another ax10 build, it's a 2.2 esse

[opek]

Bling arrived!

Well one of the screws that holds the chubs on sheered. Jesus. It's really time for some metal supports in the axles. I assume it cannot sheer one screw if there isn't an absolute ton of flex. Gonna head to the hardware store tomorrow and try to rig something up. God forbid I buy more products from sweatshops tooled by the CCP!


On to the money shot, no pun intended.








Now I can finally make a plate and set up links and shock mounts. Don't remind me about offset changes, hahaha.

[opek]

Eagle eye observers will notice I have SDS axles on a coffee table made out of cinder blocks. I do not see a problem.

[Crawling Calvin]

Haha! Nice job!

I'll work on the topper tomorrow. Our main mill in our shop class got used for something else. I got started and crap went down and I stopped

[opek]

I took some 7/16 stainless tubing and cut it into 2 pieces each 49mm in length. Dremeled down the axle housing and slid them into place. I drilled and tapped for 3mm x .5 screws. It's got a solid 2.5 threads in there. Hopefully they will hold. If not I may JB weld a smaller tube inside for some more threads and weight. I am totally digging on the new axles, I can't wait to cut up a smaller skid.


Sorry for the terrible pic, it's the only good one I snapped before installing them.

[opek]

I made a new skidplate and servo mount today. The chassis comes in at just a hair over 2". I'm sure I could get it down a bit thinner, but this is plenty good. I had to make a bit of a notch in the chassis to accept the motor plate, which was also trimmed down a bit. The spur gear just barely touches the chassis so I will grind a hair off of it. Nothing is bolted together except the skidplate and motor, so please excuse the fact that the chassis is facing the wrong direction!

It seems like I can just about go lock to lock on the stock rotation of the 7950, given my servo horn and knuckle arm lengths. I will have a Castle Link coming, but I may hold off on the Hitec programmer until I try and lower the servo some more.

I made some 2 stage foams for the front, with the memory outer "d" shaped to follow the tread. In the rear I cut a U shaped groove into some stock rover foams to give the tire a bit more room to bunch up and to keep some lateral stability. I have not driven the truck with the narrowed chassis, but so far so good. There is lots of traction and the truck has been making some lines it hasn't been able to make before, despite the COG being a bit higher than it used to be.

I will be making some delrin links and maybe decasing the BRXL to lower my COG. Can't wait for the topper!

I also stripped out the idler gear in the transmission. Fingers crossed I can buy it at the LHS tomorrow.

[opek]

Got some new links made up. Everything is tight, but there is no binding within the articulation I want. The uppers are the same length as the lowers. I need to drill mounting holes on the axle plates, but here is a teaser shot of the lowers!

What do you think about having the chassis so far forward? I'm hoping I can run it really low with some droop on the front and help my sidehilling. Props to JessF for executing this awesome rear pinion and giving me the motivation to get a bit silly with my truck too! Thanks

[Trubble]

Originally Posted by opek

What do you think about having the chassis so far forward?

Looks pretty sharp. And should help with your breakover angles, too.
Only two snags I'd think about at this point is maybe getting some weight in/on the front wheels (if you don't already have something in there), and what (if anything) you can do about draggin' that rear driveshaft over ledges. I don't know that there's any easy fix with that, though.

Like what you've done so far, keep it up.

[Crawling Calvin]

Give it a shot hey that's the fun of it all!

Where's the topper that USPS was mean over shipping

[opek]

Originally Posted by Crawling Calvin

Give it a shot hey that's the fun of it all!

Where's the topper that USPS was mean over shipping

Yeah. Engineering this damn this is more fun than building or driving it.

The topper should be here tomorrow. I'm off to the LHS to pick up some shocks. Got the uppers all done. Should have an update coming later today, I would really like to drive it!

[opek]

Originally Posted by Trubble

Looks pretty sharp. And should help with your breakover angles, too.
Only two snags I'd think about at this point is maybe getting some weight in/on the front wheels (if you don't already have something in there), and what (if anything) you can do about draggin' that rear driveshaft over ledges. I don't know that there's any easy fix with that, though.

Like what you've done so far, keep it up.

I have about 8oz. in each front wheel. My thinking is if I can get more of the weight centered around the breakover point I will be able to use less ballast and I will have less rotational inertia. Thanks

[Crawling Calvin]

Originally Posted by opek

Yeah. Engineering this damn this is more fun than building or driving it.

The topper should be here tomorrow. I'm off to the LHS to pick up some shocks. Got the uppers all done. Should have an update coming later today, I would really like to drive it!

Weird USPS said it made it there.

Haha welcome to my world as I plan to re do the rocker that's the fun part!

[opek]

Here is an updated pic with the topper set on. Hopefully I'll be on the rocks by the end of today. In this picture the chassis sits 2.75" off the ground and all of the shocks are 100% sprung. I will be putting the fronts down to about 50% droop, that should bring me down to just under 2.5" at the front of the skid.

[Crawling Calvin]

Looks good if you want I can show you how I mounted mine to Hobbes (my rig) but long as it flips

[Crawling Calvin]

Ok since I don't have any good photos and I don't feel like taking any of my half torn apart rig, here's how I mounted my upper to my chassis.

I got destructive {} and chopped the 2 circles of holes off and used the ones on the topper. Its up to you if you want to or not. If I re-make it I am going to make the topper separate from the chassis... live and learn

[ninja turtle]

cool build man. definitely gives me some inspiration for mine.

[opek]

Thanks for the kind words. I have been persuaded into doing a bit more research on the rig and looking at the oldest pages in the rc crawling internets... I've decided to bring it to very near 50/50 on the link lengths. Got the thing together, so far just about everything is great except the steering. I just tossed it together, I will probably run dual rods to get a little toe in at rest and a bit of reverse ackerman at lock. I also would probably benefit from some wideners up front so I can bring the shocks out a bit more.

It sits a little bit too high for my liking, it is not making up and over as steep breakovers as I would like, but overall it is a very fun rig to drive. I will probably stiffen the front up a bit. Right now there are the axial red 2.2lb/inch springs in the rear. The passenger rear strut assembly has a pen spring on the inside to reduce the spring rate a bit and the drivers side is running the full spring rate and has been laid down a bit. There is 30 wt in the passenger and 50wt in the drivers rears. The fronts are both running 15wt oil and pen springs. I will look to try something around 1-1.5lb up front and 1.5-2lb in the rear, time to start collecting springs.

The front tires have proline dual stages in them and the rears have my home made dual stages, which are a bit softer than the prolines and offer a slightly different profile. I'm not ready to give up the traction yet, but the rear end is digging in a bit more than I would like. I will try and eliminate that with a lower car and more antisquat before I go and stiffen the foams. So I will try that out and see where it takes me.

Right now there is virtually no torque twist, even when the truck is at it's breakover angle blips to the throttle will lift the whole front of the truck equally.

So far it's a hoot to drive, but the steering setup makes me cry!

I will be making a new skidplate for it, and for the same reason I just threw the steering together with whatever link I could find that was about the right length I don't really want to make a set of spacers for the topper just to remake them. So I will hold of on mounting it up until I get around to the skid. Until then I will run it with the super cool axial body. Here are some shots of it.

Thanks for looking; comments and criticisms are politely requested!

[Crawling Calvin]

As a rule keeping rear tire traction slightly lower than front helps a ton!

I'm running Losi 4" shocks on white springs and I think 40 weight oil all around. Thats me though, I prefer equal all around...

No comments made on steering ;D

[Trubble]

Originally Posted by opek

Thanks for looking; comments and criticisms are politely requested!

Uh, okay.

That rear axle looks to be rocked back kinda far. With that pinion pointing up as it does, don't you get a whole bunch of binding and jamming in that u-joint?

[opek]

The universal does not bind. The rear struts are almost 100% sprung, so the pinion angle only improves as the suspension cycles. I picked up some big bores for the rear and some springs. I have the pinks stacked with pen springs up front and the oranges in the rear. The oil weights are the same.

[Tanis]

Originally Posted by Trubble

Uh, okay.

That rear axle looks to be rocked back kinda far. With that pinion pointing up as it does, don't you get a whole bunch of binding and jamming in that u-joint?

Nah, he's good. My front driveshaft has more angle, but the opposite way...pointing at the ground with no issues