Truck Mods

[Rustyfriend]

talk about any truck mod ideas here.


so here is my idea....for a radikal type truck for slalom. take a randal and cut it down to 90mm and put it an 8mm axle which can be spaced to 110mm. then cut off the pivot and put in a spherical bearing.

comments?

[HerBDerb]

Spherical bearing would be pointless, randals only pivot in one direction.

[Rustyfriend]

so tell me why radikals have them?

[bpz]

Spherical bearing would be pointless, randals only pivot in one direction.

Randals SHOULD only pivot in one direction, but because of a phenomenon ( ) known as slop, they kind of don't. People have described cut-down Randals as "twitchy", and usually say they're not really like Radikals. I think D0 was rocking a cut-down Randal, upgraded to a Radikal front, and posted about the obvious differences. Try searching for that. For whatever reason, you can't modify a Randal to be just like a Radikal.

[Triomphe]

I don't own a radikal but for the randal it would only need a normal roller bearing for the pivot as there is only rotation there. If you look at the Jimz speed hanger / baseplate set up you can see this as it uses a straight post that rotates inside of a plasic sleave. As the hangers are designed to replace standard randal hangers I would assume a cut down randal would act the same. I don't own a set of radikals but after going through their website (it's crappy) I found this:

1, the pre load. When the busing is tightened to the correct amount the hanger is square to the king pin. You will notice when you take apart your radikal truck that the hanger in a free state is at an agle to the king pin.
2, the radial contact bearings we custom made just for these trucks. Both the king pin bearing and the pivot pin bearing hold the axle hanger solid but allows the hanger to rotate and move up and down without drag.
There are many other reasons but we will get into them latter.

So the trucks seem to be designed to rotate up and down (towards and away from the pavement) as you tighten / loosen the kingpin and this would not be possible with a standard bearing or a solid rotation only pivot system as in the Jimz. Thus requiring the spherical bearing in the pivot.

[Directive0]

randal cutdowns are a fun little truck as a front, I enjoyed them. Can't say putting them through a course was very exciting. They are NOT a linear turn, extremely exponential. I dunno how much I believe cleaning up the slop would help, I thinks its more a hardwired geometry difference.

That being said, jimz's handle much differently then an r2 does even with the same baseplate, so who knows! But the points about the bearing pivot are good too. Its tough to tell how a truck will track untill you try it. ( )

[Mr. Zogs]

I'd love to see a Carver CX cut down to like, 100mm and used as a front slalom truck... Turrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrny!!!!!

[Directive0]

yes, I had a split front for a while. Did not enjoy it. I think I was too light for it. Very few things have come close to the rad I bought recently. If they weren't so prohibitively expensive it would be my everyday truck.