Some frakensteined trucks I’ve cobbled together have been great while most of them have been dogshit- like the venture baseplate and kingpin with Bam Destructro hanger for my back truck. The hanger was Hi and as it was back hanger that I was replacing, my board resembled a drag racer.
My usual truck set up (current and for the last 7 years or so) has been:
Thunder 149’s
Immediately replace the bushings with Bones medium- I swear by these and for years would categorically not even consider riding anything else. However as others mentioned here they do seem to blow out, or rather blow
in, in that the yellow plastic gets impacted into the main piece after a few months of skating.
If the Thunder’s I buy don’t come with a hollow kingpin I will replace the Kingpin with a hollow one.
Whether my switch to medium bushings, wider trucks and increased looseness directly contributed to my progression in skating I do not know but that’s the way it is in my head. Possibly because that time period I came to this truck setup was also a time in which I was skating for hours every day without fail and thus I got better at it.
Anyway I’m currently riding 149 thunder hollow kingpins (no hollow axle
are they still a thing in thunder trucks?) Chris Miller model that seems to be low as, with an 8inch Armanto Birdhouse. The wheels don’t stick out that much but it’s defo strange when I step in someone else’s deck and I can’t even glimpse the wheels.