Well, it didn’t stay in the 60s – it’s only 35 today. Oh well, “bring the mountain to Muhammad,” I guess. Set everything up on the computer desk and got busy.

The first set of wheels don’t fit. Well… sorta. The rears are fine (hex drive and all) but the fronts don’t have bearings and they don’t really have provisions for bearings. I might just have to save those for rears only, or punch a 10mm hole for a couple of 5x10mm sealed bearings I have floating in my tool kit. I’ll mess with that later.

The pull start is a bust – no way it’ll fit this engine.

For now, the Rustler wheels fit fine, although I had to rob the 5x11mm bearings from the purple NitroHawk ‘Lite’ wheels. Even then, it’s not quite the same as they don’t lock down 100% and spin for days – I had to back off the nylock nut a-turn-and-a-half each to let them spin freely. I hope the nylock nuts will stay in-place once I start driving this thing around. But for now – NEW SHOES!!

Now, let’s get that engine out so I can pull the carb, get that battery pack outta there, and start in on some much needed cleaning. I know I was planning on firing it up to see if it was worth a complete detail job, but I needed to soak the carb in Nitro to bust things loose, so out it comes.

Shortly after this next pic, I dropped the carb into a Solo cup with some old Nitro for a good soak. Worked like a champ, as now the carb is a carb again – everything’s butter smoove, but I still need to pull the needle valve to get the rest of the gunk out.

Gonna let the carb soak overnight, just because, and take the engine outside for a blast of brake cleaner tomorrow afternoon, followed up with some picking and Q-tipping to get it all clean again. I also rubbed down the muffler with some rubbing alcohol and it looks almost brand-new again.

I’m thinking about relocating the battery pack to the void next to the fuel tank for better weight distribution, then just servo tape the Flysky receiver to the top of the steering servo. With the pack in the back like that, it’s a bit tail-happy when I drop it from a foot and almost wants to bounce the rear end (even with these fatter ‘proper’ tires). I’m still going to make a new rear shock tower extension so I can let the legs stretch out even just a little more so I don’t have to run super thick shock oil and 3/4″ shock collars. I’m hoping for mid-range shock oil and no shock collars with longer legs to help soak up the bumps better – I’ve seen too many Baja races and pre-runners with upward of 40″ of wheel travel. Controlled wheel travel is King for maintaining speed through the rough patches, after all.