Rigidrc 4 Speed Transmission Review

[9W Monighan]

I picked one of these tranny's used but never installed in a truck, off Ebay out of curiosity. Did a search and came up with little or no info other than their website. I breifly hooked it up to 6V and tried shifting through the gears. It did seem a bit noisy due to the straight cut gears and backlash in the shifting dogs. I didn't take pictures of the 2 servo mounts that also came with it. Next I tore it down to see what was inside...
Looking it over it looked very well built.

Top view looking down on the shifting fork levers.

Mechanical disc brake.

Underside showing dual outputs for 4WD.

Brake Caliper and Brake disc.

Interior of the final reduction or transfer case. This can be removed and a supplied drive shaft can be added to remotely mount the transfer case.
[IMG][/IMG]

Inside gearing and shaft assemblies.

Looking into the main case showing shifting forks. I couldn't remove the 1.5mm hex bolts because they are very tight and the hex is a very sloppy fit to my allen wrench. This was a problem throughout disassembly because of the cheap bolts used. I had to chisel some to get them out.

Inside the primary reduction showing bull gear and motor pinion. The case is slotted too for different pinion tooth changes.



All of the parts

Close up of gearing


Tooth counts.


Enjoy.

[Espeefan]

Looks like a pretty nice transmission. Beefy enough, anyway. I guess they cut corners and costs somewhere. Unfortunately, the hardware is a good place to do it. I hate when socket heads round out, but most will probably never pull their transmissions apart. This transmission looks like a pretty neat option to consider for builds. 4 gears is cool. One extra never hurt, gven the other three are close ratio and slower. I've never heard of this brand before. Quite interesting to see something like this come up out of the blue. The more aftermarket parts we have, the better! Long as the quality is good.

[doodlebug]

I hear you on the cap screw's, Year's ago I bought a box of 5/8'' fine thread socket head, they where oversize, not hardened and ruined some part's by galling the thread's. I use a different supplier now!

That's a neat tranny, look's like a mini Road Ranger!
Cheer's, Neil.

[calm n sedated]

Have you had the chance to use this tranny for any period of time? I'd like to hear if it can adapt to the semis with low speed and high torque. I have a nice two speed auxillary tranny that would mate well this.

[9W Monighan]

Originally Posted by calm n sedated

Have you had the chance to use this tranny for any period of time? I'd like to hear if it can adapt to the semis with low speed and high torque. I have a nice two speed auxillary tranny that would mate well this.

Sorry, It will be awhile before I get to trying this. I don't have any trucks to even try it.

[rsd53]

Originally Posted by 9W Monighan

Sorry, It will be awhile before I get to trying this. I don't have any trucks to even try it.

I realize this is an older thread, but was wondering if you ever did anything with this transmission? I unable to find any like it on ebay. I assume they are either no longer in production, or maybe being built under a different name?

Rob

[9W Monighan]

Originally Posted by rsd53

I realize this is an older thread, but was wondering if you ever did anything with this transmission? I unable to find any like it on ebay. I assume they are either no longer in production, or maybe being built under a different name?

Rob

No I haven't. No time to fool around with the toys lately. I wonder if this was some limited production transmission.

[Claus]

Anybody ever use one of these? Looks interesting but kind of complicated with the servos and all.

[JAMMER]

Hi Claus I own one of these and tried to buy another one so I would have a matching pare for 2 tractors the disk brake would be nice when dumping a dump trailer. They are from Eagle Machine but there is a problem with them and they can't supply them. So what's new when it comes to them. I told them I owned them I already have one but they didn't come back with a fix for the problem with them.

[Claus]

I see Rigid Rc used to sell them but they are since discontinued.

[thetractorfan]

Looks very nice. Most rc transmissions only have 2 or 3 gears.