VXL reliability thread....

[JThiessen]

I've just started to delve into the carnage from last fall (a vacation in which I came back with all 5 of my RC's in a state of disrepair). Its been a busy year, so I have had no time at all for RC.

I have two Slash 4x4's that I wanted to keep stock just as beaters for when my Muggy, Flux, or Eight broke down. I bought them used as rollers, and purchased either "new" or slightly used VXL systems online for them, including one spare system. I ran them a couple times on that vacation until both experienced some sort of internal cogging issue.

I tore them down and quickly discovered that both of them had failed front bearing failures - one more significant than the other, but the result was the same - two trashed motors.

Now, I have this same vacation coming up in a week, and am slightly behind schedule in getting the rigs tuned. So I put the spare VXL in one of them, oredered a Castle SCT setup for the other, in addition to a Kingshead motor mount for it.
My questions are:
Should I order a Kingshead (or FLM) mount now for the other and not bother with an experiment? Is the flex in that stock mount the known cause for this?
Has anyone rebuilt a VXL? I would have had to catch this failure earlier to have avoided damage to the windings. I was also unable to get the bearing out of the end of the can - there wasn't enough meat left on them to get the outer race removed.
What to do with old motors/cans.......there has to be something....

ps. My intent of this is NOT to start a VXL beating forum. Yes, we all know there are better systems out there.....