TOPIC:

Hello to all

Apols to post - but I'm really looking for some help with a small bit of restoration to get my Wiggy running properly!

I've just laid my hands on a Wiggy after having lusted after one since I was just 10 years old, and a rather wealthy American neighbour used to run one up and down our road when I was a wee boy!

However, whilst she's complete, she's not running perfectly - 1st issue is the steering, which I've narrowed down the steering arms "sticking" on the rubber boots - do you find this also? Even some liberal treatment of GT-85 improves it, but doesn't cure it - and the boots still "pop" as they eventually release their grip on the arms as you steer from lock to lock whilst holding it in the air - it ruins running it for the time being until I've cured this.

2nd issue is throttling. She runs forward on her technigold beautifully, but only for about 15-20 seconds before she just stops. You have to gently tap the reverse for second before it "frees it up" and she'll throttle forward again (until she cuts again). It's not desperate, but is annoying. I'd upgraded the MSC to an LRP Runner, and figured that this ESC might just be struggling with the power of the motor? However, I've now swapped and tried two different (identical) ESC's with the same result. I am now wondering if it's the motor itself as having some sort of minor fault, or requiring some sort of cleaning to explain why this would happen? I've not experienced this fault on my 959 which also runs a Technigold (but does still run the original MSC)! So, I'm scratching my head a little to iron out these niggles and have running at full pelt again!

Kind thanks for any replies!

Hi guy, The bigwig was reputed to have a poor steering system. And for your motor problem, You could open it to see if a wire on the rotor is not Brocken.

Hi there and welcome.

Sounds like a failsafe is cutting off the feed but that ESC (18+ turns) should be alright with a Technigold (21T).
If it's been lying around for a while, you could try to spray in some motor cleaner and give the brushes a scrub too.

Welcome on board

GT85 is not the right thing to be using on your rubber boots (or on an RC car at all IMO, ditto WD40, and what ever Screwfix' letter letter number number equivalent is ... AC90?), try some grease instead Dodgy steering is part of the Bigwig's charm, I've gone as far as making it as tail happy as possible (bit of toe out on the front, soft front suspension, hard rear) to make up for lack of steering lock. Time seems to harden all the rubber boots out there

Motor problem could be brushes sticking in their holders, unclip the springs & see if the brush moves ok, clean brush & holder with isopropanol or similar.

stingray-63 wrote:

Hi guy, The bigwig was reputed to have a poor steering system. And for your motor problem, You could open it to see if a wire on the rotor is not Brocken.

Thanks for the reply Stingray:

1 - I appreciate many people think that the BigWig steering is cack - however, this video here shows exactly how a smart running Wiggy should handle... Mine does not! I can't get anything like the range of steering lock to match this fine buggy in the video. I fully appreciate that it's not going to turn on a dime like my Vanquish - but it should be better than it is:



2 - Thanks for the suggestion on the motor rotor - and I will have a look at this, however, if a wire was broken, wouldn't this prevent the motor from running at all?

Edou wrote:

Hi there and welcome.

Sounds like a failsafe is cutting off the feed but that ESC (18+ turns) should be alright with a Technigold (21T).
If it's been lying around for a while, you could try to spray in some motor cleaner and give the brushes a scrub too.

Thanks Edou - I tend to agree with this from a logic point of view - however, I've swapped out the ESC three times now, and it's been the exact same on all of them! If there was a failsafe kicking in, wouldn't this be within the ESC?

I suspect the next thing to try is swapping out the Technigold and popping in another - if that cures it, then we'll know.... I do have a few more sitting in my parts box, so will get this a go.

Not if the wire is in contact and no more when hot or if the coat of varnish is gone. I had the same matter with a Trinity 12X2. Another very cheap cleaning method wich works good is to make it turn in water Under 6V and after a good run spray WD40 and wait that it's dry. Or better if you are player in alcohol
The steering system is very fragile.
bw I love the Big wig

Jonny wrote:

Welcome on board

GT85 is not the right thing to be using on your rubber boots (or on an RC car at all IMO, ditto WD40, and what ever Screwfix' letter letter number number equivalent is ... AC90?), try some grease instead Dodgy steering is part of the Bigwig's charm, I've gone as far as making it as tail happy as possible (bit of toe out on the front, soft front suspension, hard rear) to make up for lack of steering lock. Time seems to harden all the rubber boots out there

Motor problem could be brushes sticking in their holders, unclip the springs & see if the brush moves ok, clean brush & holder with isopropanol or similar.

Thanks for this Jonny - appreciate all the replies here.

I did have a ton of grease in the boots before! I packed it in much like a real like CV joint gaitor is packed with grease, but this was much worse. It seemed as though the viscosity of the grease was hindering the problem that already existed.

Therefore, much stripping down again and de-greasing with GT-85 to remove the lot (although left all of the plastic parts of the rack/pinion arrangement lightly coated for ease of movement) so that it was just rubber boot on metal steering arm.

This was better, but it was clear that it was still "sticking" as the steering arm got pushed out through the boot. There's two bits of pressure:

1 - The range of the steering rack, has to extend the boot itself and forces it to flex for the full range of the rack to be achieved. This seems to have been made harder as the rubber of the boot has hardened over time. Apart from getting some NOS rubber boots which seems unlikely to find all these years later, I can't imagine that I can recover any of the natural flex of the boot anymore so the rack will always have to fight harder than it should. I also find that as the rack has to fight a bit to get the boots to flex, that they pop out of the yellow retaining plastic rack cover quite easily!

2 - Where the steering arms pop through the small hole of each boot, as the arms move in and out, there's a real drag as the rubber grips the arm. Particularly bad on the right side, where it grips, and grips and then pops as it lets go, and then the arm to extend fully. Again, this isn't how it should be. I figure I really need something teflon or silicon based to make the arm itself as super-slippery as possible to reduce friction to the max - at the end of the day, the boots are only there to keep crud out of the rack itself. GT-85 is defo better than grease, but isn't working as well as I'd hoped. I was wondering if I should just take a drill bit to the hole on the boots themselves to enlarge them a bit, hoping that a bigger hole would mean that barely touch the arms at all...

Am I the only Wiggy owner to have experienced this really annoying steering issue? I really want to give the old girl a good thrash!

Thanks for the tip on the motor - looks like I'm defo going to be swapping it out, and giving the current one a good 'ol clean!

stingray-63 wrote:

Another very cheap cleaning method wich works good is to make it turn in water Under 6V and after a good run spray WD40 and wait that it's dry.

Thanks again for replying Stingray - can I just double check my understanding of what you're suggesting? I.e. to hold the motor under a running water tap and power it on? Or even hold the motor in a sink underwater and power it on?

Is that what you mean?

All Wiggies had steering maters once. I knew a guy who bought 1 steering set per month...
My dealer named him "Monsieur BigWig".