Sorry I'm not a big help.

And you get no moment from the steering servo either?

Are the crystals, that are in the transmitter and receiver, the same color/frequency?

You should be able to find the manuals for your radio and ESC. I would make sure to have fresh batteries and set up the ESC.

If you really are dying to get the 18MT up and running, maybe it's time to jump into a 2.4ghz radio system, and not have to deal with AM crystals and such. You can get a decent 2.4ghz radio/receiver for mid twenty dollar range.