Axial Wringo Class3'ish TTC'ish Build = empty bank account

[dna4engr]

Hey all,
I have been enjoying reading and trying to contribute a little bit on the forums. I just got back into RC after about 20 years (10 of which married to someone who wouldn't have let me get back in). She's gone and so are the restrictions. Now I have something "meaningful" to spend all my money on

THIS THREAD WILL COVER THE EVOLUTION OF THE TRUCK FROM DINGO INTO BASICALLY A CLASS 3/TTC RIG. IT STARTED SMALL AND I HAD TO PUT A LOT INTO IT TO GET TO THAT PHASE. I WANTED TO SHARE THE JOURNEY WITH SOME MORE FOLKS WHO SHARE THIS ADDICTION. THANKS AND STAY TUNED...

I started this thing out with a SCX10 Dingo kit


Next step was getting a faster motor as the 35T HPI saturn I bought for it wasn't even close to fast enough. Got this venom 21d and it was pretty good with a decent crawl ability. The traxxas xl5 was a great pickup off ebay for my first rig and being waterproof it made running in the snow really fun.


I upgraded to 2.2 Rockster wheels with PL flatirons and that was good "for a while" until I got the need, the need to UPGRADE.

And Wringo was born (not a new concept, scx10 with wraith axles, I've done a few things that are unique from what I've seen, you'll have to read the story, or just scroll through to find out...lol)

Parts, parts, and more parts


PL Super Swampers
Wraith shocks
Wraith axle housings, plastic chubs and knuckles
Axial universals
HR diff covers and steering link
GT550 motor
RC screws SS scx10 pack

[dna4engr]

I picked up some 6mm axial links and some more 30* rod ends. To address the alignment of the axles and tranny, I followed "Mechanic's" method of redoing the mounts for the upper links to create room for the drive shaft to pass without touching. I did have to raise the tranny up about 6mm to help the driveshaft clear. It's basically a 3 piece spacer system to hold the upper link mounts off the frame rails and allow the shaft to pass. It worked pretty good...for a while. More on the subsequent changes later.

Here is the front and rear photos




I went to the University of North Dakota so I'm a big fan of the (team formerly known as) Fighting Sioux. I figured I would parlay that into my themes for RC builds. Basically only in paint and some custom vinyl decals I had made.

Here is the first body, a PL F650.


Flex shot

[Bulldog]

Welcome back to the hobby. The rig looks good! Not a scale masterpiece, but big and fun and cool! Nothing wrong with that! Keep posting up with progress!

[dna4engr]

Yea, it started out as just a basher so scale wasn't my priority at first. After spending some time on this and other forums I've been inspired to keep making it better and more capable. I dove head first into making the rig as scale as my skills allow. It truly has been an evolution from may until now.

I will be making updates as quickly as I can.
Thanks for looking.

[jcsaxial]

Nice build. I like how you did the 4 link, Ive been battling that on my f350 build. do you have any side to side movement?

[dna4engr]

Originally Posted by jcsaxial

Nice build. I like how you did the 4 link, Ive been battling that on my f350 build. do you have any side to side movement?

Hey jcsaxial,
Yes this setup does have some side to side slop. It isn't to bad at the start because everything is nice and tight. After everything is wore in you will get slop. I went through 2 different fixes to remedy this. Neither include a panhard bar, just some different link geometries. The final config has worked really good. I hope to get to posting that detail tonight when I have some time.
Thx

[dna4engr]

I worked out some handmade skid plates out of 22ga steel. Painted to match the green in the body.


Here are some pictures at this point of it crawling at this point.





Next step was to get a real power plant in there. The 550 HPI motor wasn't really to my liking, plus the xl5 didn't have a drag brake. I picked up an FXR 35T combo and put that in with some custom saddle holders for 2 3S lipo packs run in parallel


As you can see I switched over to some MT baja claws (1.9) and got the Jconcepts Ford raptor body for the slash to make the body width and tire size look more scale. I did run the F650 Body for a while but the, constant rubbing on the tires got to me and I really didn't want to hack that body up. Just save it for another project and used it sporadically on this rig.

[dna4engr]

You know how all of us get the need for speed some times. I have an HPI blitz that I bought just for bashing and it's great for that. I figured it would be cool to go brushless in the Wringo and make it more capable. Enter Castle MMP and 3800kv SC motor. I learned the hard way a lesson many of you on this Forum already know. Brushless = broken parts and more $$

Broken front rod end


Broken upper link support


At this point I didn't break any driveline parts, just suspension. And it had the stock tranny, stock diffs, and stock WB8 drive shafts.
I knew I wanted to beat on this thing much harder and make it a lot more capable that meant GROUND UP RE-BUILD. I targeted it being a TTC style rig but I ended up more of a Class 3 (Hence the title).

[dna4engr]

I tore down the entire rig to the frame to start.


On tap is a new body (I know another one lol), steel drive shafts, new wheels, winch and a butt load of scale parts.

First step was working out the suspension geometry. I picked up some Wraith aluminum links and had to mock up a new mount for the upper links. This really gave the geometry a nice tight stance side to side and still allowed good articulation.




Here it is with a new HR aluminum/delrin skid plate and CKRC steel drive shafts also got the Vanquish Titanium steering links on the front.


Mockup with the PL Bronco body on it. I really like the size of this body with the Wraith axles. I've heard it's really 1/8 scale and its perfect.


Other upgrades not shown here:
Vanquish Shock hoops
Vanquish axle suspension mounts
Vanquish bearing caps
Gmade piggyback xd shocks (103mm)

[dna4engr]

I made new side plates for the frames to mount the upper links.


Mocked up the HR anti-sway bar on the front.


Almost forgot,
I upgraded all the axle outputs. Our good friends from the PROC. Topcad chubs, knuckles, and rear lockouts. I know they get a bad rap some times, but I've beat them up pretty good and no breaks yet.


Painted and mounted the side plates with the rock rail mounts.


Rolling chassis with electronics box mounted above the motor (radio shack hobby box). Also, I picked up some Motorworx 8 hole wheels and went back to the PL super swampers. Mocked up the 3Racing winch mount on the RC4wd bumper. I went with the RRP 88t steel spur gear/slipper. It is pretty nice unit but I had frequent issues with it slipping too much.

[ColquittCustom405]

if you could, would you post a side view and top view picture with the raptor body on please? Nice rig.

[dna4engr]

Originally Posted by ColquittCustom405

if you could, would you post a side view and top view picture with the raptor body on please? Nice rig.

This is the best I have from the top. It's more of a top front view.


From the side, the best I have is a more angled view.


With this setup, the 1.9 TTC tires didn't rub the body at full articulation.

[dna4engr]

Getting back to the evolution of the Wringo. I really wanted to use the Dingo fender flares on this bronco body as I've always liked the early Broncos with flares. Here they are mocked up trying to figure out where to cut the body.


So fast forward to a decent amount of cutting and painting. Here is the body as it was out of the gate. I painted the fender flares to match the green in the body (man was that a PITA), then I painted each bolt head on the flares silver/chrome to be a little transparent with the SS hardware I was using. I took the Dingo cage and cut it down into a tubular roof rack for the Wringo. Then installed an Axial 5 light bar (the same one for the exo). I also made a couple recovery straps out of some yellow Cat safety glass lanyard I had. It really looks like a tow strap (more so than a shoe lace), but it stretches A LOT. The wheelbase and track width are still extreme for a street legal rig, but where I grew up, plenty of guys had rigs like this and just hoped the cops wouldn't bust them for having the tires stick out so far.




The window tint paint caused some of the white in the roof to look tinted (I didn't back it enough with silver before spraying the tint). I dis-assembled the roll cage and light bar and painted the roof black. I think it looks a lot better.



So the Castle MMP is awesome as you all know, but I could not tune it enough to get the 3800 to even let me crawl a little bit. Enter my good friends at Tekin. I watched DJMedic's wraith build and saw him use a Tekin redline with a rotor upgrade. I thought about a Pro4 but decided to use the 540 size motor (my suspension mounts actually only allow that size as it sits right now). I went for the Redline 13.5 with the 13mm hi-torque rotor. I can't say enough good things about this motor. It is truly everything I've wanted an electric motor to be in my scx10 since I got it. I have done a lot of tweaking with the castle link. Thanks to some setup help I read from John Holmes, I have it running perfectly now. All the torque I need to break stuff and more wheel speed than I can handle.


First casualty of the new motor...front diff locker. Nothing new for you veterans, but she rounded out the plastic housing like an endmill. A couple of RCP locked spools later, no more slipping front axle.

[dna4engr]

Now it was time to finally get some scale accessories added and made for this rig. I started off with some lights in the light bar.

I wanted a metal rear bumper but couldn't justify the cost of a RC4wd one with the spare tire carrier. I tried my hand at making one out of Aluminum with a spare tire carrier that works.






Next it was upgrade time for my winch. I fried the 3Racing winch motor and the Heyok winch controller I had hooked up because I put 7.4v into it not thinking. First thing was a servo winch from CKRC with kevlar winch line. I mounted it on a custom bracket right in front of the motor. Then ran some tubing up to my now "dummy" 3racing winch. After the learning experience of ruining one, I got a hold of Heyok and had him build a 4A relay winch controller for me to run off of a 2 pos 3rd channel. It works great and my only limitation for pulling power now is the plastic servo wheel my winch drum is mounted to.




I couldn't justify spending $20 on a scale looking hook. Looked at the cheaper ones out there too, but even the $5 hooks get you on shipping. Had some 1/4 inch alum plate that I hacked away at to get a new hook.




Last thing I made was a pull-pal. I took some 1/4 Alum square stock and bent it. then cut and bent some 22ga steel into a shovel shape. Pretty decent for "free".

[nuckle]

How did the wraith shock droop brackets work on your truck. Im in the middle of the same build, waiting on bent rodends, and was planning to use that same setup so I can keep my shocks. Were they flimsy, i plan on running allthread in between them but worry about the plastic shockmount.

[dna4engr]

Originally Posted by nuckle

How did the wraith shock droop brackets work on your truck. Im in the middle of the same build, waiting on bent rodends, and was planning to use that same setup so I can keep my shocks. Were they flimsy, i plan on running allthread in between them but worry about the plastic shockmount.

Hey nuckle
I used the drop brackets for the scx10. Not sure if they are the same as the wraith. I did upgrade to the vanquish shock hoops for the scx10 so they are pretty rigid compared to stock plastic ones. I took some old 6mm axial links I had , cut them to length and tapped both ends. I then screwed the drop kit screws through the shock hoop and into the new crossing rod. Just one for the front and one for the back. It has been really stout for this rig which is now at about 11lbs. I've put a homemade drop kit on another scx10 with wraith shocks but standard axles on stock plastic hoops and that works pretty good.

Thanks
Dna

[dna4engr]

After a few sessions out and about climbing on different surfaces in different spots I go to. I wanted to try out some different tires on the rig with some upgraded foams. I have a set of R35 2.2 ripsaws and i never really liked the stock foams. I contacted Crawler Innovations and ordered up some Double Deuce 5.5 foams (firm rear, med front). I got these mounted up and they are a decent difference in size to the TSL's that were on there.
Stock ripsaw foam next to CI foam

Mounted ripsaw next to mounted TSL on same motorworx rim


I was very excited to get this config out. I lowered the shock setting one hole too (and raised the body a little bit. All I can say at the start is that I didn't even get a good test in. My 88t robinson sipper has been an issue from the word go. No matter how tight I tighten the spring (i.e. all the way down) it still slips. I even added loctite to the nut to keep it from backing off and it still slips. I had the stock slipper laying around so I threw it on with a 32p spur gear and a different pinion (kept approx the same gear ratio). Well after about another 5 min of running, I heard this one slipping too. Then eventually all I heard was the motor spinning and the rig didn't move. I thought it was just a bad slipper, but it was actually this...


Melted the SOB

At this point I said screw it. I have most of the parts for the Bomb proof (Harley build) tranny, whats another $100 to finish it off. So it was time to make it happen. My build is a little different than Harleys in supplier selection but the concept holds true.


Hot Racing hardened gears
Topcad Aluminum tranny case
Super shafty top shaft
RRP 32p slash slipper
RRP 9t hardened pinion
Crawler Innovations short and long output shafts.



I used the dust cover cuz I want to keep maintenance down to a minimum.

All I can say is WOW for smoothness and functionality. The same time I installed these upgrades, I changed the gearing from OD front and back to OD front, stock gearing in back. The 88t RRP slipper always had a whining noise that really bothered me. The bombproof setup is really quiet actually even though it's 32p. The transmission of power to the wheels is better than it's ever been and super smooth with the 13.5 redline. I don't know why because the pinion spur ratio stayed basically the same (56/9 vs. 88/14). Anyway, I'm super glad I did it and this will be on all future builds of big power axial trucks for me

[dna4engr]

First casualty of the new tranny setup...blue out the CV on my CKRC steel driveshafts. I had the driveline angle ok, but maybe too steep.


Figured why waste more time with replacements, lets try one of the benchmarks for driveshafts. MIP Ax10 shafts shortly arrived along with some traxxas 4mm threaded pins. I have the longer CI output shaft facing rearward and even the shorter AX10 shafts wouldn't fit with my 12.2" wheel base. I decided to lengthen the rear links to accommodate and to give a wider stance for climbing inclines. I also made the shock mount flip change on the axles to get the truck even lower to the ground. Wheelbase ended up at just over 13" now (the front moved about a 1/4" forward with the shock mount flip).


Here is a shot of it with the wider wheelbase out on my backyard track. I had to start trimming the fender flares since the body is already cut for the shorter wheelbase.


The front looks good. The picture probably doesn't show the back well enough, it looked a little out of place, but it's growing on me and for what is in store next for this truck. it's perfect!!

Updates Soon...I hope!!

[89lxmorepower]

How do you like those g made shocks im looking into getting some but trying find good info on em

[dna4engr]

Originally Posted by 89lxmorepower

How do you like those g made shocks im looking into getting some but trying find good info on em

They have been working really good. I have the 103mm ones and they are enough travel for the most part. Maybe would have gone more but we'll see as time goes. Build quality good. The stock springs are pretty stiff so if your using them for a rock crawler be sure to order the "soft" ones unless your rig is really heavy. I'm running 20wt in the front and 30wt in the back and I am really liking them. The piggyback adjustment system really does work. I haven't cranked it up and tried a truck pull or anything yet so that will be the strength test. The caps and rod ends are molded plastic but the rest of the shock is Aluminum or steel.

Originally Posted by ranger4xlt

rig looks amazing man. I love those old bronco bodies.

Me too