Tommy R's TTC Build - "Big Oly"

[justinart24]

Cool build, I am digging the painted frame&etc and the decals. Nice job.

[Tommy R]

Originally Posted by Gimp

This truck is bitchin Can't wait to see it all finished up!

Originally Posted by justinart24

Cool build, I am digging the painted frame&etc and the decals. Nice job.

Thanks, y'all.

I think the suspension linkage may now be close to "done" with the exception of some small tweaks. I also noticed last night that my wheelbase is 1/8" shorter on the passenger side and I'm not sure why. I'll figure it out, but in the meantime I've got a dilemma.... You see, I don't want tires rubbing and tearing up my lexan body. Between the deformation of the body and the sounds of lugs flapping on plastic, it just detracts from the whole "scale" experience. And what's the point of a scaler if it doesn't actually appear scale?? At the very least I need to add some steel tubing around the fender wells so that the tires contact the tube work instead of plastic when fully turned/articulated. I have a couple options to address this:

• Raise the chassis/body to the point where interference just won't happen. But this will hurt the performance and I don't want it to look like a mud truck. No thanks...
• Run a moderate ride height and use very aggressive bump stops to keep the tires out of the fenders (primarily up front). But I am concerned about not having enough bump travel.
• Dovetail the front and rear to gain adequate clearance. Not a big fan of the look, but I may consider it. I'd have to re-do most of the rear tubework, which would suck.
• I could trim the body fairly aggressively and get pretty radical with the design of the fender tubing. This is what I'm leaning toward right now.

Here's an example of the kind of tube work I'm considering up front. Note the peak in the upper portion to allow for the tire to be stuffed while also turning.


I'm not sure if it'll go with the style of an early Bronco, though. I guess I could always just bend up some brake line and see how it looks. I also plan to re-do the upper tube work in the rear. I just don't like the long bars stretching to the corners:


So here is what I'm considering. Please pardon my awesome MS Paint photochopping render. The body would be removed underneath the new tubework. Basically, the tube work would follow the up travel of the tire when stuffed and turned. In the front it would tie to the bumper/stinger. Also, notice the slight change to the rear tube work up top.


Another tube option is to not get so radical with the angles and just aggressively clearance the body. Maybe keeping the cutouts a bit more boxy will suit this body better? Keep in mind the corners would be radiused, not squared off like shown. ;)


Either way, I'll have a problem addressing how the tires will impact the headlight area. The lexan headlights may need to be sacrificed altogether. The plan was to cut holes in the lexan and mount some real lights, but maybe I'll just put them in a different location if I have to cut away the lexan headlights.

I'm open to thoughts and ideas if y'all have any....

[fortysixandtwo]

Bronco turned out sick. Very nice work.

[War Pig]

Hey Tommy, I really like how your Bronco looks right now. It would be a shame to ruin the fender lines by cutting them out above the horizontal body line. Can you limit the uptravel temporarily and test it out a little? Maybe tape some bump stops on the frame or slip some small o-rings between the shock shafts and rod ends to limit up travel. Most 1:1 rigs don't have that much uptravel anyways. My EB has about 3/8" of usable up travel, and 3/4" droop. It will compress or droop more than that, but it's sprung both ways so it takes quite a bit to do it. When I'm driving, it will flex quite a bit, but mostly due to its weight. Hope you can find a good solution, it'd be a pity to chop up that beautiful paint job!

[2JSC]

Yeah, keep the body as is. If anything, make a tube fender that fallows the fenders as they are cut. Might be hard, but i bet it would look a lot better... and x2 to what WarPig said.

[Tommy R]

Originally Posted by War Pig

Hey Tommy, I really like how your Bronco looks right now. It would be a shame to ruin the fender lines by cutting them out above the horizontal body line. Can you limit the uptravel temporarily and test it out a little? Maybe tape some bump stops on the frame or slip some small o-rings between the shock shafts and rod ends to limit up travel. Most 1:1 rigs don't have that much uptravel anyways. My EB has about 3/8" of usable up travel, and 3/4" droop. It will compress or droop more than that, but it's sprung both ways so it takes quite a bit to do it. When I'm driving, it will flex quite a bit, but mostly due to its weight. Hope you can find a good solution, it'd be a pity to chop up that beautiful paint job!

Originally Posted by 2JSC

Yeah, keep the body as is. If anything, make a tube fender that fallows the fenders as they are cut. Might be hard, but i bet it would look a lot better... and x2 to what WarPig said.

Thanks, y'all. I really don't want to hack up the body, either. I could leave the fenders pretty much like they are now and run some tube work around the openings, but I think I would still need to hack up the front grill pretty significantly. The lexan headlights are just in the way too much. They even hit when turning at ride height!

We'll see... Maybe I'll just narrow the grill, but leave the fender and hood full width? Or maybe I'll just cut off the lexan headlights altogether? I plan on adding light buckets anyway so maybe it would still look okay....

[War Pig]

Alright Tommy, I'm a little bored tonight and made a trip out to the garage. Figured that these pictures of the EB might help you out a little.

Front at full compression.


At resting ride height.


Drooped out with the weight of the axle, wheels, and tires.


It still flexes pretty good. That can is 4" tall.


This is from the side when fully flexed out. Notice that the tire sits alot higher than the first picture.


Fender clearance when flexed. It's nice to have the pinched front end.


And this is the EB at ride height. 2 3/4" belly, it compresses down to about 2 1/4" and droops out to about 3 1/2".


Looking at these pics of my truck make me realize that my fenders are radiused out quite a bit more than yours. Maybe you can trim yours to the body line and make some fender tubes that fit real tight to the radius.
Hopefully you can use these pics and measurements for something? Loving the truck...try to keep that body whole.

PS: I think you're going to have to lose the headlight buckets .

[2JSC]

Trim out the grill a bit more just under the headlights, like on Guido, but not so severe.

I think the tubes fallowing the current openings would be best.

[Tommy R]

Tim, thanks for taking all those pics and measurements! It definitely helps out. I slapped the body on mine real quick and did some flexing to see how much body clearancing I'll need to do. Ultimately, I think if I trim up to the white paint and put some tube around the fender opening, it'll work.

Of course, when the wheels are stuffed AND turned, the headlight buckets are clearly not long for this world. I think I'm going to just trim the area I need and then determine how to make it nice looking. But it doesn't look like I'll need to cut into the radiator grill. Removing the headlights should be sufficient. But I may just cut off the entire front grill, install a drifter intercooler for a radiator and leave it open. We'll see. To start, I'll only remove the minimum amount necessary.

Yeah, doving the front would really help, but for some unknown reason I'm trying to keep this one full width. I'm a glutton for punishment, I suppose!

Anyway, I took some belly clearance measurements to compare to yours. Looks very comparable, actually!

Belly clearance at ride height: 2-5/8"
At full droop: 3-1/4"
At full bump: 2"

It also looks like it may be able to articulate enough to lift a tire 5" from the ground, but with no weight on it, it's hard to quantify.

In other related news, I've gotten a few goodies in the mail and am waiting on one more from Canada. Should be some fairly cool stuff. ;) I just hope it all gets here in time so I can make this thing a runner for next Sunday's comp!

[Tommy R]

This morning I trimmed the body some more. I trimmed up to the white body line above the fenders and also removed the headlights. Then I picked up some brake line and started bending stuff. Here's what I'm thinking about doing. Imagine something comparable in the rear. And I'll trim all the lexan under the tubing.




At full bump.


At full roll. Tire gets into the tubing, but not TOO badly.


And worst case scenario: full stuff and turned.


I think it'll work okay. With some bump stops installed, I think it'll be fine.

[2JSC]

Doesn't look bad IMO, but I hope you are going to cut in some new headlights.

[Tommy R]

Originally Posted by 2JSC

Doesn't look bad IMO, but I hope you are going to cut in some new headlights.

Oh, it'll definitely get front headlights. At the very least they will be light buckets mounted to the tube work, but I hope to get a pair mounted to the lexan so it'll look like an OEM grill that's been narrowed.

[ColquittCustom405]

Looking good. I like how you did the steering. Clearance is perfect up front.

[Tommy R]

Originally Posted by ColquittCustom405

Looking good. I like how you did the steering. Clearance is perfect up front.

Thanks! Unfortunately, I had to change some stuff around. The tie rod and track bar were simultaneously bottoming out on the servo at full bump. Not good to have your servo act as a bump stop! So I made a new servo mount that holds the servo higher. Originally, I was trying to put both the tie rod and drag link above the knuckles, but there just wasn't room before they would crash into the chassis. So I put the tie rod back under the high-steer knuckle and kept the drag link above. Here's a couple pics.


Sorry for the blurry pic. I made the new bracket with adjustable holes so I could fine tune the servo height.


At full bump the track bar bottoms on the axle housing. Not sure there is much more I can do about that. Maybe bend another track bar, but I think it's got adequate bump travel so I'll likely just install some bump stops.


However, at full roll the drag link and track bar both contact the framerail. I'll clearance the framerail and may also play around with some endlinks for better clearance.

[2JSC]

Know whats sad? Even with your high steer arms, your tie-rod is maybe 5-6mm higher than mine with stock type knuckles.

Love the panhard mount though.

[justinart24]

Originally Posted by Tommy R

However, at full roll the drag link and track bar both contact the framerail. I'll clearance the framerail and may also play around with some endlinks for better clearance.

Maybe make shorter shock towers.

[Tommy R]

Originally Posted by 2JSC

Know whats sad? Even with your high steer arms, your tie-rod is maybe 5-6mm higher than mine with stock type knuckles.

Love the panhard mount though.

Well, I wish I could take full advantage of having the high steer knuckles, but I guess the clearance still isn't too bad.

Originally Posted by justinart24

Maybe make shorter shock towers.

I actually recently moved the towers back, which lowered them. I also am running longer 64mm shafts so there will always be some shock shaft visible at full bump. I could've just lowered the mounts, but I thought it would look funny to see the shock mounted to low relative to the rest of the body. I figured it would have more of a scale appearance with the longer shocks. Nonetheless, I could potentially move the mount down another 1/4", but before I do, I'd like to do what I can to just make clearance for everything.

[TOYOTAS]

awesome build!!

that body would be sick on a short course truck so you didnt have to hack it up...

good work!!!

[Tommy R]

Originally Posted by TOYOTAS

awesome build!!

that body would be sick on a short course truck so you didnt have to hack it up...

good work!!!

Thanks! Yeah, I'm trying to hack up the body as little as possible, but this thing is modeled after a TTC style truck so I've had to make some concessions.

Got some goodies in the mail! First, I got some Axial aluminum shocks and I'm going to run longer 64mm shafts in the fronts. I'll leave stock 50mm shafts in the rear.


Got my GCM transfer case, too. For the time being I'm just going to bolt it down to the stock skidplate. When I get more time I'll make a custom one, but I'm rushing to get it ready for Sunday's comp.


I also played around with some endlinks and did some grinding and now the shocks are the limiting factor in my bump travel in roll conditions.


And a sign of tomorrow's project. I'll need to make a really short driveshaft!

[justinart24]

Looking good dude.

I got a small drive line if your interested.
http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j1...IMG_3125-1.jpg

Its a cut down RC4WD Steel Punisher shaft.
http://rc4wdstore.com/2/product_info...f31249631594e7