Scale-ish Leaf Sprung TLT Buildup

[Zapper2003]

This is my first go at this all-custom deal, so post away at this. For starters its going to be a 1/2" square steel tube stock frame cut and welded up bruiser style (going to powder coat it satin black when finished) I'm not sure yet as to whether or not i'll go ahead and bend up some cage-work inside or not. Locked up TLT axles, stock tlt shocks, pede trans+sliders (16t pinion (gotta go smaller) and 87t spur (diff locked)), pede chrome wheels, imex swampdawgs, Proline F-100 body (to be painted any combination of about 8 colors, ive not decided yet), 645MG steering servo (to be chassis mounted), locked out rear w/ flipped knuckles for a real clean rear-profile, Juggy Springs and tlt suspension stay shackles/hangers. Pretty straight forward. I'll emphasize this now, its going to be a scale build with a minor crawling influence, almost a redneck beater truck painted up all fancy like minus the dents and details and whatnot others have thrown into their trucks. So, on with the pictures. (by the way, i Know the tires aren't on the same direction, two of them are still on my 'beater' proline agitator rims)


Here's a picture of the axles thrown under the body for a slight idea of whats to come. 11.5" wheelbase. Body will almost definitely sit lower.



Here's a top down picture of the front axle.



Here's one of the rear axle, from the input shaft side, here you can see how i locked out the rear axle from steering using some links from another kit (i believe from an old manta ray/dirt thrasher type kit), and also you can kind of see how i flipped and switched the knuckles to allow me to keep the backside real clean (look at the next picture down)



Heres a shot of the back side of the axle, nice and clean, appropriate for a more scale appearance.



And just one last shot of the rear axle from the top down showing the way i mounted the leaves to the axle and also provided myself a shock mount (same thing done on the front axle)






one last picture, of the front axle from the front, shows the steering setup, and YES i know the link is below the knuckles and NO i don't give a shart. It works right there and besides, it wouldn't clear the springs on top anyhow.




Well there it is so far in all of its glory. Keep in mind ive been in the hobby for a while now but this is my first one-off-custom-build-that-copies-a-lot-of-other-peoples-ideas so be gentle, and lemme know what ya think.

[nd4spdbh]

That is gonna be sooo sick... i wish i had another tlt kit to play around with.... i wonder where you got the idea of the leafs and suspension stays???

depending on how hard thoes leafs are you may want to take out one or both of the smaller leafs and just leave the bigger main one.

[thaclodking]

Are those jugg leafs?

[Zapper2003]

tcking, yeah those are juggy leaves. just put in a search on towers site for leaf springs and they're the ones that pop right up.


nd4spd, i know i may take out a leaf or two, but for build purposes they're all staying in. I know taking the spring packs apart was a PITA, but i didn't have to drill out the openings. I just used one of the stock coarse thread plastic screws that came with the kit and threaded that through the pack (with the susp. stay on top) and that worked out O.K. for the time being. I may have to either get longer screws or go with a screw and nut all the way through the axle housing. I have a good feeling much bashing with the short screw may strip the housing and/or break the plastic. Time will tell what will happen for sure.

[BrandO]

You must have read my mind for a truck. I have the same sort of idea for a truck floating around in my head. Right now I have most of the parts in a pile on a shelf. I will be using a Clod body for mine. Can't wait to see how it turns out.

[OldSchoolCrawler]

I'm actualy working on mine now. Using a set of Hilux springs and spring hangers, home brew chassie and FJ40 body.

[crawldaddy]

Forget powdercoating the frame, if your goal is a redneck truck then all you need is to rattle can it black. Then you rattle can it black agian over the scratches. Then repeat as needed. This one looks interesting, I ll be watching this one.

[ColquittCustom405]

I'm gonna keep my eye on this one, Looks like it's gonna be good.

[nd4spdbh]

ya definetly grab some longer skrews.... if you were smart... (i know i wouldnt have thought of it at the time...) but to thread in one of the longer fine thread skrews into the axle b 4 the coarse thread skrews were put in.... but w/e... looks like she will come out nice.

looks like shes gonna be tall... we will c

[OIT_TLT]

lookin good. its nice to see all the scale rigs bein built right now so i can snag a couple ideas for my own scaler.

[nd4spdbh]

do the tires hit the leafs when you go from lock to lock?

[Zapper2003]

crawldaddy, i can just spraybomb it flat, but my cousin just went out and bought a PC gun and we've got a used kitchen stove we can hook up for the oven so we're gonna try that out and see how it works. Steel's cheap, so re-doing a frame isn't any big task.

nd4spd, If you figure it at 1/10 scale, the swampdawgs are 47.5" tall, 25" wide on a 22" rim, lol, pretty fawkin stupid if'n ya ask me. I believe they need to make em narrower to compensate, but whatever works. As for rubbing at full lock, I'm not 100% sure yet. I'm 80% sure they will, and about 20% sure i'll be removing about 1/4" from the inner bead of the wheel to help compensate/make the tire look cooler on the rim.

Thanks for the encouragement guys. I'll most likely be cutting out my chassis tonight and weld it up and whatnot over the weekend.

[nd4spdbh]

ko ko... u still didnt tell us where u got that idea for the leafs how to hook to axle...

p.s. (im haggieg ) LOL

ya tires arnt scale but they look cool

[Zapper2003]

Well, update time. Got the majority of the main chassis cut out tonight. Its not welded up yet but i laid it out so you could get the idea. I started gettin real excited when i noticed I could lay the pede trans down, pretty slick if ya ask me, and it was totally not planned to work out that way. I think in the pictures that the trans is backwards but that isnt' too important at this stage of the game. Anyhow, onto the pics.

The main chassis layout..



A view from top down of roughly what it'll look like..



and a side shot (for obvious reasons i just set the trans on the table to get an idea of side-to-side driveshaft angles, not so much up and down)




Enjoy!

[nd4spdbh]

that thing is gonna be soo cool... its on the verge of making 80 bucks dissapear from my wallet

[Zapper2003]

Well I welded up the chassis tonight and just set it on top of the axles and whatnot for now. Here's a few pics.

[Zapper2003]

The body will not sit this high, and right now i'm hashing over the idea whether i want the frame to lay sideways as shown, or turn the center down and have the center drop. Most likely it will stay flat like it is, but we'll see.

[chino63]

drop the centers.

[4u2nv]

Agreed drop the centers it will look more scale that way.

[Zapper2003]

Well, agreed on the scale appearance, however, with a dropped center i only have roughly 2.5" of center clearance with a stand-up pede trans, laying it down would make the angles too steep for the sliders. if i keep it standing up, i gain a bit more clearance, but i do have to make a skidplate/trans mount that will hang down from the chassis a bit, possibly a half inch or so. When i originally thought about the chassis i wanted to do a compound cut on the frame, which would drop the center down AND out, but with limited tools I was unable to do so. I'm still hung up on mounting the TLT suspension stays to the frame (for the shackles/hangers for the springs). I've got ideas but they won't look right. Any suggestions?