Originally Posted by
Julius
Here's a pic of the bottom of the chassis change.
The two holes next to the pivot ball screw are larger, and you can just see the button head screws in the t-bar. (the screws are not the official ones, they will be hex head and slightly smaller).
That explains why the new, replacement T bars are not counter sunk for flat head screws!! I first thought it was an error. That's too bad. All they did was eliminate the counter sinking on the T bar that was required for the flat head screws. This will make the T bar slightly stronger but does not fix the problem.
There are three holes in the T bar. The large hole in the middle for the pivot ball cup and the two holes for the screws on each side of the big hole. While switching to button heads adds a little more material to the T bar, the design of all three holes in a row across the T bar, makes a very weak unit. The Associated, CRC, HPI design is much better as it uses four screws and the holes are not in a row across the T bar. Much stronger. It would cost a lot of money for serpent to make new pivot ball cups molds, cheaper to buy Associated, CRC, HPI pivot ball cups for the kits or even cheaper to eliminate the counter sink and switch from flat head screws to button head screws which is what they chose to do. Understandably they do not want to increase the cost of the kit anymore than it already is.
Looks like I will be going forward with making my own T bars which will use either Associated, CRC or HPI pivot ball cups.