Originally Posted by
axle182
Niznai did you swap out more components out towards the wheel? If your hinges were straight, I would then swap arms L to R, then swap out the wheel hubs. I agree, once you can repeat the error even when changing out all parts that make up the toe in, then it must be the chassis. I have started cutting my own chassis lately (I have a 416/7 hybrid 80mm wide, so I can reuse an old 416! first trial is Friday) so Id be VERY surprised if they copied a mistake from another chassis. they are design symmetrical in cad, so I really don't see how the chassis can be to blame. An A arm could be drilled badly, or the bottom hole in the hub could be out too. Hope that helps
I've had the car for 2 years? Don't know, whenever they came out (bought new, so no worries there).
What haven't I done, I ask you. I even replaced the whole back end with the one in the TA05R, then I replaced the whole suspension with Xray suspension, trust me, I did everything you can think of and then some. I took all my suspension bits and put them on the TA05R car to check. Except for the split blocks, of course.
There are no two ways about it. Something is wrong either with the chassis, the suspension blocks or both. Call it poor manufacturing, incredible bad luck (maybe it's the only chassis that was cut on the day Mr Tamiya's favourite team lost the game?), whatever. Why was the other chassis (Samix) bad the same way? No idea. But for a small outfit in HK or Taiwan, I think this is the norm. The Samix chassis came without the layshaft (I bought the kit with the single piece motor mount and some other stuff, can't remember), so they had to send me one, waited another month for it to show up.
So there you go. A bit unlucky this purchase for me, but I like the car and stuck with it, and now it drives very well, with all its foibles, and it's actually reliable.
But back then, by the end I just lost any patience and sense, and I could see defects everywhere. I was losing my mind. I even bought the split blocks from Xray (new T4 ones, like the Durango) hoping they would fit the holes and I could run different inserts left to right to correct the problem. No go, holes are spaced differently. I don't have anyone here with a TD car to check the hole spacing and am not willing to invest any further. I felt like one of those guys with conspiracy theories in their heads. Until now, when it seems I wasn't as crazy as I thought.
Like I said, I am happy now with the fix I found, and I only regret I didn't think of it sooner. The Xray I took the bits off was sitting unbuilt in box since 2012. I would have saved some money and some mental health, but hey! You live and learn. Again, I am convinced that for us mere mortals the best insurance against crap cars (or freaky bad luck if you like) is to have as many as possible. And keep them. Never sell one. You never know when you'll need something they don't make anymore.
But the lesson here (for me at least) is that you need to think of all the possible problems and evaluate your purchases accordingly. The TRF418 is an orphan. Tamiya dropped pretty much everything to do with the car after they got our money. I tried to buy another set of split blocks to use different toe angles left to right and it's impossible. They don't exist! Tamiya simply canned development and manufacturing all the parts and stuff, and we were left high and dry.
From now on, I will only buy from Tamiya last year's car if it's proven to have no problems and I see they're still supporting and developing the car. The way I see it, Tamiya owes me a car.