You could have just bought that used RC Car right off of some website selling used RC’s. Or maybe you can’t find an instruction manual for your 5 year old RC car. Now you want to upgrade your gearing, however you are unsure of the gear pitch you need to buy.
Well in my case, I wanted to change up the gearing on a 1/8 buggy that I purchased. So what I did was look at the manual to try and find the correct gear pitch. To my surprise there was no such luck when reviewing the manual. However on the website (tower) where I purchased the buggy there were gear specs listed. I used them and made a gear purchase at the same time I bought the buggy. Upon receiving the new pinions for the buggy and recieving the buggy as well, I ended up throwing a new pinion gear on. To my surprise yet again, the gears were not properly meshing, I definitely had the wrong pitch. The spec listed on the site was not correct.
Did you know it’s entirely possible to measure gear pitch on an RC car? Now that we are passed the long winded introduction, let’s take a look at how we can measure gear pitch on an RC car. It’s quite easy actually.
What you will need to measure gear pitch
- RC gear with an unknown pitch – Can be a pinion or spur gear
- Vernier Calipers (if you don’t have this a ruler can be made to work)
- An internet connection to access this website
That’s it!
How to measure gear pitch
Step 1.
The first step to measure gear pitch is to count the number of teeth that are on the gear that you are measuring.
Step 2.
Next, measure the outer most diameter of the gear. It’s important that you are measuring right to the outside of the gear including the teeth.
Step 3.
Lastly, record the number of teeth that you have either counted or found in a manual as well as the outer diameter that you had measured. Place these values in to the calculator on the gear calculator page.
It’s that easy. The number that the calculator spits out can be used to find a gear that meshes perfectly with the gear you have in your hand. No more guessing pitch values.