# Vibe Push Rod Replacement



## Bill Hall (Jan 6, 2007)

This is for those many folks like me who have suffered with missing vibe push rods.

Tired of paying a premium for making you door buzzers work if ya can even find them?:freak:

Substitue push rods can be made quickly from an old t-jet gear plate. A plate rail is knifed off with a #2 blade. The rail is inserted into your dremel chuck and turned round first using 80 grit and then 220 grit paper. Trim it just oversize and dress the ends with a fine file. I just copied an existing one, but according to Bob Beers the length is .330". 

Initial testing proved out great! We'll have to see regarding longevity...but I ran some hard laps with no ill effects or performance drop. Three rods were made from one rail in under ten minutes...fer no bux. :thumbsup:

The homegrown version is on the far left of pic 3.


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## SplitPoster (May 16, 2006)

Brilliant! One for the archives. Expensive to buy those things, though somebody was selling NOS whole kits for a while - one of everything including wheels and tires, even the axles and drum (I guess they wear out). Got one for about $15 - go figure.

Now that this is solved, can you work on those foil brushes and the top accuator plates?


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## gear buster (Dec 1, 2005)

Great money saver there Bill..:thumbsup:
Now everyone will be hackin up their tjets..LOL

By the way.. I like the HomeGrown better..:dude:


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## JordanZ870 (Nov 25, 2004)

gear buster said:


> Great money saver there Bill..:thumbsup:
> Now everyone will be hackin up their tjets..LOL
> 
> By the way.. I like the HomeGrown better..:dude:


No,now the vibe guys can simply request the scattered parts that have seen the flat end of Coachs tjet hammer! LOL!


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## Bill Hall (Jan 6, 2007)

SplitPoster said:


> Brilliant! One for the archives. Expensive to buy those things, though somebody was selling NOS whole kits for a while - one of everything including wheels and tires, even the axles and drum (I guess they wear out). Got one for about $15 - go figure.
> 
> Now that this is solved, can you work on those foil brushes and the top accuator plates?


Thanx Jeff, Not brilliant per sey, more like born out of necessity by a cheapskate hacker. LOL!

FYI, Reed tangs can be made from .003 feeler guage stock, some sharp "skissers", and a fine file. Snip out what you need! The tricky part is getting a good 90 degree bend in the stock without breaking it...ya might bust a couple til ya get it right. Dress all the sharp edges with the file so ya dont tuna can yer fingers.

Still been silver soldering those "holed" pick ups and tediously re-shaping them by hand filing ...ugh! Still stuck for now.


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## win43 (Aug 28, 2006)

Bill "Model Murderer" Hall has done it again. Great way to keep those vibrators running. :thumbsup::thumbsup: I have some straw......can you "goop it". "hack it", or just plain spin it into NOS tjet chassis?? :wave:


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## Bill Hall (Jan 6, 2007)

Just dont say the word ..."Rumplestilskin"!


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## f1nutz (Mar 26, 2007)

Thanks for the great tips Bill!
I recently bought some carbon fibre rod from an RC plane shop and thought it might work too but never got around to trying it.


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## Bill Hall (Jan 6, 2007)

Another good tip f1nutz! Please let us know if you ever give it a go.

We need all the help we can get!


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## SCJ (Jul 15, 1999)

Evergreen plastics makes a little plastic rod that works great as long as you don't mind them being white Vs gray. You get like 20" for .79¢

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www.SlotCarJohnnies.com


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## Bill Hall (Jan 6, 2007)

Cool John!

How is it for longevity and distortion? I'm one of those nuts who lets my lil grandyuns run the wheels offa my beater vibes. They do get a bit warm...snicker.


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## SCJ (Jul 15, 1999)

Bill Hall said:


> Cool John!
> 
> How is it for longevity and distortion? I'm one of those nuts who lets my lil grandyuns run the wheels offa my beater vibes. They do get a bit warm...snicker.


 
Sorry no idea, I have not run one for any length of time, only to test...but would guess the Nylatron your using would last much longer then the styrene I use. But mine takes less time! 

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www.SlotCarJohnnies.com


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## videojimmy (Jan 12, 2006)

I have 2 vibe chassis that kinda work, but for the life of me, I can't make then run.
very frustrating!


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## Bill Hall (Jan 6, 2007)

Hey VJ, I always go in this order with door buzzers

Bone it out except the wheels axles and corncob gear.

Test continuity of the coil and buff the center contact and the side contact I use a brass brush on my wizzer.

Clean the corressponding contacts on the brush plate the same way as well as the shoe patches.

Put yer meter on tone and read it at the shoes ...you should have tone...use your fingie to push the reed down and you should have no tone. A worn plunger may not be long enough to open the points. Or the contacts are cruddy.

Make sure that the humpty contact on the brush plate has enough tension to contact the coil point. Seen many that go limp with time.

Square up the reed relative to the rear gear and open the distance if real clicky....I like just the faintest click that you can feel with your fingies. If it ratchets so loud you can hear it I think they are too tight IMHO.


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## Bill Hall (Jan 6, 2007)

Had to bug out in the middle of that. LOL.

Make sure that the wheels are pressed on properly. This really helps keep the rear gear in place and makes the reed register in the same place on the drive gear and keeps the chassis from sliding around on the axles when cornering. Coupla thou is plenty, be certain the backside of the wheels are clean and smooth. 

Same old story on wheels and tires...be sure they are true! The NOS sets often have off center axle hole straight outta the bag. 

The pick ups are always a pain even when new and unmolested. I usually adjust them on a bare chassis so that they are right on the edge of stutter....then the weight of the body settles it down to no stutter. Never did care for the goofy contact patch and always open them up. The no go point is where the shoe binds against the relief cut in the insulator plate. There's a relief notch cut for the front of the shoe. If you go too far then the shoe will snag/hang in the relief. 

Typically they'll be kinda boingy and twitchy with little wheels or bigguns in the hot rod hole. So ya gotta take a little tension out to settle them down. Be aware that all screws are not the same. The old school screws were a gnats hair flatter. Newer screws and may scuff the track. Especially noticeable with trued up HR fronts. You can hear it knocking on the track joints so watch out that ya dont have a bulbous t-jet screw in the front position. Also consider your rail height when dealing with vibes they were designed to run on L&J so ya have to compensate.

To really dial one in takes some patience with the reed angle. In the stock position of 90 degrees, give er take, relative to the corncob gear; the stroke is short. I try to move the reed angle backwards so it takes a bigger bite of the gear. To much of a bend will fatigue the reed tang prematurely as it will exceed the tangs flexibility. It's a fine line that plays between angles the reed body/retainer height and the actual tang angle.
Bottom line is that you want the most stroke with the least friction and still get the contact points to open properly.

Many old vibes suffer from rear axle hole "porkitis". Mild steel axles humming around in that play-doh potmetal chassis can hog them out to the point that it will upset the reed drive gear angle rendering them a dog fer sure. 'Magine they could be bushed/inserted pretty easily but havent done it ....yet. Because the chassis casting is quite soft I like to use CRC Black Moly assembly lube to keep them lubricated and alive.

Good luck VJ....I didnt figure them out overnight....I'm just stubborn!


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## bobwoodly (Aug 25, 2008)

Bill - I generally can get vibes to run, but how do you test continuity of the coil? Any way to repair a coil?


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## Bill Hall (Jan 6, 2007)

I like to disassemble the chassis and test resistance directly on the "cleaned" coil contacts. 

...but to check continuity place one probe on the middle coil contact located on the bottom of the bare frame....and the other one on the side contact also on the bottom but to one side. Meter should be in diode test/tone. No beep/tone is no good...but I always scratch around and re-check it just to be sure.

I also like the resistance test. Same deal as continuity, only the meter is set to ohms.

All my good running examples test out between 30 and 60 ohms with lows in the 20's and highs in the 120's....FWIW. I honestly only have 20 odd examples so it's a very narrow test slice. Obviously as the resistence goes off the end of the high range the worse the chassis performs. 

My experience, albeit small, shows that you'll either find the coil to be "open" which indcates a bad solder joint or busted wire (AKA no continuity); or it will show continuity but have high resistance and dogged performance. So as you can see, continuity does not always a coil make! 

Really the same deal as T-jet arm poles, 'cept yer only reading one winding instead of three.

The vibe coil can be rewound. That said it's a pain to de-install from the chassis....re-winding it is just roundy roundy duh stuff....then you have to pinpoint solder the ends and re-install. The coil is retained using peened retainer. Not really and end user friendly kind of thing. I just pursued it to see I could.


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## partspig (Mar 12, 2003)

For all those that do not have the wherewithall to Bill Hall their vibe parts, I recently purchased some reasonably priced push rod facsimlies from Model Motoring. Just another way to "Git er Done"


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