RC Bashers

Yea, its a cheap little toy grade RC. It suffers from clod stall, & the tires aren't really up to par. But for less than $30 at Wally World, you will have a hard time passing it up. I took mine out to what was supposed to be an ORV park, but the place was rutted up, overgrown, & there was no MX track to speak of. Just random dirt piles. Good enuff to run the crawler a little & take a few pics:

Like I said- clod stall is a problem. But the truck made it up this hill pretty well, and I was mildly impressed:

A 9.6 volt battery is reported to help w/ the stall issue, & I believe the tires are about the same rim dia as 1.9's. I'm on the lookout for a different body, something that will give it a more "scale" look. I'll update this thread w/ any new info I come up with.

Yea I have been hooked on my Mini Crawler. One of my top five builds. As long as you have a smile on your face running it it is well spent indeed. Thanks for the pics and review.l8r,w.

Well I decided to try my hand at upgrades for this little thing. I went into Radio Shack this morning & picked up a 9.6V batt pack & a set of connectors. Did a little dismantling & wired in the new connector.

Circles show the trimmed ends where I attached the new connector. Small arrows w/ the lines by them show the other end of those wires (just for illustration).
Large arrows show the notch I cut into the chassis for the connector wires to feed out thru.

After I reassembled the chassis, I used some rubber bands to temp hold the batt pack so I could take it on a test run. Arrow shows where the new batt connector exits the chassis.

After my test run, I took a look at a more permanent place to mount the batt. Turns out that if I hack out the area where the original AA batts were held, the 9.6V will fit pretty well. Well, thats the plan anyways. I'll do that another day, though.

Soooo, how did it run w/ the 9.6V, you might ask? It really seemed to give the crawler a lot more power. Enuff power that it became painfully obvious that the Maisto tires are pretty crappy. But who really expects somewhat pliable vinyl toy tires to really hook, anyways? It did seem to eliminate most of the clod stall it was suffering from w/ the original 6 AA batts. I need to take it back out to that abandoned ORV area I showed up above & see how well it does now.

Looks like you're making it better, that's something I always enjoy. You can either complain(what most people do) or you can fix the problems. Keep it up.

Thanks. Yea, I figure it would be kinda interesting to see what its capable of w/ some basic modifications.

I took it out to the abandoned ORV park this morning & ran it for 15-20 min before the pack ran down. Yep, the 9.6V makes a big diff. I crawled up much steeper inclines & made it across ruts that I wasn't able to do last time out. Heres a "far away" shot to show the terrain:

And a couple more pics of the flex its capable of:

This thing does OK now- its no Losi MRC or Axial, but seriously comparing it to one of those is just silly! I'm going to grab some better tires this weekend in San Antonio at the HobbyTown USA there- I hope.

Thats a pretty nice spot! WIsh I had a area close by. Good to hear your mods are working better for you, awesome when a idea pans out

great mod and glad to hear its working out for ya.............looks like a cool place to run some rigs at

Seetness.Love it when a plan comes together. Nice spot to go and play. Seems like a fun time and place to test and tune the rig.l8r,w.

The spot is great for the Crawler- but sucks for the Circuit stadium truck. Can't have it all, I guess!

Well, I went up to San Antonio this past weekend & hit their HobbyTown USA. They had one style of 1.9 tires, & they definately look like they'd strectch over the Maisto wheels, but at $20 a pair I decided to pass. I spied a set on a toy at WalMart that seemed real grippy. I think I'm gonna grab it tomorrow & see if they'll work on the Crawler wheels. I'll let y'all know.

I did get a little done tonite. I took the Dremel & zapped out the battery location. Works well, & I set it a little forward (arrow) toget some weight on the front:

Couple more pics:

I'd really suggest sticking with hobby grade tires, it will make a world of difference. I bet if you got on rccrawler.com and posted your need in the wanted section you could get some decent tires for cheap, maybe free+shipping. People tend to toss tires off the losi MRC away frequently.

Good idea on the MRC tires- I've registered there but never posted.

I know what you're saying, but these tires feel very similar to the ones I checked out at HT USA. I think I'll take the gamble on these toy tires just to see how they fare. Here's what I'm lookin' at:

lol now that would make a wild rc

LOL- I was just looking at that pic & thinking to myself "I wonder if I could adapt the body to the Maisto chassis?".

when i worked for john deere i use to build them trucks. i actually welded the side sheets for the box. had to weld all the ribs onto the sheets. they were suppose to go to a rib less style dump box.

I scooped up the John Deere toy today & swapped the tires on the Crawler. I took it on a test run & holy smokes- what a difference. These tires grip, believe it or not. First chance I get I'm gonna run to the ORV park & hit the ruts & dirt piles w/ a full batt. Biggest prob I was able to find on my test run is that at full flex w/ the front tires turned, the tread lugs can dig into the body & bind up the Crawler. Pics:

Maybe taper the front fenders on the body? Or look for a different one.