I broke the Monster Truck but don't know how 

The landing off the bus and after your first big jump the back wheels do hit the ground pretty hard. It was probably accumulative rather than a single event.

It could have bent at several points in that run. Could have even been when you hit the rear steer during that burnout. Never know. There is a LOT of torque you’re going to see between those massive tires on a steer axel. The rear gets loaded more than the front does during acceleration… so that’s why I think it may have happened when doing that burn out and you used the rear steer. May have been too much for it. Just beef the rod up and go again!

1:05 when it landed, it landed on the left rear and the right rear shook violently. maybe it landed and turned the wheel and when the right side landed it was straight and it bent it because each wheel was pointing a different direction

I think it was at 52 seconds. When the back came down, it hit pretty hard, kind of jerked to the side. That bar is the weakest point. With all that weight, it is very possible.

one of the few things i can think of are the landings where you floored it just before impact. that one at 0:51 looked especially brutal for the suspension and i think your wider wheelbase contributed to it. the planetarys might have bent upwards enough to squeeze the steering just enough to bend it. other than that i dont really see anything too harsh since such a bent shouldnt appear slowly but suddenly. could be totally wrong though but thats my theory

0:51 I think that did it. Those wheels have a huge scrub radius, and put a lot of pressure on the tie rod when you hit one tire first. 7075 aluminum might be a better option for that. It’ll flex, and go back to its original shape.

Timestamp 0:52, during the landing of the rear wheels it seems the hole axle faced some transverse displacement from the left to the right and got slightly compressed.

All looked pretty smooth until the last couple car jumps where you can notice a bit of judder on the landing going through the back assembly?

To be honest it's hard to tell. However a few action cameras secured to the underside of the body at a few strategic points may help with diagnostics of this type during later runs. Then you'll get a close-up view of what slams into something or buckles under a certain load while stunting about.

At 46 seconds the rear comes down on the cars at an angle so that the other tyre hits the ground and the other lands on the soft roofs of the cars. The flex on the car roofs and tyres could have allowed the rear axle and steering bar impact the front or even the engine of the car the rear landed on. Awesome stuff Kew, keep the dream alive!

Just watching through it a few times, the rear suspension actually looks quite a bit tighter and less squishy than the front. Looks really stiff in the back end.

Maybe one of the "bonks" over the one layer of cars. Seemed like pretty intense hits. Clean af though, Very Nice!!!

a few others have said/hinted to it, the bend wasnt due to a hard landing impact, it's due to differential angular momentum in the rear wheels. The only ways to reduce the effect would be a more aggressive LSD, lighter wheels, or reduced traction. Edited to add, the bar will only bend like that in compression, you could add an opposing bar if your hubs have lugs on the opposite side. The extra bar would be in tension in the instances that caused this bar to bend, preventing it happening again. TJG239, MEng ;-)

0:47, 0:50 may be..... I'm not a professional, so I could be wrong.... but with just observation🧐 it looked possible to me. P. S. The show was awesome.... Hope you have many more.... 👍👍

Hope your offer goes through, you've definitely outgrown your shop, and more room for activities is always good!

Totally could have happened on any of the landings. Front or rear biased, some of the "front heavy" landings also had decent boshes on the rear! It all adds up and something can (and will) give eventually!. If we had absolute mastery of recording physics, metal density, fatigue, imperfections, impacts, consecutive impacts and cumulative damage in real time, sorted. Unfortunately you would need NASA levels, and even they can't do all that realtime. Though you can with enough footage (if available) from multiple cameras see when it happened that moment may not be the main cause, just the final effect. You could put some cameras strategically underbody for future but they would just capture the when, not necessarily the how, would be an epic addition to your fantastic vids dude!

So your rear tie-rod isn’t broken at all, Just a slight bend. It’s super common for some indie teams to run with a slight bend just to get by from what I’ve seen. You may want to consider double tie rods front and rear.

I agree with Pablo C ... When you came off the buss and blip the throttle to come out of your nose dive, the rear tires spin slap the earth hard. If you think about it like this..... If that tie bar was not there and the wheels just were free to flop, what would said wheels do in that scenario?? They would flop towards each other violently. So the tie bar bent. You have knuckles and steering back there so it's common I'm sure. If it were a straight axle lockout it would not, obviously!!

Could it have been from the grip/friction of the tyres from the doughnut/cyclones

I think i have narrowed it down to a specific section in your full video. watching the entire freestyle i noticed that at 15:08 the bar is straight. at 15:10 you throttle over the cars and caught the let rear so it kicked up under throttle. Than the following jump at 15:18 the rear does look like it got kicked around so lots of vibration on the tires. Last was at 15:31 the arm looks bent. So I would put my money on those two jumps, doesn't look like you hit the rear steer very hard between them. Hope that helps.

Because of your Patrick housings being wider there’s slightly more flex in them so when the back wheels hit the ground the axle would’ve slightly flexed and bent the steering shaft. Hope this helped. Kind regards:alex

Check that your hydraulic rams bottoms out the rods against the cylinders at the same time as the lock stops on your steering knuckles. The hydraulic rams can produce enough force to bend the tie rod, if you try to use the knuckle stops to limit travel, or if one ram travels more that the other.

Love your content and I hope you can have the best of fun with your monster truck!

Lots of people seem to think it's the steering being turned. But it's just a connecting rod that keeps the wheels pointed the same direction. So it would be force trying to do the opposite that would bend it. It's long and carrying load lengthways so a hard and uneven landing will both apply force across it as well as cause the bar to sag. The more it sags the more force can travel transverse to that rod. You can expect that to happen quite a bit on gripped surfaces like asphalt. I'd honestly just bend it back, check the alignment on the tires and keep using it.

I’m just realizing now that Monster Trucks are 1:1 scale extreme RC bashing, hence why Kevin is an absolute natural talent

Hey Kev I recon it was at 53 seconds in the vid .After you jumped over the cars it landed fairly hard on the right front.wheel....also loving the content as usual.in the r.c world you are a legend.with all the experience you have gained from bashing r.c cars ,trucks you should think about marketing your own.i mean what better seal of approval could you get than somthing created by you.

I think it was the multiple "big air" landings with those monster tires exerting force against the rod. Time to beef it up!

0:52, you landed quite awkwardly. Then at 1:02 you can see just about that the steering arm has a bend, you need to look carefully though. It cant have been the bus jump either because when you landed, soon after there was a shot of the rear and you could see that it was dead straight. Good luck on getting that property, you have no more room for rc cars in that warehouse now.

Also, I wish you the best with your offer on the property. It would be awesome to see you build your own skate park and off road park. Having all your mates over for bashing would be a blast

I tech inspected Monster Trucks for the Toughest Monster Truck Tour this year until I sustained a serious eye injury that has me sidelined for another 8 months. And I use to tech trucks at some Monster Jam shows back in the day. (I've been to Cardiff a few times for MJ) It looks like it hyper-extended, and got bent cus it hit the axle housing. The clearance near the housing is very tight when the wheels are turned. Without proper up close inspection, I can't really tell. I hope you mount some Go-Pros on the suspension and chassis for the next go-around. So you can see up close what the truck is doing. And even one in the cab so you can watch yourself, and how you react in the truck. A lot of the new trucks that are coming out have two steering bars per axle for added strength. I've seen a lot of single steering bar trucks rip the heim joint right out of the bar, or get bent easily from hard landing. Having two steering bars on each axle means the knuckle would have to be re-fabricated to accept a second bar. Trucks looks, and sounds amazing dude! Perhaps one day I will get to tech inspect it. 👀✅🏁 Some of the inspection points I can already tell you you will need for Monster Jam, is - A roll cage around the back of the fuel cell where it sticks out past the existing shock tower down tubes. - Front and rear sway bar teathers. - drivline blankets around the driveline u-joints, these have an SFI rating-date. -Shock accumulator cap covers-restraints. -I don't know if this is mandatory for MJ, as it's been since 2012 since I worked for them, but a lot of guys have a cable teather that goes around the steering bars that loop back to the axles. This prevents the bar if it breaks off from whipping around and puncturing the tires. (Especially BKT's). I can't wait to see what you do with it next. Cheers dude! -Jeremy Waring

Kevin. If the bar didn't hit anything then there is another thought. If the rear wheels were forced to toe out, then the bar would have been compressed, the only thing it can do is bend to absorb the shock. If you replace the same bar on a RC car with a piece of wire and force the wheels together you'll see what I'm talking about. 🤔 And I hope you get your plot of land soon, you deserve it. 😀👍

This is my take on it kev! The truck is heavy and having run on hard flat concrete, it's just the impact of the truck landing could cause it. when the truck lands to its side, you can see the rear end do a wiggle and vibrate. the front won't do that because youre landing face forward. the rear end is gonna take that bashing. Think of it as a RC Car. when the car is on sand or dirt, the damage you think would be done isn't gonna be done cause it's meant to take that abuse, but put it on hard concrete and that same landing, it's going to take harsh treatment.

Hiya Kev, congrats on the Monster Truck build, you are an inspiration. You asked for our input about your steering bar.... I thinks it could have happened during your donut, steering on full lock, big meaty tires on tarmac and lots of grip could have pushed the bar beyond it's limits. Happy IRL monster truck bashing.

My vote is at 1:02 - it looks like you came off those cars and locked up the rear brakes. If you think of the forces those high offset tires put on that tie-rod when the brakes are locked up, it's basically trying to fold those tires backwards. Which is exactly the force you'd expect to be able to bend that tie rod.

Are there any scrapes or dings on the front/bottom of that lower steering bar? Where only the lower is bent, not the top, I assume it likely wasn't a hard landing or they would both be bent. If there is some indication of impact, I would guess you maybe hit it launching off one of the cars, especially considering how wide the tires are apart, if you middle the car under the truck, those bars could potentially hit very easily..... just my 2 cents. Still, awsome build kev. Sending good luck on the property offer 🙏

The problem is, "you gave it a rip". But seriously, your driving skill on that thing is kind of amazing for your very first formal outing.

Right about the 1:00 mark. It looks like you did a wheel and hit the back axel. This could of happened many times but that looks pretty bad.

Yep, the landing over the bus, the right rear hits first and quite violently. That would be my guess... john

Maybe you should have used Traxxas plastics for those bars, even the chassis should be plastic, that will give the truck more flex, bending and rebounding back to shape after those rough landings ..oh wait... perhaps Kevin could now begin to relate with folks who prefer rcs' that come with metal chassis, metal steering rods etc. :D

Any of those hard landings would’ve done the job of the bent bar in the back.

Maybe the trucks back wheels hit the ground a bit too hard possibly making the bar bend. I don't know I'm not a Monster Truck expert like you Kev, just a prediction

1:03 The bar looks still straight and at 1:07 the bar is bent so i think it was the jump between that times

The third time you jumped, you land on the two left tires and back lands on last junk car. Loved it. Hope to see have fun with jumping your truck for a long time. Maybe you can compete with the Grave Digger.

I'd say the landing off the bus. As you came off you throttled it and it slammed the rear end bud 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

Somewhere around :50 it seems as though the debris that makes the ramp could have grabbed the bar when the front wheels go up in the air. Could have happened more than once since it's on the back side of the axle. Also if the tire pressure was low the rear sags as all the weight transfers and it goes up the ramp bringing the bar closer to the ground. Maybe need a skid plate protecting it. Hope this helps.

1:06 is my guess. Coming down a little sideways wouldn't be a big deal on dirt, but this was on pavement.

Id say the doughnut at the end tbh looked a bit stressed ...... But kevlar im not surprised u broke it its what you do man lol least its an easy fix jus gott see how 2 prevent it again maybe adjust ur rebound speed n dampening so it dnt bounce 2 much ....... But what do i kno lol

If you don't see any big scuffs where you hit something, then my guess is the locked diffs caused it. Going around corners, with locked diffs is going to have one tire spinning faster than the other. With all that horsepower and grip from those huge tires, the wheel being forced to spin faster might be trying to run away, causing a lot of force on your steering link. Just a hunch.

Looks like as you come down on throttle the rear end takes a heavy rebound. I’m sure that causes some give in the knuckles being on throttle. Some suspension tuning and a more forgiving surface to run on you probly won’t see that happen🤘🏻

If it'd bent from impact damage there'd be telltale signs on the powdercoat. I think it was more likely from landing heavily on one corner or landing with the brakes on which has tried to turn the wheels against each other. With the rear-steer locked on centre all the load will have gone through those steering arms. The same scenario on the front would just wrench the steering wheel round in your hands, taking the path of least resistance.

one bent bar, I'd call that a win, very nice truck, great 1st run, looking forward to more, thanks for posting

At 57 seconds you landed while braking. Rear end shuttered upon impact. You have racing tires with amazing grip on asphalt. That is easily enough force to bend the rod.

I honestly can't tell, I don't know enough about how the suspension set up works on that truck. I would concur with the idea that there is a lot of torque being exercised on all those parts, I guess the bar is the thing that gave a bit.

Maybe at 0:46 kinda looks like the weight of the bar was on the crush car when you jumped on top of them, I’m not sure lol. But hope u figure it out! Love the vids ❤️

This is just a though but you got the wider axle that in turn lengthen the steering bar increasing the leverage on the bar from the very wide tires add jumping and tricks to the mix with extremely powerful engine doing doughnuts etc. so get a thicker bar that means however clearances will come in. Oh yer you also upped the steering pressure too so something had to give guess that’s the weak link Kev.

Hello I run with a monster truck here in Michigan I'm part of the crew that helps repair it. Them bars always break or they'll bend in between runs it's just something that happens but we usually don't pay attention to it unless it gets really bad one thing we did was go to a larger bar and we weld it on quarter inch steel plate to all four corners of the rod like you would kind of do on an axle shaft to strengthen it up a little bit more another thing I noticed is maybe check your shock setup cuz what you're running could possibly maybe a little too stiff for the surfaces you are running on like pavement our tarmac and also from the video it looks like your tires are a little bit stiff try letting some air out of them allowing them to flex coming down cuz they're also part of the shocks themselves and also help the suspension flex and also absorb some of the impact. Possibly looking to like a coilover with a nitrogen filled shock. Or run dual coilovers all the way around like we do on one of our trucks that we mostly used for freestyles it isn't very good racing but the driver likes freestyle more so on his truck he likes to run dual coilovers all the way around and in freestyle usually want to run a pretty flexible suspension setup I hope this helps an watch videos or look up other monster trucks suspensions for the shocks setup. Are other truck during racing we run tube hydraulic-over-nitrogen bypass shocks. On another we use a coil over with nitrogen gas filled shock and another thing if you run a sway bar disconnect that before freestyle it's all up to you learning your truck and how you like it to run. It's a science so get ready for headaches an long time running tuning an gear setups tire pressure N suspension setups for how you like to drive.

Its bent @ 1:02 so whatever you did just before that then I would guess that would be it. Seems straight at @ 0:57 so either a wonky landing and it borked it on the landing or we can blame the squirrels again! Pesky things! Glad you had a great time and love watching the vids bud!

I'm thinking that because your rear tires weren't turning as tight as the front ones, you had to apply more torque to accomplish the burnouts, thus putting unusual pressure on the bar. I know less than nothing about the specs of a monster truck, but that seems to make sense to me, if that helps. I loved your run though. I can't wait to watch you build your skills. Good luck, mate!

Dadgum you were catching some massive air....your first professional monster truck run was amazing......oh wait, we were supposed to be helping you with something?? 🤣🤣

The jump at 1:06ish, the rear tires quiver a bit. That’s a bent steering shaft.

As what it seems it is bent downwards which meant that it recieved a huge force on both ends of the rod (upward forces). Relating to that and seeing the footage, it seems to appear that on the following lands: 00:39 and 00:50 , the back end of the truck slams hard down on the rear wheels causing huge upward forces on the ends of the rod. Seeing this would probably lead to a conclusion of a cumulative bending forces applied to the rod.

Bent or not, that was an amazing run for your first show brother!!! Boooooom…. Fix it!!!

You broke it when you tossed it in the back of the ol' Landy! "Wasted!"

Was thinking after 47 second in. You were doing a 50/50 grind across the cars. I'm guessing it came into contact with something rigid and hard. Your treat diff probably shows some signs. Maybe you'll find a gouge find from under the diff straight to the bent rear steer arm. You might want to make some sacrificial skid plates to protect the steering bar.

At 0:59 and 1:07 the wheels on the back resonate after taking a hit. The wheels and bar act as two masses with a spring in the middle (bouncing). I think you need to introduce flex and/or dampening in the direction of the bending. Those resonating forces are in this case very hi, as the resonation frequency is very hi.

KEV It was at 52 second mark! The rear hit HARD!

Definitely the jumps. understand how much force the rear of the truck takes every landing. it's actually double what the front takes. and repeated landings bend it more and more. easy fix and get kicking butt

Doing them donuts bent it you have your wheels turned then your giving it hell. That amount of force and pressure will surely bend some metal.

100% from the rear steering hitting the rear diff pumpkin at some point. Kev you'll probably have to put steering end stops inn. Weld steel block to the diff housing to stop the spindle from turning to far.

Need to inspect the bar closer for any nicks and scratches, will tell you a lot. If there's no impact marks on the bar, it could be landing on one wheel at the back rotated the wheel against the bar and bent it, like you see in RC cars with plastic links.

Since your a good welder ,I would straighten the steering arm in a press and then sleeve the entire length up to the tie rod ends with high grade steel tubing.I suspect it was a problem with the material and or design.

Looks like you proud of the sound of that engine, lol I am too,sounds great,but u need to go practice running ur monster truck and not hammer down when you on ur way down from jumping the cars,but when u hammer down on the jump, like on the way off the jump, u putting alot of stress on ur frame,and it's landing harder than it should, on cement and asphalt is where you bend your steering stablelizer bar from the two tires pulling against each other and can't give,

Take the diff locker out of the rear axel. every turn is putting compression on that bar. if the rear wheels can't run at different speeds then the wheels are trying to drive away from each other in the corners. this bar been on the back of the hubs is taking excess compression force just tring to keep the wheels parallel. you might get away with it more on dirt, but tarmac is grippy. There's no obviouse paint missing so this isn't impact damage

Rear steer tracking out maybe the torque of one wheel trying to catch up with the other during the donut.

A tip for the speed car. If you shorten the wires on every electronic you going to have less resistance. Nice video’s you are making keep it up.

So many things could have done this - odd ones no one really said... maybe something wrong with the rear steer hydraulic pump. like it's trying to self-center while you are turning or one pump is pushing back/holding while you turn. Tuning with too much load on one side

Kev you should buy a place in Utah. there is tones of dessert, the salt flats, and even a few monster truck shows! And also plenty of places to run speed cars! Don't get me started on places you can use rock crawlers. if you live on the Wasatch front you have an entire mountain to crawl around on and tones of actual trails to do it on too! There is also Tones of skate parks that you can bash your x maxx! Utah would be the perfect place for all your rc stuff!!!

Its hard to say for sure. But buss landing, it does slap the rear harder for some reason. Like somebody ells said. Rear seems less mushy? And an unlucky landing in kombo. But there is more happenings that also could have done it. Cheers and good luck Kev!

Possible weak faulty bar out of the box, from landing an odd angle or as a thought how was it transported and secured to the trailer I drive flat bed semi truck in America and if they chained or strapped over that pulling down or with a hard braking action possible. like you said no idea. Most important part is it looks like you had a lot of fun!

0:38 the rear wheels contact the bus however the driver side contacts first resulting in twisting the rear axle. Why? Because this is Kevin Talbot and we wouldn't expect anything less.

Hey Kev. No expert, just a random guess that someone else has probably made... Possible part of a car was sticking up in a way where it had enough resistance to bend... it's a big piece but I imagined a frame making a triangle as it crushed... maybe... totally a shot in the dark and would mean it was random and not your fault at all :) .. al the best mate!

The bus, when the axle hooked. Keep having fun kev!!

My bet is on 0:50. You landed on the fronts, yes, but that slammed the back into the ground, toward the right hand side, right where the bend is. You can see in the tyres and in how high the rear bounces that it was a hard hit. By 1:01 the bar is bent. You can just about see it in the video. You can also see it bent at 1:07.

The only thing I can see was when you went over the bus and your rear wheels clipped the roof of the bus. It looked like you were off of the throttle at that point which would mean the rear wheels were compression braking. The force of the wheels hitting the bus roof with a “braking force” could have flexed them backwards and bent the rod. Just attach a bunch of GoPro cameras to the truck and go crush some buses, for science of course.

0:52 The front wheels do come down first but the rear wheels have a long way to follow. Probably hitting the ground at 10m/s.

I think @0:53 the bar snags the cars, ripping something off one of the cars...that would be my guess. Cheers!

When you were crushing the car before the racing I think I see the rear axle getting screwed by the cars and I think rear axel was hitting the linkbar

I think it bent itself on the axle (diff), to much power (torque) with the slow pump. While doing doughnuts. Great videos!!!

maybe the g force from the donut while steering the rear put a lot of pressure on the steering rod , wider axel , custom wheels , can take effect in that area .

I think it was the last big jump at the end, it came down pretty hard on the rear on that one.... Like others have also said, weight and power transfer and transition could also be a culprit. You do have a lot of power.. Regardless, It was EPIC!!!!!

This was most likely an accumulative bend rather than bending off one hit. I’d suggest some reinforcement such as some triangular braces bridged across the length of the bar or a thicker wall tubing.

I've reviewed the footage: Monster trucks are insane, how is everything NOT bent? The weight, the bashing, I love it. I've always loved Monster Trucks growing up. I finally got a chance to go. They decided to use my city's hockey arena. The jumbo tron was in the way and the show was beyond disappointing. These clips had more action then I could see live!

I'm going to guess either the first hard hit in the back in the first few seconds of the freestyle where the bottom rear of the truck hit the car hard before clearing the bus OR that huge jump about half way through that landed slightly on the rear. Either way, order a new bar. You would have to heat high temp to fix and that would structurally weaken the metal.

1:03 you landed on your left sideand rocked back and forth, That seems to be the most logical place for it to have bent. There was also a heavy landing by the rear off the bus, that is a definite possibility

I think you bent it doing donuts with the rear steer turned. Those are big tires, thats alot of force on those tierods during a donut with the rear turned like that. i know thats a big bar but landing won't do much unless its turned or lands hard with a bias towards the outside of one wheel id think. I'm not expert just my two cents.

Hey Kevin! Hard to tell, but I would say it was caused by the series of landings throughout your bashing 😅 one thing I could advise is possible installing a camera and go have a little fun and see if you can see anything hitting it. Good luck mate!!

Maybe you used your rear steer and the tire got lots of grip therefore not turning then the hydraulic piston bent the bar due to the tire not moving Or the diff locker made it difficult to turn the tires therefore bending the bar?

Hey Kevin, the only oddity i observed in the video clip is a landing after a jump over well crushed cars, approx 57 seconds into this video. The Left rear wheel has a very odd wobble under power after the landing bounce? All in all, shes one tough truck, no worries Zippy

This is why they have several trucks not just one. The amount of force that everything is under is insane.

Definitely at 1:05! the one back wheels toed out and that will bend the link for sure!