Monster Beetle/Blackfoot/Midnight Pumpkin upgrades & spares

[cavey76]

Hi All, I got some advice here a year or so back and got my two eldest Tamiya Monster Beetle and Blackfoot models for Xmas 2018. The curse of playstation kicked in and they sat half built for a year. Roll on Covid and us being locked at home, Playstation is on a month long ban and i suggested "technology homework" could be to complete the builds. Grudgingly and through tears at one point they persevered over two days and got them built. It was quite satisfying to watch their excitement and now "breaktime" for the last week has been 30 mins racing round the garden and crashing into each other with much hilarity.

This has triggered Boy 3 asking for a truck for his birthday - must be a truck so looking at the Midnight Pumpkin, he is 8 and it is to race his brothers round the garden and bump over the skateboard ramps we have.

I now have the eldest two telling me the gearbox/transfer box is crunching and a wheel came off exposing plastic bearings. So question for the experts.

1) Are there any suggested spares to strengthen/upgrade the gearbox? Not fussed on speed per se. Just something that is likely to hold out better to an hour or so's use multiple times a week for the rest of the summer.

2) Bearings? Is it worth "ball racing" these models to improve the general performance and useability?

3) Any other low cost tweaks/addons/upgrades people might suggest.

I am going to splurge on the Midnight Pumpkin in the next day or two and might aswell buy the spares at the same time so your advice is much appreciated.

Cavey

[generationx]

There’s a few decent hop-ups for this chassis, ball bearings is a definite must but then you can go for oil shocks, upgraded power and more. The forums on TamiyaClub are a mine of information.

[cavey76]

Cheers Sir!