My sorta scale, sorta wraith, mostly fun build

[Chris_The_Battery_Man]

So for a while now I have had an itch to build a rig that was purely for fun. Maybe compete some with it, but based around the idea of enjoying myself with it.

I wanted to start from the ground up and braze together something sweet, but the creative juices arent really there at the moment, and I have this wraith chassis laying around. So I figured what the heck. It will sort of be a temporary setup until I can figure out what I want to make.


Its going to be sort of class 3 like. Rear steer. Brushless. Big tires. I know its not really that "scale" but I want to still enjoy it. Going to mix some of the little things from the comp world into it so its capable. Going to stuff the servos way down, behind the axle. It will be relatively light, and the tires will hook up.

Shes going to have some lumens to throw down the rock also for night crawling. I plan on adding some aluminum cross bracing to make the chassis a little more rigid, and I have an idea for some upper link mounts on the chassis side. There isnt any tubability on it, so I am going to machine some cool bolt on mounts to give me some tuning ability for the upper links to adjust my squat and anti squat.

The stock wraith chassis doesnt really look all that awesome to me. So I had to butcher it. I am more of a pickup guy, and I like the look of a bed. My dremmel died, so I only got 1 side done. I used a piece of the cage I cut off, fish mouthed it, and CA'd it on. The CA is rubberized so it should hold, yet be flexible.




Next I took off the bumper. Probably wont run one on it.




Stay tuned. More to come

[Freestyler]

so are you going to build a nice flatbed or have sides?

[Chris_The_Battery_Man]

I probably wont do much with the bed except maybe put some kind of cover on it



So a turn of events. I am trading my XR for this beast. Brushless, built trans and axles.... the works. Only thing I am not getting with it is the wheels and tires. I am still going to mess with the wraith cab, but this thing just looks too bad ass to pass up. I will be tweaking the hell out of this though to suit my needs.

[fordsuperduty]

Axial should take some notes that's what the exo should've looked like from the beginning

Sent from my iPhone in the shop

[Chris_The_Battery_Man]

Been a while since I have updated this thread. These below are copy and pastes from some local boards:

7-27:

Had some time tonight while some paint was drying to work on her. I blew up a bunch of crap in the front end so I wanted to fix that and tend to some issues.


Not sure whos locker this is, but it didnt hold up very well. The end of the locker stripped out



This is all thats left of the inner bearing. Literally no external casing on it..... not sure where it went




The tires rubbed on the lower links, so I put them on the inside of the link mount, and flipped it to lower the front end, It sat lower than the rear. I had these random alum mounts in a box so I figured I would throw them on.



The orange knuckles didnt work for me, so I had to throw a black set on. I also thought it would be trick to use the black arms off the orange knuckles. The truck came with crap Hot Racing knuckles that were all loose. Threw on some stock plastic ones. Id rather run those than HR junk. While I was there I re-drilled some holes to give the truck more caster. Helped alot



Made this pin for the MIP shaft in front. It just had set screws, but the pinion gear was the newer style with a pin, so I had to make this up out of a stainless set screw



Now shes all back together. Put in a stock iron cross locker, and threw in a set of over drive gears. Put on a shaved down plastic diff cover.




Some clear shots of her:





Heres all the crap I pulled off that I am not going to use, or broke lol





8-4:

Got some batteries in today, so I wanted to go throw some rubber to rock/dirt. Before I did, I put some big bore shocks out back with a goofy extended rod end mod to make the rear end now sag so badly




She is impressively good handling, and a hoot to drive.

Poser shots






8-5:

The lady and I went and enjoyed a time share that had to be used in Rockaway Beach this weekend, and I got to bring my toy with. Luckily RIGHT outside of the hotel room there was a large rock retaining wall. So I had a little fun for an hour.

Recently, I picked up a Canon T3i, and I have been having a lot of fun shooting with it. Took some action shots. This truck is such a fun subject for shooting as I learn the proper ways to photograph stuff.

[ZiG]

Looks awesome! That is one HUGE spur gear!

[sam63]

Are we gonna see this this on the rocks Sunday?? Or in the air, either way works, but only if you are driving one handed......beer/beverage in one hand, controller in the other.

[Chris_The_Battery_Man]

Another update:

A few things have changed on this bad boy. Tim(Warpig) helped me get a 645mg servo winch setup for this. I also installed about 175 lumens worth of lights on this beast. It lights crap up like no ones business! Here are some pics of the lights, and some fun at Lake Keechulus for the TTC/NWSN.

Link to a photo album:

Keechelus 2013 Photos by homestarwrestler | Photobucket












Unfortunately, I have been having a hard time keeping the ring and pinions alive in it. People say it has to do with having the drag brake all the way up. Which makes sense. But I thought it had to do with the bearings that support the pinion gears kept blowing up. This thing is stupid fast, and as soon as I let off the throttle, and the drag brake engages, a loud snap occurs. Eventually the bearing fails, and it eats the gear set.


Recently I hit a curb and broke the housing. Since it has sat for a few weeks, and I decided to get her back together. Here is some pics of the damage.




I figured Bushings would be the answer.



Ring and pinion installed with a new fancy grip fab locker.




Bad bearing on one knuckle. I also shimmed the inside of the universal to take the slop out of it side to side. It also keeps the axis of the universal properly in line with the king pins. Seems to have helped with the "turn and wabble" of the universals.




All back together.



Sadly it only took about 15 mins of hard running to wobble out the plastic housings and possibly ruin the ring and pinions AGAIN. Not sure what the best way to fix that is at this point. I dont really want to turn down the drag brake down because it already rolls pretty bad as it is. Any suggestions? I cant keep putting ring and pinions in it every run

[JokersWild]

Maybe aluminum bearing caps? The thing is hella fast Chris! What esc are you running? Maybe without turning down drag brake set the deceleration pitch to tone down speed before snapping in drage brake? I know you don't want to hear " less speed" lol

[Chris_The_Battery_Man]

Its a mamba max pro

No, I wont have it out Sunday. Got a birthday party for the ladys little niece that day. Also I didnt know of anything going on

[mcrawlinslow]

that thing is sweet i had seen it around, it inspired me to start building one for myself, accept for i am keeping the exo chassis and adding an ar60 to the rear, and i have to do some tube work on the rear!

[winnerone23]

I have a locker like that chris. Its a black steel SDS locker from the 300's an weighs 43g or something like that.. its solid.

The rig looks awesome! I run my wraith the way you do urs, for fun, fix it when it breaks.. which is more often then I'm running it. (Fixing it)..

I haven't blown any knuckle bearings as of yet, but a couple pinion bearings in the front axle. Also just ruined my second set of R&P gears up front. At first I thought it was the od gear set, so I went with stock greats up front. They lasted longer but just went out as well. Then again, it was just the stock R&P..

I like the clocked chubs.. I run mine with a good amount of toe out to keep it from rolling none stop. Did clocking it help with that?

I think goin to continue looking for a exo cage for mine.. lower the cog a little an make it look bad ass while at it!

As for ur wobble an ruining stuffs.. have you thought bout giving the uni ears a little shave? I know the high speed wobble at 50+° on my XR is/was bad enough to wobble an break stuff. I bet it ain't helping a go fast any at all..

Final thought.. WHAT, No beef tubes! Crazy.....

[winnerone23]

How many more bad ass solid axled exo's are out there? That I can't find cause they don't have a name!?

[mcrawlinslow]

Originally Posted by winnerone23

How many more bad ass solid axled exo's are out there? That I can't find cause they don't have a name!?

alot! but all owned by the same people lol

[winnerone23]

Originally Posted by mcrawlinslow

alot! but all owned by the same people lol

Lol, thanks. Doesn't help get any pics tho..

Any links or build thread titles?