Finally, the official Futaba FXT thread

[R6cowboy]

I just bought one of these on ebay.

Before I buy one, does anybody have a scanned copy of the manual?

The link that Jeff posted on page two is dead.

Glad you got it. I was wondering if someone here won it. I decided to pass on it since I have a handful of them. I'm interested in seeing if someone can make a battery strap to fit a 7-cell hump battery. Might be something I need to discuss with Ed.
I'll look into the pinion pitch.

[R6cowboy]

Anybody know what pitch the pinion gear is?

Unlike the Blitzer, it looks like this transmission has two different pitch gears, switching at the counter gear.

I measured the pinion (23T) and spur gear (70T) and did the calculations. Number of teeth divided by gear diameter (not including teeth depth). Pinion gear comes out to 46 pitch and spur comes out to 44 pitch. The gears are certainly a slight smaller pitch (slightly larger teeth) that the typical 48P gear.

[juicedcoupe]

Anybody know what pitch the pinion gear is?

Unlike the Blitzer, it looks like this transmission has two different pitch gears, switching at the counter gear.

I measured the pinion (23T) and spur gear (70T) and did the calculations. Number of teeth divided by gear diameter (not including teeth depth). Pinion gear comes out to 46 pitch and spur comes out to 44 pitch. The gears are certainly a slight smaller pitch (slightly larger teeth) that the typical 48P gear.

Cool, that sounds like .6 mod.

I had a strong suspension that's what they were. I took a gamble and bought the Tamiya 50356 pinion set. It is 20 and 21T, .6 mod.

The Futaba pinion set from the manual allows happens to be 20 and 21T, also lightened. Seemed like a good bet.

I read that .6 mod works out to about 42P.

[R6cowboy]

Good to know. I'll need to find and pick up a set. All I have are 23T 0.6 mod pinions, but need a couple more for the other two FXT's.

And one of my FXT's did not come with the aluminum motor plate that adjusts to the different teeth count pinion gears. So I'll have to figure out which count pinion gear meshes correctly with just using the motor holes. Which will be very easy with the caliper.

[juicedcoupe]

Good to know. I'll need to find and pick up a set. All I have are 23T 0.6 mod pinions, but need a couple more for the other two FXT's.

And one of my FXT's did not come with the aluminum motor plate that adjusts to the different pinion count gears. So I'll have to figure out which count pinion gear meshes correctly with just using the motor holes.

I didn't shop around. I had a Amazon gift card and bought several items.

[R6cowboy]

@juicedcoupe, are you going to add the bellcrank mod to yours? Have you seen it yet?

[juicedcoupe]

@juicedcoupe, are you going to add the bellcrank mod to yours? Have you seen it yet?

I seen a couple variations of it, but no. I'll keep mine simple.

I'm kinda wanting another one though, a slider would work. I'm thinking that a "FXB", buggy conversion would be cool. Maybe throw a few upgrades at it.

[juicedcoupe]

Got mine sitting on it's own weight.

Since many FXT specific parts are nearly impossible to find, I decided to take a few liberties and make some upgrades as well.

The yellow shocks are obvious. They are for a Terra Scorcher but the fronts have different shafts, ends, and springs. The rears worked fine with some limiters.

The white Stadium Blitzer wheels are also obvious. Blitzer front tires and Schumacher Vee-2 rears.

Also got new Blitzer arms, carriers, and C hubs. They were cheap enough and I have five other vehicles that share the same pieces.

I used Traxxas turnbuckles and mostly Tamiya ball cups. There are also RPM (servo saver) and Kyosho (inside rear links) mixed in to adjust length.

I had some 3mm Schumacher silicone nitride diff balls from a miss-shipment, this seemed like a good place to use them. Also used new Tamiya bearings in the transmission.

Even though the axles and dogbones were in good shape, I used some Tamiya (53791) cvd's.

I didn't have the original antenna holder, so I made a new one (Parma style). It isn't exactly like the original but looks the part.

[R6cowboy]

Indeed heavy duty Easy-Off oven cleaner (the yellow cap can) really does the trick removing anodizing. Here's a couple pictures of the chassis after spraying with Easy-off, sit for 15-20 minutes at a time, whipping off and rinsing with water. Did this process a few times on different areas as needed. Now going to scrub it with a scotch-brite pad, wash with soapy water and have my brother take it to work to powder coat it black.

[R6cowboy]

Got the first above chassis powder coated.

[R6cowboy]

Other four are stripped and off to powder coat. Only 1 of 6 factory chassis' that was still nice enough to keep as is.

[R6cowboy]

Time to get to work

[juicedcoupe]

New battery strap from Factory Works. The current material is a pretty close match for the original FRP towers.

Even though I have the original posts, I wanted thumb-nuts. M3 helicoils, 20mm studs (with jam-nuts), and Exotech twist nuts.

[R6cowboy]

New battery strap from Factory Works. The current material is a pretty close match for the original FRP towers.

Screenshot_20221118-135200_Gallery.jpg

Even though I have the original posts, I wanted thumb-nuts. M3 helicoils, 20mm studs (with jam-nuts), and Exotech twist nuts.

Do you still need the rear battery strap hold down? Ed made and sent me a handful.

Jeff did great on those. The untrained eye wouldn't know the difference.

[juicedcoupe]

Do you still need the rear battery strap hold down? Ed made and sent me a handful.

Yes. I actually plan to contact him about a few things. I need to get some measurements first (just need to do it).