fixing my radikal

[Adam Winston]

my Radikal front isnt performing the way i expect it should... in fact its turning worse than a tracker right now.... i got a new king pin and king pin sleeve...

a few questions..

how do i get the kingpin sleeve out (the threaded part in the baseplate)

my hanger bearing is really really stiff.. i have tried lube, grease ect and heating it up with a hair dryer and even spending a few hours just trying to work it in... it doesnt want to seem to loosen up.

does anybody have any advice on how to make this thing work for me

[Malcolm Stooke]

is it possible that the bearing in the hanger rusted due to water or moisture in the air?

other than that i dont know what it could be.

also, for the kingpin sleeve, i think you only need to remove it for older model trucks, and the newer ones it is built right in to the baseplate. mine is like that. i think sk8kings offers the replacement kingpins with or without the sleeve for the same price, for this exact reason.

what happened to your old kingpin?

[Steve Collins]

A trick I learned from my buddy the slalom gear wizard: Put a 3/8 bolt in an electric hand drill and put that into the hanger bearing with washers for clearance and nuts on each side to lock it in. Then run the drill for 10 or 15 minutes, rocking it side to side and all around. The bearing moves as smooth as silk after that.

[Luke Melo]

^^^^^

Thanks a lot man! that info really helped. if you dont really get the picture in your head, here's one:



i used:

1 kingpin
1 old kingpin locknut (the less nylon, the better to put it on)
2 10mm axle bearing spacers (like the ones that come with sin ceramics)

[Adam Winston]

thanks so much. im going to go and give that a try.... cant wait to get this thing working smoothly

(malcom no rust, i have been taking fairly good care of it, even in the canadian winter)

i say fairly because even i forget to wipe it down and give it a clean after sessions

[Luke Melo]

thanks so much. im going to go and give that a try.... cant wait to get this thing working smoothly

(malcom no rust, i have been taking fairly good care of it, even in the canadian winter)

i say fairly because even i forget to wipe it down and give it a clean after sessions

i have no problem with taking apart my radikals and cleaning them. because the kingpin is threaded into the baseplate, so you can take it all apart, clean it, put it back together, and never lose your tweaking!

[Adam Winston]

i had no problem using a brand new kingpin nut, i just used a small grade 8, with a grade 8 nut and two wrenches.. worked perfectly... but my drill died 3 seconds into it lol


ill try again when the drill is charged

[Adam Winston]

so i did my truck and pats trucks today.. and you can tell the difference between the new and old Rads..

the new ones heat up A LOT MORE... the old ones are still cool to the touch...

it helped to work in the bearing a lot.. so thanks for the tip steve

[HUYNH BACH SAC Frédéric]

Is it the same problem on all the brand new radikals ?

[Adam Winston]

i dont think so.. i think i just got a stiff bearing... i have a set of the new ones, and they were stiff as hell.... so finally fed up i tried this... havnt really taken it out yet, just a few kicks around the street..


but i would suggest if you get a new rad.... ride it for a bit. see what happens... if its stiff after a while still.. then work them in.. and use plenty of lube...


my next question is, if you were to rate the bearing inside the hanger.. is that the best you can get or would it be a worth investment to go and buy a new and better hanger bearing.. and pop the old one out? i'd have it done at a metal works shop..(i wouldnt do that at home, i just dont have the equipment)

[HUYNH BACH SAC Frédéric]

I don't want to "hijack" your topic or turn it into a comparison rads / gog but I must recognize that my gog just worked fine at the first use...

it's hard to imagine spending more money for a new part of a precision truck ?

[Adam Winston]

well here is my logic...

with anything you buy, yes its all great components but cost cutting factors have to be made at some point...


we could say that a hanger spherical bearing costs 5 bucks (im pulling these prices out of my arse please dont quote me on them its just for arguments sake)


so the hanger comes with a 5 dollar bearing that does a great job.. its a high quality bearing... but there is company B that sells a 10 dollar bearing that does just a little bit better of a job. now as the person making any precision truck i would think... well the 5 dollar bearing does pretty much everything the 10 dollar one does, and its half the price... so ill go with that, just to keep the costs down for the consumer at the end of it all..

i mean why would you think that rads changed the materials they made the truck out of? its cheaper to make and therefore cheaper for us the rider to own... i dont know about you, but im not able to buy rads, or gogs, or jimz,maguns for ALL my boards... i can afford maybe one set of rads.. and right now i only have a front....

ever meet somebody who isnt a serious skater? and show them your rad/gog ect and they ask how much it was.. you tell them, and they go all bug eyed.. YOU PAID HOW MUCH FOR THAT?

to us its a worthy investment because they actually do perform better than cast trucks...

could you put hanger bearings in a tracker? probably.... and in the basepate? probably....
would it be worth it if it performs the same as a rad or gog.. yes it would, but how many of us have the time to do that? not too many... how many of us have the equipment in our sheds to do that? even less...


so what im saying is even tho a product is amazing, weather it be rads or gogs or split pros (i have only ridden rads so i cant compare any of them) there is always a way to make them better... or else geezer x would have been out of a job a LONG time ago.

facing trackers? making offsets? lathing bushings? there is always a way to make something work better..... the question is will it work better for you.. im a very strong believer of the idea... "ride what works for you" Rads/gogs/split pros ect may not be for some people... in the end it may just come down to personal preferance, availability, color even, or rider style.. in most cases its not weather one product is better than another... its just user preference..

honestly the reason i would choose to ride a full set of rads over anything else? the bushings... yes i could lathe rad bushings to fit anything (i already do) but they have amazing bushings with incredible re-bound and compression, way better than KHIRO or tracker... and since stims or almost impossible to get my hands on.. i ride rads... its just a case of availability and what works for me....


its a big investment to buy precision trucks, and hard to really try them before you buy them sometimes... maybe hop on somebodies board at a race for a few mins, thats it.

so its a bit of a leap of faith to invest in them.. you could ride them and find they dont fit your style... then you have a precision paper weight
(this refers to all precision trucks/trucks in general)



pictured here... my randal 150 airbrush holder

[Luke Melo]

Is it the same problem on all the brand new radikals ?

not true at all. i have 2 of the new radikals. My black one needed some extra working in, but my red one was beautiful. hit or miss i guess.

[Adam Winston]

i think what people are saying luke is that it SHOULDNT be hit or miss....


i dunno, personally i like to have to customize my trucks, and work them in... instead of just slapping them on and riding.... but not everybody feels that way

[Donald Campbell]

so here's my take on the whole discussion:
what happened here would not happen with a G.O.G.
bearings that don't move are an indication for #1 lacking quality control #2 wrong tolerances in the housing for the bearing f.e.

i would not like to see people f#@k around with a G.O.G. if that problem occured,i would like to have it back from the customer in order to repair it or replace it immediately.

why did rads get cheaper?
because they changed material,of course,definitely

or was it because somebody else hopped into the boat with something better?

who knows,it's all open to interpretation.


the best steering front truck out there?

OUR TRUCK and we can prove and undermine that statement with prominent racers who DO NOT GET PAID to say so.

know what?
if that truck has a flaw then let "mr.customerserviceman" step up and make you happy again.
you paid a high amount of money for that thing,so bring it to them and make sure you get a replacement asap,pronto..
we did the same when we fucked up on the first kingpins.

oh... i forgot to mention that a G.O.G. doesn't need to be disassembled for changing bushings,no parts falling off the truck,no hassles.

there you go...

[Justin Readings]

no parts fall off the radikals. you take the kingpin off and pull of the hanger? put it all back together again just like any other truck.
If i was not able to fully take apart a truck i think there would be problems because of cleaning.

[Troy Smart]

Hijacking this thread to say that your trucks would never do this and are so much better is bullsh*t.
You haven't earned the right.
Especially since most of your first run broke within minutes of use.
Mind your own buisness.

[Donald Campbell]

hey troy,let me have your address and i'll send you some flowers!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ben Buckles]

Donald, you might have a better product, you might not. The reason I bought a radikal and not your truck is you lack of class.

You keep spouting that you don't make any money off them then why do you try so hard to sell them?


P.S. You would make quite I good politician.

P.P.S. Send me the flowers my wife might like them.

[Dave Gale]

While I think Pavel and G.O.G are both good products. There's an age old rule in marketing that states that when you belittle or criticize your competitors ..It does little more than turn the public's perception against you! Donald seems to constantly make statements of fact, that are merely his opinions..Careful, or it will backfire on ya'

[Jim Weatherwax]

Hijacking this thread to say that your trucks would never do this and are so much better is bullsh*t.
You haven't earned the right.
Especially since most of your first run broke within minutes of use.
Mind your own buisness.

Mabye you missed the whole part about GOG getting all the trucks back fro its distribution, all the customers, retrofitting them and returning them to the customers FREE of CHARGE....Someone else added GOG's name in this thread, so chill out Troy



remember a few years ago when the poorly designed kingpin/insert interface was causing Radikal kingpins to break? their idea to remedy that was suggest annual replacement of the kingpin...at a cost of $20 each...all they needed to do was recall the baseplates/kingpins and retrofit the thread interface in the insert and replace the kingpin with a longer one, but they would rather say just spend $20 a year so you dont slam due to parts experiencing a shorter lifespan due to our engineering oversight.... And how about all those people who needed axles and bushings for such a long perod of time? oh yeah..the parts you need are in the mail right?

Plus...Don is helping out some awesome racers with GOG sponsorship...Radikal had its hard times, and dropped its pro teams support to send Keith around the world selling trucks at races...Thanks but Id rather buy trucks from someone who takes care of its riders best it can. GOG has Rider specific truck colorways, not sales guy colors as well!...

[Chris Favero]

The thing to remember,when buying any high performance truck,is that it will need regular maintaince.your not going to shoot every puddle,rain session, or generally abuse them like you could with a tracker,indy etcetera.Been riding rads for over three years now,have not had any issues some others riders have had.i would chalk this up to proper set up and proper maintainence.if you know me or Cnova,we're some big boys,completely different riding styles etcetera,but switch and use each others Rads on a regular basis.
Last,when we sell a set of Rads,we make ourselves available for advice,set up info,axles length,hell,we even throw in extras sometimes.So,if you have a set of rads,need advice,whether you bought them through us or not,shoot us line,we'll be glad to help.
Cfav&Cnova
Kicking ass one customer at a time
CHIxILL

[Justin Readings]

Last,when we sell a set of Rads,we make ourselves available for advice,set up info,axles length,hell,we even throw in extras sometimes.So,if you have a set of rads,need advice,whether you bought them through us or not,shoot us line,we'll be glad to help.
Cfav&Cnova
Kicking ass one customer at a time
CHIxILL

Thats customer satisfaction.

[Keith Hollien]

I would like to say if anyone has a question or a problem they can contact me Keith Hollien at 352-494-2503 or toll free in the US at 1-877-RAD-SK8R(1-877-723-7587) or Keith@KeithHollien.com.

I have to say that since 2003 NOBODY has put more into slalom skateboarding then Radikal Trucks. To start with Mark McCree has spent almost $400,000(2003-2006) on slalom. Because of this the IRS froze his accounts and want him to pay over $80,000 in taxes. Mike Renick(Sparky) the man who makes the trucks has spent thousands of dollars(I am not sure how much)of his own money. Fortunately the main purpose of Radikal Trucks is suppling a high end trucks for people to skate on and not making money.
This brings me to the statement that Radikal "dropped its pro teams support to send Keith around the world selling trucks" I have to say people need to get to get their facts straight before they post on a public forum. First of all I never sold any trucks until Sept of 2006 when I took over customer service and sales. I am not even going to discuss people in this postion before me. I have skated for Radikal since 1979. Second we have not dropped the team support. We may not send 4 to 15 racers all over the place, but we are still helping racers in different ways. In the past we did pay for team members plane tickets, entry fees, rental cars, rooms and some food. Mark even did that for people who did not ride for Radikal Trucks and some who did not even ride our trucks. I am not going into details about who gets what now. Third I have been paying for all of my travel(since 2004) and have payed out of my pocket for Radikal Team members plane tickets, entry fees, food(one $500 meal for 15 people), rental cars and rooms. At the 2005 Worlds in Morro I PAYED for six rooms for 13 people to stay almost a week at the tune of $1,200. At this point I have spent over $45,000 dollars on slalom. Mark does owe me over $30,000 since I was paying for team members and people who had nothing to do with Radikal Trucks.

Adam, I am not sure why you wanted to remove the stainless steel insert(in the baseplate). The only reason to do so is if you have the original insert. Only old insert that are threaded to the top of the insert are the ones to replace. If you need to replace an old one, the new one is free. To take out the insert you need to put in in an oven to break down the red loctite. Put the baseplate in a preheated oven at 500F(260C) for atleast 20 min. Remove the baseplate and while it is still hot(not to hot) unscrew the insert. You can use a #5 extractor or even a kinpin works sometimes. To put the new insert in just clean out any old red loctite and then screw a new kingpng into the new insert put a drop of red loctite on the insert and screw them into the baseplate. Allow 24 hours for the loctite to set then remove the kingpin.
Bearings- They cost $20 a piece when you buy a min. of 100. They are teflon coated spherical bearings and they are in the hanger and the baseplate of the slalom truck. The same bearing is in the hanger of the Talon's, but not in the Talon baseplate since the pivot is 1/2". The holes that the bearing are put in are CNC milled. I have put in enough of the bearing into hangers and baseplates at this point to know that sometimes they are tight. I will say they loosen up. I had one front hanger that I had to stick an axle or kingpin in to move the bearing. That same hanger I can now move the bearing with my finger tips. I have some older hangers that I can make the bearing spin 360 degrees around.
Kingpins are $10 and should be peplaced about once a year. The reason for this is the kingpins were designed to flex alittle. They were designed to act almost like a shock absorber. So when your turn comes to an end the kingpins helps on the rebound. You could not feel or see this since the flex is so little. Now I am certiainly not an engineer, but Mike Renick is and this a simplfied version of what he said.

As I have said before IF ANYBODY HAS ANY QUESTIONS about Radikal Trucks or slalom skateboarding FEEL FREE TO CONTACT ME(see above).

Keith

[Keith Hollien]

There is one thing I forget to say. We have replaced more sets of trucks then I want to think about. We did recall the original bactch of 5/16" pivots and the powder coated caddy appple red trucks. The caddy apple red trucks cost $50 extra to do and then we turned around and recalled them and replaced them with brand new sets. The reason we recalled the caddy apple trucks was because of the acid baths the trucks had to be put in for the powdercoat remove to much of the truck material. The only good thing on the caddy apple trucks is it really depended on how long the truck was in the acid bath. So some of the caddy apple red trucks are fine. I know I had trouble getting some of the recalled trucks back. I would hear how much they liked them and how sweet the trucks are. It was not until I had a brand new set of trucks in my hand telling the person "look give me back your old set of trucks after you remove your axles and I will give you this brand new set of trucks in Hollien blue, black or red". You would not believe how fast I got the old ones back then.

Just so everybody knows we will still replace the original 5/16" pivots(although there are not many sets out there) and caddy apple red powdercoated truck.

Keith

[Adam Winston]

GUYS this isnt a WHO IS BETTER arugment... like i said its all personal preference. its really not about, who has better customer service, what trucks turn better... it wont mean squat if you have a 1000 dollar pair of trucks, if you cant ride, good trucks arent going to make you a super star...


this was a PURELY hypothetical argument, in which i included all trucks, not just RADS and GOGS... so seriously stop this garbage... stuff gets blown out of proportion way too fast...

it was just a question and a hope to express a few ideas, not claim one is better than the other... i know Rads have great customer service, so do GOG and Splitfire, ect ect ect... its really not about who has a better truck..

a few things you need to realize

1. SHIT HAPPENS.. things break, mistakes get made... and all companies involved take great strides to make sure that all problems are fixed and broken things replaced.

2. Availability has plagued the precision truck market for years.. jimz makes 8 sets of his trucks at A TIME (or atleast he used to) this makes getting our hands on these things a little difficult sometimes... certainly in canada.. i remember a time where i could count on my left hand how many rads there were in the great white north

so say a company from europe will have a harder time getting trucks to CANADA than it would if it tried to get its trucks to france or england...

3. LOYALTY.... most of you dudes have been around since the start of this sport, you were around when this shit was getting really big.... so of course you going to have your favorite company, or be loyal to a brand.. have a favorite shoe you like, a tee you like more than the others... a deck that you covet, and a truck that you stand by.... DEAL WITH IT... thinking one is better than the other kind of is pointless... i bet you could take the best slalom skater in the world (who ever it is i dont care) put him on a set of street style skate trucks and they would STILL WHOOP MY ASS down a course...

all im saying.. is enough of this crap... Rad Gog shake hands or some crap, this is worse than high school drama mixed in with political smear campaigns...

these things were created so we could enjoy skating even more... take it to a new level...


i have a habit of telling people just to shut up and stop being childish.... so if im in anyway out of line, let me know.. but in my personal opinion i just want to skate... have a cool set of trucks that make girls go.. OOOOOOOO you must be really good or something if you have nice stuff like that... create some cone carnage and have a good time surfing when i double DQ....

well all know we wont get rich doing this.... i know im not going to be some famous skater or anything like that.. i do it cause ITS FUN and i get satisfaction out of painting a deck, or running a course clean.. making a corner in a full tuck...

cheers guys.... kindly stop this debate all over... and just have a good time... rad and gog both make good products.. not one is better than the other... its just personal preference

[Troy Smart]

hey troy,let me have your address and i'll send you some flowers!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks Don, but I already have a girlfriend.


(Sorry Adam, I could'nt resist.)

[Luke Melo]

thanks to this tip, i can do this with my finger tips:



it works absolutely beautiful now

[Tim Robinson]

Rode a GOG and couldn't believe how much better it felt to my Radikals and set about changing things......extra wedging lathed stims and still not as turny as the GOG . I thought I was just getting used to these trucks and being more comfortable with running softer and softer bushings............THEN I did the above modification or tuning with a drill and some mobile 1 oil. #UCK!!! what a difference!!.
If you think you NEED some GOGS try this first.

[Malcolm Stooke]

my radikals always have been quicker turning than my gog. i love them both though... now if only i could use my gog