My dad told me to use super glue on a broken RC car gear. It worked for about 8 seconds.

Last month I found a beat up RC car at a garage sale for $3. The drive gear had a crack right through the middle. My dad said just put super glue in the crack and let it sit. I did that, waited 2 hours for it to cure, then hit the throttle. The gear snapped clean in half after maybe 8 seconds of driving. Turns out super glue can't handle that kind of torque. I ended up ordering a replacement gear set for $7 online and it took about 20 minutes to swap out. Anyone else got a quick fix that completely failed on a toy?

2 comments

2 Comments

leoyoung1d agoMost Upvoted

Laughed out loud when I read "8 seconds." That's honestly a better run than I expected from super glue on a gear. Super glue is great for fixing your fingers together by accident but absolute garbage for anything that actually moves. I've definitely been there with the whole "this cheap fix will totally work" mindset then watching it explode in my face. At least you only wasted a couple hours instead of buying a whole new car.

the_beth1d ago

...honestly, is an 8 second run on a broken gear really something to get worked up about? I mean, you got a $3 car and had to spend maybe $10 total to get it running again. That's not bad at all. Super glue is for gluing your model airplane wings back on or fixing a loose button, not for parts that spin and grind against each other. You learned a cheap lesson and now you know how to swap a gear out. The only thing that failed here was the expectation that a drop of glue could fix torque stress.