Meet my ongoing project: Jeep Wrangler "LJ" on an 11.4" Axial SCX10 III Base Camp

[wwaveform]

This has been a personal "labor of love" for me for the last few months, and will likely be several more months until it's finished. Ever since I got myself a real LJ, I've wanted a 1/10 RC version of it, naturally. Seems like every scale Jeep there is is either a JK or JL. I have one of each already, and personally I'm getting sick of seeing all of the same Jeeps everywhere. I think the older Jeeps such as the TJ, YJ, and CJ should have good representation, and that's what led me to begin work on this LJ. (I normally have the tires off the ground, don't worry)





Underneath it's an Axial SCX10 III Base Camp that I've shortened to 11.4" using the official Axial shortening kit AXI234016. There are a couple of oddities with these links. For starters, the lower links are a bit too short and you wind up with a pumpkin facing the dirt. I've had to thread the ends out slightly to get the axle straight. Also, the springs on the rear shocks make contact with the axle housing since they're now angled backwards. This doesn't seem to affect the performance of the chassis though, it's just a slight annoyance. The tires are Pro-Line Class 0 BFG Krawler KX on Pro-Line "Rock Shooter" 1.9" beadlocks.






Paying homage to the wonderful "Joop" stamping on the fenders

The plan is to have the body be modular, insofar as I can remove the hardtop, replace the full body doors with half doors, that kind of stuff. This is all 3D printed. The main body, hard top, doors will all be printed in PETG, relatively simple to print, great layer adhesion, and UV resistant. Structural parts such as the front/rear bumpers and the rollbars will be printed in high-strength carbon-fiber nylon. What you're seeing right now may look very rough, because it's all a prototype. Initial designs I've printed for the purposes of testing fitment on the chassis and in general how the body will be assembled. The very final body will be painted to match my real LJ: light khaki metallic.

Anyways, just thought I'd show off what I'm working on. I know a lot of Jeep enthusiasts out there would have liked to see some representation for Jeeps older than the JK. Can't wait to have this truck finished! I want to bring it with me to Axialfest in California this summer

For anyone on Instagram, I post semi-regular updates on this project at @ssb_rc_media. NOT a shameless plug I swear!

[smog]

That is a great project, the body is turning out nicely. I agree, glad to see you making an LJ, it's definitely one of the neater Jeeps. My buddy had one for a while. It was cool.

[twade984]

Very cool, can’t wait to see it come together. Just recently had two of these come through the dealership and I didn’t even let myself find out the price.


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[durok]

Killer project!

If the shock angle is bothering you, you could grab some shock keys to change that very cheaply - something like these - just search "rc shock key" on Amazon or wherever, roughly $8 a set of 4:

[wwaveform]

Thanks! I'll have to get a pair of those shock keys

[JatoTheRipper]

Wow this is an awesome project!

[diezel666]

Very nice looking build so far!

A couple of thoughts.... Since you 3dprinted the body, you can mist the plastic with certain chemicals and smooth it out pretty dramatically, or can hand sand it. Your call on that one.
Personally I'd go a route of smoothing out the plastic over using any sort of filler materials that would add weight.

Def give the shock keys a go, they work wonders!

Consider shortening your lower arms and extended the upper arms to rotate your rear axle to get the pinion angle (and the portal angle) closer to being correct (IMHO rear portals function best 90* in
relation to the road surface to prevent the axle from wanting to lift the front end. Angled towards the front can help keep the front end down, but generally give weird traction issues and clearance issues with shocks).
This may considerably help your shock clearance issue as well and you may not even need the shock keys, unless getting the shocks to a better angle to improve performance is a requirement on your build.