My first built: The Fall Guy

[rcjeepbuilder]

It looks great and the axles are perfect so are the tires!

[fxman]

Mini update, have to take more pics. Have finished the front grille, inner fenders installed and tail lights added (the glass is from a tamiya ford f350 lens kit I think). Filed them down and painted them.

I finally sanded the body and primed it. Can't wait to spray some champagne and brown on it! Oddly it is raining hard in west Texas for days, so I rather wait with it until it is nice and dry again. Shouldn't take long here

[fxman]

Finally had the patience to strip some steelies in order to really have some steelies. 1.55 ones!

[fxman]

Let the detailing begin!



Jody can't wait!

[fxman]

And Evel Knievel aka Colt Seavers likes his new license plate! But... Where are my taillights and my GMC badge!?

[fxman]

Finally running and crawling is actually okay for the narrow axles. Need to see how it does outdoors...
Lights are working and if I wasn't colorblind I would have put white ones in the front instea d of red - lol.







And maybe someone is interested what it looks like under the hood. Still have to do the front grill and tailgate. An of course an interior for Colt, Jody and if I find a doll: the ever studying Howie!

[nigelpheron]

Really cool build.

[o0wiz0o]

Awesome!

[fxman]

I was asked by scalecrawler18 how I build my axles in detail. So I tried to give as many details to end with an axle width that lets your wheels tuck in nicely under a Clod buster body and anything wider (and the Clodbuster body is very narrow!).

Finding the right width axles took me as a newbeee forever since I wasn't familiar with any of the sizes in the beginning!

First I tried TLT axles, because everybody was saying they were the narrowest on the market. They are not. In fact, in the end they were just a tad shorter than axials. Didn’t narrow the width enough for the clod body at all.

I finally took LOSI MRC axles (the Vaterra Slickrock ones are exactly the same by the way!). They are narrow. Very narrow. Tooooo narrow! And, they seemed flimsy for my custom build which I wanted to drive too.
For one thing, everything on the MRC axles is smaller. The shafts are smaller, so you cannot hook up a strong drive shaft right away. The wheel axles have tiny pins which would have too much slack on the hexes I wanted to use. And they are too short for my wheelbase. And, last but not least, the link attachments were too small and too close to the center - your shocks would be on the inside of the chassis frame.

I still had the TLT axles and messed around with them, finding out, that their axles acually fit into the MRC C hubs lengthwise and would give me the right wheelbase.
But they created a new problem: They are slightly thicker and wouldn’t fit the ball bearings of the MRC which were smaller.
At that time I just had bought the Gmade sawback which was sitting unassembled on the shelf. But it came with ball bearings that did fit perfectly! I ordered two packages of these in the bay:
Team Durango Ball Bearing 5x8x3mm (4) TD601022

So I had working axles - and finally the width I wanted. They still weren’t attached to the chassis though. I cut off the original mounts of the housings and ordered some MRC shock/link mounts from DLUX. And I needed a drive shaft, that would attach to the tiny diffs. The original MRC shafts are way too short. So, I got me some traxxas plastic drive shafts and Traxxas differential output yokes which have a smaller mounting diameter than for example the axial ones. I have to mention, that I run a MRC tranny too! Otherwise you would have to build your driveshafts with one end being 5mm and the other 4mm output, which is a pain and very costly (there is a solution with this: MIP online sells these driveshafts: MIP Spline CVD™ Center Drive Kit, Axial SCX10 #10145. This would mount to a axial tranny. For the axle end you would have to get smaller CVD hubs. They sell one for Losi Mini RC, part #09103).
By the way: If I want 2 or 3mm more axle width now, I only need to change the hex adapters - thats it :-)

I was afraid, that a bigger motor and bigger tranny wuld put too much stress on the small axles - and they did. Stripped the gears on the first run… So, to add more strength, I changed the knuckles and hubs to aluminum and all the diff parts to metal. The original Losi MRC motor was very slow. Worked fine, but no whellspeed at all. For my Fall Guy build I got me a Losi RX280 Motor which is a lot faster now.

Here are some pics - sorry for the quality, just used my phone:

Here you can see the DLUX link mounts (and the shaved MRC housings). Also the aluminum upgrades for more strength:




Notice the Traxxas shaft and yoke - they have to be smaller than on regular axial axles. On this picture you might spot some spacers behind the wheel, that you actually do not need when you use hex mounts that have a clamp screw and don’t move at all:




For size comparison: TLT axle stub (mounted) - See the position of the pin? That`s the five millimeter missing! And in front the original (much smaller) MRC axle:




And in this picture you see how everything lines up: the shocks are further out where they belong, mounted to the DLUX mount on the bottom. The steering radius turned out to be very good. If I used thicker shocks they would have rubbed on the wheels I guess. Still need a metal steering link!




Thanks for reading. Hope that was helpful for anybody

[Yotapane]

Very nice build, love the grille and how you were able to beef up the mrc axles.. I have a spare set of mrc axles from my kiddos 55 cameo build I may experiment with, good job

My wife's actually in Lubbock this week so if you feel like the fall guy rig needs a new home feel free to hit me up hahaha

[fxman]

Thanks for the thumbs up Yotapane!

What do I have to look for in town? A Hilux or FJ? I am afraid your wife will come home empty handed though - I am still working on this one for a while!
Needs interior for my passengers! And finally a better bull bar! I have just no chance to weld or work with the steel rods with appropriate diameter....

[obijuan]

Good job on the build, I am certainly a fan of the truck. Watch out for the wind in Lubbock, when it stops blowing I expect everyone to fall down. Our tornadoes will blow the tattoo right off of your arm. Welcome to Texas by the way.


Your English is excellent. When I was in Germany visiting, my German was awful but the Germans spoke excellent English. My understanding is that it is taught early in school in Germany. I wish we had similar curriculum here in the states.

[fxman]

Originally Posted by obijuan

Good job on the build, I am certainly a fan of the truck. Watch out for the wind in Lubbock, when it stops blowing I expect everyone to fall down. Our tornadoes will blow the tattoo right off of your arm. Welcome to Texas by the way.


Your English is excellent. When I was in Germany visiting, my German was awful but the Germans spoke excellent English. My understanding is that it is taught early in school in Germany. I wish we had similar curriculum here in the states.

Thanks man - I heard that Lee Majors lived in Texas for a while! I loved that show. And thank you for giving me kudos on my english. When I arrived in Texas the first time, I thought my school english would get me anywhere. Then I tried to talk to someone .... even weeks later I wouldn't understand a "thang". Too me quite a while to get used to the draw.
Today I got used to it - and yes, the wind too. I am from northern Germany, there is always a good breeze too - mostly mixed with rain though (instead of dirt Where did you go in Germany?

[obijuan]

I visited family in wiesbaden. My wife's family immigrated several generations ago to New Braunfels, Texas following prince Solms. We live 15 minutes away from New Braunfels. Didn't travel too far in 100 years.

[fxman]

Originally Posted by obijuan

I visited family in wiesbaden. My wife's family immigrated several generations ago to New Braunfels, Texas following prince Solms. We live 15 minutes away from New Braunfels. Didn't travel too far in 100 years.

Nice down there! Wiesbaden just like New Braunfels. I went to a Serengeti Park down there once And Fredericksburg is always worth a stop on our way over to Austin or San Antonio. We might move there in two years when our daughter is out of high school.

[hotwheels000]

Very nice job on the clod I have an original 80's unmolested 1 paint job clod I am wanting to do the same thing to. I even have the same tire wheel combo you have waiting to be used.

I have a question and may have missed it in the build...What shocks are you using ?

[fxman]

hotwheels000:

Thank you - I used the RC4WD ultimate scale shocks - 80mm.
If I come across some 90mm ones I will start looking for tires that are 1.55 but somehow "balloonier" if you know what I mean. But I went through tons of pics and episodes of the show. They changed the truck over and over again. There simply is no Fall Guy truck... the rear is always different, the wheels are and so is the bull bar in the front. Never noticed it back then, when it jumped over a fence or pile of cars...

And now that I have more experience with the MRC axles, I am planning to get me yet another Clodbody and do a stock ride height farm truck with super narrow axles... I love the body. Found a guy in the "bay" that does several different front grilles (like GMC, Chevy, different model years - even the round headlines!

I need to follow your build then! Let me know when you have more questions

[Derek Larsen]

Never realized this much work went into "scaling" a clod body. I vaguely remember the show, I was more into Airwolf and Mission Impossible.

[fxman]

Redid the entire chassis and changed to an scx10 frame because I wanted an empty cockpit and run a larger transmission and drivetrain. Fits good now. Continued detailing here an there with some contemporary stickers
There is not much room under the hood, I can tell you that. In fact, I squeezed my tekin in there and must have bent the capacitor ... There was a good explosion with scale smoke after a while as I I blew my head gasket... Argh.
Anyhow, steering was bad so I tried to build a panhard system for the MRC axle. Gets even more crowded here with the bigger shock mounts and links. I even want to get some delrin leafs in there .... As Jeremy says: How hard can it be!?

[Hammer!]

love the whole truck, but especially the wheel/tire combo! cool rig!