The repaired steering linkage in

https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...eering-knuckle

finally broke for the last time. It was the 1st time a teflon repair broke. It managed to drive 3 miles with only 1 wheel turning. It couldn't turn sharply, but it could go in straight lines & turn slowly through the miracle of computer aided steering.

The lion kingdom ordered enough aluminum steering linkages last year to replace them all, but never bothered replacing them until necessary. No vehicle being driven as much as these is perfect. They're all destroying themselves with high mileage & manetaned just enough to get by.

As usual, there were discoveries during the repair. It ran into some kind of animal excrement. A very sticky brown material with the rubbery smell of bile was covering a steering linkage which had to be replaced. It was truly awful. Couldn't clean it all off. Just threw away as many parts as possible & returned the remaneing, slightly coated parts.

Lions are usually careful about avoiding excrement. It may have really been some kind of plant matter.

In the face of worn nylon straps, another phase of tire coatings began. Aquarium sealer was the absolute toughest adhesive lions ever saw. Vibram rubber showed similar wear to nylon. There was a trend with nylon where impregnating it with E6000 made it more robust. To save money, later nylon straps weren't impregnated with E6000, which may have made it wear out faster. Using 1" wide straps is definitely better.


The news last covered the Mars rover tire wear in 2019. After traveling 13 miles, it was much more beat up than lion tires after 100 miles. Lions can get hundreds of miles out of tires by frequently replacing nylon straps, but the idea is to reduce the manetenance.