Mato steel gears

[NigelDerEnglander]

Hi folks,

Over 2 years ago Mato started advertising the steel gears for the HL gearboxes. I've just noticed that forgebear and others are now advertising these for a little more than £22 or so.

I have an old 3:1 gearbox which had a poor set of white metal gears and has been very noisy and unreliable and a home-made 3:1 box using an old HL plastic gear tacked onto a modified HL box and a much better-moulded set of white metal gears. This pair of home-bodged 3:1 boxes has been very reliable and nice and quiet.

As ever, it seems that the usual (lack of) quality (control) issues with HL kit is the deciding issue for whether or not something is good or not. To me the poor white metal gears appear to be a tad off centre leading to poor meshing, wear and noise issues.

So to get to the point, how good/bad are the 'steel' Mato gears? Were I to get a pair of new Mato steel gearboxes and replace the poor white metal ones in my proper 3:1 boxes do you think they would be significantly better - noise/meshing/smoothness - than before?

Yes, I have considered getting a set of higher quality 3:1 or 4:1 brass gearboxes, but I am a tight git and unlike a lot of you I do regard my tanks as toys rather than works of art and paying £40+ for a set of gearboxes makes me wince - especially after the cr@p pair of 'proper' 3:1 boxes I got compared to my home-bodged 3:1 boxes!

Looking forward to your opinions of the Mato steel gears...

Nige

[FreakyDude]

I have steel gears in my toy. Way better than the metal gearboxes as an upgrade. Much quieter but the strength of the gear is clearly seen when driving around.
be pretty hard to turn them into 3to 1 boxes I think but for driving over, around and through stuff I would suggest you use them.
Save some dough too as they are relatively inexpensive at half the cost or less of the brass gears.

[Dietrich]

Hi FreakyDude ,
Please can you post a couple of pictures of the steel geared 'Gearboxes' ?? Then I can tell if the cheapo 3-1 reduction will work with them or not. I suspect that the answer is 'yes' as I doubt very much that Heng Long have changed the actual gearbox design...so the side plates are probably also the same....if so then 'nigelderenglander' and probably me can just buy a set of these gearboxes....split them to simply replace our white metal gears with the steel ones and we have instant steel 3-1 gearboxes

[FreakyDude]

Dietrich
they are in fact the same as the standard HL gear box. I paid like $30.00 ( shipping included ) for mine. You can clearly see some sand grains in the one pic, as I said these are the gears in my driver tank which i beat up pretty good.
let me know how to do the 3 to 1 as well, I'd love to fix the speed on my driver. seems to be the only thing i am missing now.

[NigelDerEnglander]

Hi folks,

Thanks for the replies so far!
Here's a link to my and the late (Tony) Tiger205's 3:1 box conversion from 3+ yrs ago.

http://www.rc-panzerketten-forum.com/wb ... r=0&page=1

Tony used his welding skills to tack the extra metal for mounting to the existing boxes, I used the reinforcing mount hole for the extra gear.

As mentioned in the article I bought some 'proper' 3:1 boxes and these are the ones I've had nothing but trouble with for the last 3 years! My bodge home-made ones are now mostly metal gears, but from a better quality batch than the ones that came with the real 3:1 boxes so I've had very little trouble from them.

Anyway, it looks like getting the steel gears and swapping them over is an option. Just wish I could buy the gears separately as I already have a pile of motors and several gear cases I'll never use!

Nige

[Dietrich]

Hi Nige,
I think this is a bit clearer on how to change the gears, no need for any additional side plates and the guide hole is already drilled at the factory....it just needs to be enlarged and only the top gear is plastic so it is virtually under no torque, just revs so it works very well.
http://www.rctankwarfare.co.uk/forums/v ... =38&t=4981" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The steel gears are identical to the white metal Heng long ones BUT removing the final drive sprocket from its shaft and turning it around may be difficult ....I think that it will either be a 'put it in a vice and with a suitable collar wind up the force till something gives!!' which is a bit risky on a new gearbox.........BUT this is a very iffy and risky solution as the gear may break... SO a better idea is to cut the shaft off just short of the gear, drill out the remains of the shaft from the centre of the gear, using a small drill at first and then getting larger, as you go . A couple of pieces of wood can be used to clamp the gear while it is being drilled and then use an old shaft to mount it on. I always drill through the gear and shaft and put a 'metal pin' in just to stop it turning so the only dangerous part is the drilling.........this could easily be mucked up with it either not being a straight through hole or the hole being too big.....either mistake is difficult to correct..so a slow increase in the size of drill used has to be the best way. Once the shaft gets really thin it may just slide out or 'peal' out from inside the gear.
If the gears are really tight I guess that they are heat shrunk on at the factory..
By the way if you use plastic gears in the whole gear-train you will strip the teeth off the middle gears in no time.....my test box lasted about 8 feet on a slight incline
Alb.

[FreakyDude]

Dietrich
I think the 3to1 conversion you posted will work with the steel gears. I used an old metal gear this morning and along with a vice and hammer I tapped the shaft out of the metal and it was quite easily done. No damage.
Once your able to tap the shaft out you can reverse the gear same as required for your conversion.
today i will put one back on and i'll use some epoxie or something just to be sure it locks onto the shaft.
I'll post some pics later for all to see.

[NigelDerEnglander]

Hi Dietrich (Alb) / freakydude

Your posting is a very clear version of the sort of thing I did in my post earlier - but I didn't take photos as I went along!
I'm not worried about pressing the final gear off, I've got a selection of vices and so on to slowly force it off!

But I do think I will take the plunge and buy a set of the steel-geared boxes. Just to see!

It would be nice to be able to hear the speaker (HL sound admittedly!) above the noise of the gearbox for once!

Thanks to all who contributed,

Nige

[FreakyDude]

okay so the 3 to 1 post from Dietrich will work with metal and steel gears. All you need to do is very gently tap the gears off the splines when needed. it's late or I would post a pic of the one set of gears I made, tomorrow I make the spacers and move the motor mounts a touch and I will have steel 3 to 1 ratio gears.

[Dietrich]

Hi Freakydude :~ :~ ,
Good news about the gearbox...It is quite a satisfying conversion.. Please can you tell ...did you use a vice or the 'tap tap' hammer method on the steel ??
I am looking rorawrd to seeing the photos................
Alb.