the motor went about a year and I could see the heat getting to it and it started to dwindle the speed down- but it was still working today before I switched to a cheap brushless.

Laggger164

Alright, I did some modifications. I glued the tires with regular superglue I had lying around, it seems to work fine for now.
My new Ni-Mh battery finally came from china and now it has a lot more kick than before, not to mention runs for a lot longer. The specs say 9.6V 2000 mAh battery. I don't buy the 2000 mAh, but I can see a big improvement nonetheless.

I decided to go with XT60 battery connectors and a pack of 10 pairs of cheap XT60s just arrived so I will be changing the tamiya connectors with those.

I still have a lot of problems with the range, it goes about 8 meters and then cuts off. I tried it in an open area with the same result, so no interference around my home is causing it. I took apart both the transmitter and the car to look for any loose wires/connections, but everything is there, so I don't know what the problem is for now.

RetiredRoadThunder

I had constant trouble with my 27mhz transmitter, finally upgraded to the futuba and it'll drive out of sight under total control.


I used superglue aswell.

After awhile you might consider going to lipo battery power

Laggger164

I am guessing you upgraded to the 2.4GHz awesomeness right? Did you ever measure how far you can go in an open area and maybe in a more closed area? I would love to have a FPV setup on a car, it's something I've been dreaming of all the time.

Li-Pos are definitely better, if I was to upgrade the Rx and Tx I would surely replace the Ni-Mh batteries with Li-Pos. Although, the car would only be able to fit a small thin Li-Po in the battery compartment.

Also, the motor is kind of stupidly weak, I have looked around and it seems that there could be a brushless motor variant that might be a bit stronger, but I am not sure.

RetiredRoadThunder

I upgraded everything else before getting the 2.4ghz transmitter because they were so expensive. After the 3rd time of the truck swerving on its own accord and crashing and breaking the steering all up I paid about $50 for the futuba transmitter and receiver, I should have done it sooner it really boost the fun factor having full control of the truck and saves money in replacing broken parts. Even in a big open parking lot the truck will go further than I can make out which way it's facing. With the 27mhz it'd go about 2 house lengths before it'd start doing random things.

I bought a 2nd receiver and put it in another r/c and can use the same transmitter for as many vehicles as I want.


I cant help with motor or esc, I'm having a lot of trouble with that myself, the brushless setup I bought burned up after 5-6 runs, not sure it's it's my battery choice or bad luck but it destroyed the battery in the process. It was a knock-off Chinese hobbypower 60a-sl (Cheap copy of the hobbywing 60a-sl)

Laggger164

Weird, what exactly burned up? The ESC or the motor? Maybe something shorted out, thus burning up and destroying the battery.

Since I have no idea what else to do and also learning that the 27MHz band is pure crap I think I will order that FlySky transmitter and receiver.
I like the look of it and the receivers are freaking cheap! I would of course have to buy a new ESC, but that's another thing and nowadays they aren't that expensive.