Ugly Betty

[MRCrackhead]

Well it all starts with my brother buying his first house....he needed money and had too many rigs in his fleet....something had to go.
My lucky day!

A deal was made and these showed up at my house.


Knowing my brother, I was expecting a bunch of hop ups and so forth but it was basically a stock rig. The good news was it was virtually brand new. Hardly a scratch on the links or pumpkins.


It came with the ugly "Betty" body and a rear steer kit....not much else. I acquired a second Betty body from a friend, so I figured I could use one as the test piece to try make this huge bugger fit a sportsman rig until I get something better.


My friend Chris had a bunch of take off parts that he gave me to get started (knuckles, hubs, etc). He also loaned his Rovers to the cause, a Novak Goat, and a Novak 55T so I'd at least have a driveable rig for testing.

I started by ditching the stock chassis and cutting a template/test/setup chassis out of lexan.



I cut and narrowed the rims.


Made a new front plate to attach links and hold electronics. Re-purposed some servo mounts as link mounts on the underside of the plate. Did the same out back with the servo mounts on top of the plate. Tossed some links here and there......and I had a rig I could drive to test. Test very gently, of course, it's only lexan and flexed a lot.

[MRCrackhead]

Testing proved decent. I decided to change the center skid for something a little smaller. I also wanted the links closer together and solid bolted instead of flopping around on a pin.

I came up with a two piece skid that interlocks with a center aluminum plate.



Fabbed up a couple new aluminum parts.


Stole some shorter shocks off a gas buggy I no longer use and bolted it back together.


That seemed to be working so I did the rod end mod to the shocks and polished all (most) of the blue color off.


Flex.....gotta have at least one, as per RCCrawler forum guidelines.


Then I chopped up one of my Betty bodies and fit it on the rig. Unfortunately, I can't read a ruler and cut a bit too much off so it's not legal. Oh well, that's the beauty of having two.


At that point it was dark out, so I got out the stand lights and lit up the backyard rockpile and took it out for it's maiden voyage. Not the best pictures, but let's be honest, none of them are very good.....haha

[MRCrackhead]

Well the Novak Goat was a loaner for a reason. The brakes on it sucked. So I wired in an FXR. Look how much "extra plate" the huge Goat left behind when it got upgraded! I'll have to trim it down a bit after the comp when I have more time.


Now that most of the car was aluminum colored, the green links were starting to bother me. So I got rid of it and made the whole rig silver except for the spacers on the transmission. I had to leave something so my brother would recognize the rig when I sent him pictures of my progress!


Nothing special here. Just some brass beef tubes that started out in the front axle to give me some better caster. This housing ultimately became the rear axle.

[Dezertdirt]

Nice build. What are your other plans for this ax10?

[MRCrackhead]

Here's where I feel it got interesting. The comp looming in the near future, horrible stock steering, and not much mad money left in the account....I needed a plan.
This is the parts list I came up with to get me by and save some cash. Everything XR is plastic and inexpensive except the universals.
Overdrive gears picked up with the money I saved on plastic parts.
AR60 housing
Brass tubes from the hardware store.


Chucked up the tubes in the drill press and used a file against a piece of angle iron to get them close. Then filed very carefully by hand while still in the press to get them perfect, checking with the calipers as I went.




Took some measurements and cut the AR60 ends off the axle housing. I made the "machined" tubes just a bit long so I could cut them perfect.

[MRCrackhead]

Now the beef tube extensions could be cut down to fit inside the housing.




Filled er up with tapped holes and screws to hold everything in place. I used set screws in the bottom hole of the AR60 extension piece to keep it nice and smooth. The c-hub/knuckle caster screws pass through the AR60 extension into the brass beef tube also, so I have 3 regular screws holding the assembly on. I felt good about using a set screw in the fourth hole.

[Colgout]

Hummm......... What am I gonna say........ Hummmm


Hummm


Hummmm.....

I am LOST OF WORD!!!

Brilliant, you are so creative and handy.... Well done.... BTW, where did you get the brass pipe from? McMaster Carr?

[MRCrackhead]

Next, I fabbed up some steering. This part turned out just alright. Unfortunately, I have a piece of crap servo and I had to work my tail off to get it's whopping 120 ounces to push the big wheels lock to lock.




Thanks to Winnerone23 for the advice on shaving the universals properly. Not to be outdone, though, I shot mine with some paint when I was done! Just when I thought I was the master fabricator, I realized the bearings wouldn't slide on the now thicker painted bearing journals.....so I had to sand the paint back off at least some of the areas.....
I'm sure we'll all have fun with that one....


The steering is a marked improvement over what I had a few hours earlier. The knuckles are hanging way out of my narrowed wheels, scrub radius is a mess, track width is 11-7/8", I blew up my bad a$$ 120 ounce servo the first day out testing it......it's all a mess I'm glad to have.

[Colgout]

For not much money, Get a solar D772, $17.5 each and 30kg of torque @7.4V. From all the review, its well worth the money.

Subscribed....

[Jslick]

Ugly betty is looking more pretty, keep up the great work.

[winnerone23]

Dayum master fabber Kevin!!!!! Grade A+..
You got a bec in that rig? I have a servo you can use for the comp till you can get a hitec of ur own. :cool:

[MRCrackhead]

Originally Posted by Colgout

Hummm......... What am I gonna say........ Hummmm


Hummm


Hummmm.....

I am LOST OF WORD!!!

Brilliant, you are so creative and handy.... Well done.... BTW, where did you get the brass pipe from? McMaster Carr?

Thank you. Necessity is the mother of invention.
I'm taking this to my very first comp today!
The tubing came from the plumbing department at the hardware store.

[MRCrackhead]

Originally Posted by Jslick

Ugly betty is looking more pretty, keep up the great work.

It's even more prettier now. I was up late last night and couldn't post my progress.
Thanks

[MRCrackhead]

Originally Posted by winnerone23

Dayum master fabber Kevin!!!!! Grade A+..
You got a bec in that rig? I have a servo you can use for the comp till you can get a hitec of ur own. :cool:

No bec yet. Stock servo really had no need for it. FXR on 2s worked for building/testing.
I'm picking one up in Harrisburg on my way to the comp.
Whether it goes in today or not, I still need one.

[Jslick]

See you up at Rausch.

[MRCrackhead]

Last minute update before my first comp.
I had to do something about the huge track width the AXR60 mod had given me.
Once again, Chris saved the day with a spare pair of SLW hubs.
Now to make them fit my stock narrowed AX wheels.

I drilled some holes in aluminum plate and mated the SLW to some very rough cut "circles". There's no need to try to get them any better than this because the power tools I was planning to use don't care.


Cut off the end of a dogbone cup and chucked them up in the drill press. Used a piece of angle iron to hold my sander 90 degrees to the piece and began "turning" them down.
I sanded them till I was close and then checked with the dial indicator many times near the end to get the size I needed.




Touched them up with a bit of sandpaper before removing them from the press.




Here's the result next to the rough one, and the original AX beadlock.


Then I clamped it to the AX part to use as a hole pattern.


Drilled it out and countersunk the holes. I went crazy with the countersink so my square head bolts would be almost recessed in the hole when tight. The aluminum I used was just a bit thicker than the original AX part anyway.
When I can get some different hardware, these will be a little overdone; but that will help protect the screw heads anyway.

[MRCrackhead]

Next I cut the guts out of my stock wheels.


Here they are bolted up. Not to shabby for being in such a hurry.


Here are the knuckles tucked in nicely. The 625 SLW's are actually a bit too small for what I'd like to see. I'm at about 10-3/4" and the steering arm on the other side is really close to rubbing. The tire gets into the servo like this too. Now worries since my mini has 750 and 875's on it already. I'll rob them off there to get me by today.



The last lingering problem was the body. I cut the other one too short to be legal. I wanted to do a good job with this one because it's all I've got for now.
BUT, the comp is today. Last night I just didn't have time to do it as well as I wanted. It turned out half decent for my first attempt at bobbing the tail on a lexan pickup truck.


I wanted to re-attach the rear "tailgate" but it's going to have to go like this.
I know when the other competitors see the gun hanging in the back window, they'll do the right thing.....and let me win.

[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.

[Colgout]

Again, great work...

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

[Trubble]

Originally Posted by MRCrackhead

Next, I fabbed up some steering. This part turned out just alright.
Attachment 250419
Attachment 250420

Attachment 250423

"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.









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