Nitroholic

No, they are completely different things for different purposes. A 2 speed setup like that uses a one-way bearing setup to split drive between the 2 sputr gears based on how fast it's spinning. It is a possible issue for you car, but we are really just guessing. This is not a model I have ever seen, and I can;t even find pictures of whats under the shell. Himoto don;t even seem to list it as a current model. Which is no help. Some pictures might be useful. Of the actual car.

Yes, nitros can have slipper clutches. The HPI Savage, for example, has one. Doing a quick Google of your buggy, it looks like you do indeed have a slipper clutch. I cannot find a manual online for your car, so I cannot be at all sure...but usually, a slipper clutch will be part of the spur gear assembly. There will be a friction pad, with a metal surface opposite and some kind of screw, usually with a spring to maintain tension. Tighten it to increase grip, loosen to reduce. It's meant to protect the driveline from shocks induced by power on landings. Instead of satripping the plastic spur gear, the slipper mechanism breaks free and absorbs the load. It's not a true 'slipper' clutch...rather just a friction link between the spur and the drive to the diffs, which can unload under high torque. In normal use, it should grip. Check your manual for setting it up. Probably needs tightening. That's assuming, of course, the webpage I found describing the himoto syclone was correct! I can;t find anything from Himoto to verify.

OK. Assuming nothing is loose, and the driveline is all working corectly, turning the wheels will turn everything up to an d including the clutch bell, but no more. If you push the car with the engine off, you should see it all spin smoothly. If you hold the clutch bell and move the car gentrly by hand, you should feel the bell trying to turn. If anything slips...tighten it. Now, when your engine revs up, there are clutch shoes inside the bell that should move out and grip on the inside of the bell to transmit drive. They sit on the flywheel. So assuming you can see the flywheel spinning freely when the engine runs, that pretty much means the clutch is your issue. Clutches come in a variety of formats, but hte most common have 2 or 3 shoes. They have springs which pull them in. Revving up pushes them outwards to contact the bell. Springs can break and jam the shoes stopping them from moving, as can dirt or debris. If I were you, I would unbolt the engine ffrom the engine mounts ( makes it easier to work with ) and remove the single centre bolt that holds the clutch bell on to the engine shaft. There is a set of bearings that allow it to spin freely. Make sure they don't fall out / gert lost. The have a look at hte clutch. The shoes should be able to move. Either by pivoting, or in some cases sliding out with a spring wrapped round to pull them back in. Check everything moves freely, check for wear or damage, and clean out any muck and rubbish. If you are not sure what going on inside the bell...pictures help us a lot.

The XTM motor was a rebranded Force .25 A Force .28 will give you a little bit more grunt for not too much cash

https://www.fingertechrobotics.com/proddetail.php?prod=T-3S-1450 I've always used Turnigy transmitter packs like the one above. Thats not where I got them...just the first link I found.

The Marder has limited suspension travel. It can't droop very far, due to the chassis plate getting in the way, and it;s limited travel the other way by simple ground clearance. Stock shocks were not very good...which is why fitting higher quality units really does help. The Losi, of course, is 4WD for starters. Baja's do like to drift and donut....and witht he right tyres, it;s a lot of fun. It can also be a PITA if you DON'T want to be going sideways. I sold on most of my largescale stuff a while back, but I did keep one Baja. It;s shortened, widened, and runs FG Monster wheels/tyres. I cut it down to FG length, and fited an FG Jeep shell. It's a lot of fun to mess about with.

Yes... It will be. It's a Marder. That's just how they are. I got my old one to handle fairly OK using shocks off an MCD RR Evo3, as they were far better units all round. but you still have a limited suspension travel issue. That's limited by the design. If you are having stability problems, you can get wider hubs/extended wheel squares ( or at least, you could ) which give you a wider stance. Compare it to the Baja, and you will see. But, even then, I ran my Baja with extended hubs to give a better turn. The spikey Marder tyres can also promote grip roll. The trick used to be to shave some of the edge spikes back. I went one step further and binned the FG wheel squares and converted to HPI BAja 24mm hexes. You can get a kit for it. Would mean all your wheels and tyres would be interchangeable too. https://rc-car-online.de/en/products/y0521-y0521-madmax-hpi-rim-to-fg-car-wheel-adaptor.html Not cheap, as that's only for a pair....and if you want front and rear, you are going to need two pairs. It probably gives you a bit of extra width too. Just check you have 8mm diameter axles.

The centre plate that holds the motor mount is not in place in that picture. It should be fine. Though on mine, I did replace the plastic cross pieces with some aluminium ones. I bought a small piece of square bar, and drilled and tapped it to replace the plastic.

underneath view: I have aluminium braces on eacy suspension arm, plusrods running from the pivot that help stiffen it up. The servo is mounted on the frontlewft platewhich has an extension to hold it. Best to use a waterproof servo here. 16T pinion, which is a fraction lower than ideal, but it works well enough. I have a cover to go over it and keep the debris off, but sometimes, I find it's more a catcher of debris than an excluder. Battery tray I made out of 2 bits of plastic ( was part of an old plastic chopping board ) and 2 bits of thin aluminium angle. It mounts onto the main plate and the front cross bar. ESC sits at the back, along with a radio box which I think cames off a Traxxas Stampede. I made a rollcage out of nylon rodwhich sits in place of the stock wire one. I wanted to protect hte ESC in the event of a rollover. You can see the bracing struts on the arms from here too. Pair of rod ends, 4mm threaded bar, with a piece of 6mm tube in the middle. Couple of nuts either end to lock it all up.

Will grab some pics when I get in from work. Definitely worth converting if you don't want to run it nitro. Don't go overboard power wise as the drivetrain isn't massively strong, but mine handles 4s without problem and that's fast enough for the way it drives. I made a custom chassis floor as I wanted to be able to convert it back easily. It's only a flat plate with a couple of holes in it.

I will have to check what pinion I have. I made my own centre chassis plate, used a Hyper 7 motor mount and centre diff, but mounted UNDER the chassis, with a bashplate to protect it. Gets rid of the chain drive and the awkward 3 speed setup. You don;t need it for brushless. It sits where the lower half of hte chain run is, and is tucked into the chassis in the same way. No ground clearance issues. I used a 1950Kv 4 pole motor. I didn;t gear it that high, and find it's a lot of fun on 4S. Run higher voltage and the handling is poor, as is reliability. I seem to recall fitting Hyper 7 diffs and pinion with straight cut gears. Was going to uses Savage ones, but they are fractionally longer and bind up as soon as you screw the cases fully together. Worked fine with the driveshafts I had. Not sure exaclty which ones I used. Might be a mix of Hyper7 and Kyosho. I also replaced the axles with HPI Savage ones, and fitted proper sized wheel hexes. The Kyosho ones are just poor for sizing. If you want....I can grab some pics of the setup I ended up with.

listening to the noise your car makes when you roll it is like listening to a 100 piece orchestra and trying to work out which violin is out of tune. Assuming it's a brushless motor, there are really only 2 things that fail. Either the bearings die, or the magnets delaminate and basically come away from the rotor. Isolate your motor so you can rule out background noise. Simplest way is just undo the pinion. Or if you want ..take the motor out. With the pinion loose...roll your car again too. If the noise persists...it's NOT the motor. Give it some gentle revs ( don;t mash it...this under zero load... ) then let it wind down. If it still sounds noisy, then yes...the motor is probably on the way out. Take the motor out, and turn the shaft. Feel for gritty bearings. Listen for grinding noises. You should feel the strong magnetic pull when you turn, but it should be noise free. If you can, open up the can and check it if you suspect an issue. Cheap motors don;t always facilitate this kind of inspection. You may be able to replace worn bearings and get some more use out of the motor if it's not too far gone.

Very badly lit and grainy pic of my milk snake... happy little chap, who loves his swimming pool, and makes a total mess of any stuff I put in to try and decorate the vivarium. The big heavy dog bowl is to stop him burrowing uder it and tipping it over. Hates being picked up...but will climb on your hand if he wants to, and then he's cool if you lift him out. I reckon I would be the same....

Sweet little thing! Now, if it's 1/12 scale... I am just imagining this with a Lunchbox shell on top.

don't know the car specifically....but 'grinding' is either going to be a failed bearing somewhere or gears not meshing properly. Just got to work your way through the drivetrain rotating every part in isolation of you can, until you know where the noise is coming from.

should look like this: you can see the wire in the centre where it has broken off on yours. Personally... I would be looking to replace that unit, as you can see how it has been getting cooked from the disclouration and generally tired looking state of the variable resistor wiper. You may be able to find an old MSC in good order if you want to keep it original, or swap to an ESC. If you do...make sure it is able to handle the Clod's twin motor setup.

Nope ...the 4 bolt Zenoah 29cc motor is a very good motor. It's what I would go for in your situation. A good quality engine is worth the money.

Zenoah motor...decent. Rovan engine a cheaper knock off copy.

Well...looking at the diagram, the belt from the motor to the layshaft is easty to tension. That's just a question of sliding the motor, same as you would to adjust the gear mesh on other FGs. The belt you have an issue with does not appear to have any scope for tension. I assume it's the one from the layshaft to the diff? Both diff and layshaft seem to run in bearings set into the same plastic side mounts...which is part no FG10040/41 rear axle carrier left/right. There only seems to be one drivebelt listed FG 10060, which is a 150 x 20 belt. Now, what I am wondering, is whether there are maybe shorted belts or longer ones, possibly to allow for variation in the diff pulley? Worth measuring your belt to see that it is the correct item.

Drive shaft knocked out of position jamming the diff drive cup. No way to tell now you pulled it all apart.... but if all your diffs are working correctly, all the diff bearings are good, and the drive cups and driveshafts are not bent or damaged...,. put it back together step by step, and check each assembly. It may just be fine

If you fit decent HPI or Hostile closed cell inserts, then no prep needed. Used to tape the tyres with gorilla tape to stop ballooning though. I found cheaper foam inserts tended to break up when they got wet and dirty.

A few companies did 'HD clutch kits, which had beefied clutch bells. Probably your clutch support came from that. Never broke a clutchbell ... but I did snap a few bolts. Best to do the 'bolt mod' while it's apart if you haven;t already. Get a longer M4 cap head and run it from teh inside of the bell out, and bolt the pinion on with a nyloc nut. The tsock runs the bolt from outside. Snap it..and it snaps flush with the bell and is a pain to get out. This way...you just unscrew the bolt from inside, replace and rebuild. Easy. Just needs a slightly longer bolt to give enough to put the nut on.

looks like Tamiya PS4 to me. Yellow is probably closaest to PS6

your option would be to find a heavy duty clutch bell with the larger shaft..... or find a bearing that fits your clutch and hte housing. You need to measure the shaft diameter on your clutch bell, measure the outer diamter and width of your bearing...and then search for one that fits. Bearings come in a lot of sizes...and it should be easy to find one to suit

Looks sweet. I just need a Clodbuster and some cash!