I just got my MT2 on Christmas. I'm happy all except for two things, my radio ( Impact II ), and the brakes. The radio, works about 40ft. away from me, and I've only ran about 12 tanks or so through( New Batteries ). I always turn off my radio and the reciever on the car whem I'm done to. Also, yesterday my car locked up, and we fixed it. The brakes had been working since. Now they don't work and we adjusted them to. Can anyone give me some pointers?

The first thing you should do if you have not already is buy a 6v hump pack for the receiver and rechargeable AA batteries for the radio. This will help a lot. Standard alkalein batteries wear down very quickly. On adjusting the breaks, I adjusted mine with the throttle servo at neutral. I loosened the set screw that holds the brake adjustment and set it so the truck rolled freely but the brakes grab with just a little pressure. It will take a couple times to get it right.

Hi Alvini,
not trying to hijack this thread but as this about newbs and FF's....I am just completing my first major rebuild (new pull start, new spurs, clutch bell, bearings etc)and wanted to ask you a question regarding fitting small pieces of fuel line in the diff cups. I tried this last night and now the dogbones have positive pressure applied to the wheel bearing all the time rather than the sloppy fit of standard set-up. Before I run it, could this cause any other issues i.e bearing failure/stress? I'm pretty sure I got the spur gear spacing right, some say use paper, some say use the plastic from a part. What is good?
Hope you all had a great Xmas

Regards from down under.

Chris

RogersRacing, I think you will be good. A lot of people put the fuel line in the diff cups to snug it all up. It will wear out, but works good while it's in there. For the mesh, I use a piece of typing paper folded in half. Push the gears together and align the motor good. Tighten it all up and you should be able to pull the paper out without ripping it. It will look wrinkled from the gears with no tears. Turn the spur gear over a couple times to make sure it turns freely all the way around.

Also, if you have not done the diff cup mod, you might want to check it out. It extends the life of your diff cups a lot.

I cant seem to find the right profile compression nipples here. I'm experimenting with some tough heat-shrink around the diff cup. I have re-built the shocks and this will certainly stop the MT2 bottoming out which I'm sure has been causing most of the diffcup failures.
The gears seem to be binding a little just in one spot so ai think I should recheck the spur clearance again. 80gsm paper?
Really appreciate your help.

Chris

I have 75 gsm paper, so 80 should be good. The key is to get just a little play in the gear mesh so I would think any standard copier, printer paper should work.

OK, now when I turn the spur gear it will bind the gears occaisionly, but if I just turn the clutch bell it seems to be ok (I have replaced all spur gears and the bell). I would hate the gears to bind whilst running. What lube if any, should go on the spur gear teeth and what should I use to lube the diff? It appears a huge opening underneath the diff is not going to allow much fluid to be held in there.
If only CEN would make a Manual available online I would not have to ask you so many basic q's.

Really appreciate your knowledge,

Chris

im told that this binding is due to the gears not being perfectly round, and is quite normal. i tend to set the mesh and then check it at 90 degree intervals on the spur and set it at a comprimise if theres a difference in mesh. after the 1st couple of runs i recheck and reset it if need be, as its then run in the gears a bit. no lube is needed on the spurs or pinions, mate, they are self lubricating.

for the diffs, use the stickiest grease u have in the garage, or u can buy the proper stuff. dont use much on either the little planet gears or on the large crown gear - excess will just fly off. the diffs are not sealed so wont hold fluid.

Ah PJ,
You are a wealth of good advice and I thank you for taking the time to respond to all.
I will try to keep to brakes and servo's.....
During the rebuild (sorry, Santa stiffed me on a digital camera so no pics of the rebuild yet, Got some nice new ink instead!!) I have changed the throttle servo also and the previous owner had both linkages coming off a one sided arm, the std rcvr/batt box obviously is in way, so I found a different arm and adapted it to clear the rcvr/batt box so now the linkages run off opposing sides of the servo and now i seem to have straighter lines to the carb & brake. NOW my Q is....What is the Learned One's prefered way of placment of springs, bits of fuel line, stoppers, grommets, incendary devices and crack pipes to ensure smoothest operation. By the way the last two items were just to see if you read the whole thing
I am prepping the MT2 for our annual holiday and my sons will be running on a combination of coarse beach sand and dusty bush tracks. It is pretty hot where we are going, would you advise cutting some extra venting in the body or maybe changing nitro % to run a bit cooler? (Just got my $1.95 high-range digital thermometer from ebay so I am keen to check my running temps now)

Kindly advise if I should start a new thread about the heat issues? I'm still a novice at forums.

Kind regards,
Chris

Lol - i will have to read that again...

Right - easiest if I just post a pic of my linkages I guess. Aye they can be a pain to set up - ah especially if u have a slide carb like me... doh. I had to upgrade my throttle servo to get enough braking force with this linkage setup and the big wheels n tyres...

Have a rummage in the rcu gallery for cen trucks too, should get some ideas there, most are setup in a very similar manner - btw, did u strip the brake down and check its all ok in there? The plastic piston can melt - trust me on that one...

As for the temps issue, I dont think it will hurt to have a thread for temps, its a common question mate - I dont like to advise on temps, but people generally reckon 250-280 F is somewhere near... I think. I go by the smoke (from the trucks pipe, not the crack pipe) and performance - havent killed a motor yet thru tuning... yet...

Ill stop waffling and post any pics I have of linkages...

Hi,
Well I've been looking and can see that there is obviously no hard'n'fast method. Do you guys find it better to have the spring on the throttle linkage before or after the servo arm? I've been scratching my head (till I got splinters under my nails!) and figure that the spring between the arm and carb gives a bit more "feel". But could this be disasterous if something let go? Would the spring then cause the throttle to be forced open? Hope this isn't too confusing. Thanks heaps for your patience.

Cheers,
CR

AGHHH!!!!
This driveline is driving me nuts!! I set the mesh then turn it over by hand and its all good then I try to slowly wheel it along the ground and the spurs bind (not at any particular point) after a revolution or 2. (My spur gear looks like its got acne from all the black dots from me marking the point)
It appears to be the smaller of the clutch bell gears that binds and I have tried larger and smaller spacings to no avail. Or is there something else I should look for? The clutch bell appears the same as the one I replaced.
I'm going to the supermarket to ease my frustration.....Im too chicken to fire it up with-out sorting this out as I have already spent waaaayyy to much on Spur gears already.

Cheers,
CR

u sure its not the brake binding?

if thats ok, id personally just fire it up... but thats me.... does it bind at all when the pinions are turned, as per when the engine is running? if not then it should be ok shouldnt it? and maybe a bit of running will smooth it out...? i dont want u to fry another spur on my word, but i cant see what else could be the prob.

gears are free from debris etc arent they? try a tiny spot of grease for 1st run maybe? watch loads of stuff doesnt stick to it tho and kill the gears...

Nah, I can see the brake rotating freely. BTW, I have got the brass brake piston and the alloy brake block and I checked the shoes etc when I replaced the spurs.
I've left it alone at the mo' to help the missus get costumes ready for NYE.
I also got a response from cen telling me they are going to post me a manual.....Yay!!! maybe not so many q's then for you guys.
I suggested they should throw a few diff-cups into the envelope but I won't hold my breath.....

RogersRacing, you say you have the alloy brake disk. Did you install it or was it installed when you bought it? The reason I ask is I installed the alloy disk and metal plug in my son's ATX and had binding issues like you described. The metal disk has sharp corners on it that caused it. I dremmeled the corners off and it got a little better, but I still need to work on it a little more. I plan on making it rounded instead of squared off. Just a thought.

Edit - Sorry, i did not do a good job describing it. If you need, I will see about getting a picture of the part I am referring to.

I had the exact same issue with my metal brake disc. It took me a very long time to finaly figure what was going on because every 1/2 turn it would bind up. I thought i had my mesh wrong but after remeshing maybe 8 times with no luck i looked at the brake which WAS rotating freely but the little metal tabs were catching. I cut them right off and now i have no problems. Actually between that and the alloy brake seat, i have to be careful not to give it full brake or it will flip forwards on me
I hope your problem is that simple RogersRacing. Although if it is you may just feel like banging your head against a wall repeatedly.
Good luck

Yes please, a pic would be good. I havn't had any problems with it before now. The alloy brake block was already fitted and has worked fine up until I replacved the spurs and clutch bell.

Thanks for your help,

CR

Here is a picture of a new brake disk. In the picture you can see the two tabs on the disk that I pointed to with red lines. This is a new disk and I have not ground anything on it. What I did with the one in my son's ATX is to grind the corners off of these tabs. This helped, but did not completely fix the binding. I think Dustin7837 clipped the tabs off, and I may end up cutting the tip off to make them work better. I also think Poor Judgement had a similar problem and shortened these tabs to fix it. PJ is who gave me the idea to modify the tabs when I started having problems.

i just halved the length of the tabs on mine and it sorted it.

I dont know what cen thought they were doing when they made those brake discs. They must have meant the tabs to keep the brake disc stable but they miscalculated the length. And yes I did grind those tabs right off. I did them halfway at first but it still bound a little bit on me so i just got rid of them completely.

Thanks guys, I will attack it with the dremel when I get home. Damn, I gotta un-rebuild it now.

Appreciate your help,
CR

I know the feeling. That's the reason I uploaded a picture of the disk I have not grinded on instead of the one in my son's ATX. I am too lazy to take it apart at the moment. Good luck. Let us know if it helps.

On the mesh issue, make sure your bearings are good and the pinion gears are parallel to the spur gears. If the engine is off sideway's it will cause binding.
I personally haven't had a problem with the metal brake disk other than the tabs spreading apart a little bit and causing poor braking.

Heres some linkage pictures that might help.

Happy New Year Everyone!!!!! by now you should have all crawled over the date-line and staked your claim on 2006!!

OK Brains trust, I have just stripped down again and confirmed my suspisions....the tabs are already gone off the brake disc.
It seems that it only takes light pressure on the bell to release the bind so i reckon i'm just gonna fire the sucker up and any little edges that are catching will soon be mince-meat anyway!!

We are away for 10 days from tomorrow, I'll try to get it startes today and let you know. packing to move house when we return, so it's a little busy here and getting busted working on the MT2 isn't good for your reproductive activities.

Cheers,
CR

Hi Guys,
We are back from our holiday and I must proudly announce that I went loaded to the hilt with spare diff-cups, spurs, clutch bell etc and apart from me shoveing the FF into a wall while showing off my incredible driving skills, I broke nothing!!!! We ran over sand grass and dusty tracks and it was awesome. No-one could believe how fast the FF was. I still cant get it to change into 2nd gear. which I feel is actually saving me a lot of $$$$.
The FF Manual from Cen was waiting for me when I got home and on further investigation it appears the there SHOULD be a spring and a ball bearing under the grub-screw for adjusting the shift. Well I dont have a spring or a ball bearing under my grub-screw!! Not only am I feeling inadequate but could this be the root of a non-shifting 2 speed??
Need to sort some other tyres now but this subject seems to be a major headache for all concerned. The lhs's here want far too much for wheels/tyres.