Fix unwanted TRX4 steering system flex - Installing metal link mounts & a homemade brace

In this TJsRC episode, we will look at how to prevent flex in the steering system in the TRX4. High power after market steering servo's are great but are you sure all that added power is getting where you want it to be. When using a high power servo there are parts in the TRX4 steering system that can flex under load from the increased torque put on them by these servo's. In this episode we will be installing metal suspension links because the track bar mounts to the axle on one of these link mounts. Switching this part to a metal one will prevent it from flexing under heavy load. I will also show you the DIY mod I made to brace the chassis side track bar mount to help prevent it from flexing also. They do make metal versions of the shock towers with the track bar mount but I didn't want to go that route yet so I made up my own solution for that spot.

The metal link kit I installed can be found almost every where they sell RC parts. I found mine on Amazon by searching: "metal TRX4 link mounts"

Please NOTE.
I don't ever want you guys adding stuff or installing extra parts just because you saw it in some YouTube video. Lot's of TRX4's are out there right now driving around experiencing this issue but it's not that big of a deal unless it really bugs the driver, which it did in my case.

If you're new to tiny truck mechanics or simply don't see the problem here. You need to understand that when your servo swings through it's range of motion, nothing else is supposed to move except the steering hub. The issue we are trying to address shows up in the TRX4 track bar mounts, which are both flexible plastic. The original servo likely isn't strong enough to cause the flexing (therefore IT IS NOT a design flaw IMO, in fact one could argue the flex is designed in ON PURPOSE so there is give, like a servo saver). However, a lot of TRX4 owners change to a much stronger servo, usually right away. These stronger servos are easily 2-4 times stronger than stock and this is where we have exceeded the design specs for the plastic track bar mounts. It may not look like they are flexing very far but it only takes a few millimeters of flex in them to loose a considerable number of degrees of throw in your servo. Especially if you are running your servo horn as short as you can, to get even more torque out of it.
For example: I measured the total throw distance of my servo horn, it's 24mm. At that distance, every 1.2mm (that's tiny) of total flex between both plastic track bar mounts, looses you 5% of your steering throw. You can see that it doesn't take much flex to be noticeable from the drivers seat, if you know to look for it. Does this really matter if you are just out to have some fun trailing or light rock crawling with friends? No, not at all. However, once I noticed this was happening I couldn't not notice it all the time. So I felt compelled to address it (I love tinkering on these tiny trucks. Every time I see something "wrong" I'm all " woo hoo yeah, more things to do to it". Maybe that's not normal but it's me) My first attempt to address this was the home made brace that I showed you in the video. That helped to stop, that end of the track bar from moving. Unfortunately then the track bar mount on the axle began flexing even further under load since it was no longer sharing the flex between the two mounts. This then obviously led to needing to install the metal links as shown in the video. BOOM problem solved. I didn't cover these details in the video as I was thinking it would make it to long and overly boring, like this paragraph, lol. I probably should have had my chief editor (wife) look it over before I posted.

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   / @tjsrc  

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Video shot with a GoPro Hero 7 Black
Video edited in Shotcut https://shotcut.org/
Music courtesy of YouTube https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/...

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