Queso meets a Buffalo (GS02F)

[QuesoDelDiablo]

Originally Posted by smog

Weed world....lol.

Love the scale boxes too. Sargent Day-off has some fun times ahead of him.

I haven’t built a GMade kit since my R1 way back when. It might be time, I enjoyed your thread here. The truck looks really nice. GMade, has some really good shocks and some really bad shocks. Where to find these land, any leakage?

Sgt. Day-off, I like that. It might stick permanently, my wife named Bruce but I've never really supported that..

Gmade has come a long way since the R1 and the early Sawbacks. I'm consistently impressed by their ability to listen/watch the industry and implement good changes that keep them moving in the right direction. On this chassis you can find clear influences from Axial, Traxxas and SSD.

As far as the shocks, build quality was pretty good, they have a plastic collar that goes above the o-ring stack on the rod end which I think should help keep leakage down and they include 2, 3 or 4 hole delrin pistons. I haven't seen any leakage yet but I also haven't started beating on it yet (it's still at "clean enough to go on the kitchen table sometimes without pissing my wife off" status..)

Those scale boxes.. I probably get way more joy out of them than I should. I just discovered that I also have one from a Gmade Bom so I'll probably try and get in there somehow..

Originally Posted by Robotboy

Super looking rig, Great job! I think GMade got it right on this one.
I may have to put this kit on my list of wants.

Thanks! I tend to agree, I think they nailed it with this iteration of this chassis.

I'm pretty impressed by this rig overall. I'm definitely giving it 2 thumbs up so far. I haven't run it yet but based on the similarities between it and my Bom I don't expect any disappointment in that department.



I've got another update with some upgrading/modifying stuff coming soon and I'm also going to discuss the ever sensitive subject of cross-compatibility between these and a 10.2 (spoiler: there's not as much as Facebook wants you to think there is).

[QuesoDelDiablo]

There's a lot of sketchy information about cross compatibility between gs02 chassis and a 10.2. I'm here to clarify a bit of that while I make the first few upgrades to this new gs02f chassis.

Parts we'll take about later - hubs/knuckles & servo mount.

Today we're just addressing shock towers with the integrated panhard mount.

Had some helpers come by the shop to provide some assistance in this phase, seems like Khaleesi and the Wok should be good around the shop, but I'm not sure I can count on that other guy, he seems like he could be an issue.



Yup, Snoop doin what Snoop does. He's not getting much done but he's keeping everyone else amused..




Ok then, to the work now.

I hate plastic panhard mounts. Hate em. I've never actually had one break (probably because I always switch out for alum), but they just seem like such a terrible terrible weak spot and snapping that mount does not lend itself to easy trail-fixes, so you'd be doing the walk of shame if it ever broke.

I wish that Gmade (or Junfac) made alum. towers for their chassis, but they don't. That seems like a major missed opportunity to me but fortunately the towers from a 10.2 are damn close to being a perfect fit.

So with that being said, we're going to look at what needs to be done in order to make some aluminum shock towers that were intended for an Axial 10.2 fit the Gmade gs02 chassis (this should work for all gs02 variants, I've done the same thing on a Bom and now this on the Buffalo).

You can see here that there's going to be a couple issues. #1, servo doesn't clear under the panhard mount; #2, there's not a lot of room to adjust the servo position so we'll have to be fairly accurate with this.







So we shim servo up by 2mm, you can see the white shim on top of the servo mounting point. That's the value I found that lets the horn swing the panhard mount and still not drag underneath. If the shims are much thicker, the back of the horn drags and if they're thinner the top of the horn doesn't clear the PH mount. You can see I also ground the extra hole off the length or the horn and thinned the big bump on the back a little.





Whoops, forgot to check the opposite end of the horn swing. Now it bumps up on the motor mount/cross-member.




So, some clearancing is required. A dremel tool with a small diamond burr bit makes short work of it. I tried to remove the minimum amount of material required since we don't want sacrifice strength of the motor mount/cross/member.





And there we have it folks, our Gmade gs02 chassis is now rocking aluminum shock towers that were originally made for an Axial 10.2

[smog]

It’s a very nice! ...and no holes needed to be drilled!?

Aluminum shock towers Always make a chassis look that much better, whether they really be needed or not. It’s a part I always like to swap in. Breaking a panhard mount when out at play is the worst, an ounce of prevention is definitely worth the investment

Thanks for posting that up!

[QuesoDelDiablo]

Originally Posted by smog

It’s a very nice! ...and no holes needed to be drilled!?

Aluminum shock towers Always make a chassis look that much better, whether they really be needed or not. It’s a part I always like to swap in. Breaking a panhard mount when out at play is the worst, an ounce of prevention is definitely worth the investment

Thanks for posting that up!

Nope, no drilling required. Just the servo/horn adjustments and the towers bolt right up..

The rear ones don't fit as well (significant height difference) so I didn't bother with them , I feel like the fronts are what really matter anyways..

There's not too many bits that I feel metal is REALLY important for on a crawler/trail truck, but front shock towers are on the list so I was really glad that I was able to make this work..

[QuesoDelDiablo]

Well I still haven't actually taken her out so I don't have any action pics yet, but I've been making a few changes to finish off some details..

I had a chrome (read: ugly) servo guard/skid plate gathering dust on the bench so I scuffed it up, shot it with a few coats of the olive green I've been using and slapped it on there. It was made for a 10.2 but bolted right up to the 2 front-most holes on the frame rails. It pushes the fender liners outboard by a hair but it doesn't cause body rub or anything..

It's arguably a pretty useless part, I can't see it coming into play very commonly. But I think it looks pretty good and who knows, maybe I'm wrong about it's usefulness..










And I really wanted to run a winch on this rig and make use of the fairlead that's molded into the bumper but keeping the winch under the body would be key since you can't adjust the front bumper position as it's part of the body mounting system..

I noted that the front bumper mount had some unused holes on the bottom side so I flipped it over to be able to make use of them and there's a good bit of room available in front of the servo/motor. With those things established, it was a simple enough task to draw up a little mounting plate. The winch had to positioned off center because I just used a generic "warn-like" winch and the motor enclosure is off centre. You'd have to use an 8274 or maybe a servo winch to centre it properly..

I cut the plate from .080" aluminum on a water jet and I'm pretty satisfied with the results. I might pull it off and shoot some flat black on it one of these days but that's pretty low priority since it can't be seen when the body is on and it's currently -17C in my garage..

For the finishing touch, I made a custom fairlead (my local group is called "Kelowna Trail & Scale") and bolted it over top of where the molded one was on the stock bumper. I widened the slot in the bumper a little as well to match up with the fairlead better..

The winch I picked up came with a fancy thimble/shackle doodad that I initially thought was pretty cool until I saw it installed. It just seemed really "sticky-outy", so I switched to a regular black hook with a winch saver instead but apparently I forgot to take a picture of it. I also swapped out the wire line it came with for some 200lb test dyneema fishing line, I think I spooled about 8ft on..
And I really wanted to run a winch on this rig and make use of the fairlead that's molded into the bumper but keeping the winch under the body would be key since you can't adjust the front bumper position as it's part of the body mounting system..

I noted that the front bumper mount had some unused holes on the bottom side so I flipped it over to be able to make use of them and there's a good bit of room available in front of the servo/motor. With those things established, it was a simple enough task to draw up a little mounting plate. The winch had to positioned off center because I just used a generic "warn-like" winch and the motor enclosure is off centre. You'd have to use an 8274 or maybe a servo winch to centre it properly..

I cut the plate from .080" aluminum on a water jet and I'm pretty satisfied with the results. I might pull it off and shoot some flat black on it one of these days but that's pretty low priority since it can't be seen when the body is on and it's currently -17C in my garage..

For the finishing touch, I made a custom fairlead (my local group is called "Kelowna Trail & Scale") and bolted it over top of where the molded one was on the stock bumper. I widened the slot in the bumper a little as well to match up with the fairlead better..

The winch I picked up came with a fancy thimble/shackle doodad that I initially thought was pretty cool until I saw it installed. It just seemed really "sticky-outy", so I switched to a regular black hook with a winch saver instead but apparently I forgot to take a picture of it. I also swapped out the wire line it came with for some 200lb test dyneema fishing line, I think I spooled about 8ft on..

















This picture's only here because that receiver box is a bit of a personal milestone, this is the first time I've ever used more than 3 channels. I was quite pleased that I was able to cram it all into the stock Rx box..

[QuesoDelDiablo]

Well, based on some of the conversations around the site lately, I gather winches can be a bit of a controversial subject . All the same, I always like having one on my trucks. Even if I only use it a couple of times a year, to me it just doesn't feel like a scale crawler without one..

That being said, the front bumper on the Buffalo really doesn't allow any room for mounting a winch and I really did not want to push the bumper out in order to accommodate one. As a matter of fact, you can't push the front bumper out on this truck. The body mounts key into the front bumper so it has to stay right where it is.

That means we're going to need some sort of stealth/hidden setup. Maybe a scale winch (like an 8274 or 9.5cti) or maybe a servo winch, I think I can make either style fit.

First step of course, it needs a mounting plate. I noticed that the front bumper has holes molded on the bottom side that would perfect for mounting a plate to. Conveniently, everything thing else about that bumper mount is symmetrical so we can flip it over to access those holes.

A little CAD, a little time on the water jet with a little bit of aluminum and we have the first version of a mounting plate prototyped and test fitted.

To mount the 9.5 CTI style winch that we see in there initially it had to be placed off center, but it fit quite nicely.

I paired the eBay knockoff 9.5cti winch up with a HeyOK controller and planned to use this as a setup for a while.

But then boom racing announced their new servo winch "the muscle winch" and I couldn't resist ordering one right away. I don't know if you've looked into it, but it's a nice unit; full aluminium body, ip67 waterproof, free spool, strong as heck and winds at a pretty good speed. Boom Racing kinda nailed it with this one imo.

So, cue a redesign of the mounting plate to accommodate a servo winch.

Using a standard set of servo mounting ears from an AMS set-up, I knocked together a plate to hold it in place and it fit surprisingly well. One might even think that Gmade specifically designed for this by allowing room for a servo winch in front of the motor and stuff..

I made the final version from .030" steel (so it was the thinnest possible to keep the spool low since it's a bit high) and shot it with some matte black paint to keep rust at bay.

Once I had the winch installed I realized that because of the spool position (forward and high, relative to the chassis), the cable was dragging on the inside of the bumper before going out the fairlead. Probably not a huge concern, but it bugged me.

I was talking about it with a co-worker and he said 'it's too bad you can't just put some sort of roller in there." That was exactly the perfect solution, use one of my old roller fairleads on the inside of the front bumper. Works perfectly, completely eliminates any cable drag and the winch line comes out nicely centered through the fairlead.

[SurlyBurly]

Great thread so far, very thorough and a cool build. Can't wait to see it wheelin and hear your feedback in that regard.

[QuesoDelDiablo]

My CI foams arrived and that was the last piece of the puzzle. The Buffalo is now ready to be taken off of "clean enough to go on the kitchen table" status..

I tossed a set of comp cut Lil' Nova's in, firm outers in the rear and medium in the front. I went with the 4.25" od which might be a little too big for these tires (they're 4.25") but last time I tried to use the 4.0" od I found tires these size felt under-stuffed. I think once these break in they'll likely feel perfect. Even as is though, they perform brilliantly. I love CI foams.

I might do some foam/tire swapping this weekend if time allows - I'd move these 4.25's into a set of 4.3's (PL Super Swampers) and move my 4.0's into these tires (possibly with some tuning rings added).

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[QuesoDelDiablo]

Almost forgot to post them, but my license plates arrived as well. I still need to mount them but here they are.

I know there's several companies out there that make something similar but I picked Cryptic RC because they're localish to me.

Quality is top notch, they're made from waterproof vinyl on an aluminum backer plate, they're reflective and they've even modeled bolt heads into the design.

And they were able to generate the Canadian military plates for me.

If anyone is wondering, the plate number on there is the numerical equivalent of the word Queso...

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[OSRC]

Originally Posted by QuesoDelDiablo

I had a chrome (read: ugly) servo guard/skid plate ....It's arguably a pretty useless part, I can't see it coming into play very commonly. But I think it looks pretty good and who knows, maybe I'm wrong about it's usefulness..

I thought that too... I spent a weekend running a G6 and came home and noticed it was scratched up pretty good. Don't even recall hitting it per-se. I guess it does do something down there.

[QuesoDelDiablo]

Originally Posted by OSRC

I thought that too... I spent a weekend running a G6 and came home and noticed it was scratched up pretty good. Don't even recall hitting it per-se. I guess it does do something down there.

Cool, good to hear. It's things like this that I like being wrong about!

[1fox2go]

Any updates on this build? A friend showed me this kit and I have been looking into it. Not like I need another rig but this thing just looks like a winner. Thinking of making Burt Gummer's Blazer from Tremors if I get one.