Well, those pictures happen to be the same climb, just from different angles!! I drove into that postition and drove out of it, by turning hard right and feathering the throttle ever so slightly(I love the Mamba Max ESC with the Integy 65t lathe motor,, Smooth!) It was a bit tippy, dont get me wrong, but I DID drive it!! No time for posing, just crawling.. I too had some problems with the rear link so I made my own setup....(see below). I also, found the shocks cheap, but with acouple very minor mods, they work quite well until the aluminums are available.
The point really is.. you can make both trucks climb very well!! But my experience shows the wheely king takes more time and $$ to do it!! In fact you also stated how much work it takes.... I dont have that kind of time into the axe to get the performance it has.
Now the Wheely King is by far not abandoned!! I just got the ingredients to do a tuber chassis for it! So it will also soon be just as capable as the Axe!!
The Wheely King's position as a formidable crawler is well guarded, you have no fear of it losing favor. I never plan to sell the king, just keep building it....
Any truck is going to need to be fixed when you bash them. I love both trucks and my king has been modified heavily and it crawls very well, but the axe took less work!!!
Want some tips on setting up your axe???
might want to read [link=http://www.rccrawler.com/forum/showthread.php?t=84315]this thread, it tells the story with a second party seeing it in action!![/link]
See ya on the rocks!!!!