RCCrawler Forums

SpeedyDad · 09-27-2009, 05:33 PM

I've been hobbled for a couple months after ankle surgery. During that time, I needed a sanity project to keep me from going nuts. so I picked up a Losi MRC and some Wild Willy 2 parts and merged them. I have an original Wild Willy and a Wild Willy 2 and wanted a crawler version also.

I pretty much kept the electronics and driveline from the MRC and tossed the rest in a box.

Chassis - I used the siderails of a Wild Willy 2 chassis to give it a more scale look and milled everything else from delrin blocks. The entire front including the electronics mount area, front frame, and shock mounts was milled from one single big block. The chassis is narrower than it was on a WW2 though to clear the tires as they flex. I did dump the factory MRC servo and made the front chassis to hold a fullsized Hitec servo. I think the only part of the original chassis I used was part of the upper tray to get the battery mount.

Drivetrain - My goal was to use the complete drivetrain from the MRC with the tranny mounted in the rear where the gastank on the body is. To get the power to the axles and not have to cut the body, I bought and was going to use a RC4WD Killer Tcase to transfer the power. The tcase sure did allow the body to sit low enough but the outputs made it too wide front to back and the driveshaft angles were way too steep. That killed that idea. I ended up recessing the skidplate a bunch to allow the MRC tranny to sit low enough so that minimal body cutting would be necessary. The driveshafts are stock units cut shorter.

Suspension - The suspension is mostly handmade. I reduced the wheelbase of the MRC by about an inch to match the body so none of the stock links would work. The new ones are made from delrin rod. The lower links mount in the custom center skidplate while the upper links are fitted to custom mounts I made to fit in the WW2 chassis rails. The upper link axle mounts are 2mm carbon fiber. I cut down the plate mount stubs on the MRC axle housings to lower the link plate on the housings. For now, I am using the stock shocks but the springs are way too soft for the heavy body. I don't think the stiffer springs will be much better. I want to get some RCBros MRC shocks but they only seem to have one set of the ones I want so I'll have to wait until they get more.

The Body - My goal was to keep most of the stock detail with just a few changes. I took the Wild Willy 2 body and shaved the ugly bumps off the hood and filled the body mount holes. I also comp cut the rear corners. I was going to make a custom comp style roll cage for it but after sitting and looking at it I decided to keep the original look of the factory roll bar. I kept most of the details of the original body but bolted up one of the original MRC tires as a spare instead of the plastic fake one. I was going to get an extra Flatiron to mount back there but it would have been too large. I do plan on getting another Axial beadlock and painting it to match the others. I hate the Wld Willy 2 grill and had a spare original Wild Willy grill laying around so I used that instead. I also have an original Wild Willy windshield frame to give it a more scale look but I don't have the metal side mounts for it. Once I find some, I'll switch to that one. The existing WW2 one just bolts on to the cage and doesn't look quite right just floating there.
Like I said above, I originally was going to use an RC4WD Killer transfer case but the driveshaft angles were way too steep so I had to mod the body to fit over the tranny. It actually came out pretty good I think.

Tires and Wheels - With the stock MRC tires and wheels the axle width was OK. Things rubbed a little but not bad. They really didn't look right though so I got some Axial 1.9 beadlocks and Proline Flatiron tires. I painted the wheels to match the body. The wheel offset was different though and the tires were wider. Now the axles were too narrow and the tires rubbed on everything. I got a set of the Gmade wideners and now it looks perfect. I thought about using 1.55 wheels and tires but couldn't find a beadlock that used a hex pattern. The RC4WD steel ones are real nice and would have looked great but they mount directly to the axle pins without hexes and would have, like the Axial wheels, made the whole thing too narrow with lots of rubbing.

Huge thanks to RPP Hobby and The Crawler Store for getting parts to me so quickly to keep the project going.

The project was a fun challenge for sure. To get that short of a wheelbase to work and flex properly took several tries. That and fitting everything under the mostly stock body tried my patience at times. It was worth it though.

I've driven it a bit around the house (the pics are poser shots) and it drives great and flexes like crazy but, as mentioned above, the shock springs are way too soft so the body wants to lean a lot.

On to the pics....

The three Willys together

jeepjames87 · 09-27-2009, 05:37 PM

That's Cool, Never thought to see a crawler version!

MaxxPain · 09-27-2009, 05:51 PM

Wow,, very cool. Nice work on making all that work. Sound like you put allot of effort into that. It looks bad ass too. Any video to come? Hope your ankle is recovering nicely..

SpeedyDad · 09-27-2009, 05:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaxxPain

Wow,, very cool. Nice work on making all that work. Sound like you put allot of effort into that. It looks bad ass too. Any video to come? Hope your ankle is recovering nicely..

Thanks. I can't hit the trails quite yet because of the ankle and the shocks really make it flop around. I'll try to get a vid once those issues are fixed.

51WillysJeep · 09-27-2009, 07:12 PM

This little rig is totally BAD-ASS..!!!!

I LOVE it, I think I just found the next truck I'd like to build..!

Awesome job making it all come together the way you did. It looks Killer..!

RPP Hobby · 09-27-2009, 07:35 PM

Thats and awesome rig

SpeedyDad · 09-27-2009, 07:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 51WillysJeep

This little rig is totally BAD-ASS..!!!!

I LOVE it, I think I just found the next truck I'd like to build..!

Awesome job making it all come together the way you did. It looks Killer..!

Wow! Coming from you, that is a great compliment. Thanks! I've followed your build threads and they are incredible.

I was going to do this as a build thread but wasn't sure if I could get the thing going being that short and make it look good.

51WillysJeep · 09-27-2009, 07:52 PM

Well Dude, you did an incredible job on this truck and you should be Dam proud of it..!!

Oh, and IF you ever decide to sell it, I CALL first Dibbs now, because I WANT it...

wheelinjp · 09-27-2009, 08:19 PM

that looks awesome. what is the width and wheelbase of the wild willy? I built an mrc based flatty and after looking at yours I know the push toy I started with is a copy of the wild willy body. mine was 7.5in w/b so I comp cut it. I have a build thread in the losi mrc section. Lil Joe my mrc scaler 1/10th scale jeep
here is how the body comes from the package

eddievedder · 09-27-2009, 08:53 PM

AWESOME little rig. You did a great job on it. You really pulled off something that is pretty difficult and you made it look great too! I like the vintage ones in the pic also!

Great work my friend!

You NEED to post it here www.rcjeeps.com

SpeedyDad · 09-27-2009, 09:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wheelinjp

that looks awesome. what is the width and wheelbase of the wild willy? I built an mrc based flatty and after looking at yours I know the push toy I started with is a copy of the wild willy body. mine was 7.5in w/b so I comp cut it. I have a build thread in the losi mrc section.

The WB of the Wild Willy body is ~6.25". The width is just under 5.75". I pushed the WB of mine to 7.25". The MRC has a WB of 8.5 so I guess I nipped 1.25" off the MRC WB.

I want these axles under it if they ever do produce them
http://www.rccrawler.com/forum/showthread.php?t=171502

SpeedyDad · 09-27-2009, 09:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eddievedder

You NEED to post it here www.rcjeeps.com

I didn't know that place existed. Done.

SpeedyDad · 09-27-2009, 10:16 PM

To show how short this rig is, here is it next to my stretched CR-01 TJ

another shot I liked

My next project?? (can you tell I like Jeeps?)

rckjeep · 09-28-2009, 12:54 AM

I am so doing that to my MRC and my WWII. Wish I had the CJ grill instead of the MUTT grille, oh well.

66sprint6 · 09-28-2009, 02:09 PM

With such a short wheelbase, how well does it crawl? Ide love to see it in action, looks like you have quite a collection goin!!!
Matt

DonsATV · 09-28-2009, 02:29 PM

Looks friggin awesome!!!

Lets see a pic of it next to the Gi Joe Jeep.

SpeedyDad · 09-28-2009, 06:48 PM

Here's a quick yard wheeling video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ObjAtWhjhY

After watching the vid, I need to work on the frontend a little. It looks like my front tires don't flex much. What it is is a droop issue combined with the body flop issue. My front droop is limited because of how I mounted the front of the lower links. I have new ends to help that. That plus the weak shock springs allow the body and chassis to flop too much. This keeps the front tires from staying planted.

Update: I found that the RCBros shocks I was waiting for are the Yeah Racing 70mm shocks. TCS has them in stock so the shocks are ordered.

SpeedyDad · 10-06-2009, 12:08 AM

Quick update.

I got the Yeah Racing shocks. They really helped with the body roll. The front end seemed a bit too stiff with them on even with the supplied silver soft springs. I swapped them out with Team Associated black front buggy springs and used 35w oil in the front. Much better. In the rear, I upped the springs to the supplied blue medium springs and used 50w oil. This seems to have balanced out the suspension a bit better. We have the state championship RC offroad race this weekend and I'll be racing so no real on the rocks testing. I'll try to get that next weekend.

Pics
The upper front shock bolted right up to the current tower.

For the bottom, I wanted to angle them out a bit so I fabbed this bracket on my will. It also goes down and attaches to the factory lower shock mount.

The rears mounted right up

Some people wanted some more detailed shots of some of the chassis work so here it is. The Delrin looks purple in the pics because it is white delrin dyed black. I like working with white delrin because I can draw out the plan on it to make it easier to see on the mill. It is more black than the pics make it look.

The rear body mounts and chassis crossmember. I glued 3mm inserts in to the body mounts for the body mounting screws. The MRC battery tray was cut and fitted to secure the battery.

You can kind of see the upper link mounts

Front end.

Extremely short front driveshaft.

Center skidplate. It looks pretty thick and it is where the arms mount but it is only 1/16" thick where the tranny mounts.

Volker-P · 10-06-2009, 03:40 AM

...cool, I like these Willys to, and your crawler is great. I´ve seen another interesting Willys in our german forum, a 6x6

: http://www.rc-monster-trucks.de/incl...threadid=21891

greetz,
Volker

JKJim · 10-06-2009, 07:58 AM

Nice work on that rig, glad you fixed the body to make it look like the original M38. Those Losi axles look just right, was thinking of using them on my YJ build. You can never have too many Jeeps, I have a JK, TJ, YJ, and large Willy's MB build planned and I'm working on a a '05 Grand Cherokee WK build now.

09-27-2009, 05:33 PM	#1
SpeedyDad Pebble Pounder Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Chandler, AZ Posts: 165	Wild Willy goes crawling I've been hobbled for a couple months after ankle surgery. During that time, I needed a sanity project to keep me from going nuts. so I picked up a Losi MRC and some Wild Willy 2 parts and merged them. I have an original Wild Willy and a Wild Willy 2 and wanted a crawler version also. I pretty much kept the electronics and driveline from the MRC and tossed the rest in a box. Chassis - I used the siderails of a Wild Willy 2 chassis to give it a more scale look and milled everything else from delrin blocks. The entire front including the electronics mount area, front frame, and shock mounts was milled from one single big block. The chassis is narrower than it was on a WW2 though to clear the tires as they flex. I did dump the factory MRC servo and made the front chassis to hold a fullsized Hitec servo. I think the only part of the original chassis I used was part of the upper tray to get the battery mount. Drivetrain - My goal was to use the complete drivetrain from the MRC with the tranny mounted in the rear where the gastank on the body is. To get the power to the axles and not have to cut the body, I bought and was going to use a RC4WD Killer Tcase to transfer the power. The tcase sure did allow the body to sit low enough but the outputs made it too wide front to back and the driveshaft angles were way too steep. That killed that idea. I ended up recessing the skidplate a bunch to allow the MRC tranny to sit low enough so that minimal body cutting would be necessary. The driveshafts are stock units cut shorter. Suspension - The suspension is mostly handmade. I reduced the wheelbase of the MRC by about an inch to match the body so none of the stock links would work. The new ones are made from delrin rod. The lower links mount in the custom center skidplate while the upper links are fitted to custom mounts I made to fit in the WW2 chassis rails. The upper link axle mounts are 2mm carbon fiber. I cut down the plate mount stubs on the MRC axle housings to lower the link plate on the housings. For now, I am using the stock shocks but the springs are way too soft for the heavy body. I don't think the stiffer springs will be much better. I want to get some RCBros MRC shocks but they only seem to have one set of the ones I want so I'll have to wait until they get more. The Body - My goal was to keep most of the stock detail with just a few changes. I took the Wild Willy 2 body and shaved the ugly bumps off the hood and filled the body mount holes. I also comp cut the rear corners. I was going to make a custom comp style roll cage for it but after sitting and looking at it I decided to keep the original look of the factory roll bar. I kept most of the details of the original body but bolted up one of the original MRC tires as a spare instead of the plastic fake one. I was going to get an extra Flatiron to mount back there but it would have been too large. I do plan on getting another Axial beadlock and painting it to match the others. I hate the Wld Willy 2 grill and had a spare original Wild Willy grill laying around so I used that instead. I also have an original Wild Willy windshield frame to give it a more scale look but I don't have the metal side mounts for it. Once I find some, I'll switch to that one. The existing WW2 one just bolts on to the cage and doesn't look quite right just floating there. Like I said above, I originally was going to use an RC4WD Killer transfer case but the driveshaft angles were way too steep so I had to mod the body to fit over the tranny. It actually came out pretty good I think. Tires and Wheels - With the stock MRC tires and wheels the axle width was OK. Things rubbed a little but not bad. They really didn't look right though so I got some Axial 1.9 beadlocks and Proline Flatiron tires. I painted the wheels to match the body. The wheel offset was different though and the tires were wider. Now the axles were too narrow and the tires rubbed on everything. I got a set of the Gmade wideners and now it looks perfect. I thought about using 1.55 wheels and tires but couldn't find a beadlock that used a hex pattern. The RC4WD steel ones are real nice and would have looked great but they mount directly to the axle pins without hexes and would have, like the Axial wheels, made the whole thing too narrow with lots of rubbing. Huge thanks to RPP Hobby and The Crawler Store for getting parts to me so quickly to keep the project going. The project was a fun challenge for sure. To get that short of a wheelbase to work and flex properly took several tries. That and fitting everything under the mostly stock body tried my patience at times. It was worth it though. I've driven it a bit around the house (the pics are poser shots) and it drives great and flexes like crazy but, as mentioned above, the shock springs are way too soft so the body wants to lean a lot. On to the pics.... The three Willys together Last edited by SpeedyDad; 07-03-2012 at 11:49 AM.

09-27-2009, 08:19 PM	#9
wheelinjp Quarry Creeper Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Raaaaaiiiiinnnnniiiieeeerrrr Posts: 399	that looks awesome. what is the width and wheelbase of the wild willy? I built an mrc based flatty and after looking at yours I know the push toy I started with is a copy of the wild willy body. mine was 7.5in w/b so I comp cut it. I have a build thread in the losi mrc section. Lil Joe my mrc scaler 1/10th scale jeep here is how the body comes from the package Last edited by wheelinjp; 09-28-2009 at 08:36 AM.

09-27-2009, 10:16 PM	#13
SpeedyDad Pebble Pounder Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Chandler, AZ Posts: 165	To show how short this rig is, here is it next to my stretched CR-01 TJ another shot I liked My next project?? (can you tell I like Jeeps?) Last edited by SpeedyDad; 07-03-2012 at 11:50 AM.

09-28-2009, 06:48 PM	#17
SpeedyDad Pebble Pounder Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Chandler, AZ Posts: 165	Here's a quick yard wheeling video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ObjAtWhjhY After watching the vid, I need to work on the frontend a little. It looks like my front tires don't flex much. What it is is a droop issue combined with the body flop issue. My front droop is limited because of how I mounted the front of the lower links. I have new ends to help that. That plus the weak shock springs allow the body and chassis to flop too much. This keeps the front tires from staying planted. Update: I found that the RCBros shocks I was waiting for are the Yeah Racing 70mm shocks. TCS has them in stock so the shocks are ordered. Last edited by SpeedyDad; 09-28-2009 at 07:18 PM.

10-06-2009, 12:08 AM	#18
SpeedyDad Pebble Pounder Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Chandler, AZ Posts: 165	Quick update. I got the Yeah Racing shocks. They really helped with the body roll. The front end seemed a bit too stiff with them on even with the supplied silver soft springs. I swapped them out with Team Associated black front buggy springs and used 35w oil in the front. Much better. In the rear, I upped the springs to the supplied blue medium springs and used 50w oil. This seems to have balanced out the suspension a bit better. We have the state championship RC offroad race this weekend and I'll be racing so no real on the rocks testing. I'll try to get that next weekend. Pics The upper front shock bolted right up to the current tower. For the bottom, I wanted to angle them out a bit so I fabbed this bracket on my will. It also goes down and attaches to the factory lower shock mount. The rears mounted right up Some people wanted some more detailed shots of some of the chassis work so here it is. The Delrin looks purple in the pics because it is white delrin dyed black. I like working with white delrin because I can draw out the plan on it to make it easier to see on the mill. It is more black than the pics make it look. The rear body mounts and chassis crossmember. I glued 3mm inserts in to the body mounts for the body mounting screws. The MRC battery tray was cut and fitted to secure the battery. You can kind of see the upper link mounts Front end. Extremely short front driveshaft. Center skidplate. It looks pretty thick and it is where the arms mount but it is only 1/16" thick where the tranny mounts. Last edited by SpeedyDad; 07-03-2012 at 11:52 AM.

09-27-2009, 05:37 PM	#2
jeepjames87 Pebble Pounder Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Reno NV Posts: 100	That's Cool, Never thought to see a crawler version!

09-27-2009, 05:51 PM	#3
MaxxPain Rock Crawler Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Bay Area (RWC) Posts: 536	Wow,, very cool. Nice work on making all that work. Sound like you put allot of effort into that. It looks bad ass too. Any video to come? Hope your ankle is recovering nicely..

09-27-2009, 07:12 PM	#5
51WillysJeep RCC Addict Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Massachusetts Posts: 1,184	This little rig is totally BAD-ASS..!!!! I LOVE it, I think I just found the next truck I'd like to build..! Awesome job making it all come together the way you did. It looks Killer..!

09-27-2009, 07:35 PM	#6
RPP Hobby I wanna be Dave Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Ukiah Posts: 5,357	Thats and awesome rig

09-27-2009, 07:52 PM	#8
51WillysJeep RCC Addict Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Massachusetts Posts: 1,184	Well Dude, you did an incredible job on this truck and you should be Dam proud of it..!! Oh, and IF you ever decide to sell it, I CALL first Dibbs now, because I WANT it...

09-27-2009, 08:53 PM	#10
eddievedder RCC Addict Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Long Island-Land of one batch of rocks in Sag Harbor and at least one fellow crawler Posts: 1,371	AWESOME little rig. You did a great job on it. You really pulled off something that is pretty difficult and you made it look great too! I like the vintage ones in the pic also! Great work my friend! You NEED to post it here www.rcjeeps.com

09-28-2009, 12:54 AM	#14
rckjeep I wanna be Dave Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: San Jose Posts: 5,207	I am so doing that to my MRC and my WWII. Wish I had the CJ grill instead of the MUTT grille, oh well.

09-28-2009, 02:09 PM	#15
66sprint6 RCC Addict Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Murfreesboro Posts: 1,537	With such a short wheelbase, how well does it crawl? Ide love to see it in action, looks like you have quite a collection goin!!! Matt

09-28-2009, 02:29 PM	#16
DonsATV RCC Addict Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: United States of the Offended Posts: 1,184	Looks friggin awesome!!! Lets see a pic of it next to the Gi Joe Jeep.

10-06-2009, 03:40 AM	#19
Volker-P Newbie Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Bexbach Posts: 11	...cool, I like these Willys to, and your crawler is great. I´ve seen another interesting Willys in our german forum, a 6x6 : http://www.rc-monster-trucks.de/incl...threadid=21891 greetz, Volker

Sponsored Links

10-06-2009, 07:58 AM	#20
JKJim Rock Stacker Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: DeLand Posts: 69	Nice work on that rig, glad you fixed the body to make it look like the original M38. Those Losi axles look just right, was thinking of using them on my YJ build. You can never have too many Jeeps, I have a JK, TJ, YJ, and large Willy's MB build planned and I'm working on a a '05 Grand Cherokee WK build now.

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