UU's High-Lift Hilux... thing...

[user unrelated]

So a while ago, I scored a sweet trade for a beat up high-lift. I've been looking for a leaf spring 1.9er for a while now, and fell in love with the High-Lift, as it fits with the rest of my RC fleet (out of 14 RC's both go-fast and slow, more than 50% are Tamiya)

So, I got it fixed up a bit, and just had fun with it.
At first, it was bone stock, with some missing pieces, rock-hard tires, a hack-up 4link job in the rear, and a whole heck of a lot of wear and tear.
It DID come with an MFC02, though, which I have yet to dig into. If I can find room for it under the body, I am going to include it.




So... for a long time, it sat
The 4-link was atrocious, so it got the boot immediately.
I also had some Losi mini rock claws on some Tamiya wheels left-over from a previous build, and some Associated factory-team shocks that were a perfect fit.


then my red super-soft leafs and shock boots came in.
cue the need for helper leafs


still missing rear shackles, so I made some out of cut-up erector set bits.


I finally got the brilliant idea to make some new rear shackles out of the joint bits of a broken solder-jig that I had lying around.
MUCH better!



then I did a bit of body work... and got lots and lots of helper leafs
I plan on getting ahold of one of those RC4wd rear panels as soon as I get some more money.

I also made some little covers for the holes in the driveshafts


then I just drove it like I stole it.
I have no intention of this being a show truck. This is going to be a down-and-dirty beater truck all the way. With the amount of wear already on it, might as well just have fun while I still can.
It still has bushings in the driveshafts, too, so I don't feel so bad about getting them full of mud.
I swear I had no idea that this was that deep, though haha... I do have SOME restraint :p


I have some other pics of it in the woods climbing over some snow, but my phone let go the magic blue smoke, and took the pics with it... about time, that phone was almost 8 years old!

But... I was having problems with the transfer case part of the transmission getting caught on things.
Cue a homebrew mod!
Still in progress.


Also, today I scored a sweet deal... All this for only $90!
One of those crawler systems is going in this truck.


I made a bit of progress on the trans-lift today, too. I still need to do some more machining on the motor plate, but the machine shop was closed today.



MUCH BETTER!


I also decided to turn the whole steering shebang on the side upside-down to keep my expensive servo out of the gunk.

I need to modify the steering links in the front to not hit the leafs, too... it is severely limiting my steering range. It's because I have a VERY slight front lift from some aluminum leaf helper blocks.

More progress to come! As soon as I get the motor linked up, and figure out a shifting servo, I'll have some driving video
I am hoping to maybe fabricate some sort of wooden truck bed to hide the battery (I bolted a bunch of random bits of plastic on the underside of the c-chanel in the back, and the battery sits in between the chassis rails, and is held in place with elastic bands), but I'm not sure how long until I get to that.

[tgh117]

I love high lifts. Great job so far. May I suggest mounting your steering servo up between the frame rails and slick towers. You can actually fit both the shift and steering there.

Otherwise it's looking good

[user unrelated]

Well... there's sort of a motor there now... but I have been looking for places to mount the steering servo that will get rid of the little middle-linkage doodad. I think I found one, it'll take a custom plate, but I already have plans for a winch plate, battery plate, and body mounting plates, so it shouldn't be a problem! I am thinking of trying to squish it up in the front like a panhard mount, and changing the steering linkages to the front, like on axial axles. I DON'T think the shocks will get in the way... we will have to see. I think the biggest obstacle is the leafs, but there's nothing a bit of creative link bending can't fix.
I plan on milking all that I can out of the school machine shop before I leave for the summer... it's my last semester anyway, so the guy who hangs out in the shop is sort of lenient about letting me do my personal projects (you aren't supposed to, really, but he likes me, and I know what I am doing, and it's easy to blur the line of what I am doing for school, and for leisure, because sometimes they look the same )

I am just loving the hacked up look of everything so far. I was so paranoid about making my CC-01 look good that I barely did any custom work (I am no neat worker, by any means)... I am just planning on having fun with this truck, and I am exited!