GCM Skeleton build:(another) 2 Door Jeep w/scale features (Pic Heavy)

[Dustinf]

I know these have been done many times. And mine will be very similar in the beginning. And this is my first build thread, so go easy on me if it turns out to be nonsense.

I duplicated this thread from SBG. While annoying to those who already said kind words over there; I hope it isnt flame worthy.

But I plan to focus on scale realism as a number one goal. I also hope this is some help to others who are building this combo.

What will be done: on GCM ultimate axial combo.

Working exaust

Rc4wd helios 2 speed T-case: using a special GCM skid. This skid may be available through shapeways at some point (just a guess). Thanks GCM!!

Custom Heyok light system that I had Al make for me; manual directionals/high beam-low beam, brake lights that are also directionals (like a real jeep) and park lights that stay lit and blink when activated. Note on this system: Al charged me very reasonably for how complicated this was. Love heyok!

Working interior lights, activated separate from exterior.

Rc4wd jk stock rims with 1.9 challenger tires/crawler innovations foam. These tires look amazing.

Rock hard front bumper, tough armor rear. Both from rc4wd.

Much more to come.

My Pictures are way too big. I never noticed because ive been doing this on my phone. I'll see if i can fix that.

[Dustinf]

Now, cutting the body. I couldn't find any guide online for this. Somehow I didn't realize the front and rear stock bumpers couldn't really be used. They had a nice stock look.

Here is some shots of what gets cut. Most will roll their eyes because this is standard procedure. But I would have liked some pics when doing mine.

I used a dremel and finished with a large bench sander. Then brought it down to 1500 grit.

[Dustinf]

Driver I'll be using. Sitting on my Cherokee- armed for some reason.


Battery and body mounts.
GCM has some really good ideas for both. My batteries were too big for the under-the-seat or rear end approach like they did (twin hammers size 2200mah 2s. But I managed with some aluminum angle that I cut down and some thick lexan painted black and hit with spazstix flat.


Rear body mounts. Same thing. Aluminum angle cut and drilled and painted black. Lines up really well. I have a piece of lexan I will be putting there to hold a master switch; GCM's great idea. It will also give me some room for something else. Maybe the smoker.

[Dustinf]

These tires and wheels are really nice. Super soft and sticky. I'm very curious to see how they do next to some pit bulls or more aggressive tread. And the wheels are extremely scale. A must have for a stock jeep build.

One issue: these tires are ~.05 too big for class one. 4.24"
Rc4wd kind of dropped the ball on this. But, I had to have them so... class 2 it is, I suppose.

Here they are next to some axial ripsaw 1.9s.


I plan on figuring out some disc brakes and calipers for them. All the ones I've bought so far widen the stance too much and makes the tires rub.

[Dustinf]

Front body mounts:

This had been shown 100 times. But I figured I'd post it anyway.

GCM was courteous enough to build in a perfect solution here.

I cut two pieces of aluminum tubing 12mm long and shoe goo'd them in place. They feel very solid.

[Dustinf]

I made another lexan plate for the rear. It sits on the two aluminum brackets I made for body mounts. It also holds a switch. I took that idea from Chris at GCM, that way I can run a HV servo without a bec.



The plate was easy, and lexan is fun to work with.


But getting the battery harness to fit was a super pain in the ass.
Using one 2200mah battery would have been easy... but with all the stuff I plan on running; exaust specifically, I need the juice.



If I wasn't so stubborn and put more thought into it early on; I wouldn't use traxxas plugs. This would have been 10x easier with deans as they take up less room. But I've gone too far with these and I'd need to convert 6 rigs and 12 or so batteries to be current.

I know some say you shouldn't have a long battery lead (over 250mm), but I don't care... I'll always sacrifice for scale and convenience.

[Dustinf]

The build will get better at some point.

Anyway. I like to install temp guages on my rigs. It started when I built a twin hammers and sealed my esc in the fuel cell.

I just got a fairly cheap thermometer and a bunch of $.99 temp sensors and rigged them to plugs. This way I carry the guage on me and can easily check the temp of my running gear.

This is a temporary mount until I can build a bracket for the sensor.



Normally I'd do the esc and motor separate, but I don't plan on needing it. This will give me a general idea of the heat without removing or reaching under the body.

The whole temp setup cost >$15. All from ebay, shipped from deep china.

[Dustinf]

Now that I have a running rig, and the important bits are done; I can actually start building.

Still waiting on the mail for the 2 speed skid and custom heyok light system.

I got my front bumper and winch. Standard stuff.
Rock hard front with the rc4wd winch.


Tough armor spare tire carrier rear. Seems to be the standard for this jeep.


Here is the underside. I'll be painting it all black once I install the light system.


Pretty clean so far. I hate overly long wires, so everything is only as long as they need to be.

[Dustinf]

Not much done since last post. Still waiting on the custom light system and some other bits.

I've been obsessing over the rear tail/brake lights the last two days. They just don't look right. And for what I spent having a heyok system made, they really should.

A needless refresher image:


Now; has anyone used these on this body? I may need to cut the existing buckets off and hope the radius is correct.


Colored Functional Rear Taillight for Axial SCX10 Jeep Wrangler

They are a bit expensive for what they are (but very nice looking and extremely scale), so I'd like to be sure I can use them. The measurements are spot on, which is promising.

I'm guessing I won't find someone with experience in this. So we'll see how it goes.

[Dustinf]

Hopefully this build starts to be interesting and unique soon.

I made as much space upfront as I could by shortening my wires. Here is the adapter I made so I could run my HV servo direct. Also, I glued 5 jst style plugs together for a kind of power strip. They all run direct to battery. This way I can power up to 5 things direct.


I have a 8 channel rx coming in soon, because I will need 8 channels, along with a linear servo that I hope to use for shifting. I consider it even one step lower than the one Chris used on his Class 2 build.

[Dustinf]

I started fine tuning the exhaust unit.

I made up some adjustable voltage step down units (shown on the top of the box). One is linked to the pump, the other is linked to the cartomizer. This way I can fine tune airflow and the amount of smoke separately.
The inside is just a small pump and the guts of an e-cig.
I also added an auxiliary out incase I want to add a fan or something as the unit will get warm after awhile.

The pink tubing is the fill "valve".

I'm using a hacked flysky 8 channel gt3b and a turnigy rx controlled on/off switch so I can run this from the tx.

It's eventually going to be installed with some 3/16th aluminum tubing as the exhaust pipe. Should be pretty cool.

Quick demo of it working.



Do they issue scale points for a smoking exhaust pipe?

[cherokee95]

Interesting build so far.

[new2rocks]

Excellent start and great posts/pix. Lots of good contributions, so you can officially stop apologizing, lol. I have been tinkering with a Skeleton for 6+ months, and it's a great little truck. It works really well (really, really well), and walking along behind that Jeep body always puts a smile on my face. For what it's worth, I tried every which way to keep the front tires on mine (4.19" Kryptons) from rubbing on the Rock Hard bumper and eventually gave up. It's too bad since it's such a sweet looking bumper. I look forward to seeing if you can come up with a better solution than I did.

[MaxxPain]

Looks great. Lots of good stuff. I didn't know about the front body post. I will have to try that. Thanks

[Dustinf]

Originally Posted by new2rocks

Excellent start and great posts/pix. Lots of good contributions, so you can officially stop apologizing, lol. I have been tinkering with a Skeleton for 6+ months, and it's a great little truck. It works really well (really, really well), and walking along behind that Jeep body always puts a smile on my face. For what it's worth, I tried every which way to keep the front tires on mine (4.19" Kryptons) from rubbing on the Rock Hard bumper and eventually gave up. It's too bad since it's such a sweet looking bumper. I look forward to seeing if you can come up with a better solution than I did.

Thanks man, truly. I didn't realize how frequently I apologized for making a thread lol. There's so many heavy hitters here and on SBG that I worry about wasting people's time. But I will say; it makes the quality of work go up, which is what I'm enjoying the most. I wish I did these for all my other rigs, if for no other reason than having a record of progress.

[Dustinf]

Finally got my exhaust system installed. Came out pretty good. Even if I don't run the smoke (super battery hog), it still looks nice.

Made the pipe out of 3/16 aluminum tubing, slightly bent. Brackets is also sheet aluminum.

Mounts for the box are yet again, aluminum angle painted black with some more scale bolts holding it all together.


From underneath


And a short video of how it works. I turned up the amount of smoke so it could be seen easily. In person, the effect works much better when it's subtle.

[Dustinf]

Quick update of what's coming next.*

I ordered the rc4wd (cchand) rear tail lights. They are currently flying through DHL international shipping. I'll need to do some cutting to get them to fit, but I'm confident that I can.

I received the custom heyok light system. It's very cool. The brake lights brighten when braking, but also blink when turning on the directionals. As do the park lights.

These will take some time to go in.

Next in line is the 2 speed helios transfer case.

[Dustinf]

Here is the RX and shift servo I intend to use (though I doubt will work.)

The 8 channel rx is MASSIVE. And the linear servo is tiny.

I went with the servo to further prove Chris from gcm's point that you don't need a big servo to shift.

But I think I took that theory too far. Luckily I have micro servos-a-plenty if need be. This super micro linear will be excellent for other scale gimmicks. Working window, working shift lever like I did on my VTH... so on.



I've also started thinking about added a turning steering wheel. Might be neat.

[Dustinf]

Unrelated: I just got in this Cherokee 313mm hardbody that I ordered a few weeks ago. It's as amazing as everyone says. So... I'm thinking I should finish this wrangler up and start the cherokee. I have a scx10 lexan one that I thought was amazing.. but this is going to be something completely different. It's my all time favorite truck and my daily driver. But that's for another day/thread.

I've noticed that in a couple short weeks this body has shown up everywhere. Asiatees, ebay, greensmodels, rcmodelex.



I've yet to build an ascender... so maybe I'll do that with the GCM feont motor mount. I love putting kits together. I'm terribly addicted to the build and get a lot less joy out of running them.

Or I'll do another skeleton combo.. who knows, I'll order monday.

[Dustinf]

Well, new brake lights were well worth the money and effort. They make the old ones look like a cartoon version.

Now almost everything is ready for the light system.


Reverse, directionals and brake lights will all be indicated by these.