I've recently got interested in one of my old RC cars that I had when I was a kid. Played with this thing for many years until a screw fell out of the knuckle (lost it) and I lost interest. At the time radioshack sold all sorts of parts for it... I was a kid and the only reason I can think up was I didnt have the money to buy parts... Idk... I've emailed them to see if they still have any but Im assuming they do not.

Anyway! Is it possible to swap out the plastic bushings for brass or for bearings? I've looking around a bit but cant find anything that gives sizes. Mine are badly worn, lost of play in the wheel. I'm pondering buying a parts car on ebay and rebuilding mine just so it all works again but that wouldnt keep the bushings from wearing out again.. Hate to take apart what would most likely be a fine working car from ebay but......

It may not make much sense but I did buy a brand new Nitro Burner from ebay a week or so ago! Never thought I would have that kid feeling again but goodness does it take my mind off things driving it around! Still want to get my old one working again...

I would post photos but it says that I cannot until I have 10 posts...

I'm new to this forum but I know the answer to this old thread. I had a Nitro Burner, it's a Nikko Iron Eagle/Nikko-Radio Shack Dominator/Nikko Super Dictator - the spoiler/wing is the giveaway, all the parts are interchangeable. I believe you can replace all 16 bushings with Tamiya 1150 Sealed Bearings, 5mm (ID) x 11mm (OD) x 4mm (Thickness). If I were you, I’d get 3D printed SLS Nylon gears because that’s what failed on mine (Motor Pinion 0.6M, Pinion 10T or 12T, Motor Shaft Bore 2.3mm, Internal Gear Style is just Nikko Dictator / Super Dictator compatible, I don't have much info on that), you can probably just by a whole upgrade Nikko Dictator module/setup. You can then update the battery to a 5000mAh 7.2V NiMH pack with a XT60 to Tamiya adapter and get more power and 30+ minutes run time without upgrading gears, maybe... If you really want to modernize it, get a hard case Lipo 2S (Powerhobby 2S 4000mAh 50c Rounded LiPo) with a Deans to Tamiya adaptor, could possibly go 3S with full upgrades+ (4S is overkill without serious modifications to cool the motors, protect plastic, and the entire drivetrain), update the servo (Savox SW-0231MG) + servo saver (25T), ESC for dual motors (Hobbywing QuicRun WP-860 or 880, make sure to set a drag brake to protect gears - take advantage of the ESC upgrade...), modernize the radio/receiver (FlySky FS-GT3B, set the End Point Adjustment - take advantage of the upgrades here too so the new servo doesn't snap your linkage...), if you want, upgrade the motors to some 390 motors (Team Associated Reedy Sport 390 Brushed 30T Motor have lots of torque $$, RCAWD 28T 390 Brushed Motor are fast $$$, but even some highly rated Universal 390 motors $ for around $10-$15 that are the right size will be an upgrade and run cooler), especially if you go the Lipo route. I’ve said this in a few different places for the variations of this RC, it works awesome for any Nikko Dictator variation and turns a 90s toy grade RC into a modern hobby grade RC with a retro vibe, so you can still have fun while being nostalgic, just don't treat it like a basher...

Hey!

I dug my Nitro Burner out for my daugher to play with, and came by this post.

Regarding the bearings - my axles have one standard nylon bushing on the outer end (against the wheel) and a different bushing on the inside end that clips (front) or attaches with a very small screw (rear). These inner bushings seem to somewhat support around the drive cup. Will the bearings you listed here replace the outer bearing *and* a second one will go inside and eliminate the inner "bushing," and/or fit behind it?

Edit:
I saw a parts page for an actual Nikko branded car. I think the knuckle and drive cup/shaft is possibly "cheapened up" on the Radio shack models. My outer nylon is 8x11x6.5 - the bearings above wouldn't replace this, and I don't immediately see ones that would. I'd esitmate you'd have to replace some extra parts to get this to work.

I actually tore apart my Nitro Burner and Radio Shack Road Phantom (surprisingly different chassis) recently, and ya, I really got my response wrong... First off, for the Road Phantom, most of the bearings are 1150, the only ones that aren't are the ones coming out of the housings, which on the later years, use an odd 14x10 bearing and it also has a shoulder on it, which means you'd have to find a flanged bearing too, so that would be hard, I just left the nylon. On an older Dictator I have, there's a reducer that allows a 1150 to fit instead of the 14x10. I don't really know what the wheel bearing are on the newer models now that you mention it. I'll have to check that.

Also, the gears are actually MOD 1, so that was a pleasant surprise. And it turns out my gear failure was inside the spur gear, which doubles as the diff housing - the carrier supports inside the housing stripped, the actual spur teeth were fine. One last surprise was that the counter gear was internally spring dampened, shocking - hobby grade they say...

I'm going to scan, mesh, and model both RCs because I'm finding the 30 year old exterior plastic easily breaks, so unless yo have a 3D printer, be gentle, the housings will snap...

I don't think anything got cheapened between Nikko vs Radio Shack branded RCs. I have a few of both, over multiple generations, and of the different size varieties - changes seem consistent among both, if one did it, so did the other. The cups used to be more stout early on, so you probably saw that version, which is more popular in the aftermarket/hobby world, but these aren't much of a failure point regardless. You'll notice inconsistency among parts because of this, just changes over the years, but, for the most part, the major parts are compatible/interchangeable within the same size chassis, I think...

I did some more studying yesterday evening and figured out some things. Bear with me, I've never gotten into this hobby as deep as I have in the last 5 days. I don't know all of the terminology, but am quickly getting up to speed.

Believe me when I say that this thing is very, very worn out. I'd estimate there's 2-3 mm of wiggle in the rear and probably 1/2" of slop in the front. Between the axles and cheap wire tie rods, it turns sharp left in reverse when going arrow straight forward. I'm furloughed right now and looking for things to do. I've got 3 cars and 2 sewing machines scattered all over the property, a 390 engine, and a tailgate that needs repainted

My axles/drive cups are integrated units. I'm not sure if that is common nowadays, or what "standards" there are for any of this. They are bored so that a bolt come sthrough them to then nut the wheels on the outside. The wheel goes on a 6 mm hex portion of the axle, and the axle is 8 mm between here and the drive cup. There is a nylon on the end of the drive cup (very hacky, IMO, and another one behind the wheel, 6.5 mm wide...Did I mention that this thing is worn out?

I don't think that there enough meat to ream out for a 12 mm bearing, but I can feasibly turn down the 8 mm axle in my lathe to 7 mm, and fit a 7x11x3 bearing on each side of the boss in the middle of the knuckle. This would move each wheel in a minimum of 3 mm, but eliminates both nylons. There is enough wear on my axles that they are already down to about 7 mm in places anyway. The driveshafts have a ton of play in them, probably on the order of 5 mm, so I don't see an issue with them being too long/binding. The only downside I see is that the hex of the wheel registering on the round portion of the axle will be almost gone - not a big deal to me, I can figure out bushings/shims and/or buy a new nylocks. The wheels being 3 mm inboard should not interfere with anything. Short of 3d printing entire hubs/knuckles for front and rear to accept different axles, this seems like the ticket to me. I'll take pictures as I progress!

I'm looking to upgrade the springs to actual shocks, and rectify the tie rod issue. I'd also not mind putting slightly narrower tires on it, without knobbies. I think everything I've seen nowadays is a bigger hex, so I'd have to adapt something, or change axles entirely. My servo seems fine - but if it needs changed to have better tie rods, I'm game. At a minimum, I think the servo needs "wedged" into it's housing to eliminate a bit of slop in how it's mounted. If you have any ideas on what is out there for tie rods, please point me there.

I do appreciate the assistance! Once I have a couple hundred dollars sunk into this thing, I'll shelf it and start on something real.

Edit:
I see now that the servo saver that's included on the car is introducing a lot of the slop in the steering, so it's likely that this will get replaced.

There's definitely a lot to learn, especially if you're trying to cover the last 40 years. These RCs came from the factory with a bit a play by design and can tolerate a bit of wear without too much concern.

I dug out the old service manuals I have and there are definitely a bunch of differences over the years, but, luckily, it looks like it doesn't majorly affect a whole lot of compatibility between major wear parts, as long as you understand chassis you're working with. You're in the last generation of Super Dictator size.

I noticed there aren't any bearings in the counter gear, as the are where the bearing would have gone are replaced by the dampening mechanism. You're right about the 6x8 wheel bearing and the other nylon bushing being another oddity. I was working on my Traxxas Sledge and it too has two bearings in the front hub, so this is still the norm. To me, the strange part is the non standard sizes. There seems to be wide enough tolerance stacks to make standard size parts fit, i.e. the the bore of the knuckle being a little wide, the diameter of the spindle being a little under, and the sizing of the bearing always allowing for fit based on what pt# you order.

I've never considered chucking up 12mm bearing before, I've never even considered dissembling a bearing that small before to try, but if you can skim cut it for the satisfaction, the more power to ya, because at that point, lets be honest, you're just doing it for sheer desire vs necessity, law of diminishing results and all, I think you can still get the nylon for these to replace the worn pieces... Chucking up the axle to remove a mm may be feasible, and also using the dry ice method to press the bearings on so you can limit the amount of material you have to remove may be cool, I don't really understand how you're loosing wheel track by doing that though, I'm missing something there, just replacing the two nylon bushings with bearings, no?

There's definitely guys that have already designed adaptors for modern wheels and I've seen plenty of shock towers adapted for coil overs.

To be honest, the servo on these RCs are terrible no matter what, but you're not going to get away from that unless you go down the heavily modified route. The servo saver is going to introduce a lot of slop, also known as give in this case because these servos will not handle much, something will break on impact, likely to be your gear housing at a suspension mounting point. People say you can soak these old parts in some sort of hot silicone solution to "reinvigorate" them, I don't know, maybe... Boiling them does not work, I don't care what they say, that's not how ABS plastic works.

There's nothing out there for tie rods... There's TIG rod, get you some, UTP or tool steel TIG rod, I use it for more than just welding... Bend to the shape of your desire.

There is some truth to my original post though, a lot of those upgrades would probably work. Could use a cheaper servo though, and definitely use the Hobbywing 880, get a cheapo Hobbywing program card so you can set it up. I would just stick to NiMH batteries honestly, these aren't bashers. I've used a Gens Ace hard case 2S Lipo, and it's not much better, also, if you didn't know since you said you were just getting back into it, you can't run lipos down to 0, they catch on fire, new RCs have the controls for that, these do not... But NiMH with some modern properly wound 390 or even 380 would be fine.

Also, you sound pretty old school, and if you're as old as me, you have plenty of old school in you, but if you're wanting to get into this hobby, 3D printing is the way. turning down an axle vs enlarging a housing, as in enlarging the scale, is how the kids do it these days, that's how you can get off the shelf parts to work, you design around them. I 3D prototype and find solutions to problems I didn't know I had, just fixed my washing machine with a 3D part. I'm in Fusion at least 3 times a week... Having a 3D scanner is even better! If you already have this stuff you know, if you don't it sounds like you're a guy who also can't sit around and do nothing, so...

Tie rods - I was able to find ball and socket ends that screw onto nominally sized 2 mm "rods," all in on Amazon for like $20 to do this. It should work, I think, and take out any of the slop in that spot. Not sure if we can post links to e-commerce sites on this forum - but they have those rods in like 10 mm increments.

I don't think cutting a bearing down is feasible, especially in the lathe i've got. I tried drilling one for something a long time ago and it was not nice to bits. I didn't intend to imply that I'd modify the bearing. I think turning the axle down is the ticket, so long as I can chuck it on the hex and fit a tool in between there and the cup. If not, I'll have to find new cups and start from scratch. Replacing the nylons won't gain me a whole lot, as it sits. There is so much wear on the axles themselves that it would only be marginally better. the second inner nylon on my particular car rides on the very end of the drive cup. It just doesn't look like it was a great design to me from the start - lots of wear on cup and nylong both on this one from debris. I liked to put lube on everything when I was 12 because I was sure it would go faster. Well, other than protecting from rust, I can see the downsides to what was going on in my little brain.

Regarding the batteries, I was thinking that, at max, I might 3D print different pieces to put on and allow an 8.4 battery fit in, just or giggles. Yeah, I have learned about LiPo needing to be babied a lot. There are PCB's that are about a dollar a pop on ebay to protect against over-discharging. The other battery pack I mentinoed is one of those old Tyco "Flex Pack" deals, I can fit a 2S LiPo in a tray I drew/printed with the PCB along side it. I've got some ZEEE brand batteries and a balance charger coming from Amazon. I picked those due to budget, but you mentioning the LiPo dangers has me thinking to maybe look into a Traxxas battery/charger. It would cost about 2x as much to do, but would probably be 1/2 the risk in burning up. Have you ever used ZEEE brand batteries?

3D scanner...damn that sounds handy. I don't actually have a printer of my own, but a good friend of mine has a few of them and I've got pretty full access to use them. I just got the lathe last year. It's an old Atlas lathe. I've wanted one for years - there is some little bushing or shaft issue like this about once a month and it's nice to be able to just do it rather than looking for stuff that doesn't exist to hack something together. Old school, maybe...maybe partly insane? I'll be 40 this year but can't leave things alone. I'd be the guy that buys a 200 hp car and spends more money modding it to 250 hp than the 260 hp car would have cost to begin with.