Ugly Betty

[TURBOFEST]

Some good grass roots craftsmanship in this rig! It's refreshing to see. Really Nice Job so far!!!!

[winnerone23]

Dayum fine job kevin! Newbie comes in an dun changed the game up.. kick ass! See you at the comp. Can't wait to appreciate ur craftsmanship in person.

[chris.martell]

Originally Posted by Trubble

"just alright" ?!?!?!?!?

Small understatement, jus' sayin'.
They look a lot nicer than mine.......





Love the job you did on the wheels, too.
Pretty much the whole rig's lookin' really good.









.

What beef tubes are on this axle

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[MRCrackhead]

Originally Posted by Wicked Monkey

Awesome. I've been wanting to make my own beadlocks for awhile now...think I'm going to jump at it after seeing the work you've done here.

Go for it. It's really not that bad. I would have made four just to add a bit of weight in the rear and for the looks, but time was short.
A couple of hours should net you some fancy new wheels.
Drill the center hole first 31/64" (I believe, just under 1/2", double check me before you do it). Whatever the size is, it leaves you with a small bit of filing to make it fit. I did that on purpose cuz they just don't make good drill bits these days. I never seem to get a round hole. They're always a bit triangular in shape when you really look closely.
Place the SLW, and pilot carefully through one hole from the backside with a bit smaller than the threads in the SLW so you don't damage them.
Then put that single screw in and tighten it up so it holds everything in place.
Drill the rest of the holes from the backside just enough to mark center (don't risk damaging the threads by drilling all the way through). Remove the SLW and drill the remaining 5 holes. I ultimately used an 1/8" bit which is one over the 4-40 hardware. With six holes and variation when piloting them, you'll need that 1/64" somewhere.
A set of transfer punches (which were at work) would help a lot here.
Then rough cut it after all the rest is done. If something goes wrong, you haven't wasted your time. The large drill bit may "walk" on you so there's no point in cutting it out until you've got the other stuff done.

Good luck. Post pics!

[MRCrackhead]

Originally Posted by Colgout

Again, great work...

I also like your rear upper link mount. Good way to recycle ordinary items.

Thanks.
This has been a budget build all along. The plate they're mounted to is the stock Axial servo plate.
Up front I used another other pair of servo mounts to do the same thing underneath my homemade electronics plate.
They work perfectly for this purpose. My theory is, if they don't hold up to the abuse, I can buy aluminum servo mounts cheap and swap them out without having to re-work a bunch of stuff.
I'm going to run them till they break.....
Also, all of my links are stock Axial lower links with the exception of the two rear bent links. The geometry and link placement was designed to accommodate them. When they bend or get too badly abused on the bottom side, I can pick up new parts anywhere that sells Axial (even better is to score them off guys that are tossing them....free!). Since 6 out of 8 of them are the same, one or two "trail spares" covers the whole car.

[MRCrackhead]

Originally Posted by Trubble

"just alright" ?!?!?!?!?

Small understatement, jus' sayin'.
They look a lot nicer than mine.......


Love the job you did on the wheels, too.
Pretty much the whole rig's lookin' really good.

Your arms would look great if you hit them with a file, two or three grits of sandpaper, and some scotch brite.
Take the rough spots off the edges and corners.....perfect.

But thanks man. I've really worked hard on it. I hope it performs as well as it's tested. New rig, literally, brand new.....who knows what's lurking around the corner. So much to learn and know about these little buggers.

[MRCrackhead]

Originally Posted by TURBOFEST

Some good grass roots craftsmanship in this rig! It's refreshing to see. Really Nice Job so far!!!!

Thanks. I am originally a potato farmer from Minnesota. Maybe that's the grassroots part.....

[MRCrackhead]

Originally Posted by winnerone23

Dayum fine job kevin! Newbie comes in an dun changed the game up.. kick ass! See you at the comp. Can't wait to appreciate ur craftsmanship in person.

Thanks Troy. Had a great time running the mini's today. Excited for tomorrow.
Thanks again for the sweet CF motor and servo guards. Now I just need a "CF" sticker to help hide that ugly Betty body of mine....hint, hint.....

[Trubble]

Originally Posted by chris.martell

What beef tubes are on this axle

Link




.

[chris.martell]

Originally Posted by Trubble

Link




.

Thanks for the link dude!

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[chris.martell]

Merc your sporty preformed rather well today dude very impressive. Keep up the excellent work

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[MRCrackhead]

Well I guess it's back to work on my rig.
Got my first comp experience with it.
Turned out there was no sportsman class after all, so I had to run 2.2 pro.

Electrical problems took me out after only 3 gates on the first course.
Made 6 of 10 gates on the second.
Made 8 of 10 on the third.

Pointed out in all three cases, but got to drive some really hard lines and test my rig at a very high level of difficulty.

Gates are a pain in the rear as always; what I need to add to my practice sessions is the time limit. I've always taken my time, drive the line as smooth as possible, and really try to learn what the rig is doing.

Adding the timer definitely kicks the difficulty up a notch. Better to practice that way from now on (unless it's cloudy, Tuesday, or a west wind....then I'll just try to have some fun!).

Not much to report as far as rig performance. All the things I was aware of going into it are still high on the list.

*BEC: I tried to run a 325mah 3s for the first time in the rig. My car totally lost it's mind on the first course, I had no real control. I tried to get one installed before the comp, it just didn't work out.

*Steering: Built the electronics plate before I had XR steering, and now I have rubbing issues with the servo. Shouldn't be to hard to fix.

*Rollover recovery: Ugly Betty doesn't roll over.....big surprise there....

Thanks to everyone at the comp today.

[MRCrackhead]

Originally Posted by chris.martell

Merc your sporty preformed rather well today dude very impressive. Keep up the excellent work

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Same to you amigo. I'm glad it's over. All the madness trying to get both rigs ready has me wore out. I'm going to sleep all day next week......

[TURBOFEST]

Good hangin out with you guys today! Its good to see new blood thats excited about crawling! I'm lookin forward to gettin out on the rock with you guys again soon...

Jim

[AddictedtoRC1]

Great driving yesterday Kevin. Was good to meet you and hopefully we'll see you around more often. PM your address and I'll get that Castle certificate to you so you can get yourself a BEC.

[MRCrackhead]

The last time out with this rig I did little else but run into my steering links.
I've been working on the mini lately, but staring at this rig and thinking.
I want to get the steering out of the way.
Budget blown on a servo and other items needed just to run, I'm up to my old tricks trying to fab what I need.
The reality of it is, I've been working on it for a few days now and haven't gotten very far.
I've got a pile of parts that have been made, tried, and discarded.
Some of what you see here will likely find the same fate.

First I started by swapping the knuckles and keeping the tie rod. I made a rough new plate to mount the fancy new servo pointed the other way.
Right away I could see there was no good way to get around the shocks with the steering arm at full lock, near side.
So I made some shock mounts with extra holes and moved some stuff around.



That wasn't quite enough room with my upper links fixed to Axial servo mounts under the front plate. They were just to low leaving no gap for the drag link.
So I made up this one piece mount to tuck them up tight.



Unfortunately that didn't do the trick. The steering arms were just to low on the knuckles at their stock mounting points.
So I made up some new arms. I drilled holes to match what I already had on the original arms and left the other side blank to give me options.



The arms sit on spacers which I made very tall to start with, once again, leaving me some options.



The notch locks around the knuckle and the third bolt up front will hopefully keep it all together.



Took some measurements and fabbed up a tie rod out of some solid stock. Now that I had ghetto VP knuckles, I wasn't leaving the tie rod under the lower links.

[Colgout]

I am not sure if the spacers between the arm and the knuckle can withstand your mighty Futaba HV servo.....

[MRCrackhead]

I don't know if it will work either. It's all a work in progress. Some, most, or all of it may end up in the trash can.

If you never try, you never succeed.

When I can get some actual VP knuckles, I will have everything else made and it will be a simple bolt on affair (or very close to it).

[chris.martell]

Your steering arms and shock mounts came out very nice merc! They do look solid to me but as you said only time will tell dude at least you are making a move!

My rigs are built not bought!

[MRCrackhead]

I managed to get the servo mounted today.



I have the drag link made but the tie rod is still a mock up with 6-32 rod.



The drag link barely clears the upper when the tire is stuffed, but it clears.



The servo horn gets close to the upper on the other side, but it clears.



The 6-32 rod is just a tad short so the outside tire isn't quite steering all the way, but I wasn't going to make another one just to throw it away.



Besides, I wasn't worried about what the tires may hit in front of the axle. It's all the darn stuff behind the axle that's been keeping me up at night.



I'll get some electronics in it.
Make the tie rod.
Test it out.
If it works, I'll cut the extra tabs off the arms.
If not, they'll unfortunately become part of the pile of crap that didn't work.