UCX24 Snow Leopard -- "Little Guy"

[Brian]

This is my UDIRC UCX24 Snow Leopard. It’s the base model, which means a brushed motor and NiCd battery setup. It was US$115 ready-to-run, and has proven itself a winner in my book. Just needs some TLC to go the distance.

Out of the box.

Polished for Utah.

It’s super lightweight, so first thing I did was throw some brass, Injora wheels on it with grippier tires. That helped a lot, but after putting 2-3 packs through it at camp one night in Utah, it just stopped working.

I thought it might be the battery pack, but ended up taking the whole thing apart down to component level to discover the motor’s shot. Probably got enough red dirt into the works to interrupt the brushes. Fortunately, an upgraded replacement motor was only $12 shipped. Perhaps unfortunately, I had to take quite a bit apart to get to the motor.

Here’s an example of what I mean by TLC. There’s only two screws holding the two halves of the transmission together up at the top. The design relies on four screws up through the bottom aligning said halves, but you can see how easily the grease weeps out of the case. How to seal this, how to seal this…

On the plus side, this gives me the opportunity to paint the cage, maybe scoop up a couple metal suspension parts. I’m also excited to paint the drivers.

I will add, this is my first machine with a 2-speed transmission. It seems simple enough, but it’s also a little scurry. I mean, just look at that Game of Thrones Opening Credits setup in there. That little pinion at the bottom is about as wide as a Q-tip. And now I know why the car came with half a dozen spare pins. Wow.

Even so, this little guy is a blast and I highly recommend. You can get a full brushless setup with all metal parts (a lot of mine is plastic) and 4WS, but figure I’m into this thing about $150 so far including paint and mods and I honestly would not want it much faster. It’s a sweet little crawler/trail buddy.

To be continued…

[Brian]

If you saw the Kyosho thread, you know where this one’s going.
First, here’s a picture from the first real world use case that came up for my inspection camera. I had just finished scrubbing the adhesive off and was making my final pre-paint pass with the Windex rag when the piece slipped slipped out of my hand. It disappeared between the deck boards in less than a second.

Replacement bodies come with the roll cage and lights–but apparently NO sides. They’re also about $30 before shipping. Tough pill to swallow when a complete, RTR kit is $100. Ugh. The pieces are small and thin enough that I suspect I could–and probably should at some point–replace them with hand-fabricated tin pieces.

I dunno. I might just drill another hole between the boards and take the jigsaw to it, ya know? I just need a gap big enough to get my arm under there–that I can patch back up without things looking like shit.

Ended up having to rebuild my first 2-speed transmission.

I did not RTFM. (Don’t think this is in the M, TBH. OMFG.) I used the wrong screw the first time I reassembled the driveshafts, so when I went to remove them, one of the head sheared clean off. Sub-1mm metal drill bits not being the sort of thing I just have lying around, I couldn’t fully disassemble the gearbox. This made things a bit tricky.

Someone once told me that, if you open the gearbox, you let the magic smoke out and it will never drive right again. Well, there’s certainly some truth in that. It took me at least four tries to get this thing back together–but I did, and it felt pretty good. See also, now it’s got a couple dog hairs inside to ensure peak performance.

Did a little structured cabling. Cleaned up the harness a bit. I’ll give it a more formal pass when the drivers are painted and ready to go back in. Still, definitely cleaner than the Kyosho came with, imo.

EXCELLENT RESULTS.

First of all, I fixed it. The original motor was confirmed dead. I’m pretty sure the Injora motor is more turns than the stocker–but this buggy is crazy fast now. In high gear, locking the brakes from anything over about 30% throttle results in immediate endos. Low gear feels excellent for trail walks and light crawling, but I need to adjust the gearshift servo horn. It throws deep into high gear, but comes up just a hair shy for low.

To say I’m impressed with this platform would be an understatement. This truck was $100, the wheels were $43, and the new motor was only $12.

[Brian]

Progress. Kind of.

First of all, the lights are just big enough to be on the edge of goofy, imo. I need to re-terminate the cable (Futaba > JST) to plug into the 1/24 receiver. I also have an LED whip light to add for improved visibility at night.

And I still need to make a replacement body pane and get those shocks installed…

I think I got the shifter sorted, though. Only took me 45 minutes of fiddle-farting around. My understanding is that this is some kind of record. Then again, I only know of one other individual who has had to do this, so his 2-hour mark may have been a low bar.

In any case, the truck seems to work fine in both gears now. It’s decently quick. I am excite.