Hey all! I know this isn’t a full DIY build, but I’ve been really happy with it and figured I’d share.
So I own a Backfire Zealot. It has been a phenomenal board, but at around 2k miles, its deck cracked. Probably from me riding it off of one too many curbs. All its electronics (which are all original) were still totally fine, so I figured a deck swap was in order. I looked around and did my due diligence, and I ended up deciding on the Loaded Dervish Sama. Here’s how the build went:
To line up the holes, I just put the enclosures against the deck and ran the drill through its existing screw holes. I also used a countersink to widen out the top of the holes so I could make the wood inserts as flush as possible with the deck. I reused the wood inserts from the Zealot’s original deck, all I had to do was remove the griptape and unscrew them with a hex key, and then screw then into the new holes.
The Zealot has these sheets of rubber that go between the deck and the enclosure so the enclosures don’t rattle. I elected to reuse them. I used a heat gun to loosen up the adhesive and peeled them off. I was only able to reuse the one from the battery enclosure, because the rubber around the ESC enclosure had been torn for hundreds of miles and was in desperate need of replacement. So to remedy that, me and my mom used the ESC enclosure as a pattern, and cut out a new piece from a sheet of rubber we had laying around.
I also reused the original enclosure screws and washers from the Zealot. If I’m reusing the wood inserts that they screw into, I might as well use them as well.
One of my dad’s hobbies was building PCs, so he left behind lots of cable management sleeves and heat shrink. I used some braided PC cable management sleeving to protect the inter-enclosure wires, and I heat shrunk the ends of it to prevent them from fraying. It’s held up great and has definitely done its intended job.
I used my dad’s decades-old Craftsman router to cut channels to get the wires out from under the enclosures. This is one of the few tools that he hadn’t taught me how to use before he passed, so I tested it out on some scrap wood first so I could learn how to use it. Ended up being the perfect tool for the job!
Definitely not the cleanest channel ever, but it’s long and deep enough to get the wire out from under the enclosure without pinching it. I didn’t want to route a channel across the whole deck because I wanted to preserve its structural integrity as much as possible, so I opted to cut it up as little as I could get away with. My Zealot’s original deck had cracked at the wire channel, so I figured I’d just route the wire externally on this build.
The view from the top of the finished board! I actually really like the visible wood inserts, I think it gives it a cool, industrial kind of look.
I used cable clamps that are normally for routing wires along walls in houses. Usually used for speaker cables. I took some shorter nails and nailed em into the deck to hold the inter-enclosure cable in place. They’ve worked great, and they’re wide & tall enough that the cable isn’t pinched and can still move freely when the deck flexes.
I love this thing! It skates beautifully.
Other modifications I did:
-
Swapped the rear truck baseplate for a Paris v2 baseplate. The hole that the pivot cup goes in seems to have been milled too wide during manufacturing, so the pivot cup wobbled around quite a bit. That introduced a lot of slop & instability in the rear truck. I would’ve used a Caliber II baseplate, but I had a Paris laying around so I threw it on.
-
Orangatang Nipples bushings. I used two orange (soft) nipples in the front, and in the rear I put the zealot’s original, hard duro bushing boardside and a purple (medium) nipple roadside. Retains stability while still being carvy
-
Anti-sink plates. I had to top mount the trucks on the Dervish so the enclosures would have enough clearance, so I elected to put some anti-sink plates on the top to reinforce the drop-through holes.
-
Zealous steel bearings. The zealot’s original bearings had well over a thousand miles on them, so it was time to replace them. Zealous steel are dirt cheap and last forever.
-
Riptide 95A Caliber II pivot cup on the front truck. I have another one, but for the time being I can’t put the other one in the rear baseplate because of the aforementioned Paris v2 baseplate. I eventually want to pick up a Caliber II baseplate, but it’s damn near impossible to buy a single Caliber II baseplate. Trucks are usually sold in pairs, and even when sold individually it is real tough to find just the baseplate.
-
1/8 inch rubber riser pads for adequate clearance
-
Cheap generic deck guards off amazon
I’m super happy with how this build turned out! Zealot electronics are rock solid. I eventually want to replace the stock Backfire wheels, but I haven’t decided what wheels I want to use. The remote shows your current speed, mileage, etc., but it only gives you a couple options for the wheel diameter. So if I get wheels of a diameter not in the remote options, my telemetry won’t be accurate, which would annoy me to no end. Also considering modding the remote by replacing its stock battery with a larger one so I won’t need to charge it as often. Overall though, I love this thing! Skates like an absolute dream.
As far as I can tell the cells from that pack are all still good or at least were good before going into storage.