overkill2006

Ok guys, I'm going to be in myrtle beach next weekend and I want to take my Nitro Stampede to do some beach bashing. I wanted you guys to help me with some suggestions on how to prep the truck. Basicly I was thinking I would just prep the truck for mud. Place the reciever inside a balloon with a tight zip tie on the wire ends. Same with the batteries. The servos have been sealed up with silicon to prevent anything seeping through there outer casings. The truck has bushings instead of bearings on the hubs so I should be ok in that respect. I do not plan on taking it into the salt water but i want to be prepared just incase of a radio glitch of something un expected happens.

Does anyone have experience with a medium sized monster truck on sand? I have a local beach on the side of a river that I have done some tire tests on. I decided not to run sand paddles on the stampede. They did not have enough flotation and when ever I would let off the throttle and then get back on the sand paddle would just dig a hole. I have found the good old tractor treads work the best in the sand. Does anyone have any more suggestions for tires or truck preperation? Does anyone live near myrtle beach? I would love to take my other off-road vehicles and do some racing while i'm there. Thanks Guys!

Philster

Here is what my prep would consist of:

Planning out a day after the beach run to dis-assemble and re-assemble the entire truck. Beach sand, especially that of the East coast USA, is brutal, extremely abrasive, and is most 'do-able' if you stick to dry, yet compacted, sand.

My other prep would consist of convincing myself not to do it.

It is fun, but alot of the fun is countered by the headache it becomes.

Taffey

I did quite a bit of beach bashing with an RC10T stadium truck I used to have. Not a monster truck, but close enough.

Prepping for mud and/or water will get you 90% of the way there. I would also suggest picking up a can of compressed air from your local office supply store for blowing large clumps of sand out of your drivetrain and steering mechanism. If you have any shiny aluminum upgrade parts, now might be a good time to switch back to stock. The abrasive nature of the sand will put a nice matte finish on aluminum parts. []

You're right about sand paddles - they suck. I found that medium pin tires worked the best overall. Your tractor treads will probably do fine too. There's just not much you can really do about deep sand, although I'm sure you're 4wd will do much better than my 2wd ever did. I spent most of my time on hard packed sand - it's a total blast to drive on. Easy to build ramps in too.

As Philster mentioned, definitely plan to tear down your entire truck the NEXT DAY and clean it. In fact, do it that night if you can. Even though that sand looks dry, there's traces of salt water in it, and of course there's salt spray in the air. Want to know why I don't have my RC10T any more? It's because I didn't clean it for a couple weeks after my last beach session, and it literally rusted to pieces. The dogbones were so badly corroded that I was able to break them in half with with my fingers. I broke the heads off quite a few screws tryng to disassemble the truck because they had rusted in place. Not a happy time. A good plan is to spray your parts down with WD40 before cleaning them, as that will drive off the salt and moisture. Make sure to take out every screw, hinge pin, gear.... everything. Trust me.

I hope this helps.