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WPL C24 Life Story

Hey guys,

I'm a fan of the WPL C24 for a number of reasons but mainly because it's a really fun kit to build.  The main problem with the truck is that the overall quality isn't very good if you actually want to drive it.  If you want to upgrade it so that it runs a lot better, it is going to end up costing you about 4 times the price of the kit.  That's a lot, in my opinion.  There are a lot of rigs out there for around $100 US so spending a lot more to upgrade this one seems a bit crazy to me.  Anyway, here's a brief summary of how I got to where I am.

If you want to watch a video about getting this little truck working really well, here it is.

Guys, I make no money off of BangGood links.  When you're a new affiliate marketer, the only stuff they let you market for them is stuff nobody who knows better would want.  I'm posting the links purely because it's the best value right now if you want a C24 and/or parts.  Take that any way you want, but know that I will tell you if I'm getting a percentage for promoting something.  An Ebay link probably means I'm getting a couple percent on the sale.  Amazon, maybe, but it's harder to do cross border links with them so it's much less likely.  In these tough times, we all need to chase those almighty cash bucks, right?

Buy and build

I spent a bunch of time detailing parts using dollar store cheap acrylic paint and then put together the kit.  For me, this was super fun because the quality of the body is the high point of the kit.  You know as soon as you see it that the truck is going to end up looking as good as you want to make it look.


The 2 speed transmission was a very high cool factor for me so it added a lot of wow to the overall project.  Out of the box it was easy to set up and worked well, although that wouldn't always be the case.

The drive train seemed a little dodgy as I put it together but the truck did work and was reasonably capable.  The turning radius is quite poor and that's probably the biggest disappointment.  I think my driveshaft broke in part because I used the 2 speed gearbox.  You have to pry the driveshaft end off the stock transmission and the plastic probably got weakened by this step.  I then made the mistake of getting the truck up against an immovable object when the traction was stupidly good and that loaded up the drive train to the max and snapped the end of the driveshaft.  Not the end of the world, but a bit disappointing.  I would advise ordering those metal drive shafts right away if you're going to run the 2 speed gearbox.

The Inevitable Upgrades

The truck was a lot of fun to run from the start, but I broke a driveshaft very early on, I want to say about the second day.  I was able to fix it using super glue but it was obvious to me that I needed the metal ones, so I ordered them up.  This also got me wondering how durable the axles would be and when BangGood had the metal ones on sale for cheap I bucked up and ordered them too.  BangGood makes a lot more sense if you order a few items because you don't pay the full ticket of each item for shipping, you pay a much lower amount (I think the price of shipping the biggest item).
Overall, the axles and the driveshafts improved the truck a lot.  The turning radius got way better and there was essentially no fear of breaking drive train parts anymore, although I had also learned to take it a little easier.

Customization

You're probably here because of the parts I posted on Thingiverse, but in case you haven't seen my stuff, there are quite a few goodies.  I made some bumpers and roll cage parts and a full chassis mod to convert the C24 into a VW Beetle inspired rock bouncer.

I figured it might not hurt to make a crash test video to show that parts printed out of PLA are pretty tough.  It was both a good idea and a bad idea because I didn't break a single bumper but I did break a tooth off a gear in the stock gearbox.  By total fluke, I was running the stock gear box because the motor for the 2spd spontaneously went up in smoke.  Now my little truck was out of action.

The Beetle Bouncer mod works great, and I mean great, but that was also doomed to mechanical failure which I'll tell you about below.  If you want to build it and need some how-to, check out the build video.

Motor Mod

When I took apart the 2spd gearbox, I noticed that it had two sets of motor mount holes and the second set looked like they might fit the smaller stock motor.  I was right.  All you have to do is pull the pinion off the bigger motor and press it onto the stock motor.  One of my pinions needed a puller ($5 on Ebay) but the other was easy to pry off.  Then you just need a couple of short M2 screws to mount the motor and you're good to go.

Sadly, the stock motor worked great with the 2spd gearbox when installed in the Beetle Bouncer.  I say sadly because the motor died after about an hour of running.  No idea why.  Nothing was getting hot (NOTHING) and it just spontaneously quit.  These small motors typically have brushes installed on little spring arms and I'm guessing a brush came off, but that's a guess.  It might have cooked the windings and not gotten hot.  Its a bummer because I hadn't driven it more than a few hours with that motor and that Beetle Bouncer mod runs great outside.

I haven't clocked it, but I think the stock motor is actually faster than the bigger motor that comes with the 2spd gearbox and that made the bouncer more fun outdoors.  It could be that the body weight makes the difference, but I doubt it because neither motor ever got hot in the full truck so I doubt load was having much effect.  I kinda think the stock motor is more fun in the Bouncer chassis but it will be a while before I find out because it will take a while to get a replacement motor from China.

Overall Rating

Guys, I wouldn't have put all this work into the truck if I didn't like it, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed at how short lived so many of the drive train parts have been.  Six months in, this is how I felt.

I've been playing with RC cars for 40 years and I've never seen so many parts die in relatively low risk use.  I'm not a kid just bashing the crap out of this thing, I'm an old timer who knows what to expect - and I've still taken out two motors, a drive shaft and a transmission.  I'm pretty confident that the stock axles wouldn't last super long either.  Some of that was my fault, for sure, but those motors are just junk in my opinion.  If you like driving your toys, this is the part that makes these particular toys a little harder to review.

If you're going to be OK with looking at your sweet truck sitting on a shelf while you wait for parts to arrive, this is a still a really fun kit.  If that's going to upset you every time, well then I would buy something else from the start.

Bottom line, whatever your budget is at the start, double it.  If it still sounds like good bang for your buck, order away.  I truly like this truck a lot but if you drive it, it has plenty of warts, even when you spend an extra hundred bucks to upgrade the breakables.  Count on it being out of action after an hour of two of running time each time you get it fixed.

Price -                       5/10
Durability -               4/10
Appearance -            9/10
Parts availability -  10/10
Upgradability -       10/10
Fun -                         8/10

Overall score          7.7/10

Hey guys, I know that this score might seem high to some of you but keep in mind that it gets a lot of marks for the DIY factor.  If you want an awesome rig with no work required, this just isn't the kit for you.  It's probably a 2.5 out of ten based on that criteria.  If you like wrenching, different story.  You can't buy a body shell, wheels and tires this nice for the price of the kit... that counts for something.

Wrench to drive or drive to wrench?

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