Project Landcruiser HJ75

[pixelnate]

This will be the first of two Landcruiser HJ75s that I will be building. This truck is based off of a "Discovery" Crocodile Hunter toy truck that was available in around 2000, during Crocodile Hunter mania on the Discovery Channel. It is the larger of the two largest Crocodile Hunter trucks that were produced. The other one was an R/C truck (roughly 1/12 scale) sold by Radio Shack around the same time. This one is 1/10 scale.

I'll be building this rig for Class 2 competition based off of a Dingo.

The laundry list:

• Overdrive front gears
• Underdrive rear gears
• Robinson trans gears and outdrives
• MIP shafts
• Axial high steer knuckles
• Axial 8-deg C-hubs
• Axial CVDs
• RC4WD white steelies
• RC4WD IROKs (maybe MTs)
• KC LIghting Kit
• HH BR-XL
• HH 35t TorqueMaster Pro
• Various other bits and bobs

Here are a couple of inspiration pics:

[Numbcrawling]

Yes Yes Yes

[travis c.]

Sweet, looking forward to this!

[ScaleFreak93]

Looks very promising...can't wait to see this play out Just promise not to do dual snorkels like the last pic

[pardonmyn00b]

Sweet! I didn't know they made a larger version of that body.

[pixelnate]

Originally Posted by ScaleFreak93

Just promise not to do dual snorkels like the last pic

Ah, hell no. The snorkel is on the driver side where it belongs.

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[ScaleFreak93]

Originally Posted by pixelnate

Ah, hell no. The snorkel is on the driver side where it belongs.

Sent from my DROID3 using Tapatalk

Good to hear

[scorpion ax-10]

Originally Posted by ScaleFreak93

Looks very promising...can't wait to see this play out Just promise not to do dual snorkels like the last pic

AH thats just a new "high performance" intake..

[pixelnate]

I worked on the frame of the tray last night. Some of the bodywork has also already been done so I'll post pics of that later.

[Numbcrawling]

Pshhhh... you need AT LEAST 2 snorkles...

[pixelnate]

Originally Posted by Numbcrawling

Pshhhh... you need AT LEAST 2 snorkles...

The more the better.

[jamu]

is this the body ur gonna be using?

sweet.. cant wait

[pixelnate]

That is the Radio Shack truck, and the one I'll be using to build up a Class 1 rig. But this particular truck will be built on the Discovery non-R/C toy.

I have attached some images of the truck being used for this build and a comparison shot of the two trucks side-by-side. The bodywork I have done for this build has included widening the wheel wells of the front fenders, gluing the extra pieces the toy company added to the back of the cab, adding a back window cutout, and clearing all the flashing from the cab.

As it turns out, the Radio Shack and Discovery bodies, well the cabs anyway, aren't too far apart in size. Honestly, I believe they are both a tiny bit bigger than 1/12 scale. The Discovery cab is much more true to the 1:1 truck though. The front edge and doors of the Radio Shack cab is just different enough that they probably didn't have to pay any royalties to Toyota. I'll be doing my best to make it more true to scale, though.

[heinie_21]

sweet!!! FJ's FTW!

[pixelnate]

Originally Posted by heinie_21

sweet!!! FJ's FTW!

My first boss when I was starting out in the advertising biz had a blue LC like that one. He was kind of a prick, but he had cool toys. In addition to the sweet LC he owned two British armored personnel carriers and and wheeled British tank. He was a nut for weapons, but that is a story for another time.

[pixelnate]

Well, it's about time for an update. I have been much busier on the beast than this thread shows. Firstly, I abandoned making an aluminium tray for it. No matter how I went about it, it just sucked from every angle. And while the alumiweld rods I was using worked really well, I could never get the angle and aluminium sheet to join the way I wanted to. So I decided to take my lumps, start from scratch and learn how to braze. As it turns out brakeline is far easier to work with.

So I built a tray, and it sucked. I mean, it was a great first attempt, but the roll bar behind the cab was crooked, the cab ended up way too far back, and it generally left me with more things to fix than I would have liked, so I cut it off to start again. I've got a much better plan now.


The tray will be a combination between these two...



And have an overall look of this, including a couple of Spacecases:



With a top rack similar to this one, but it will extend over the top of the cab and hold a row of lights.




And it'll have running boards/rock sliders like this one.



And a bumper that mostly like this:



And a little like this:



I have a couple of posts I'll be making during the next few days that show actual progress. I am tired of this thing sitting on my workbench in pieces, I want to drive it - soon.

[pixelnate]

Got some RC4WD steelies on Fleabay.



And painted the inside surfaces of the inside wheel halves.



And cut the stock foams for the rear tires.



I also got some lead stick-on weights for inside the wheels - added 2oz to each of the fronts and 1oz to each of the rears.

[pixelnate]

I got these for Christmas from the wifey. She had no idea what they were, but she knew it made me happy to see them.



They look so nice together. After this I packed the case full of marine grease and set it aside - waiting for some day (apparently) in April to put back onto the rig.

[pixelnate]

Axial 8° C-Hubs, CVDs, High Steer knuckles and rear lockouts installed as well.

The front axle has the Axial Overdrive ring & pinion, rear has the underdrive r&p, both axles have Gunnar beef toobs.

[pixelnate]

A little bit of progress. I am just about finished with the front bumper and about 50% complete on the tube bed. There is just enough room to squeeze in a 1.9 baja claw in place of the flat iron.