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Just wanted to write a follow up post on the Wild One for those that might be interested in how it performed. Also for ElectricGuy007, who was wondering if this model would make for a good beater buggy.
First let me establish that this is a completely stock setup. For the initial runs I installed the 15T pinion gear and ran two 2500mAh batteries on the first day. I was pleased that these lasted about 20m each. I have absolutely nothing to compare this run time to, but I felt that was a pretty fair drive time as I was on the gas pretty hard most of the time. Most of the driving was done in short grass in my front yard. My son and I chased each other around (him with the FAV), as we jumped mole hills and such.
At the end of the first day I dusted off my buggy and kind of gave it a once over. I didn’t give a thorough inspection, but simply looked it over as I removed the motor in order to install the 18T pinion. My son and I did a bit of straight line drag racing on the driveway and found the two (Wild One and FAV) to be pretty equal, as they should be. So, I was changing the gearing without his knowledge to surprise him the next day. Was it faster? Yes, by a noticeable amount, so I had to let him in one the secret. Honestly though, the 15T is plenty fast and probably allows for a longer run time. A bit of information that I never got to verify, for reasons which I will discuss now…
As we were driving around my buggy just stopped moving. As I pressed the trigger I could hear my motor buzzing, but no action. As I approached I could see that the right rear arm was sprung outward a bit. As I was carrying the buggy back to the house I happened to see the right side output shaft fall out of the gearbox. Glad I saw that! It could have easily been lost in the grass.
Once on the bench I was able to see that the right rear arm holder was not attached properly… rather it was just hanging there. The arrows indicate areas of damage to the chassis and also the hole that is supposed to be installed over the pivot pin.
Here is a shot of the left side, which has sustained similar damage, but not enough to start spitting out parts yet.
Another shot of the right side showing the severe damage to the chassis.
One more shot from the rear, which shows that the rear arm holder is barely hanging on and has allowed the rear arm to slide outward, away from the gearbox. The left side is nearly in the same condition, it just hasn’t pulled apart yet.
So, there you have it… while the Wild One is a great looking buggy and a lot of fun to drive, it does have its weaknesses. I don’t think I was overly abusive… in fact, my son drove his buggy on the same terrain quite a bit more than I drove mine and his does not show any signs of failure.
Right
Left
I think he was actually a bit harder on his vehicle than I was. Just look at those headlights… I mean, headlight! LOL!
Looks like I can get a replacement chassis for ~$15, but I hate to think that I have to remove and reinstall everything only to have the same thing occur in fairly short order. It doesn’t seem that this particular part (the rear arm holder) should be under a lot of stress, but given that the pivot pin isn’t exactly a rigid mount, it can slop around and pull on the arm holder, and therefore the chassis. Speaking of the chassis, it isn’t beefed up in this critical area. A way to improve this might be to shim the pivot pin to make sure that it is a bit more solid… i.e. not be allowed to slop around so much and pull on the arm holder and chassis. Another improvement might be to fabricate a backing plate that could be installed under the screw heads. I have a bunch of 4130 sheet (.022”, .032”, etc) that I can use for this purpose. It will be a small part, but should help to distribute the load a bit and hopefully keep from pulling the screws through the chassis mount. Another option might be to fabricate an entirely new arm holder from heavier 4130… maybe .090” or so. Perhaps it could be mounted to the battery box area instead of the small ears protruding from the chassis. Not sure which approach I’ll take at the moment, but I’ll try to report back with some photos of the modifications.
Unfortunately, this damage seems to ring a bell. I am thinking that this was another thing that occurred on my original Wild One, and might be the reason that I stopped driving it and went for the Kyosho Ultima. Can’t remember for sure… 25 years is a long time, but it does seem familiar now that I’m looking at it again.
Summary… fun to build, fun to drive, but probably not a good basher. I'll definitely fix it back up and have some fun with it, but I'll be a little more aware of how I'm driving. It wouldn't be such a big deal if it were a bent shock post or something, but te replace the chassis after only three runs seems like a PITAthat I'm not interested in doing often.
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