Joesepy

OK I'm not the tutorial type of person and I don't have pictures yet but here it is. The replacement CVD's for the Jato will work on the FF. GPM part#STJA1287R Of course you do have to do a few mods but its very simple IMO. First off you have to get rid of the 5x11x4 inner wheel bearing and put a 10x15x4 bearing into the rear of the hub. The bearing will fit but when you put the shaft into the hub the shaft does not go far enough through. What this means is the hole for the pin is still in the bearing instead of being out past the end of the bearing slightly. The fix for this is the great dremel. I just grinded the inside of the hub a little at a time. Soon the bearing went far in enough to allow me to get the pin into the hole of the shaft outside of the hub. After that I just grinded the pin on the end of the dogbone to fit into the diff cups. The pin was too wide to fit with diff cup mod. After that your off to the races!!! I just ran about 10 tanks of gas and rolled it several times. Not a broken shaft yet!! Stock CEN shafts usually break right at the pin/wheel stop with the slightest roll. I spent more money on those shafts then on my RC. Not no more!! I still need to go to the local track and give them a go because they are black steel and might bend easy. But they do make them in stainless steel too, just cost more. I just wanted to make sure they would work first and they do. So maybe I'll get the stainless steel ones now. Sorry if this too brief of a explanation or if it just sounds dumb but I thought it was info worth sharing. Enjoy!

poor judgement

bloody marvelous news that is mate - well done!! [8D]

we have been raving at cen for ages to sort the shafts and they just ignored us all, but now, finally, and thankfully we can try some others, and our cash wont be going to cen! fantastic!

would love to see some pics tho, if poss.

oh, and does the 12mm hex fit the shaft properly? and out of interest - will the jato dogbones fit the FF too?

Joesepy

Yeah I kinda of figured that would be good news of sorts...lol. Yes the 12mm hex head fits fine as the Jato uses the exact hex head. I have actually used traxxas aluminum hex heads on my FF. I will break it down later and pull the shafts out for some pics and get them posted. But I'm off to the local track right now, I just hope it's dry enough.

azzman

Sweet thanks for that joe....

alvinl

That is great. I have a broken CV right now that I have not yet fixed. Maybe I will just order the Jato ones and try your mod. Thanks.

dustin7837

My Feedback: (1)

SWEET! they should handle some abuse from an OS 18 without bending/brakeing i would think. Also Can you not just use swingshats all around instead of dogbones at the back? I have been using swing shafts all around on my FF for a while as I broek 2 dogbones and only had shafts laying around.

poor judgement

i dont see why they wont work for the rear too, but id wait for some pics first, just to be sure

dustin7837

My Feedback: (1)

yeah definately. Would be nice to have a neasy shaft replacement that is stronger than stock. Anybody know the shaft thickness of the JATO shafts?

Joesepy

OK I decided to skip the local track yesterday and go to the spillway where I could run my FF all out and abuse the new shafts. For the first time I was actually trying to break my RC (only the cvd's of course). I just put a O.S. .18 CVR-X on my FF and I must say, she really gets along nicely now with power to spare. I jumped, crashed, pulled wheelies and most of all rolled over several times. I am happy to report that I didn't break or bend any front shafts at all. There was several times that I thought, oh no thats it, the shaft had to break. But upon inspection they were fine. So far they are holding up great.


On the thickness of these shafts. I can say the dogbone is thinner then the CEN's ST/MT shaft but it is obviously stronger. Don't let the illusion fool you...lol. The thinner one is stronger for sure.

Also I have used CEN's swing shafts in the rear before with no problem other than breaking twice as many shafts. But now I will add the new ones to the rear too. I find with a swing shafts in the rear you are less likely to bend a the dogbone if the rear tierod end breaks. OK guys I will get some pics posted later today. Oh yeah F.Y.I. I got my shafts off Ebay for $22.00.

alvinl

Joespy, are yours the Integy brand shafts? Like these: http://cgi.ebay.com/Traxxas-JATO-Ste...QQcmdZViewItem

Joesepy

No I didn't find those, the ones I came across are made by GPM. But they do look exactly the same. http://cgi.ebay.com/JATO-CVD-axles-w...QQcmdZViewItem

I also found these which seem to be the same but better quality. http://www.hot-racing.com/index.cgi?...r=SJT289&c=180

I think you will find there are several options on these shafts which is great IMO. Traxxas has even come out with a stainless steel version with the dust boot covering the universal. I think these will work too!

alvinl

I also found a set made by MIP. I like their products, and they are priced the same as the CEN stock old crappy CVD's. Not sure which ones are better, the Integy or GPM CVD's. I just ordered the Integy ones (I really like the 'Buy Now' sales). The good news is, these steel replacements are much cheaper than the CEN ones and are bound to be of better quality. You made a good find my friend and it could not have come at a better time. I would never have thought to try Jato shafts.

Joesepy

OK guys don't do like I did. I forgot to use thread lock on the set screw of the swing shaft. Of course the screw backed out and the pin came out then chewed my hub up pretty good. The ending result being the dog bone fell out some where in a big parking lot. No clue as to where it is?? Well guess it's time to order the stainless steel cvd's.

alvinl, I would be careful with the MIP shafts. From what I can tell the ball end on those are too big to fit in the CEN diff cup. I have tried another set of MIP's and that was the case. Unless you can figure out a way to use the diff cups too I don't think they will work. HTH.

alvinl

Thanks, I will keep that in mind.

azzman

I have [link=http://www.rcxshop.com/advanced_search_result.php?osCsid=77deb5ace169ac9f e48fd6b46f60f5fe&inc_subcat=1&search_in_description=1&keywords=STJA1287R&osCsid=77deb5ace169ac9fe48fd6b46f60f5fe&x=10&y=8]these[/link] in transit as we speak....

poor judgement

lovely! let us know how they go with the tmaxx wheels mate.

BootMachine

So let me see if I get this straight! (NUBE HERE)

If I upgrade to the Jato swing shafts in my FunFactor, I will have a stronger part AND be able to run T-Maxx size wheels?

Please say its so!

Too bad I just bought 3 bags of axles, diff cups and dog bones! Prolly end up going through them pretty fast though!

Post some pics of this mod please!!!

azzman

Some of us run maxx size wheels because we have some 14mm hexes made by dr honda.

BootMachine

OH....OK!

So those will fit on the Jato shafts then!

I saw the thread where he was making those. I also saw the one where he was making larger shock towers!

Does anyone know if he still has any? And what they go for?

Tnkx

Tinybaum

Boot just message him. I know he still has them, like 20 for the tower, and 6 for the hexes

Will the upgrade to the CV cause stress on other parts like the diff??

Tiny

poor judgement

in theory it will make the drive train a little smoother, and therefor less stress on all transmission parts, but only marginally.

Tinybaum

Excellent Smithers

alvinl

I got my Integy Jato CV shafts today from RCBoyz on ebay. Great service as usual. Just wanted to post a couple pics of the new CV shafts compared to the stock CEN MT2 shafts so everyone can see the difference Joesepy was talking about. The first picture is a close up of the shaft ends where it goes through the wheel hub. The broken shaft is the old one off my MT2. The second picture is a comparison of the stock CEN MT2 shaft with the Integy Jato shaft. The last picture is a closeup of the swivel joints in each axle. Take a look at the stock MT2 shaft on the right. Does it look like I have a little extra wear in the groove where it swivels?

dustin7837

My Feedback: (1)

Lol. yeah, a little extra wear in that groove. Do they feel more solid than the sstock ones? Let us know how they work out for you.
Now we need to find some different shafts for those of us with rally's too.

poor judgement

dustin - are u having serious issues with the rally shafts too? i only break mine when i hit something hard - like 30+mph and the wheel is the first thing to hit some unmoveable object. do u have the O rings or fuel line in the diff cups? either will help, if u didnt know already. the biggest prob i had was the rear dogbones coming out after a high speed flip/barrel roll/cart wheel etc, that was pretty much sorted with cvs on the rear.

i will take a stock cen shaft to work and hit it with a PMI gun, and a hardness gun - they will tell me just what grade of steel the shafts are made from, and their hardness in Vickers or Brinell - i will try to get some jato shafts and do the same, but they will have to be cheap, as i have no need for them (im going down the swift shaft route). lets get some science involved here! lol