The crush tube goes between the two bearings in the rear hub. When you tighten down the wheel, the crush tube's job is to place all the pressure on the inner race of the bearings only. If the crush tube is damaged/missing/too short, you're putting that pressure on the entire bearing which is bad. If the tube is installed correctly and not damaged, you should be able to absolutely crank down on the lock nut and your wheel should still spin/move freely with no binding. If the wheel becomes harder to spin/move the tighter you crank, there is a problem.

Thanks, that reply was very informative! =)

If i were you i would pull the diff's apart and make sure they are shimmed correctly and there's no side to side movement cause you will only strip gears if you don't shim them out

can you elaborate? Side to side movement of the gears themselves or the outdrives? Does this thing have gear diffs kinda like my SC10RS? Sorry I am clueless, I just got it yesterday and haven't even really looked at it yet.

To ballast weight or not to ballast weight? And why?

Depends on how tail happy the rear is, and how rough the track is (it's also really dependent on the battery you run).

As it is a ball diff, there are only really two gears. the pinion and the bevel. The outdrives and the bevel gear are all part of one shaft. This needs to be shimmed across so the bevel gear sit snugly against the pinion. At the front im using 7 shims on the left between the bearing and the bevel and 2shims on the right. They all seem to vary. You should also check the pinion shaft for end to end movement and add shims if necc.
Hope this helps.
Brett.

it does, a ton, I'm still learning everyday. I think I have too many different cars to service, am I getting rid of any, NO.

A fresh new kit I built 3 nights ago to replace my old 44.1. The avid springs are great and I cant wait to try them on this and my b4.1 Hey guys what's the likely hood of avid making a steering rack just like the b4 but for this?

Generally I would suggest to run the ballast weight unless your track is a) smooth and b) flowing (no tight corners).

Weight in: rear is more settled on bumps, there is more low speed rotation, but rear does bottom out more off large jumps

Weight out: rear bounces more on bumps (especially off power into a corner), there is less low speed rotation (but tends to be very smooth in sweeping corners), less bottoming off jumps. Without ballast weight, run 2.5-5wt lighter rear oil.

Battery weights vary a lot, but I like it with ballast + cells around 370g. With the reedy packs which are heavier (~330g) some run a smaller weight between the cells.

Personally I find the ballast helps to make the car faster but a little more edgy to drive in the corners as it has more of a 'pendulum' effect.

Ray

The reason i ask is because i could install the weight and then tune the car around it. It all depends on whether the weight is a standard and required tuning option. I run the Reedy 5200 pack. My home track is SRS, (Cactus track). Rear end was ok, but my tuning was way off the first time out this last weekend. I was running losi big bores but the wrong rates. Too soft.

So before i start messing with spring rates and oil, i wanted to know if the ballast weight was a standard tuning option that everyone uses. Sort of like the rear sway bar.

Honestly, I just drive it. I use my tires to tune.

I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure most all the sponsored guys run the ballast. It plants the rear end better on acceleration and gets more consistent rotation of the rear end around turns. At least, that's what I feel with it.

Wrong section!

I think he was talking about the car