Savage XL-E

[Savage03]

Thanks for the detailed write up helped alot. I got mine all finished, I found that 2 tamiya bushings worked perfect so shimmed the main gear as well like you said, never paid much attention to just how much play their is in the center trans! Now their is no play and they line in perfect.

[Janezki]

doo540: Are the CEN Genesis ring & pinion gears straight fit for Savage or does this trick need some additional modification?
I might have use for those when I have some grip for the wheels...

BrianG: Thanks - we have something in common then. Those bottles just caught my eye when doing the normal shopping trip with missus.

[Janezki]

Savage03: Glad I could help. Is the clutch locked at that pic? Looks like you've been a bit sparing with the epoxy (or whatever you used?).
If you look at my pic, you can see that I filled the clutch gap completely. I jammed the locking pin (or whatever it's called) against the spur and taped the holes from behind until epoxy was hardened.
Yes, the gears seemed to have quite a lot of play sideways, so much even that the idler did "overlap" the main gear, which will definetely cause problems.

[Savage03]

Its in there pretty good, used jb weld and filled the clutch thing while it was open, I used a toothpick and stuffed it inside that thing. I then added more on the outside and put a layer on the flat side next to the gear itself then put it on the shaft to set.
Talked to castle yesterday and the combos are backordered since they added Traxxas and HPI to their orders so who knows when I will get to run this.

[Janezki]

Ah, ok. It should hold up just fine.

When I saw Savage Flux I was thinking that there might be problems with the combo deliveries for the "ordinary customer". Seems like my thoughts were correct... :(
I bet that HPI has quite an amount on them in order together with Traxxas.

[Janezki]

Holy cogs of steel... second time I was running my XL after I got the transmission fixed and this...



Luckily I have a spare pair of idler and main gear, but... this needs to be sorted out.
Do I have to reduce cells, change my driving style or are there any stronger gears available? Anyone have any ideas?

[Savage03]

Well this has me worried and I havent got off the car stand yet. Flux might be the answer but I dont know what they have inside it yet, I know its a single speed but sure hope its stronger.

[wayneb]

Janezki, do you have a pic of how you mounted the motor mount to the engine plate of your savage?

[wayneb]

I'm going to try running the 2 speed tranny in my brushless savy conversion. but I'm only going to run it on 4 or 5s lipo. and see what happens. I just need to buy one shaft and the bearings for the tranny then I will put it back together and finish building the truck. if things don't work out I might switch the truck back to a nitro engine, but I don't know yet.

[Janezki]

Originally Posted by wayneb

Janezki, do you have a pic of how you mounted the motor mount to the engine plate of your savage?

Here you go:



I had the original 52t spur on place when doing this.
First I measured the hole pattern of the Tekno mount (which is 32mm center to center btw.) and attached the motor with 15t pinion to it.
Then I placed the mount over the plate so that the pinion touched the spur and marked (scratched) the outlines of the mount to plate. I noticed that I could probably use only two screws for mounting because the plate has openings at the center and a little "notch" at the front (marked with yellow circle at pic) which might make the drilling a bit difficult, plus the center rear driveshaft was in the way (I was lazy and didn't remove the plate from the car...)
Then I made marks for the two 4mm holes to be drilled to 32mm distance of each other. I drilled second holes towards the center of the car, just next to previous ones and used dremel to grind the gap open - now I can move the mount to mesh the gears with different pinions.

Two screws with thread locker seem to hold the mount on it's place well enough.


I got the tranny fixed with the spare gears, loosened the slipper a bit and went for a little drive yesterday.
Managed to drive a full pair of packs with no problems. With second pair I was jumping from a small snow bank, had a bad landing and heard a loud cracking sound and...



...broke both upper & lower suspension arms.

[Savage03]

Heard the cold can weaken plastics so maybe why its so fragile? I have beat mine to death as nitro and never broke a arm.
The lipos your using whats the specs? Being told I should look at nothing less then a 25c rated pack.

[Janezki]

Yes, it was probably due to cold weather.
I have two sets of lipos - both were originally 6S1P packs, but I had to divide them into two 3S1P packs because of the battery holders.
First pack was originally ZIPPY 5000mAh 6S1P 15C and the second was originally ZIPPY 4000mAh 6S1P 20C.

[Janezki]

Just ordered one Kershaw direct drive gearbox for my XL. Now let's see if that holds up my throttle finger.

[Janezki]

Got my hands on 2spd gearbox idler and drive gear and I must say that they are "a bit" stronger looking compared to the 3spd ones...


(2 speed gears at top, 3 speed at bottom)

I might convert the internals to 2spd just for the heck of it, if I break them again before Kershaw's transmission is here.
Also, I ordered a set of black RPM a-arms since I'm not really a fan of excessive aluminium parts.

[Savage03]

I have so many tranny gears laying around I probaly have those to, had my savage since they were released some years ago and just upgraded as I went along. Think the ticket will be the flux tranny parts or the Kershaw tranny your getting, very interested to see how that works for you.
I will update my thread here shortly with good news