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I am looking to upgrade the ball cups and turnbuckles on my RC10 Dual Sport.

However I am not sure which brand to go with or what sizes I need as there seems to be a wide range

I am leaning towards all metal and I want to stick with black for both the ball caps and turnbuckles.

Any suggestions?

you might not like this but from my experience.

Metal ball cups are pretty much a non existant thing for this scale. Your probably going to have to use captured ball rod ends. Those tend to be fairly large in size so the manufacturer you can use are limited. My experience with this has shown of all places, Integy, to be the better supplier for the things. They tend to be available in multiple colors. The downside is its all gonna be metric. Something like a 3mm ball with varying sizes for the turnbuckle (ex. 3mm ball with 4mm threads.) No clue on availability from them either but they tend to have the better options so far.

Next for the turnbuckle is usually lunsford mainly because you can order the turnbuckles for specific thread size and length. Make sure to measure the distance needed with the rod ends as it will tend to be shorter than with a ball cup. Also, certain items on their site are sold in pairs or singular items so do check that. These will not be black.

Another note is that with the captured ball rod end, the size of it is much larger than the typical ball cups. This is to the point that it can and will cause clearance issues at the bell cranks.

Outside of trying integy, rc4wd makes them too but they have been more miss than hit with getting orders correct. Maybe try ebay b/c they have a lot there too.

If I had to make a suggestion, Id say just go with some black team associated turnbuckles that are available most everywhere and switch to some dubro rod ends. I think the small traxxas rod ends might work too as they are smaller in size and length too.

Thanks a million for the crash course in rod ends!

This info is extremely helpful and much appreciated!

The only reason why I wanted to go with metal rod ends is fo looks. I have seen a number of really cool builds that used metal rod ends.

I think that I may have had my terminology mixed up in my original post. What I was really looking for was metal "captured ball ends" and not metal ball cups".

Will M3 plastic rod ends fit Associated turnbuckles?

All depends on manufacturers tolerances mate. I recently fitted kyosho rod ends (3mm) to the bottom of associated shocks (4/40) and just tapped them with a 4/40 tap and they were fine plenty of meat for a good fit... Captured ends are sometimes more trouble than they are worth especially for 1/10 vehicles,they tend to have less movement and anytime you need to remove them it's a pain. Good rod ends from rpm,Lunsford or some associated versions are excellent and rarely pop off unless very old or removed many many times.

It's a good idea to replace the plastic pop on type rod ends regularly depending on how you use your rc. Most guys I know do it once a year or sooner depending if they have a trouble rod end that pops off continually from minor crashes that would be replaced sooner...