# Pickup Shoe Tuning - The Missing Tip



## Grandcheapskate (Jan 5, 2006)

Hi Guys,
I often read very informative postings on how to tune pickup shoes. Mostly the tips center around two items (1)trying to get as much of the shoe as possible to sit flat on the rails and (2) spring pressure (which by the way can be adjusted by bending the rear hook rather than cutting the spring).

However, I have never seen discussed a problem which I have found causes me the most grief - pickup shoes that hang at an angle.

There are many times I have a pancake chassis which seems to lose power at certain points, mainly around curves. Or seems "jerky". There is nothing wrong with the track and the car has more than enough speed on straights. I check the lie of the shoes on the rails and I am getting a nice contact patch. So what is the problem?

Over the past several months when I have started to really look more closely at my T-Jets and AFX, the problem I describe above always seems to be the result of pickup shoes which hang at an angle. When you hold a chassis in front of you and look at the shoe windows, they need to be hang perfectly straight. Any tilt in those shoes can result in more of a performance degradation than you would think possible.

I was working on a NOS JL T-Jet and I was going crazy trying to see why it was stalling. Knowing this was probably related to a tilted shoe(s) I kept trying to bend the shoes to get them straight. It took a while but finally hit just the right angle and the car was terrific.

Bending the shoes to get them straight is really about twisting them. It sometimes takes a while to get it just right, but when you do, you'll know. So bear this in mind the next time some chassis has you stumped.

Thanks...Joe


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## kriket (Feb 15, 2013)

Grandcheapskate said:


> Hi Guys,
> I often read very informative postings on how to tune pickup shoes. Mostly the tips center around two items (1)trying to get as much of the shoe as possible to sit flat on the rails and (2) spring pressure (which by the way can be adjusted by bending the rear hook rather than cutting the spring).
> 
> However, I have never seen discussed a problem which I have found causes me the most grief - pickup shoes that hang at an angle.
> ...


 i always knew that, they have a special tool to twist pick up shoe to make it straight. I made my own tool


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## Boosted-Z71 (Nov 26, 2007)

You are very correct on how the shoes hang in relation to the chassis, that is part of the tweaking process to get them straight / perpendicular and work freely while having the largest contact patch on the rail and to get the bend that goes in the shoe hanger as tight as you can without binding. 

RTHO made a tool to get the contact patch bend consistent and very close once you adjusted the tool in where you want it. I made a pair of pliers that adjusts the U-bend on the back of the shoe, to get the largest contact area I could get on them and to free up the natural binding occurring from the spring forcing contact on the shoe hanger. 

Pickup shoes are a major player in performance on these cars, minor adjustments on either end of the shoe can make a large performance swing in both handling and speed. I try to get both sides consistent as well during the adjustment, I dont tune from contact patch alone any more, Most of the time the negative shoe has to have more spring to get rid of the arcing, and I move the contact patch on the shoe a bit depending on the torque of the car and types of corners, long & sweeping and lots of straights I move the patch towards the rear of the shoe, tight and twisty it gets moved forward on the shoe. 

That being said if the car is fast and handles predictable I can live with a little arcing. There is a big difference in currently released shoes & the real Aurora t-jet shoes, I have removed current shoes and replaced with Aurora to get a car to come into spec, I have seen a ton of variations in the shape of shoes, both old and new, obviously the key is to get 2 shoes that work well and thus comes in all the adjustments. 

Boosted


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## ajd350 (Sep 18, 2005)

If you're running really small diamater tires, watch for a shiny spot at the hook area. I have to trim the end of the hook or rebend the bend at the front of the hook when it touches the rail. It will then lift the shoe up back there and there goes your hook contact, resulting in skipping and arcing in the hook.


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## Boosted-Z71 (Nov 26, 2007)

Ha Ha, Shiny spot, I have seen cars with a worn rail slot in the shoe on the hanger where they were dragging, Good tip ajd, forgot to mention that. 

Boosted


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## 9finger hobbies (Mar 11, 2008)

*Just sayin'*

Back in the day , before the internet, we use to solder desoldering braid to our pickups because we could not find tjet shoes anywhere. What a diferent time we are living in.... Sorry. Just got taken way back. Wish I had a video of dancing cavemen to post....:wave:


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## Jisp (Oct 19, 2008)

Modifying old unused tools can return them to service for exactly this type of shoe tweak. Below is an old mini flat blade screw driver with a tip that had been broken and reground beyond use. Removing the tip and cutting a slot in the shaft puts the old girl back into use for all sorts of shoe tweaks when used with another.


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## super8man (Jan 29, 2013)

Try to make them as flat as possible, limit your travel and when measured they should be about 2.0 grams of force on the average - I forget which at the moment but one shoe should be about 0.2g more than the other. Your shoes should just pick up in time when the front wheel lifts. Good luck! Edit: if you are inclined, get a setup block to ensure the resting height of the car on the rail choice means that the flat part of the shoe hits the whole rail equally...rests on the rail that is...no high spots.


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## slotking (May 27, 2008)

> 2.0 grams of force on the average - I forget which at the moment but one shoe should be about 0.2g more than the other


so much is based on the track

I race on 3 different TKO tracks.
on 1 track I have to run 2.5 to 3grams to maintain speed and the car handles great.

on the 2nd track i have to run 1.5 to have any decent handling but it still maintains speed.
on the 3rd track 2 to 2.5 is the key.

If I am on plastic track, i am looking 2.5 to 3 grams.

it is nuts i think


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## Grandcheapskate (Jan 5, 2006)

super8man said:


> I forget which at the moment but one shoe should be about 0.2g more than the other.


From my reading, I believe this should be the negative rail shoe. Correct?

This morning while working on a JL chassis, I made two other observations. I don't remember either of these being discussed before.

The first concerns the little tabs at the front of the chassis which hook into the shoe window. I am noticing that on Aurora, JL and AW chassis, these nubs are not as wide apart as the rails on my Tyco track. These nubs should be spaced to exactly match the rail width. Therefore you can not get the both shoes centered on the rails at the same time. It appears when I get one shoe centered, the other is right on the edge. Comments?

The second observation has to do with the JL and AW chassis. I noticed the pickup shoe on the passenger side (on the right as you hold the chassis upside down) is angled front to back. The rear of the shoe (near the hook) is farther away from the center of the chassis than the front of the shoe. I don't think anything can be done about this, but it is something I have noticed as I get more into setting up some of the JL and AW cars I have had for a while. Comments?

Thanks...Joe


Thanks..Joe


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## Boosted-Z71 (Nov 26, 2007)

Joe measure the rail width (outside to outside) on your Tyco track, I measured Aurora lock & joiner (.605-.610) and my Tomy track is (.580 - .591) all measured on a straightaway section, for comparison. 

I have seen cars that shoes were angled, just bad assembly, or twisted hangers, or the front hangers off / twisted from molding?

My experience has been you need more pressure on negative rail, sometimes you still get arc & the black streak on the negative shoe 

Boosted


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## slotking (May 27, 2008)

I thought I had on my PU shoe video, but I guess not :-(
As I race on different tracks, yes the wear may be on the dge of the shoe(s) or in the middle.

But as long as the shoe is flat, it does not seem to matter much.

What I did not add to video is the shoe hanger plate, on the t-jet you often angle the plate and you can see if angled 1 way or another it improve conductivity.

most time, my cars are faster with the front of the plate out (closer to the edge of the chassis)


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## Boosted-Z71 (Nov 26, 2007)

Is the twisting of the hanger plate just tightening the rivet?

Boosted


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## Grandcheapskate (Jan 5, 2006)

Boosted-Z71 said:


> Joe measure the rail width (outside to outside) on your Tyco track, I measured Aurora lock & joiner (.605-.610) and my Tomy track is (.580 - .591) all measured on a straightaway section, for comparison.
> 
> Boosted


I will do that. The best I can do is try to use a manual micrometer to get a more exact measurement than I can with a ruler; I think my rule of thumb is 9/16" for the rail width.

ON a further topic, I am having a problem which has me somewhat stumped. I've been working on a JL T-Jet chassis (early release, maybe 2, 3 or 4). I did not lap gears, but did just about everything else and I have it running fast and loose - when it runs. In fact, it is even too twichy using a 100 Ohm controller at 20 volts - one touch of the trigger and it flies.

In fact, I used a Router Speed Control and turned the voltage down to less than 5 volts and just let the car circle the track while I observe.

But here's the problem. When running the car normally, it stalls. A lot. I have been tweaking the shoes (and spring pressure) for quite a while and never seem to eliminate it completely. It seems to be related to the topic I brought up in the previous post. It appears the shoes lose contact with the rails when one shoe or the other "slides off" the rail to the side or gets so close to the edge of the shoe it must lose pressure/contact. That is what made me start to look at the spacing between the shoes. When it does stall, a slight push either left or right usually gets it going again.

I can somewhat mask this problem by going as fast as possible. But after years of playing with these cars, we all know when a car just isn't right. So I slow it down and when I do, you can see it sputter in places and stall in a few more.

So, let the solutions flow...

Thanks...Joe


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## kriket (Feb 15, 2013)

*shoe nubs not lining up with rail*



Grandcheapskate said:


> From my reading, I believe this should be the negative rail shoe. Correct?
> 
> This morning while working on a JL chassis, I made two other observations. I don't remember either of these being discussed before.
> 
> ...


 if i remember correctly i have tyco track and notice the rails on track is spaced slightly wider than tomy track. i also noticed that tyco pickup shoes are also spaced wider apart than afx and tomy cars.


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## slotking (May 27, 2008)

> Is the twisting of the hanger plate just tightening the rivet?


tightening the rivet just stops the plate from moving once you find the sweet spot of the hanger plate.

hopefully it also helps with current flow, but of that i am not 100% sure


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## Grandcheapskate (Jan 5, 2006)

Boosted-Z71 said:


> Joe measure the rail width (outside to outside) on your Tyco track, I measured Aurora lock & joiner (.605-.610) and my Tomy track is (.580 - .591) all measured on a straightaway section, for comparison.
> 
> Boosted


I needed to use a manual micrometer, so my measurement will be slightly off. I measured the Mattel rail width at approximately .590".

However, I seem to have hit upon a possible solution to the stalling. Because the pickup shoes are not spaced as wide as the rails, contact with the rails can be lost especially when navigating a curve. Depending upon the angle of chassis to rail on a curve, parts of the pickup shoe are no longer on the rail.

If the car does not "slide out" enough, it seems the front of the shoe is no longer on the rail. Therefore it is imperative that the rear of the shoes be bent down far enough to make rail contact. When I bent down the rear of the pickup shoe step to be sure it was on the rail, the stalling stopped. I am not sure just how "touchy" the adjustment must be between front and rear of the step, but I seem to have hit it. Now I don't want to touch it again!

Thanks...Joe


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## slotking (May 27, 2008)

> When I bent down the rear of the pickup shoe step to be sure it was on the rail, the stalling stopped. I am not sure just how "touchy" the adjustment must be between front and rear of the step, but I seem to have hit it. Now I don't want to touch it again!


On plastic sectional tracks I always run more heel, but not for stalling out. i do it for a smoother ride. this way the front of the shoe does not hit head on the oncoming rail, it slides over it.

If I look at my wear pattern on the shoe i would the wear line covers 85% of the shoe area that runs on the track


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## RaceAroundWill (Apr 9, 2014)

:thumbsup: Very helpful information. Thank you to all that contributed on this thread.


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