After dissembling and resembling many times, hours of reading through our mini-z forum, I finally got my MA010 now converted MA020 to go track straight after steering. I have to say there are many things that could affect the steering from centering, and thanks to all the creative ideas shared by everyone in the forum. I just want to share the steps I have done that finally taken care of the steering issue and able to race my MA and not only drift with it. Majority of them are by no means my idea, but I figure a consolidated list can help some of the folks who have given up their awd and will take care of it like i have.
1) Sanding the servo cover
2) Sanding the inside servo assembly of the third servo gear
3) Swapped to Atomic servo motor (this is very hard to come by, I found a ebay seller from Italy)
4) Swapped to Atomic servo saver and servo gear set (helped a lot). They have much smoother operation and no drag.
5) Shimmed back of the servo assembly with a small piece of paper to reduce servo gear play
6) Glued VR to the back of servo assembly
7) Glued VR notch with third gear (I got direction suggestion from Atomic to look into play between third gear and the VR, and this has helped TREMENDOUSLY)
8) Glued servo motor to the servo assembly. I noticed the servo pinion gear may not mesh well with the first servo gear if the servo motor doesn’t sit perfect.
9) Shimming the metal rod that runs through the servo saver and the servo saver mount. The slight play between the metal rod and where it sits causes left and right play;, and the gap between the servo saver clip (I don’t know what to call it) (up and down play) has caused twisting motion of the servo saver. That translate into play with or without applying any steering
10) PN 1.5 tie rod. I think the stock tied rod should be fine. But during my initial experiment, I have over sanded the stock rod, and it tends to pop out if I loosen the bottom plate too much.
11) Adjust the screws of the bulk head cover, bottom plate cover. Listen to servo motor sound. If you hear “geerr” sound after steering, that means you have overtighten some of the screws. Loosen the screws and slightly ply over the cover/bottom plate until you find a sweet spot, where you no longer hear the “geer” sound after steering
That’s all for my MA010/MA020 steering troubleshooting journey and finally taken care of the not centering problem for good. There is now no play when trying to move the servo saver, and servo able to return back to center after slightest steering. Hopefully this can bring all your AWD back to life!
Thanks for spending time to explain all this.
I have a couple of questions:
1-Don't you worry that the loss of play will led to gears breaking or wearing out very quickly?
2-now that you got the steering fixed (I don't have much of a steering problem on mine) how do you get the ma02 to drive decently :-) I had no much luck getting it to perform anywhere close to a well tuned mr03 on rcp.
Hello Minizorro,
No problem, always loves to share. To answer your question, the play I observed were mainly coming from how the VR sits inside the notch of the third gear, and the twisting motion caused by the gap of the servo saver mount. I don't think removing the plays caused by those has caused the gear to mesh differently. And I am hoping atomic servo saver will take care of servo gears. I can still move the servo assembly by moving the tie rod, but the play I used to see where tie rod movement without servo gears rotates are almost gone.
As for catching with the MR03, I am a beginner when it comes to race, so I can't really comment on whether this will allow my MA010/020 to keep up with the MR03 pack (embarrassing to say, I am always the last in the race). But I do hope without the servo issue will now give me a proper car to practice and improve with.
1) Separated out the servo cover, and re-wired the wires coming off from the battery tab to outside the PCB cover. That way it allows me to look at motion of the servo saver without having to dissemble the whole pcb. I can post picture if you think that will be helpful
2) Shrink warped the part where front knuckle goes into the tie rod to remove play
3) Placed a small piece of tape in the tie rod where the servo safer connect to remove more play
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