Cheers helismith for your input. I realise EVERYONE has a problems with these and you are doing a great job helping us all out! Kudos to you!
Now if I can step in line for some advice: First off I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that ALL walkera helicopters come with a curse! lol no seriously is it me or does it seem that EVERY #36 is a dud and needs major overhauling to the point that you can no longer call them a Walkera? Anyway I gotta laugh otherwise I'll cry..lol

Anyway seems that I get one issue after another. Ok after finding out that the stock motor was a POS not even able to hover the heli that well, I had it replaced with a Esky brushless/ESC from a Blade CP and according to the heli shop "pro", test flights were done and everything checked out & it was flying well. Now I go to crank it up for my maiden flight only for it to suddenly fail. What is happening is that when the engine comes on, everything starts to power up to the point where it gets light on the skids, gets a whisper of air only for something in the "drivetrain" to slip and the motor just wizzes away leaving the helicopter on the ground. So it seems that when there is load put on the motor, just as it gets light, something just gives way and the heli stays put. I am so totally new to this so I dont know what to look for and neither did my buddy. Gears, belt, all the "guts" seem to be working and nothing is visibly stripped but something in the head or shaft is slipping. Also is there an easy to take the head of in relatively one piece to examine it? Any idea helismith as to what may be the problem?

Just on the manual, it appears that the #36 took a maor overhaul for the 2007 version. The manual seems to be readable whereas my manual is the worst translated gobbligook its actually really funny to read. Other than that the manual is utterly useless. Other differences I have noticed is that the radio, receiver, gyro and servos have all been updated & replaced. The come with 9g servos where my version has only 5g servos. The radio is now 7Ch and programable and the all the dips switches on the rear are also different. So there seems to be quite a difference with the to versions. Just thought I'd mentioned that because everything you have mentioned relates to the 2007 model not the 2006. IE. dip switch positions.