Ice45man

I'm new to pan cars and bought a used CRC 1/10 for wgtr. How do you know when the front and rear side springs need replacing?

glennhl

iTrader: (16)

They should not wear out so the only time to replace them is when you want to try a different spring rate.

silden

iTrader: (12)

I had a fair amount of collapsed pan car springs.
I would recommend to replace them when they are 1mm different in height(left to right). replace always both springs

glennhl

iTrader: (16)

These springs should be designed to not collapse, sounds like they weren't heat treated properly. Or even worse, didn't use a spring steel and opted for cheap low carbon steel. But you make an excellent point, if they collapse so that one spring is shorter than the other, then you should replace them both. Thanks.

Dan

iTrader: (75)

Really soft springs collapse more than really stiff springs, especially when new and then putting some packs thru them (especially when you have heavy rubber tires for WGTR/F1). It happens to my CRC and Xray front springs. Remember it impacts droop too.

MC Hamilton

iTrader: (4)

I have never seen a rear side spring wear out. Softer fronts will collapse on some brands (i.e. older associated style springs 0.18 and lower). You'll know because one will be shorter than the other - time to toss them both.

I like the KSG springs on the WGTR cars. Lefthander RC carries them. 0.17s are really good on WGTRs. You might want 0.18 and 0.19 to test with? I haven't had any of these collapse yet - have a set on one car going into it's fourth indoor carpet season.

Ice45man

Thanks everyone. Like I said I bought the car used and today pulled off the kingpins and there were 2 springs used on each side on the front. Any ideas why the last owner ran it this way?

Ice45man

Thanks everyone. Like I said I bought the car used and today pulled off the kingpins and there were 2 springs used on each side on the front. Any ideas why the last owner ran it this way?

belewis01

iTrader: (5)

Springs are cheap, if in doubt replace them. Buy 1 up and 1 down rate for tuning options

As far as 2 springs - check the manual, chances are the manufacturer knows best how to set up the car.

IndyRC_Racer

iTrader: (9)

Some r/c parts are so cheap (like front pan car springs), that it just easier to replace them with new parts when working on a "new to you" vehicle.

As to why they were running 2 springs on each front king pin, who knows? Maybe they replaced the stock kin pin with a longer one and were using the 2nd spring to take up slack. Maybe they were using 2 different rated springs (a soft & hard for example) and were trying to create a progressive spring rate or bump stop. Maybe it was some " trick setup " for specific track conditions they raced on. Again, who knows?

When buying used r/c cars it is often best to do a complete tear down then rebuild the vehicle to the stock manual settings so that you have a fully known setup. Although you might want to document the existing setup and/or drive the car before the tear down to use as comparison. However a tear down & rebuild does have other benefits such as checking for any damaged parts and gaining practice maintaining the vehicle.