Dale Gribble

My Feedback: (4)

Not sure if anyone has chronicled a build of the PTI Goliath MT here. It really is a cool truck and doesn't get the attention it should. I am looking forward to running it for sure. I am going to take my time and enjoy it as much as possible. I was really impressed by the reviews of the Goliath, and a call into PTI answered all of my questions and got me really excited about the truck.

Step 1, the setup:
The PTI Goliath kit
Duratrax Intellispeed entry ESC
2/3SC battery pack from a TLT-1
Traxxas high torque revo steering servo 2055
HPI 27MHz RF-2 AM 4 ch receiver and TF-4 Tx.

I chose very entry stuff to save money or utilize what I already had. The Goliath box is attractive and screams to be opened.



The kit is well organized into bag letters. Updated addendums to the manual are stapled to the associated bag.





The directions are very good, I must admit. After dealing with HPI and Kyosho manuals which are quad-lingual and busy, it is nice to see clean, well illustrated and written directions. The pictures are great, the steps are logical and the pointers and cautions are clear and well written. Good job PTI.



Step 1 was to assemble the front and rear ball diffs. The ball diffs are pretty standard fare. I am surprised to see plastic outdrives on the diffs. We will see how they hold up in the short and long term. The diffs came right together and the directions were great.



Step 2 was to assemble the front and rear constant velocity driveshafts. The step was straightforward, except that the set screws for the CVD pins were too long. You can see the screw on the allen wrench in the picture. I had to grind about 1/32" off of the grub set screws so they would not interfere with the cup of the shaft. This wasn't documented. I intend to follow up with PTI to let them know. It took about 20 seconds per screw to grind them down to the right length with the dremel. Don't forget the threadlock.



Step 3 was to install the bearings and pinion gears to the front and rear driveshafts. No problem. Pinions were a tight fit onto the driveshaft, but it was fine.



That's it for now. Stay tuned for updates daily.

Takedown

My Feedback: (23)

Lookin good![sm=thumbs_up.gif]

Dale Gribble

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Thanks! I should be able to get 1-2 updates a night in until it's done.

Takedown

My Feedback: (23)

Take your time. Let the posts build.[8D]

barefootdan

update?

Dale Gribble

My Feedback: (4)

So, axles are done. They went together ok, but there are some issues. I painted the body, pretty boring two tone. Any overspray you see is on the mask, the colors and lines came out quite clean.

Here are the axles in position waiting for the top part of the cases-



**HINT** The directions tell you to put the steering knuckle flanged bushings on AFTER the axle is together. It is tricky because the space is tight and the dogbone is conveniently in the way. The dogbone doesn't go in/out when the axle is together because of the housing. I got the bushings in after a little cussing on the first one. On the second axle, I put the flanged bushings on the axle halves before I joined them and it was cake. Here is an illustration of the step. Again, do this BEFORE you put the axle together. Saves some hassle.



Here are the axles completed. The gear mesh seems ok, not as smooth as I would like. I would say it needs to be shimmed, but it is quite smooth through most of the rotation. There is only one spot where there is a little resistance in the rotation. I will leave it as is for now and see when it wears in. The housings really don't want to come together well over the link nut you put into the housing. I deburred it as directed and it still wasn't that good of a fit. Finally, one of the steering knuckles doesn't have full steering range, and there is no reason why not. The dogbone looks like it is sticking out more, but there are no burrs or anything. No biggy, that axle will go on the back but I will probably troubleshoot it further later on. I could swap it to a good side and see.

So, not the TIGHTEST assembly, but they seem ok. PTI lost a couple points for the axle housings. Still a good A grade.



Here is the body. Looks pretty underwhelming, but bodies always do look crappy uncut with the overspray film on. Body looks like a new Ford Ranger...

Dale Gribble

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Slightly better picture of the body, still work in progress...

Takedown

My Feedback: (23)

Is there a dent in the back left side of the body or are my eye's decieving me?

Nasher

I'm jealous that has better axles then my wheely king crawler.

I was gonna get one but i didn't have the 300-400 dollars i needed to set it up for crawling.

GOOD LUCK!

Dale Gribble

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There is a dent, yes. I reported it to PTI and they were very quick with a response and offered to ship a new body to me. These guys are first class based on my few dealings with them.

brainleak

My Feedback: (1)

Dale, Your making it very hard for me not to order one of these. Its the only mini I want that I havent bought yet. When it was release I was Very excited but heard that the kit was sub par. (Issues with parts missing or screws) And PTI has made the needed revisions and it looks to be a VERY solid Truck.
I look forward to seeing your truck in the end. Do you plan on keeping the truck mostly stock through out its life?

Keep up the good work.

Dale Gribble

My Feedback: (4)

Guys. The truck is moving along, I finished the body, except I will finalize the fenders with a dremel to clean them up. I found out the truck is fully manufactured in the USA, besides the tires and shocks which were off the shelf parts. Probably one of if not the only kit manufactured in the US. As far as the initial release, I think it's a tall order to expect a small company to be inline with the established players. There will always be speedbumps when a new manufacturer releases product. They will grow just like anyone else and get better. I have worked for start up companies for going on 7 years now, so I understand where they are coming from.

brainleak, I don't plan to keep the truck stock, none of my stuff is. PTI has released some mod parts for the Goliath and I intend to give them all a shot when I get a chance. I will run it stock first to get a feel and then start modding. By the way, I live in Pittsburgh brainleak! You can see the finished product for yourself when I am done. (I just haven't updated my profile since I moved).

Updated body pics, more to come this weekend.

Dale Gribble

My Feedback: (4)

Ok, here we go with some more updates.

The center differential came together with little effort; it isn't a slipper, it is locked with metal pegs. Easy.



The next step is to put the center diff in the housing. Another easy step.



Here is another shot of the bottom of the diff. If you notice how the lower skidplate angles outwards towards the edges, it won't be like that for long. It needs to be cut to clear the link ends. More to come.

Dale Gribble

My Feedback: (4)

Next step is to assemble the chassis. Machine screws into metal, don't forget the threadlock.



Here is the differential mounting to the side chassis plates. Four self tapping screws on either side.



Here comes the mod to the lower tranny skidplate. If you look on the skidplate pic above, you will see how the skidplate is not square. PTI added an addendum to the kit and recommended the ball mounts be installed on the inside of the chassis. They were designed to be on the outside. So, when moving the ball mounts to the inside, it is clear to see that material needed to be removed to not bind the suspension and allow full travel. I used a dremel and basically ground the skidplate square. Sure you could test and trial cutting the skid, but I know this works and it will have no impact on reliability or performance.



Next step is mounting the tranny to the chassis. Starting to look pretty cool, eh? Almost resembles something now.

calvino

looking good dave, just currious, what is the point of the center diff????

Dale Gribble

My Feedback: (4)

First and foremost, it transfers power from the motor to the front and rear axles. Since it doesn't slip at all, it will transfer full available power the the axles at all times. The large spur will give the MMT a low gear ratio for crawling around and for a lot of torque. Plus, it looks like a standard spur that could be changed out with 1/10 scale cars, trucks. I will need to confirm that, but it does look like a standard 1/10 spur.

easyrabbit

This is cool, I have never seen it done. However the Goliath traditionally does not always go as planned so it will be interesting to see you chronical that. Will you be adding the extension kit? I have full GRC rig with the GRU coming in the mail (it better work right!).

After installing extension kit (never really ran truck before it) I found many issues with weak points etc. You will probably encounter many of the same thing. So many mods had to be done to get truck ready to take abuse and crawl for real. The forum over at RCCrawlers.com can help a lot.

Gooood Luck!

I am about ready to start building my Axial Scorpion to go head to head with the GRC. If yu are interested. http://picasaweb.google.com/EasyRabbit/Goliath

Aloha,

Rabbit

PS: You will be cutting that body up real good so do not worry about the way it looks. It actually looks fine

Dale Gribble

My Feedback: (4)

Thanks for sharing... I am not a big crawler fan, I really like the MMT for the Mini Monster part of it. I plan on just bashing it around with my MQ and using it as a 1/18 scale. Rock crawling is hard on anything- lot of loading of torque and power on the drivetrain with little give or slip. I am not sure it's fair to compare the MMT to a 1/12 or 1/10 scale competitor e.g. Scorpion or Wheelie King. Those trucks are beefier to compensate for the larger scale.

I plan on modding the truck for sure, just keeping in the theme of the monster more then a crawler.

easyrabbit

LOL well if you are not in to crawling you might not want to put the time you might have to put in for the GRC. The reason why you add the extension kit is to bring it to competition level and it also alows it to crawl slightly better. It is a cool looking truck. If you do not add the extension kit you will basically have a true crawler version of the GoliathMT. When you add the extension it removes the cantilever suspension and that was a big dissapointement for me. That was one of the coolest aspects of that little truck to me.

I think the reason why the Goliath and Scorpion's are compared to each other so much is because they are marketed and complete cralwer packages. The only two as far as I know of. Once you get your GRC built you will see that it feels more like a 1/10 than a 1/18 for sure.

Dale Gribble

My Feedback: (4)

The build continues...

Next step builds the front steering links. A big plus on the directions was the 1:1 measurements so you could put the link against the directions to verify length.



Next is to mount the steering servo to the mount. The kit comes with two servo mounts, one for a micro servo and one for a standard servo. I am not sure why you would put a micro servo in when a standard mount is available. I found an issue with this because the Traxxas servo I chose required the servo mount plate to be modded. I had to take some material off the sides and a little groove to fit the servo right. Don't try to shoehorn the servo to the mount. If it doesn't fit easily, something will probably break. The first picture is the servo on the mount for a test fit, the second pic is the mount modified for the servo.





Next I installed the ball ends into the knuckles... Those are TIGHT in there. After having problem starting the threads into the knuckle, I opened the hole up and just put a 3mm nut on the other side. The picture illustrates the completed front axle with steering.

Dale Gribble

My Feedback: (4)

All of the suspension links are done. Not a fun step and time consuming. Some of the links seem to be longer then the ball ends thread area and when I tried to get the links to meet the measurements in the manual, one broke. The threads go in too far into the ball ends and appear to be stressing them slightly. I broke one ball end, but fortunately I had a 1/10 scale ball end from an old kit hanging around to keep it going. I am like a bull in a china shop though. I don't have the gentle touch. If I was more careful and patient, they would have been ok.



Then it's time to lock the rear knuckles to the axle housing. Easy step aside from threading the ball ends into the axles and knuckles. They take a little convincing. PTI does give a pointer for getting them started. It's highly recommended.

Dale Gribble

My Feedback: (4)

Ahhh, time to bolt the axles to the chassis. This was a satisfying step. The suspension is very smooth up and down and it got me REALLY excited to keep building the kit. However, I have other stuff to do so I will spend more time on it tomorrow. Looks cool!

bigairlife

Nice job. Looks like the build is coming along VERY well.

Mr. Mugen

I built 3 of these trucks and each kit was a little different. I think they revised each time. One thing they all had in common was the extra flak in the axles. You need to trim a bunch of it out with an exacto knife to get a good feel of the gears turning. Also the front steering needs some much needed attn. I made a CF tierod that went from one wheel to the other and made one to go from the servo to one wheel instead of the kit version as you show it. It works soooooo much better. I wish I hadn't sold them already I could peer over at them and tell you more. Maybe I will think of more as time rolls on. Good job so far! Kevin

bigairlife

I like the idea of a solid axle mini. That should be very fun offroad. But im wondering how its going to handle onroad