nice of you buddy to give you the truck, even if he was having issues with it.
i to have helped out some friends get started in the hobby....just so i have people to bash with
honestly, your issues with the volcano sound like every nitro i have ever owned. some days i could bash it hard for many tanks, and other days i couldnt get them to run. i do great with brushless truck, but have an issue %50 of the time i try to run a nitro
but it think that me, not the trucks.
you could try taking the dogbones to the hobby shop(even tho the owner doesnt sound helpful) and see if any others on the racks match up but are a tad longer. usually fuel line in the drive cups does the trick, but if you already tried that then finding some slightly longer dogbones would surely help.
BTW, i like your choice of wheels. look very mean on that truck!