AX-10 with F-150 body
 

Finally got my AX-10 kit (thanks ckrccrawlers.com! "thumbsup") and built it over the weekend. Apart from the kit missing 4 of the screws to join the rod ends to the links, it went together without too much trouble.

I must say I never want to mount a frieking tyre in a plastic beadlock again in my life. Fingers were just about bleeding by the time I was finished.

A few questions I'm hoping someone can help me with...
1) In the instructions it shows a plastic spacer that goes in between the centre locker/spool halves. Foolishly I totally missed it and didnt realised till the whole truck was together. As far as I can tell it doesnt actually seem to do anything though? Should I pull it all apart again or just leave it as is? The truck runs fine without it.
2) I noticed the spur gear has an ever so slight wobble (~1mm) to it when viewing from side on. It seems to be the whole shaft moving and not just the spur gear. The gear mesh is spot on regardless of the wobble. Everything is tight and there doesnt seem to be any slop? Has anyone else experienced this and if so any ideas where I might of gone wrong? (is it somehow the spacer I missed as per above lol)?
3) What is the easiest and cheapest way to reduce torque twist without losing any ground clearance? Ive added a spacer to the right left shock which has helped but its still quite bad. Would changing it to a 4 link be the best way? Dont particulary want to go to a droop setup since I love the ground clearance it has at the moment.

Specs of the build are:

Stock AX-10 kit
Proline 2004 F-150 body
Hitec MG645 servos
Axial Rear Steer kit.
Mamba Max ESC
65T Integy Lathe motor
Old Hitec Aggressor AM radio/receiver for now
3oz weight in each front tyre

Couple of pics from its first outing on the weekend. The broken link in the last pic was due to the kit missing 4 of the link screws and I had to dodgy one up from a bolt which was about half the length it should have been.

http://members.westnet.com.au/krism/crawler3.jpg

http://members.westnet.com.au/krism/crawler4.jpg

http://members.westnet.com.au/krism/crawler6.jpg

I have had to trim the body a little bit more since these photos but thankfully not to much. It only just rubs now at full articulation while turning.

cheers,
Kris

Good looken truck mate, 1- as far as i can see woulden't worry about the spacer just next time you rebuild the transmission i would puy her in. 2- check the three screws that hold on the spur gear just don't over tighten then. 3-I made a four link plate for the rear and place the drivers rear on the top of it and put the lower arms on the inside of the chassie, but i'm running internal springs and i've only got a tiny bit of torque twist."thumbsup"

So were in OZ are you?

I used the tcs delrin boomerang http://www.tcscrawlers.com/By-Truck-...p-3-c-254.html also I installed the spacer on the inside of the shock. It seemed to do the trick rather well.

X2, but take the diffs apart and install the spacers before something gets torn up in there.

I'd trim the body a bit more, but looks good overall.

Thanks mate. I'm in Perth myself, whereabout are you?
Are you running rear steering as well? It seems to be the rear steering that gets it really twisted up. It was nowhere near as bad with just front. Think I will try putting the links inside the chassis and go from there anyway :)

Cheers dude. I am running a rear servo so would need the servo plate version instead of the boomering one but its something I will have to look into I think. Nice and cheap as well which I like "thumbsup"

Yeah I have trimmed the body more already since those photos, epsecially around the rear where it was clearly catching as you can see in the pics.

Wow, really like the color layout you did on the body. How do you like the rear steer kit. I just received mine and are waiting to install it.

I'm from North Brisbane, i'm not running rear steer i've got a dig set-up that i built i thougt about rear steer but i thought the dig would look cooler8)

that body looks sweet im getting that body or the titan for my ax10

Thats very cool! Looks like it could be a State Police or Highway Patrol Rig.

you can also purchase 70mm links to replace the upper links, drill in some new holes like the CKRCcrawlers stage 2 kit and that will get rid of a lot of the twist

http://rccrawler.com/axialcompbuild.html

Cheers guys. Took her out again this arvo and got a few more pics and a small video of it trying to climb a rather big loose rock pile. I have been pretty impressed with the grip of the rock lizards but geez they are useless in the dirt.

Got so close to the top multiple times but just couldnt quite clear it. The rocks got just a bit to small near the top and she just didnt have the grip needed. :-(

Haven't upped the pics yet but you can watch the vid here:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=1Vv71ktrBcA

The body has a few scrapes on her now so it doesn't look like such a shelf queen anymore. :-P

Not sure if there is a limit to how many pics I should be posting, but here is another handful from my little course I set up inside the house and from this arvo at the rockpile anyway. ;-)

If people would prefer I link to them instead of embedding em let me know.
Hopefully the pics show the rockpile a bit better then the video does (seems pretty tame in the video but it was actually quite challenging - for me anyway!)

http://members.westnet.com.au/krism/crawler8.jpg

http://members.westnet.com.au/krism/crawler9.jpg

http://members.westnet.com.au/krism/crawler10.jpg


http://members.westnet.com.au/krism/crawler11.jpg

http://members.westnet.com.au/krism/crawler12.jpg

http://members.westnet.com.au/krism/crawler13.jpg

http://members.westnet.com.au/krism/crawler14.jpg

http://members.westnet.com.au/krism/crawler16.jpg

I think you need a bigger computer screen :-P

Looks good, nice to see something other than the bug body and betty body.

Just for something different this afternoon I decided to try out a set of XTM X-Cellerator shocks on the Axial. All I had to do was swap the shock ends over with the AX10 ones and use some fuel tubing on the other end and the slotted in perfectly. They are much nicer/smoother shocks and are threaded so you dont have to waste time with preload clips etc.

They are a bit shorter then the stock ones so overall ride height has dropped I would say 3/4 of an inch (the lower links are now close to being level).

Couldnt run it with the body on because it was scraping at the slightest hint of a bump/turn. Unfortunately I only got about 20 minutes of runtime in because a fall off the couch just lunched my front steering servo. Not happy :(

I must say though that I wasn't that impressed anyway. The lower ride height caused it to get caught up on things it breezed over before. It was mainly the skid plate which was getting caught up so bent links wouldnt have helped either. It did manage slightly better on sharp angles/slopes due to the lower COG but for where I use it mainly the higher ground clearance is definitely more worthwhile.

Will be swapping it back to stock as soon as I get replacement servo gears. Will snap a few photos of it and up them later anyway so people can see what it looks like.

Few pics from this afternoon. Finally found a really sweet place to crawl not to far from home. Really gave the poor thing a work out. Popped the rear driveshaft 3 times, blew the caps off the front right and rear left shocks, and lost 2 of my body pins as well :lol:

Was suprised how well it did with the big heavy battery in the stock location still. And Ive only got a shitty HS-81 for the rear steer at the moment as well since I havent replaced the gears in the 645MG yet.

I am torn now if I want to get the x-trail chassis to make it more scale or just concentrate on making it crawl as best as possible.

http://members.westnet.com.au/krism/ax10mindarie1.jpg

http://members.westnet.com.au/krism/ax10mindarie2.jpg

http://members.westnet.com.au/krism/ax10mindarie3.jpg

http://members.westnet.com.au/krism/ax10mindarie4.jpg

http://members.westnet.com.au/krism/ax10mindarie5.jpg

http://members.westnet.com.au/krism/ax10mindarie6.jpg

http://members.westnet.com.au/krism/ax10mindarie7.jpg

http://members.westnet.com.au/krism/ax10mindarie8.jpg

http://members.westnet.com.au/krism/ax10mindarie9.jpg

http://members.westnet.com.au/krism/ax10mindarie10.jpg

http://members.westnet.com.au/krism/ax10mindarie11.jpg

Don't fall in! Man that's a sweet spot...

Nice looking truck.

Had so much fun yesterday decided to go back to the same spot again today. Spent the morning hacking up and painting the Betty body since the F150 one was severely limiting its crawling ability (and I like it to much to hack it up further).

Then set up shocks in a 50/50 droop/normal arrangement by using XTM X-Cellerator springs on the standard Axial shocks. They are about 2cm shorter then axial springs so it sits much lower. I did have the links & shocks reversed on the axles but it wasnt really an improvement so I changed that back to stock also.

The result.... An absolutely *huge* improvement compared to yesterdays setup! "thumbsup" Could take lines that I could only dream of yesterday. Lower COG meant I could climb/descend and sidehill much much steeper angles and that is with the heavy battery still up top. Much less stacks which meant there was much less carnage as well. Whole afternoon crawling and I only popped the front driveshaft once.

Not a fan of the betty body but I managed to hack it up to a point where I was pretty happy with the look of it. :)

And of course the pics (think I have almost as much fun taking pics of it in extreme angles etc as I do driving it).

http://members.westnet.com.au/moses01/bettycrawl1.jpg

http://members.westnet.com.au/moses01/bettycrawl2.jpg

http://members.westnet.com.au/moses01/bettycrawl3.jpg

http://members.westnet.com.au/moses01/bettycrawl4.jpg

http://members.westnet.com.au/moses01/bettycrawl5.jpg

http://members.westnet.com.au/moses01/bettycrawl6.jpg

http://members.westnet.com.au/moses01/bettycrawl7.jpg

Those are some beautiful pics of the ocean....o'ya the AX10 looks very nice to........:):):):):)

Took the videocamera to the same spot this morning as the pics above and got some half decent footage even though my driving wasn't exactly the best today.

Have posted the vid in the video section here:
http://www.rccrawler.com/forum/videos/102580-ax10-crawling.html

no more pics
 

Dude ,no more pics out of you . lol

I'm in Calgary Canada ,it is -30 degrees celcius here before the windchill factor . snowy,
Colder than a witches tit ,,lol

Your pics and videos make me not want to be a canadian anymore ,,
Maybe I could come visit and not leave ?

lol jk anyway nice truck ,pics ,and vids .