How to spend your holidays...

[trainer]

Well, since my my mother-in-law was visiting us over the holidays and helping out by babysitting etc, I knew I had some time to spend in the garage between meals, presents and new years fireworks... thanks also to the wife for understanding.

I had drooled over all the scale builds here and at scale4x4, and realized that after upgrading most of my AX crawlers powerline, I already had enough spare parts to try and build my first scaler. I had a HPI Bronco body lying around that I painted for the AX10 crawler, but quickly abandoned it because it was just rubbing too much and went back to the Betty body (and then to the Pro Line spyder). Unfortunately for this scale build, I did cut open the fender wells a bit to gain more wheel clearance.

So, with the help from Kevin at TCS , I got an early x-mas gift in the shape of x-trail frame rails, ax tranny, HPI wheels and RC4WD rock stompers along with some misc items.

Since the build was a straight forward copy of several other great x-trail builds I did not take any build photos.

Heres the finished product:





I was missing a steering link so I made one up to look like a steering stabilizer.



The winch is from a Wild Willy and the hook is filed down from a metal cable connector.

I also experimented with making my own decals. Plates were made at http://www.acme.com/licensemaker/



I used an old JR metal gear servo to power the winch through the WW one, it uses braided dyneema fishing line. Since the WW winch is actually modeled after a Ramsey winch I might still redo the decal and hook strap, there just was not enough space for a Ramsey logo.



Since I dont have the tools to braze, I used a Savage bumper and filled the screw holes.



It also has LEDs front and back. In the front they are housed in light buckets taken from an old Tamiya Lancia rally car. I still have the extra 4 lights from the Lancia hood, once I figure what to use for bucket housings I will fab some extra lights on the bumper. On the back there are just some red LEDs sanded flat and housed on LED holders painted red.



Still have some scale items to finish and add. Then I have to decide if the look on the body is ok or do the missing wheel flare corners bother me too much. As it is I'm not too careful how to wheel it...

[kasper]

Very nice looking i want a trail rig just have to many projects to finish before motorcycle season starts but i just might find time.

[pantablo]

nice, simple build. you might find the battery in back will slightly hinder your hillclimbing though.

[Ryanbored]

Very tidy servo install in the front. I have the same chassis and was wondering how to do it... Have you fabbed up all the mounting parts yourself?

[trainer]

Originally Posted by pantablo

nice, simple build. you might find the battery in back will slightly hinder your hillclimbing though.

Thanks, I appreciate it coming from you. About the battery, I'm using the 7 cell 2/3 saddle packs left over from my AX10 when I went lipo. I just reconfigured them to stick packs. I was originally going for an opposite installation for the electronics and battery, but realised that the batteries are not too heavy. I also got a cleaner setup like this... We'll see how it handles the hills, I can allways help with the winch.

Originally Posted by Ryanbored

Very tidy servo install in the front. I have the same chassis and was wondering how to do it... Have you fabbed up all the mounting parts yourself?

Here is 1BJB's thread how to do it. I also used the Axial servo posts to install the servo. All the other brackets in my pics are for the winch and winch servo.

Funny thing, just today I burned my Hitec 645MG on the Bronco driving on some rocks. The servo was in my AX10 before I upgraded to a 5955 and never had any problems with the 645. Maybe the bigger 2.2 tires were more forgiving than the 1.9..?

Had my first shot at styrene today. Modded the Wild Willy extinguisher/NOS bottle and made the obligatory Hi Lift jack from scratch.