H2Micr0's 1966 F100 Resurrection

[H2Micr0]

So the story goes like this.

In early 2015 I had a Class 2 comp rig set up to meet bare minimum requirements for the Australian CANZ Competition Rule set.

It was basically a fully decked out SCX10 Chassis with a lexan shell and Honcho Shell stuck on the back.



These were the specs at that time.

Trans - Steel Gears and Spur + Alloy Case
Motor - 35t Integy Lathe with 14t pinion
ESC - BRXL
Servo - 7955 Hitec
Rear Diff - LURC FI Spool and OT Shafts, Under Drive Gears
Front Diff - LURC Fi Spool, XR10 mod with Splined Burley Tubes, Integy Wraith CHubs and Knuckles, XR10 Units
Links - Custom built and bent
Shocks - HR Piggyback 120mm
Wheels - Mayhem Engineering Crazy 8s 1.9
Tyres - Proline TSL XL Super Swampers 1.9
Wheelbase - 340mm

I placed 6th in the Australian CANZ National Titles in Class 2 with this rig.

Then I decided to build an FJ40 Truggy using the above electrics and running gear.







There is a build thread on this site re the Truggy if you want to read up on it.

I sold the Truggy frame with the engine etc recently, but kept all of the running gear and electrics.

I always wanted to build a more scale detailed version of my '66' F100 and decided it was time to do it.

This is it in it's almost finished form.



I have a couple of things I want to add to it.

The rest of this thread will follow the build up stages, and then continue as I make changes or additions.

I hope you enjoy.

Cheers
H2Micr0

[H2Micr0]

I had one clear intention with this build.

To build a competent truck that can tackle those technical challenging obstacles, and possibly embarrass those Carbon Fiber Chassis rigs with a body that loosely resemble a vehicle of some sort, currently getting around Australia, know locally as 1.9 sportsmans,

AND

To include those elements that make up a realistic looking scale tiny truck.

************************************************** ***


I had this brand new Deadbolt chassis set aside for a project. It had a front motor mount conversion and a transfer case already installed.

I swapped out the stock axles for my XR10 modded front and rear at the same width. I used the stock deadbolt links for the initial mock up. I kept the 1.9 Motorworx 6 spoke LE SLW wheels and Proline TSL XLs as they look and perform great.







Added some sliders I had used the last time.



Found a home for the battery so I can run it around the yard.



Test fit of the body with the honcho tray attached.



Hmmmm, wheel base looks a little short LOL.

But check out this uber flex baby!!!!!



This using 110mm dual rate Xtra Speed shocks. Rather nice bits of gear too, and quite cheap with decent postage from RCMart to Australia.

Lets look in here. What do you see?????



I see a great big empty space just screaming for a full interior.

But first I will do something about that plastic Honcho Tray on the back. It just has to go.

Cheers
H2Micr0

[H2Micr0]

I wanted to build a tube rear for the Ford.

But in my opinion, just using brake line looked wrong, almost like a wire frame.

When building the front bar on my D110, I had found a broader selection of tube sizes from the auto wreckers.

10mm, 8mm and 6mm OD in steel. Adding in Brake line at 3/16 at around 4mm I had plenty of options to build a more realistic looking rear frame.



For the main hoop I chose to use the 10mm tube. This will provide plenty of strength and looks tough. I bent it using the bench vice and whatever I could find.







I liked all the dents and imperfections in the tube as this provides a well worn feel to it.

I wanted to run a spare tyre, and have it vertical behind the cab. This would help with the weight distribution and just looked damn good.

So I started mocking up the main down tubes using the 8mm stock.







This felt right and I started playing around with other tube work to provide the triangulation for some strength.







Being pretty happy with how it was coming together I bolted the main hoop to the back of the cab. Now I could get a fixed point and make the proper marks as to where the joins would be.





Setting up the first brazing joint is often a tedious excersize, and getting everything in just the right spot is quite satisfying.



First tubes brazed in place and test fitting for proper alignment.





Can now cut to the desired length.



Side bars added.



And the main work is done.



Now for the detail work.

But that will come in the next post.

Cheers
H2Micr0

[H2Micr0]

I was very particular about where the main down tube intersected with the chassis for a reason.





As we all know, ease of access to things under the body is highly desirable.





Flip top body wins every time!!!!

I installed a battery and took it for a test spin on my home rock pile.







Considering it still has the stock Deadbolt links and is quite tall, it works pretty good.

Cheers
H2Micr0

[H2Micr0]

I felt the rear tube work was missing something.

So I started playing around with ideas for a rear bar. I did settle on a spot for a fuel cell using the stock axial receiver box.



This just didn't look right at all.

Finally I cam up with this.





Alloy angle bar can be rather versatile.

I also toyed with alternative locations for the spare wheel.



I discarded this notion rather quickly LOL.

While trying various ideas I did this.



And I liked it a lot.

So much so I got the brazing gear out again.





In the second photo you can see I had started cleaning everything up with the files. LOTS of filing on this one LOL.

Cheers
H2Micr0

[H2Micr0]

It was time to ditch the flexi plastic links. They were just bending like bits of licorice LOL.

I always make my own links.

I use M4 Allthread, Traxxas Revo M4 Rod ends, and I cover the allthread with either alloy or stainless tube.

Stainless is the preferred choice as the alloy tends to scratch up pretty bad and can even dent.

However buying the stainless tube from a hobby shop was a rather costly option. Nearly $20aud for a single 250mm length.

Then I stumbled onto this idea after finding some in the kitchen at home.

Stainless steel drinking straws. 10 6mm OD straight straws for $14 posted here in Australia. Cheaper if you want to wait for them to come from China.



So I measured up and made my new front links, converting to a 4 link in the process.







Same process for the rear, but I put some thought into what wheel base I wanted to run. The deadbolt wheel base of 300mm was just too short for this rig. My old Truggy was 340mm and that worked well, but I felt that was way too long.

So I settle on 320mm as the desired length. Just a little more reach than a stock Honcho or Rubicon giving a tad more stability as well.



The new wheel base now meant the rear bumper was in too far, so I pushed it out around 10mm.



I also tweaked the rear bumper slightly by bending the lower half of in slightly. I began adding in scale details too.

Found a neat little tray to put in the back, along with some tail lights, a recovery hook and scale bolts.







A tow rope and scale accessories finished things off.



Then I took it out wheeling with my mate Steve. His Rubicon is very well sorted and it was a good rig for a comparison.

No pics of that outing, but I did learn quite a few things.

More on that next update.

Cheers
H2Micr0

[H2Micr0]

On my outing I learnt a couple of things about the setup of the F100.

The COG sucked. It was WAY too tall, and while it had epic flex, it didn't need that much articulation.

On climbs that my buddies rig could achieve with relative ease, the F100 wanted to lift the front and on sidehills it was unstable.

I knew what I had to do.

Lower the ride height.

I swapped out the front 110mm shocks for some axial 90mm stockers. In the rear I bolted on a pair of brackets to the top of the shock towers allowing me to retain the 110mm shocks but still lower the ride height.

So I now had this.



Which actually looks a WHOLE lot better than this





Excellent we are now heading in the right direction.

However, I am running the front motor mount, and I previously had retained the servo on the diff. That was all good and well, but, I had just removed 20mm from the ride height.



Hmmmmmmm, That is going to be a problem.

Another issue I was also trying to deal with was this.



While this front bumper is technically legal it is somewhat lacking in scale appeal, and just where could I mount a winch on that?

Solution?

See if I can build an integrated CMS mount and from bar. Of course!!! Obvious answer!!!

I grabbed some metal from an old PC Side Panel and started experimenting.



Yes, this looks promising.

But, a 4 link + CMS = All sorts of body movement and lack of steering.

So a panhard bar was installed. I had a Chassis mount left over from a GCM kit, and a small bracket I had previously used on another rig. This now gave me a 5 linked front.







A quick test drive proved this was going to function as anticipated, so I redid the bracket with a bit more planning.



I deliberately left more that enough material out the front to allow for a winch to be mounted, and began piecing the new bar together.





I like it!!!!

Time to braze.



And this is what we have.









And with the body removed.





Success!!!!!

One of the good side effects of this work was the reduced flex in the front of the rig. In theory this should make the front more stable and predictable, and it reduced the tyre rub on the front guard at full compression.

Of course this sort of thing needs to be tested, and in the next post I certainly was able to do that.

Cheers
H2Micr0

[H2Micr0]

For testing of the new setup, I went to the local CANZ Competition.

At CANZ they run the traditional 10 gate type comp, and the gates are typically at the more technical challenging end of the scale.

I thought this was a good opportunity to see how it went against some of the more typical builds.

Here are some pics from the comp.

















So what lessons did I learn from the day?

Firstly, on the initial course I found out the rear shocks were way to soft, allowing too much twist turning up a tight steep climb.

I had a set of harder rate springs with me, so swapped them out for the next two courses. This practically eliminated that issue. It also reduced the torque twist to barely noticeable.

Secondly, while I managed to drive all the gates, I found by removing the spare later when testing on those gates, the F100 was better balanced. To me this said I need more front weight.

Thirdly, the body sides needed some attention as they are just a bit low compared to the chassis, and I don't like the current slider/lack of sliders I had fitted.

But I had fun and was very pleased with how it went on the more technical gates.

Cheers
H2Micr0

[H2Micr0]

When inspecting the F100 after the comp, I found the panhard bracket on the axle had come loose. The screws in the plastic housing just are not strong enough to hold against the lateral forces being applied.

So after a bit of brainstorming made up a short link as a support to alleviate those stresses.



The link attaches to the same bolt the panhard uses to locate on the axle bracket, and then bolts into the stock servo mount on the SCX10 housing. I had to trim the sides of the rod ends gently to prevent binding during articulation.

The front bar was missing something so I added a small stinger.







The rear bar work also needed a cross bar between the main hoops so that was added as well. Then I spent some quality time with the files to tidy all the brazing up.





Time for some paint. I didn't want black. But I did have some gunmetal gray so tried that.


I LIKE IT!!!!!!!









The Gunmetal look great against the red and white of the body.

I then spent some time undoing too many beadlock screws, to add in a little bit of weight to the front wheels. Some lead flashing cut in to strips works nicely.



I then reassembled with even more beadlock screws. I only had every second screw in before.



Cheers
H2Micr0

[H2Micr0]

I then turned my attention to an interior.

I had all of this space to play with.



I tried a Defender interior set that I had already shortened to fit in my D129 project.



It actually fit rather well, but the seats were going to be WAY to high.



So using the base of the Defender floorpan as a lose guide I grabbed a sheet of card and started measuring and ruling some lines.



Fancy isn't it?????

That turned into this.







And test fitting my driver.



Of course card just isn't going to work for the finished product. I grabbed a sheet of 0.5mm Aluminium and transferred my pattern on to it.





I think this will work out nicely.







More to follow

Cheers
H2Micr0

[H2Micr0]

Any interior needs seats.

So I decided to make some.

Again I used some card to make up a template and sized it to suit both the truck and the driver.



That should work. Now to make it out of the Alloy sheet.



Of course I need two seats.



Bolted in place.





Perfect!!



Now was time to start thinking about the placement of the electronics. This is one of the areas that having a full interior makes a bit more challenging.

The BRXL fits nicely here.



I originally planned for the battery to go behind the seats and build a box to cover it, but I just could not figure out neat and tidy solution for the wiring, while still allowing easy access to swap batteries.

So after some trial and error settled on this location.



I quickly fabricated an alloy battery tray.







The beauty of this is that the body holds it firmly in place so there is no need for straps etc.

Now the issue I had to deal with was keeping the wires out of the spur gear. I tried using a stock axial spur gear cover as can be seen in the last pic, but there was no way to locate with the front motor mount.

So once again I decided to make my own.





Card first and then the alloy.





The rest of the wiring also needed to be sorted.

The BRXL had a home, and I wired in a switch and BEC on the opposite side. The receiver was placed in the receiver box and all the relevant wires routed back as neatly as I could.

Then I had to make the rest all fit in the trans tunnel under the floor. Some creative use of zip ties and it was done.



Now, there were other bits missing from the interior.







Very comfy thanks!!!



Cheers
H2Micr0

[H2Micr0]

I struggled for a bit over how to mount some sliders.

The final design is simple and clean and I am quite pleased with it.

Begin with this stuff



Take some 6mmOD tube, and some flat steel sheet. Apply heat and brazing rod.



Test fit. I trimmed approx 6mm off the lower half of the body, so the bottom of the sliders are now where the body used to be.



Tucked away nicely.



Bit of love with the grinder and a 1mm cutting wheel gets the front of the slider to the right length.



They simply bolt onto the the current brackets. Here you can also see the battery switch.



And some paint on the sliders.




Hmmm, what do we spy under the front wheel arch? Inner fenders.

I wanted inner fenders so I could get some scale points, but also to keep the electrics safe and any debris out of the gears.

Once again I made up a template using some card stock.



Yep, that fits great.



Then make the same thing from the alloy sheet.





Reverse pattern and duplicate for the other side.





I the above two pics you can also see the winch controller I made from an old servo. I left it in the servo casing to help protect it. This of course now means the winch is functioning YAY.


There were still a couple of things needing to be finished with the interior.

First was I added a shifter.



Second was that I could see the battery above the dash in this pic.



I made a filler panel to fix that.



A lot better.

Then, I noticed I could still see the electronics under the floor from behind the cab.



The card was pulled out again and another template made.



Transferred the pattern to the Allow Sheet.





Much better.

Don't know why but I like this pic. It just looks cool.



Enough for now.

Cheers
H2Micr0

[Brainstain]

Looks good. The truck looks much better with all the aluminum panels and the updates to the bumpers, sliders etc.

[H2Micr0]

Originally Posted by Brainstain

Looks good. The truck looks much better with all the aluminum panels and the updates to the bumpers, sliders etc.

Thanks Brainstain!!!!

************************************************** ************

As an Admin for WESROC and our next ST4 Challenge due the following weekend, I had to tidy up a couple of things and make sure the F100 was ready.

The ST4 Challenge (Scale Trail 4x4) is an event similar in principal to a G6 and the GCM Adventure series, where competitors are required to navigate a course with 50+ gates, with severe penalties for no HOG/FOG, free reverses, and we encourage the use of recovery gear to assist you, or your partner, through the course. If you help someone, you get a bonus for rendering assistance.

Scale points following the SORRCA methodology are given, and we follow the, drive it like it is real ethos.

Hence why the F100 actually is a 50 point truck, and still has all the mechanical capabilities a top level Class 2 comp rig would have.

One area I wanted to tidy up as it was annoying me was my reused shock relocation mounts.



See a bit rough.

I cleaned them up with a file and added in a brace to remove any flex.



I added some more scale accessories, and recovery gear, and it was time for the ST4 Challenge.

Here are some pics from the day.











It rained for a couple of days leading up to the event, so we had to contend with some wet rock and damp soil, which certainly made for some interesting challenges.

There were 80 gates one way, and course 1 was down the trail, with course 2 being back up the trail, so 160 gates total.

I was REALLY happy with how the F100 drove. It is balanced far better than I anticipated it could be and is just a lot of fun to wheel.

I am also delighted to report I took out first place for Class 2 with the F100.

I do have some detail work I would like to do, with building a 3D grill and adding headlights being high on that list.

Thanks for following along.

I will update as there is news to report.

Cheers
H2Micr0

[amorton94]

That truck is absolutely gorgeous. Really makes my want to wrench on my pile.

Sent from my C6916 using Tapatalk

[H2Micr0]

Originally Posted by amorton94

That truck is absolutely gorgeous. Really makes my want to wrench on my pile.

Sent from my C6916 using Tapatalk

That is one of the highest compliments a fella can get!!

Thanks Mate!!!

Cheers
H2Micr0

[H2Micr0]

Went to a spot called The Skillion at Terrigal. The weather was glorious.







Cheers
H2Micr0