Why is the main gear exposed?

[flash183]

Can anyone tell my why the main gear is not protected on the bottom of the buggy? I have an Inferno and MBX5 and they are both the same. The gear is exposed and could easily be smashed. I Would think some sort of protection would be good.

[El Pirata]

The gear is eposed to allow lowering the center of gravity.

[flash183]

I guess I should have said that i knew that. My question though is why isn't it protected? The diff gears are lowered in the front and back but the chassis has small divids in the plate to accomodate them. It seems to me if you bottom out at the crest of a hill you could easily pick up some dirt or land on a rock or whatever.

[bill61]

It also allows small pebbles to be ejected from the gear instead of getting stuck in the gear.

[alkyula]

i drive both my buggies very hard...and the xtm i jump and land on anything and everything. both buggies have exposed gears...havnt had any problmes yet.

[Çh®i§tiªñ]

Id like to thrive on what bill61 said. If it werent cut out and there was just a 'dip' in the chassis to allow it to spin, any number of piece of debris could get wedged in there. The end result could be much much worse.

Like others have said, I have yet to have a problem because of it.

Does seem odd though, just because of everything we are taught.

[flash183]

Interesting. I think you all are probably correct. I haven't killed mine yet either. I was thinking to myself... should i try and protect this somehow? I guess I'll just leave it alone.

[cbreaker]

It IS possible for something to get jammed up in the hole, but it's rare to happen I bet and even if a rock did get caught in there it probably would just stop the gear. It happened to my friend the other day with his Ofna. Little rock jammed up between the gear and the hole. The clutch simply slipped and no damage was done.

[bill61]

I have had rocks jam in there and stop the engine. I don't run at parks or tracks, so sometimes rocks are a problem. I am building a Kanai III, so I will have to start going to tracks as I don't want to abuse it to much.

[GilBeQuick]

Anyone ever landed level and hard enough to cause dirt to stop your flywheel and cut your engine off?
I was watching some guys race and this happened once. I didn't know such a thing could happend, but it makes sense if you were to land on a bump in just the right spot. I'd imagine the same could happen with the flywheel.

[militarymaxx]

This is what I did to keep the dirt from blowing up on everything and to keep stuff from entering through the whole in the top of the body and getting stuck in the spur/pinion. Before/after pics.

[cbreaker]

Hey, cool. Nice looking job you did there. Good idea too, dirt likes to fly up in there and mess things up, it almost seems like you aren't using a cover sometimes!

I'm going to look into making something like that too! Thanks for the idea.

[bill61]

Good idea militarymaxx! That would eliminate many of the problems associated with debris.

[FlyinRazorback]

Originally posted by GilBeQuick
Anyone ever landed level and hard enough to cause dirt to stop your flywheel and cut your engine off?
I was watching some guys race and this happened once. I didn't know such a thing could happend, but it makes sense if you were to land on a bump in just the right spot. I'd imagine the same could happen with the flywheel.

I've seen it happen several times when someone doesn't clear a jump.