FJ with a V8!

[makaveliks]

No, No hood. I have plans... The aluminum is mostly .060". The transmission tunnel is .032". I will probably use more .032 before I'm done.

[makaveliks]

Bed's built! I made the floor from .071" so It's strong. The sides are .032" and then I used 3/16" aluminum tube for the top and bottom. It's all brazed together. I then cut out some holes for the shocks and hoops to fit through. I still need to make the inner wells for the shocks and build the tube for the fenders before paint. Those will be brazed on as well.

[makaveliks]

Bed's ready to go now. I built the shock mount covers and fenders, brazed it up, and painted it. It's propped up on the frame right now and doesn't quite look level. I still need to build mounts for it and the cab though. That's next!

[makaveliks]

Got the body mounted. I used aluminum spacers from an RC4WD screw kit and some long screws to bolt it down. Next I may work on electronics... We will see.

[crawlinghulls]

True Love - enough said








Awesome work

[adamargue]

Looks awesome man!

[makaveliks]

My wiring has been in work for 2 days now... I hate wiring. Yesterday me and a local crawling comrade(Elsewhere) managed to figure out the wiring for it and get it all working and running. Now I am working on cleaning everything up and getting things exactly where they need to be. I took the front end apart and got it back together... With wires in it! LOL

So here's a breakdown of the wiring plan.

1 3s lipo
this powers 3 things... 1) ESC, 2)BEC which powers RX, Servo, and winch, and 3) a RX controlled switch which turns on/off a Vanquish 3s lightbar and a BEC which powers an Axial Simple LED light controller for headlights, dash lights, and tail lights. Then all of these go into 4 channel RX: BEC goes in bind port, ESC(with red wire pulled) gioes in throttle channel, Servo goes in steering channel, winch controller goes in AUX 1 which used a 3 pos switch, and light switch(with red wire pulled) goes in AUX 2 which uses a 2 pos switch.

The first RX burned up. We did not have the red wire pulled from the RX controlled switch. I'm guessing it fed power back into RX which already had power and then gave it too much voltage? I don't know so I ordered another RX and I'm going to try again with the red wire pulled from the switch. Everything worked for a few minutes and then RX went unresponsive.


Today I have been cleaning it up. The headlight, servo, and winch wires feed in the motor where a v-8's fan would be. Then they go up to the intake and run right between the brushless motor wires. To try to keep this safe and prevent any kind of glitching or interference I sacrificed a 9" brushless sensor harness. I took it apart, carefully removing the shielding from the case in 3" sections, then wrapped the servo wires, winch wires, and headlight wires with the shielding and put heatshrink over this. Will this work? I don't know, but it's better than nothing and worth a try to keep my clean realistic look. I got my headlights in the buckets, a splitter to power the dash lights, servo wire lengthened a few inches to reach the RX location, winch wire lengthened, and the front end put back together. Tomorrow I'll clean up the cab a bit.


Looking better than before! Wires are hidden!




Here you can see where the wires go. I had to open up the wire hole on the intake a bit to fit the many wires through. They are pretty tight in there... Will have to see how that works when my new RX comes in.




Cab is a rats nest right now




And the wires run over the transmission and are well hidden underneath!

[MIKO]

I love the CAT yellow

Good job on those drivehafts and ARB covers. I especially love the way the cab is turning out and the fact that it's hand crafted out of aluminum!!

This baby is something to be proud of!

Now keep going

[makaveliks]

Got my wiring cleaned up a bit. Tested it out and everything works well. I think my gearing is a bit too tall... The transmission has a 10:1, transmission 1:1, axles are like 2.67:1 so my final drive ratio is 26.7:1. This 18.5T Novak does not give me smooth low speed control with this gear ratio. I ordered a 10T pinion to replace the 14T pinion on the motor. When it comes in I'll have to see if it will fit with this v-8/transmission. If so that should get me a little over SCX stock gearing. I did the math a few days ago and don't remember exactly now but it would be somewhere around 37.1:1. Should lower my wheel speed almost 30%. Hopefully that would be enough to keep this motor in it... I'm not looking forward to taking everything apart to change it. LOL.

[makaveliks]

Made a cover for the electronics. It is the seats. The diamond plate upper part will be detailed into a speaker box. Need music you can hear over the V-8!

[Zac_F71]

Bad ass build man!

[joe122]

Holy Crap this is so cool....excellent fab skills.

[makaveliks]

Didn't have much time over the past week and I wont for the next few weeks... But I got enough done to make a small update.

First I disassembled the truck which was no small feat. I then swapped the pinion. The original that comes with the RC4WD v-8 and transmission is 14T. Combined with my transfer case and these axles the truck had a final drive ratio of 26.7:1. The Novak Ballistic 18.5T was stuttering a bit at low speed and did not have good low speed control. I replaced the 14T with a 10T RC4WD hardened pinion. It was the smallest I could find. After this I put it back together and tested it out. It made my final drive around 37:1. Control was a bit better, but still not ideal. I think the 21.5T Ballistic would be a better match, but this will have to do.

Then I built a dash. The main part is styrene. This is painted yellow then I cut a glove box door and instrument cluster from some aluminum. I left cutouts for the aftermarket radio and instruments. Right now it's taped in place until I get these parts made and lights installed. I will still need to make knobs, switches, vents, pedals, speakers, shifters, windshield and seal, and cage before the cab is done.






Then I installed the brake lights. Kept it simple, drilled 2 holes, put in some axial led holders and stuck my bulbs in. I will either paint some lenses or see if I can find some red lenses to fit or make fit.

[crawlinghulls]

Looking great

[CODYBOY]

Originally Posted by makaveliks

Didn't have much time over the past week and I wont for the next few weeks... But I got enough done to make a small update.

First I disassembled the truck which was no small feat. I then swapped the pinion. The original that comes with the RC4WD v-8 and transmission is 14T. Combined with my transfer case and these axles the truck had a final drive ratio of 26.7:1. The Novak Ballistic 18.5T was stuttering a bit at low speed and did not have good low speed control. I replaced the 14T with a 10T RC4WD hardened pinion. It was the smallest I could find. After this I put it back together and tested it out. It made my final drive around 37:1. Control was a bit better, but still not ideal. I think the 21.5T Ballistic would be a better match, but this will have to do.

Then I built a dash. The main part is styrene. This is painted yellow then I cut a glove box door and instrument cluster from some aluminum. I left cutouts for the aftermarket radio and instruments. Right now it's taped in place until I get these parts made and lights installed. I will still need to make knobs, switches, vents, pedals, speakers, shifters, windshield and seal, and cage before the cab is done.






Then I installed the brake lights. Kept it simple, drilled 2 holes, put in some axial led holders and stuck my bulbs in. I will either paint some lenses or see if I can find some red lenses to fit or make fit.

Looking good, can't wait to see finished product.

[makaveliks]

For the dash I took some clear plastic packaging and epoxied some paper gauges behind them. They don't look perfect, but it's the best way I could think of to do it. I may go back over the outside with them turned on and paint over the black areas to help sharpen it up. I don't know yet. I'll get used to and think of ideas and maybe just leave it. The lighting is uneven right now because the glue behind it is still drying. When wet it's white. When dry it's clear. To light them up I made some paper tubes by rolling up small bits of paper a few times and slid the led into this with a dab of glue. The bulb illuminates the tube like a fluorescent light(and dims the bright led) and then I glued this tube behind the printed gauges and Alpine radio.

[makaveliks]

I had a few hours and I did some interior work. I made some switches, knobs, vents, the steering column, and even a set of keys! There not even glued in. Nice snug fit!

[makaveliks]

Today I started by giving this some attitude. I finished up with some protection.

First I made the zoomies! I went with some generic looking ones installed upside down on the wrong side. Normally they would come out behind the front tires, but they would get hung up on the rocks down there! I made the flanges to mount them first from .032" aluminum. Then I bent up 3/16" solid aluminum rod. I drilled out the tips to look like tube(still need to paint insides black) and drilled out the side that mounts to flanges for a tiny screw. I then screwed the rod to the flange, and then bolted this to the motor. The screw that mounts the tube to the flange fits nicely in the exhaust ports of the motor. I made the driver's side second, and I don't know but I had a hard time with them. They do not fit as nicely either. I made each one about 3 times as I went to. Passenger side was first try perfect fit! LOL. The driver's side is a little long too, I'll have to trim them down and re-drill the tips again. Didn't notice until pictures.

I also began making some protection. It's 3/16" solid rod. The frame was drilled and tube pressed and jbwelded into place. I need to make tubes to connect these 2 front bars, then I will finish detailing motor, front fenders, interior, and then do the exo cage for the cab.

[adamargue]

Amazing work man. Love the color

[makaveliks]

Did a bit more this morning. I finished up the stinger, trimmed and redrilled the driver's side zoomies, and made the radiator/fan shroud/servo cover.

To finish the stinger I was afraid that drilling the main rods and tapping for an M2.5 set screw would weaken them too much. So I drilled about a half inch deep with a 1/6" drill bit. I then assembled the the parts with jb weld and used a 1/16" galvanized steel rod into all the holes to also pin them into place. Will this work? Beats me. Works on my table! Only time will tell out in the wild!




Then for the upper rod, I bent it into shape and then "machined" the ends
to 9/64" and drilled the upper tube to match. I then pressed it in with jb weld. I'm putting a lot of faith in JB weld, but seeing how nice this is looking I don't think I'll get horrible rough with it.




Next I did the radiator from styrene strips and built the rest of the assembly around this. Once built I painted it up and stuck it on!