The above pic is of a Tyco Nitrodozer - no, its not nitro-powered. I didnt call my mutant a "nitrotrike" because i figured somebody would read the name and start drooling, lol :-)
The main problem i had with the nitrodozer is that both its gear ratios are pretty low, so it has good torque, but speed is lacking. So, in order to effectively raise the final gear ratio ( more speed:-)hehehe) i just took off the tracks and stuck some tires on the drive "sprockets"- they arent wheels, so as u can see in the pix, the tires dont fit them very well - but it gets the job done. The rear end and electrics are all that remain from the nitrodozer - what u see in the pix is much lighter ( can u say FASTER? lmao). In stock form its intended to run a "tmh pack" - i never bought one, so im not sure about this, but i think its a 7.2v AA nimh pack. From day one ive run this thing from a standard 7.2v stick pack, lol. I now run a 9.6v AA size pack. The power transistors have no heatsinks on them (very strange, i know) but they dont seem to be getting very hot. The chassis rails (from a Bolink Digger) are attached to the sides of the tranny with 2 screws into the same holes that secure the motor covers. The front wheel is from an rc made by Hasbro (xrc) that had a single wide tank tread in the rear and 2 of those skinny slicks up front - obviously, the name escapes me, lol. Next up are even larger tires for this thing, because the gearing is THAT LOW, lol. Maybe its beggin for some "clods" lmao;-)
MONSTERIZED:-)
Along with the larger tires (about Midnight Pumpkin/Lunchbox size - ok, not clods by any means, but still big considering 2 tiny 2xx motors are spinnin em :-P ) the aluminum plates on the sides are the shock towers from a Kyosho usa1 - they are there for rollover protection. i glued a part of the original drive sprockets onto the back of a set of wheels for the RS "hot machine", a pic of which is on the "RS Articulation" page. by the way, RS = Radio Shack:-). the tires are also from a RS hot machine.
CLOD'ed
the tires are actually from a usa1, but i dont think too favorably of it so i will refer to them as CLODs:-) i just used some Goop to glue the 2 tires together, side by side - i expect it to hold, but even if it starts to loosen after a few runs, ive got a large tube full of the stuff, so im ready to reapply, lol. Sadly, as u can see in the pix, one of the wheels is broken - this happened because i tried to put one of the tires onto one of the wheels while the wheel was still on the car and "somehow/someway" (lol) i put too much force on the wheel, breaking it. i took the second wheel off the car before attempting tire installation and didnt have much of a problem. i didnt discover the broken wheel till i picked the car up and saw one side sagging downward far more than the other - it was still "attached by a thread" at this point, so i decided to try running it. in the higher of the cars 2 gear ratios, it could barely move, lol , but in the lower ratio it jumped off the line - and a few seconds later the center of the wheel sheared off completely:-( its ok though, cuz im working on a new set of wheels - much stronger - so even though this break was caused by me, (and not the clods) wheel breakage will never be a concern :-)
If u email me, and please feel free to do so, include a reference to RC or this site in the "SUBJECT". i get alot of spam, so if i see a strange email address with no subject, or a subject that says "hi" or "hello", etc, im not going to read it - so u need to say something in the subject that makes it clear to me that your message isnt spam. ndumu@hotmail.com