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Home Racing World • View topic - AutoWorld Racing Rig - mods for racing...

AutoWorld Racing Rig - mods for racing...

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AutoWorld Racing Rig - mods for racing...

Postby TuscoTodd » Sun Jan 18, 2015 7:53 pm

I thought I would offer up some reference info of the mods I typically perform on the AutoWorld Racing Rig trucks prior to using them for racing.
Some are to aid "race-ability" (such as trailer retention) others enhance handling and or race marshaling.

1) Guide flag/pins. Remove the guide pins from the tractor and the trailer (four total) and replace with just a single steel AF/X guide pin on the front of the tractor chassis. As shown in the photos below.
(Please be aware that the steel guide pins are a VERY tight fit in the AW X-traction chassis and require some notable effort to install - but are top notch in the reliability arena! If a steel pin is not available, the second best option for ease of marshaling is to reverse the factory guide so the pin end is down.)

Image

Image

2) Trailer truck/wheel assembly. With the guides removed, the rear wheel truck assembly needs to be "fixed" so that it can no longer rotate.
The easiest and most reliable method I have found to do this is to drill through the boss that is provided from the factory and pin it in place. (some prefer to glue instead of pin - which if this method is done, make sure to roughen the surfaces and remove any chrome from the area to be glued, otherwise it will let go during racing action). :)
To perform the pinning process, the easiest way to do this is to separate the trailer bed from the box assembly. There are 6 pin points that tie the two parts together. Some times it is relatively easy to get these two piece apart other times - they put up a fight - but if you have one of the trailers in your hand, it is simple to see the parting line between the deck and the sides of the box assembly - from there it just takes time and patients to work at carefully getting the two halves apart (some prefer to simply drill the pins out from the bottom side to ease dis-assembly - and use glue to reassemble. No matter which dis-assembly method is used, I recommend gluing the two parts together at the time of reassembly)
The picture below shows two of the six pins (orange arrows) in addition to the factory boss that has to be drilled (red arrow)

Image

After disassembling the trailer to to separate the trailer deck from the box portion, using a pin vise and a 1/16" drill bit to drill at a slight angle from the top side of the trailer deck, through the boss and truck assembly. (note the boss is hollow on the top side so there is not much material that must be drilled through.)

View of boss from top side of trailer:
Image

View of truck assembly prior to drilling:
Image

Angle to drill:
Image

This results in hole being placed in the truck with sufficient room for screw head:
Image

I purchased a bag of one hundred bevel head 1-72 machine screws from RT-HO on eBay (example here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/100-FRAY-STYLE- ... 1e98630136 ) - they work extremely well for this application - but a standard t-jet body screw will also work as an alternate:
Image

With screw installed:
Image

At this point, the pivot screw is no longer needed and is removed for use in another part of the build.
Note - some like to add a drop of glue to the pivot area, to further insure that the unit remains in place / does not move - however I have yet to find this to be required on the rigs I have modified:
Image

3) Trailer pivot. Most of the AutoWorld trailers have the pivot pin in the rear most position. Depending on the trailer type and tractor type, this can result in the trailer hitting the back of the cab as it pivots and/or goes through tight corners. The pin location can easily be changed by taking a set of needle nose pliers, and applying LIGHT pressure and twisting motion to slowly extract it out of the rear hole and install it in the front hole.

In the factory "rear" position:
Image

The two factory holes for the pivot pin - pin to be moved to the forward most location;
Image

Picture of the pin upon removal:
Image

4) Trailer retention Using a 1/16" drill as before (in a pin vise) drill down through the center of the trailer pivot pin. (the screw previously used for the "pivot" of the rear truck assembly will eventually be screwed into this)
Image

Setting the trailer aside temporarily and focusing on the bottom side of the tractor body, a small modification needs to be made to allow room for the screw head that will be retaining the trailer to the tractor. The two small pieces of plastic shown with the red arrow are to be removed via roto-tool, sprue cutter, etc. - down to the bottom side of chassis (yellow arrow) The final area should be relatively flat as the screw head will be interacting with this area:
Image

Upon completion, the trailer can now be attached to the tractor with the screw originally used for the trailer's rear truck pivot:
Image

5) Wheel spacing The rigs come with the wheels set fairly wide. With the other changes made, the handling is found to improve with setting the wheels inward, limiting side to side play. See examples of before after below:
Image

Image

From this point on, the rest of the items are relatively normal "tuning / tweaking" items that relate to the racers preferences.
Hope everyone finds the tips above helpful in helping to get their rigs ready to rumble!
Now let's go racin'! :D
:auto-layrubber:
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Re: AutoWorld Racing Rig - mods for racing...

Postby TomH » Sun Jan 18, 2015 8:12 pm

:text-thankyouyellow: :clap:
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Re: AutoWorld Racing Rig - mods for racing...

Postby gonegonzo » Sun Jan 18, 2015 9:37 pm

Todd ,

Thx for the tips .

Tom aka/ Gonzo
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Re: AutoWorld Racing Rig - mods for racing...

Postby dge467 » Sun Jan 18, 2015 9:45 pm

Thanks for the how to and pic's!
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Re: AutoWorld Racing Rig - mods for racing...

Postby HomeRacingWorld » Sun Jan 18, 2015 11:03 pm

Outstanding.

I will make a title for this if that's ok and put it in the archives.
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Re: AutoWorld Racing Rig - mods for racing...

Postby TuscoTodd » Mon Jan 19, 2015 7:56 am

Glad you guys like the write up!
:D

Harry - I would be honored!
Please feel free to tweak the format as necessary to make it appropriate for the archive. :)
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Re: AutoWorld Racing Rig - mods for racing...

Postby gonegonzo » Wed Jan 21, 2015 6:14 am

Todd ,

In the last picture only one set of trailer tires are narrowed . Do both sets get narrowed or did you leave one long for comparison ? This is probably a dumb question .

Bob and I are racing big rigs today .

Tom
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Re: AutoWorld Racing Rig - mods for racing...

Postby TuscoTodd » Wed Jan 21, 2015 6:23 am

Tom,
I narrow both sets (and the set behind the drive axle) - I left the one set long just to show the difference.
Hope you and Bob have a blast with them!
We will be racing them up at 6:15 tonight at Mark's as well! :D
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Re: AutoWorld Racing Rig - mods for racing...

Postby BRP32 » Wed Jan 21, 2015 9:45 pm

Todd,

My girls and I raced the two trucks you made us for the first time tonight.

What a blast we had!

My youngest is definitely hooked on the trucks and wanted to keep running them way past bed time.

One thing I noticed though I can only run them on my road course 2 middle lanes. They will not run through the 6" curve inner most lane without deslotting. The tractor and trailer binds up and will not go through the curve.

we were laughing and carrying on the whole time.

Thank you again so much for your generosity!

You really hooked us on a great thing here!

Wayne :text-thankyouyellow:
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Re: AutoWorld Racing Rig - mods for racing...

Postby gonegonzo » Wed Jan 21, 2015 10:38 pm

Todd ,

Bob and I played Big Rigs for3 hours today . We had an adolescent measured BLAST !

I did have to make some changes to get mine to work on my 6'' radii curves . Like Wayne , mine didn't want to negotiate my turns . I pulled the steel guide pin back out and inserted the stock plastic guide "blade" . I also removed the sleeper from the cab as the trailer cornered out on it .

The down side will be marshaling my truck because of the guide blade . When I go to Mark's , I'll try the steel guide pin on his track .

Tom
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Re: AutoWorld Racing Rig - mods for racing...

Postby BRP32 » Thu Jan 22, 2015 7:30 am

I wonder if the cab over type semi tractors would negotiate the 6" curves better since they have more clearance between the cab and trailer due to no sleeper? I would think they would? I will have to pick a couple up in the future to test on my tight little road course once finances allow.

I can't say enough about racing these rigs!

Todd you have a great thing going here with your instructional set ups!

The two trucks you customized for me run flawlessly!!!!!

Wayne(Bolton's Speed Shop) :text-thankyouyellow:
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Re: AutoWorld Racing Rig - mods for racing...

Postby TuscoTodd » Thu Jan 22, 2015 2:23 pm

Great to hear that you guys are having as much fun with your rigs as I have been with mine!
These trucks down right addictively fun to run and make for a great time!
(Wayne - great to hear that the girls are having fun with them too!)
:D

In regard to the tight 6" corners and de-slotting - after doing some checking - it appears that the trailers with the lower skirts like this:

Image

Have just a bit less clearance between the sleeper section of the cab and the corner of the trailer, even with the pivot pin moved to the front hole location. I hadn't noticed the slight difference in clearance between the skirt style and non-skirt style previously as I have been strictly using the non-skirt trailers - like the picture below for my racing:

Image

The non-skirt trailers, where the sides of the box come down on top of the trailer bed, verses around / encasing the trailer bed like on the skirt style trailers, have just a bit more clearance when using the front pivot pin location, as there is absolutely no interference between the sleeper and the front corners of the trailer, no matter how tight the corner. So it looks like the restricted movement may be a unique quirk associated with the skirt style trailers... :think:

For reference, I have converted one of the KISS cab over style rigs over for use in racing:

Image

And as can be noted in the picture, the cab over set up has a plenty of room between the cab and trailer and presents no interference issue. Based on this either of those types may be a better option for use on tracks with 6" corners (or there is always the option of removing the sleeper section as Tom noted) . ;)

Again - glad you guys are having a blast we these as well and looking forward to doing some rig running with you guys in the near future!
:handgestures-thumbup:
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Re: AutoWorld Racing Rig - mods for racing...

Postby Abarth Mike » Tue Jan 27, 2015 6:31 pm

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Re: AutoWorld Racing Rig - mods for racing...

Postby TuscoTodd » Tue Jan 27, 2015 9:14 pm

That is a cool looking rig! :D
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Re: AutoWorld Racing Rig - mods for racing...

Postby dreinecke » Tue Jan 27, 2015 10:09 pm

Those all look so cool. Wish I'd kept mine now!
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