LDRC Repairs and Setup

Hi guys,
My LDRC NSX had a few issues out of the box. The front upper suspension arms were installed incorrectly with the spacers on the wrong end of the arms which creates too much caster. Remove the bulkhead and carefully push out the pin to fix the problem. Be sure to check that the arms pivot smoothly. The rear suspension was not working out of the box with the rear end of the car sagged and the tires rubbing the fenders. The upper arm on one side was really sticking badly. I pushed out the pin with the gearbox in the car but that was a mistake (no damage). You want to remove the circuit board, remove the gearbox and then push the pin out the back (which is the gnurled end) and then sand the spacer to fit just right. The right side also seemed to suffer from less range of motion than the left (or maybe the left moved better than it should) so I massaged everything I could find that might be binding. The toe link was also binding on that right side so I shaved a little meat off the gearbox so that it moves smoothly. The electronics and whatnot work fine and once the suspension was tweaked, the car drives pretty nicely IMO.
Do you drive to wrench or do you wrench to drive?

[@MooseRidez]

Also, switching to aftermarket gyro and surpass steering servo made the stock receiver perform really damn good.

[@jordanpopo9693]

Yep i agree with that man i also just did the gyro on a few of mine and that alone is a huge upgrade

[@threemusketbeers]

I bought 2 classic AE86 LDRC models recently. Out of the box, the left rear ball joints on both cars were loose and detached coming out of the box. I didn’t notice it on the first car, but did on the second one. With the first car, I didn’t notice but the ball joint on the left side popped out of the car causing the left rear wheel to cease propelling the car forward. The car would only provide power to the right wheel, but the car still drove normally and I thought this was normal, until I saw the broken bearing. The light connector was also disconnected but I was able to correct that. I tried but unsuccessfully had the ball joint beating repaired and re-ordered a replacement car. The second car had that same ball joint detached from the motor coming out of the box. I was able to reattach and I monitored the car on a test run to make sure it didn’t pop out and it was good there. I then was trying to mod it for drifting with the drift tires and drift gyro I ordered for it. While doing drift testing, that same ball joint on the left snapped. I took it home and tried replacing it with the good working joint and tried to keep that joint in place with glue, but that messed it up and I couldn’t get the car to go both forward and reverse with even the replacement ball joint. The motor didn’t like it with those joints glued in. Had to disassemble the motor, take that gear out and chip in there to get the joint removed. I was able to get the joint out and tried reattaching, but it was hit/miss in getting it to go forward and backward. Eventually, another joint snapped. Tried fixing it with glue and trying attaching again but no go. Very faulty classic models with failing parts. That’s 2 cars gone!! I found the actual drift model though and I’m gonna hope it don’t come with faulty parts out of the box. On 2 strikes and this will be strike 3 if the car comes in with faulty joints!

[@yeathatsalex3441]

My boy used a chip clip for suspension spring

[@walthersonr.c.3360]

Hello , I like your video and thank you informing everyone/ on the problems that these vehicles have from the manufacturer I have been trying to locate the front suspension mount / bulkhead, I ordered a chassis kit from AliExpress and they refuse to send me the missing parts ,

[@drivetowrench2709]

Yeah, when you order from the other side of the world an unfortunate part of the equation is that support isn't really an option. People ask me to sell stuff I make all the time and there just isn't any money in it if you're not in China. One of these LDRC cars would have to cost at least 50% more if you wanted to get proper support, probably more considering how many come out of the factory needing a little tweaking. The other way to look at it is that we get stuff cheap and the community is the support, we just need to avoid over paying ;^)

[@jordanpopo9693]

Hahaha lets play whats wrong with your ldrc out the box lmfao 😂

[@HeikaBlade]

hello, question about the motor. did you simply cut the wires and replace the connector with the JST connector, or did you buy a new motor that had a JST? If the latter, what motor did you use?

[@drivetowrench2709]

I soldered on a second connector in parallel so I can use either

[@HeikaBlade]

Thanks for the info! ​@@drivetowrench2709

[@ogrope1]

Hey bro my problem isn't with the upper arms that move freely but I have a problem with my left back lower arm that's binding badly but I can't seem to figure out how to pop it out, did you figure out how to get them off the chasis?

[@drivetowrench2709]

I stopped at that point because they seemed super tight and mine weren't binding. I would definately try some grease.

[@ogrope1]

@@drivetowrench2709 ok thanks🙏

[@MooseRidez]

that torsion spring has been messed up on both my cars. Once on the front end and once on the rear. Big pain in the ass. Lol i removed them and went with the shock upgrade

[@drivetowrench2709]

I was almost feeling like I was crazy because it's a piece of spring steel, how off can it be? Yeah, I've got some shocks I'm going to put on... should be much better

[@jordanpopo9693]

@@drivetowrench2709 if its the ldrc comp shocks use grease and cut a few rings of the springs

[@MooseRidez]

@drivetowrench2709 yeah one caused the back right to be floppy and not hold up at all and the same effect with the front one

[@jordanpopo9693]

I actually added caster to one of mine and i like it

[@jordanpopo9693]

Thanks for the video i shared it with the Facebook group i se a few people that need this i have already battled all these issues and more

[@ogrope1]

@@jordanpopo9693 have you figured out how to remove the lower travel arms?