# JLTO wheel hop



## mking (Apr 25, 2000)

hi

after YEARS of only setting up a small layout on the living room floor, i have reclaimed my garage, and have a respectable 4x8 4 lane routed track running. i am having fun getting my JLTO and JLXT running. i have been trying to get 4 relatively equal cars for IROC style events when friends comeover. still need to get a track timer, but that will come. with JLTO i notice about 1/3 of my chassis have unstable front ends (wheel hop?) is this from too much p/u spring tension, or is it more likely to be bent axles/out of round hubs?

btw, so far my best handling bodies out of the box have been the vegas.


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## TX Street Racer (May 8, 2004)

The problem with wheel hop definately comes from out of round hubs/bent axles. I've been fortunate to not have many of mine be plagued with the dreaded wheel hop.........but I'm also not too keen on the wheels to use on my runners. I've been slowly swapping the stock front ends out for Wizzard Patriot/Storm aluminum front independant kits. These kits are simply awesome.......and easily fit a Tjet...all you need to do is shorten the axle.I also swap the clear tires that come in these sets for black Wizzard tires designed to fit these kits.

Captain Fred can attest to how well these front end kits help you when racing against stock JLTO's.....as these independant kits allow you to navigate corners a bit better.......

You could always set the cars you want to run with these type of front end kits...and perhaps a set of Delrin rear dual flanged wheels with slip on silicones.......my JL Nova is set up in this manner and it flat out flies for a box stock car. :thumbsup:


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## vaBcHRog (Feb 19, 2003)

Hi Mking,

Jump on over to JW's TJET Speed Parts look at what he makes for TJETS the jump over to JAG Hobbies and order one of JW's Brass front ends either Tuff-one width 1 3/16, Pro Width 1 5/16 or his new 1 1/8 standard sets. The wider the better the car handles, the narrower the better they look your choice. Again depending on looks buy either his .177 dual flange wheels same size as JL rears or the .250 dual flange wheels wide like an AFX or XT. Buy new rear axels either TJET truck or AFX to replace the rear axles. To press on the rear wheels you will need a wheel press and JW makes a great one also you want to get a wheel puller. Also buy some slip on silicone tires to fit your new hubs JAG has several to choose from. Replace the front ends with JW's, replace the rear axels and wheels and you will see the wheel hop dissapear.

JW's
http://www.csonline.net/vwalters/default.htm

JAG
http://www.jaghobbies.com/ 

Most of the wheel hop I have run across has been bent rear axleswith an ocasional front.

If after you build these cars they too fast and twitchy you can try a higher ohm controller or swap out the JL motor magnets for stock TJET magnets.

Roger Corrie


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## T-Cat (Oct 19, 2003)

Some of us in our group run Wizzard front ends too. I don't think any of us run the aluminum front ends. We use the brass ones, part #FR54 ind. T-jet f.e. /360 tires. The 360's are a little tall, so we run 335's. If you didn't want to spend the money ($7-$8 ea.) on a fancy front ends, Wizzards front tires fit on stock Aurora, and JLTO rims. As long as your rims and axles are in good shape, just slipping on a pair of Wizzard front tires really helps. But as TX streetracer said the custom front ends make a vast improvement in handling. So I guess it's just a matter of how fast do you wanna race the cars?


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## rodstrguy (Feb 14, 2002)

I find it hard to believe there are that many bent axles and I only got 1 out of over a hundred cars that I run. I have had bad front tires... way out of round, but I've replaced all of those with Wierd Jack's rocket science silicones and they all run great. With my luck I would have thought that I would have had to replace a ton of axles and I haven't. Are you guys sure it's not the tires?


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## TX Street Racer (May 8, 2004)

rodstrguy said:


> I find it hard to believe there are that many bent axles and I only got 1 out of over a hundred cars that I run. I have had bad front tires... way out of round, but I've replaced all of those with Wierd Jack's rocket science silicones and they all run great. With my luck I would have thought that I would have had to replace a ton of axles and I haven't. Are you guys sure it's not the tires?



Yep, I'm positive.......usually it's either a bent axle or an out of round hub....not the tires.


As for me running the aluminum Wizzard front end kit......I wasn't so much worried about running a heavier front end kit......mainly because I lower the bodies I run in the front (for a muscle car style look) and I prefer the aluminum fronts also because of astethics (I can run aluminum rear hubs and everything matches nicely)

Once you get your cars going great with a wheel swap,silicones, and front end kit then your next step is to add a small neo "dot" traction magnet to the bottom side of the chassis.......THEN you'll be able to put the power down to the track :thumbsup:


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## T-Cat (Oct 19, 2003)

I've noticed more bad rear axles and hubs than fronts. I have only had 3 cars (out of 30) without any problems.I think 4 of them had bad front hubs. All of the others had at least one cracked rear hub,(sometimes both) sloppy, out of round holes for the rear axle, or a bent rear axle. The front axles are fine, with my cars, it's the hubs that were commonly out of round. I never really cared for the front tires to begin with,(too tall) so I automatically changed them whether there was "hop" or not.


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## dlw (Aug 17, 1999)

Also check the tires. They have a little nub where they were picked from the 'tree'. A dremel with a mandrel will fix this..........And for those who don't have one, just put those JLTO front tires on the rear wheels of a regular (aurora) tjet and do some burnouts on some fine grit sandpaper. Just make sure you don't burn out your motor (JLTO arms can't handle the stress like an Aurora arm).


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## doctorslotcar (Jul 25, 2004)

IM using the dremel to repair most of my axles and hubs. it really doesnt take long and the results are spectacular


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## AfxToo (Aug 29, 2003)

Another cause of wheel hop is a warped chassis. After struggling with the reason behind the "left front tire off the track" problem I realized it's often the chassis itself that was causing the problem. My solution is to remove the gearplate, magnets, and brushes, grip the front of the chassis in my left hand and and give the whole dang chassis a slight twist away from my body with my right hand. Gotta be gentle since too much twist is a bad thing. Each time I make the adjustment I put the magnets and gearplate back in the chassis and make sure the whole thing rolls on all 4 wheels before doing any additional adjustments. For some reason the left (drivers side) wheel has always been the airborne wheel on my cars. Must be an artifact of the manufacturing and shipping process.

I've done all of the things mentioned above, added heavy brass independent front ends, replacement straight axles, replacement aftermarket wheels and tires, used regular TJet pickups, limited shoe travel, etc., and *still* had some degree of hop & skip going on. I truly believe that the oversized rear axles holes are the root cause of a lot of the hopping problems on the JLTOs since the rear axle assembly is able to move up/down and forward/back at will and the JL motor/magnet combo has very good torque. 

Your best bet is to start out with a chassis that doesn't have a lot of slop in the rear axle before embarking on the upgrade path with the other components. This involves picking through your inventory of chassis parts from the 7 releases and mixing, matching, and swapping around parts to build that "one best car" from everything you've got. If you're going to be racing these cars competitively you can't be concerned about keeping all the parts that came with a particular car together. Parts is parts. You also can't assume that any random combination of parts (which is what you get out of the box) is going to get you what you need. Before spending the time and money building up a car for racing try to start with the best of what you've got in box-stock form and go from there. Try different combinations and test, test, test, and test. You can repeat the parts selection and test process for however many "race ready" cars you want to build up. You'll ultimately end up with a small number of box stock cars worth investing more time and money into with those expensive aftermarket hop up parts. You'll also end with a bunch of decent runners that just need silicone rear tires to be fun to drive but maybe have a few little quirks or are lacking in some way. You'll also end up with a few dogs that work well for mounting pretty bodies that you don't run on the track.


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