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So as promised, here is my tale of woe as a warning to anyone buying a second hand heli.
I had been flying a Raptor 50 for just over a year and decided I’d treat myself to another heli. I decided on a Trex 600 nitro after reading so many positive reports on them. After lots of searching & narrowly missing out on a few, I saw one advertised on ebay and the BMFA website. (Though not on here which should have rung alarm bells)
It was described as a Ready to Fly 600 NSP with a Kasama head, Spartan Gyro, CY ATG, 2mm frames, Futaba BLS251, JR 8915 servos on cyclic, (can’t remember the rest) but it looked fully loaded, the buy it now was £720. I figured that anyone lavishing this much bling on a heli must have looked after it well.
After putting in a low bid the seller contacted me asking if I’d make a sensible offer as he wanted to get rid of it in a hurry. I did and the deal was done at £660.
The night before I went to collect he called me to say he’d made a mistake on the gyro, it wasn’t a Spartan but a Futaba 611. I thought it a bit suspicious that someone could mistake the two, but agreed to go ahead with the purchase anyway.
I went and collected, and when I arrived I realized we’d met before at a fly-in a few months earlier. As I’d had a nightmare journey up there & was in a hurry to get back to London, and I already had him pegged as a pretty genuine chap from our last meeting I didn’t carry out much of an inspection, quick look over, I paid him and left.
Even though it was advertised as RTF, my friend “crash-a lot” and I decided to give it a good look over the following day.
Overall the machine was dirty, although the outside had been wiped, inside the frame and anywhere else hard to reach was filthy and there were dregs of old fuel in the bottom of the tank. During an extensive clean up we noticed that the MP5 had a big gouge out of the underside, the fan cowling was cracked & broken up inside the frame and it had not been maintained very well at all.
It had been fitted with a carb smart, the housing was missing and so was the servo, so even when it was completely removed there was no way of holding the mixture screw in position. Then we saw that all of the antenna’s on the Rx and satellite were worn through where they enter the housing so badly that a couple of them were only just attached.
We then went round all the nuts & bolts. Apart from some worn and stripped heads here & there we found that the grub screw hole in one of the flybar collars was stripped and the flybar would not stay in position. The tail blades had been over tightened to the extent that the grips were bent. One of the brass inserts in the tail slider was missing. And one of the bolts holding the tail support into the frame was stripped so badly that when turned on its side it just fell out.
We rectified these problems but I was keen bind it up & start the engine before going any further to see if there were any more surprises.
We had already realized that the cheap half size Zebra servo on the throttle was only held in with 2 screws but as soon as we turned on the Rx it was obvious that the gears inside were stripped as well. A new Futaba servo was brought and fitted and I went for an engine start..
The engine ran for about 30 seconds then started knocking and seized solid before I could get a hand on the Tx. Pulled out the engine and the first thing I noticed was the condition of the glow plug, it was rusty, and all the hex’s had rounded off.. Removed the head to find that something, probably a bit of the knackered glow plug, had jammed between the head & piston, ruining the piston, ring & head. The front & rear bearings were shot and the crank and liner were both scored.
Also once the engine was out I discovered that the lead for the tail servo had been rubbing on the clutch bell, it had worn right through the outer casing to the bare wires of the neg & signal.
Before I went any further I contacted the seller and reported my findings. He said that he couldn’t guarantee a 2nd hand engine, and that you would expect a few teething problems with a used model. After a while he agreed to refund me £60.00 or I could deliver it back to him for a refund less £50.00. As it meant a 5 hour round trip to return it & we’d already spent a day on it I decided to take the £60.00 and press on.
The next day I pulled the engine out of my Raptor and after soldering & heat shrinking the damaged servo lead installed it into the Trex.
Once started I gave it enough revs to just about engage the clutch and it was clear to see that there were serious problems with vibrations etc throughout the head and blades.
Back on the bench centering the servos revealed +6 degrees of pitch on one blade & -2 degrees on the other, as well as the paddles being 2 degrees out from each other.
So off with the head to put the leveler on. As soon as that was off we could see that the mainshaft was bent. When we’d got another one it then became clear that all three bearings were completely worn out and the centre one barely turned at all.
All of that replaced we levelled it all up, dialed all the settings in and went for a maiden flight, but during the initial hover as it had a shortened tail fin the tail blades caught the grass and stripped the front TT gears.
Once the new gears and longer fin had been fitted and with a certain amount of help from Mark B with gyro settings the “ready to fly” Trex finally flew, some 15 days after I’d brought it!
It flies quite well now but with the amount of man hours and money that we’ve thrown at it you’d think it would.
The problems are still ongoing, the latest is that the governor sensor doesn’t work and the clutch bearings need replacing and I’d guess the tail hub too, but at least it flies.
Big thanks to crash-a lot for keeping my spirits up and seeing this nightmare through cause without his input it would have been put out of it’s misery a long time ago!
So the message to everyone here is that second hand heli’s are a massive gamble, and that not everyone who flies one is as genuine & helpful as the folk you find round here! If you’re buying one, do you’re homework, and if it looks at all suspicious walk away!
Caveat emptor
I had been flying a Raptor 50 for just over a year and decided I’d treat myself to another heli. I decided on a Trex 600 nitro after reading so many positive reports on them. After lots of searching & narrowly missing out on a few, I saw one advertised on ebay and the BMFA website. (Though not on here which should have rung alarm bells)
It was described as a Ready to Fly 600 NSP with a Kasama head, Spartan Gyro, CY ATG, 2mm frames, Futaba BLS251, JR 8915 servos on cyclic, (can’t remember the rest) but it looked fully loaded, the buy it now was £720. I figured that anyone lavishing this much bling on a heli must have looked after it well.
After putting in a low bid the seller contacted me asking if I’d make a sensible offer as he wanted to get rid of it in a hurry. I did and the deal was done at £660.
The night before I went to collect he called me to say he’d made a mistake on the gyro, it wasn’t a Spartan but a Futaba 611. I thought it a bit suspicious that someone could mistake the two, but agreed to go ahead with the purchase anyway.
I went and collected, and when I arrived I realized we’d met before at a fly-in a few months earlier. As I’d had a nightmare journey up there & was in a hurry to get back to London, and I already had him pegged as a pretty genuine chap from our last meeting I didn’t carry out much of an inspection, quick look over, I paid him and left.
Even though it was advertised as RTF, my friend “crash-a lot” and I decided to give it a good look over the following day.
Overall the machine was dirty, although the outside had been wiped, inside the frame and anywhere else hard to reach was filthy and there were dregs of old fuel in the bottom of the tank. During an extensive clean up we noticed that the MP5 had a big gouge out of the underside, the fan cowling was cracked & broken up inside the frame and it had not been maintained very well at all.
It had been fitted with a carb smart, the housing was missing and so was the servo, so even when it was completely removed there was no way of holding the mixture screw in position. Then we saw that all of the antenna’s on the Rx and satellite were worn through where they enter the housing so badly that a couple of them were only just attached.
We then went round all the nuts & bolts. Apart from some worn and stripped heads here & there we found that the grub screw hole in one of the flybar collars was stripped and the flybar would not stay in position. The tail blades had been over tightened to the extent that the grips were bent. One of the brass inserts in the tail slider was missing. And one of the bolts holding the tail support into the frame was stripped so badly that when turned on its side it just fell out.
We rectified these problems but I was keen bind it up & start the engine before going any further to see if there were any more surprises.
We had already realized that the cheap half size Zebra servo on the throttle was only held in with 2 screws but as soon as we turned on the Rx it was obvious that the gears inside were stripped as well. A new Futaba servo was brought and fitted and I went for an engine start..
The engine ran for about 30 seconds then started knocking and seized solid before I could get a hand on the Tx. Pulled out the engine and the first thing I noticed was the condition of the glow plug, it was rusty, and all the hex’s had rounded off.. Removed the head to find that something, probably a bit of the knackered glow plug, had jammed between the head & piston, ruining the piston, ring & head. The front & rear bearings were shot and the crank and liner were both scored.
Also once the engine was out I discovered that the lead for the tail servo had been rubbing on the clutch bell, it had worn right through the outer casing to the bare wires of the neg & signal.
Before I went any further I contacted the seller and reported my findings. He said that he couldn’t guarantee a 2nd hand engine, and that you would expect a few teething problems with a used model. After a while he agreed to refund me £60.00 or I could deliver it back to him for a refund less £50.00. As it meant a 5 hour round trip to return it & we’d already spent a day on it I decided to take the £60.00 and press on.
The next day I pulled the engine out of my Raptor and after soldering & heat shrinking the damaged servo lead installed it into the Trex.
Once started I gave it enough revs to just about engage the clutch and it was clear to see that there were serious problems with vibrations etc throughout the head and blades.
Back on the bench centering the servos revealed +6 degrees of pitch on one blade & -2 degrees on the other, as well as the paddles being 2 degrees out from each other.
So off with the head to put the leveler on. As soon as that was off we could see that the mainshaft was bent. When we’d got another one it then became clear that all three bearings were completely worn out and the centre one barely turned at all.
All of that replaced we levelled it all up, dialed all the settings in and went for a maiden flight, but during the initial hover as it had a shortened tail fin the tail blades caught the grass and stripped the front TT gears.
Once the new gears and longer fin had been fitted and with a certain amount of help from Mark B with gyro settings the “ready to fly” Trex finally flew, some 15 days after I’d brought it!
It flies quite well now but with the amount of man hours and money that we’ve thrown at it you’d think it would.
The problems are still ongoing, the latest is that the governor sensor doesn’t work and the clutch bearings need replacing and I’d guess the tail hub too, but at least it flies.
Big thanks to crash-a lot for keeping my spirits up and seeing this nightmare through cause without his input it would have been put out of it’s misery a long time ago!
So the message to everyone here is that second hand heli’s are a massive gamble, and that not everyone who flies one is as genuine & helpful as the folk you find round here! If you’re buying one, do you’re homework, and if it looks at all suspicious walk away!
Caveat emptor
and a platinum star 
, but both Heli's were/are superb. The Trex only needed some cheese bearings replacing and she was good to go.
Then check the model over carefully making sure locktite has been used in the correct area etc etc.
...That way you get to clean it and put it back together so in essence becomes a new model all over again 
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