We all at one time or another have blown the gears out of our servo. In many cases racers just go out and buy a new servo to stick in their car or truck. But why waste all that money when it is so easy to replace the gears? If you have an old servo laying around that needs to be fixed, just head on down to your local hobby shop and have them order a gear set for you and the next time you crunch the gears you'll have one ready to replace it with.

Here is what you need to do to replace those gears.

Each servo is a little different but you can follow the same general instructions given here. Just unscrew the 4 screws holding the case together. Some are located on top of the case, some on the bottom.

You may first want to apply a little tape to the bottom part of the servo to hold on the bottom of the case when you take it apart. If the bottom falls off while replacing the gears, it can be a real pain to get everything back into place properly.

Carefully remove the top of the servo taking note of how the gears meshed. In the above case of this Hitec 605BB servo, the main gear stayed attached to the case so I had to look closely at how the gears meshed.

Also note that the main gear (shown to the left of the servo) also has a tab on it. This tab fits into a slot on the case and it is very important when reassembling that this tab fit into the slot on the case.

After you take note of how all the gears mesh, remove the gears from the servo and remove any bearings from the gears that you may have.

Here are the new gears. In this case I am replacing the stock Hitec 605BB plastic gears with the metal gears from Hitec's 615MG servo. These gears are not only stronger, but also give the servo more torque because of the gear design.

In most cases you will be replacing your gears with the exact same gears that it was originally equipped with. Since this servo was going into my Nitro Quake I decided to upgrade them to a stronger gear set.

The metal gears cost about $20.00 and a whole new servo is about $80.00, quite a savings. The 615MG gear set fits right into the 605BB case with one small modification. If you plan on making this modification, then contact Hitec and have them send you the center gear shaft from the 615MG servo. This shaft is not included in the gear set and the 605BB shaft will not work. I made my own shaft from the shank of a 1/16 drill bit. I just used a Dremel tool to cut the shaft to the length I needed and it has worked fine.

You will want to take what grease you can from the old gears and spread them on the new gears. You can also take a small dab of white lithium grease to add to it, but do not put on too much as it will only gum up the works.

Here you see the new gears installed in the servo. The old plastic gears are in the upper left of the picture.

Note the small tab on the main gear. You must make sure this tab is in the proper position so it engages the slot in that case. Other servo types may have this tab located in other places, but all servos have this tab in one form or another to limit the servo's travel. If this is not positioned in the correct place you servo will not work properly.

You can also see that I installed the bearing in the case. This makes it much easier to put the case back together.

Now all you need to do is carefully put the top of the case on, tighten the screws holding it together and your servo will be as good as new. I suggest that you hook it up to your car or truck to make sure it is working properly before you put it away... no use being surprised when you want to use it and it doesn't work.

End of article. Your comments are welcome.