Another addition to the X-Trail family...

[Trimmy]

The bronco looks good. It makes me want to ditch the clod body and go with a bronco!!!Where did you get the skid plate that comes down off of your front bumper?

[Larson627]

And on to another question...

People always weight the front wheels more than the rears, so I origionally put 6 in the front and 3 in the rears. This was good at first, but then I mounted the Electronics box over the front axle, and I strapped the battery over that for a simulated engine type weight balance. doing this made the front of the truck so heavy that the rear sort of just floated, and didn't flex as much as I would like. The rear tires would just lift off the ground because there is no weight over thre rear of the chassis. For fun I decided to put the 6oz weighted wheels in the rear, and the 3oz in the front. This seems to hold the rear on the ground better, and the weight of the front end seems to hold the fronts down no problem. Is this a crazy idea? It seems to work pretty good.

[Larson627]

Originally Posted by Trimmy

The bronco looks good. It makes me want to ditch the clod body and go with a bronco!!!Where did you get the skid plate that comes down off of your front bumper?

That skidplate is from a different bumper that HPI sells, I bought both and then made it work on that one. I'm not terribly proud of how I mated them together, but it looks clean and works fine so I can live with it. I got it from TCScrawlers.com, heres the link to it.

http://www.tcscrawlers.com/HPI-Bumpe...9-p-16522.html

[Crutch]

Your build looks great! I'm working on the same build myself. I've been looking at that bumper set for a while but couldn't think of how it would mount up. What did you mount it to? Maybe you could show a pic. Thanks!

[Larson627]

I mounted the bumper to a peice that I had in the scrap pile, and then mounted that to the chassis. the way I have found that always works for me is to just find a peice that is the right size and drill the holes. Its hard to explain I guess I will have to just post pictures of it when I get a chance.

[ZJ Jarod]

very nice, im not a really big ford fan but this one looks great

[Larson627]

Thanks man!

I'm a Jeep person myself, but until Proline comes out with an XJ body or at least some sort of jeep, (Ive already been there with the HPI Rubicon) I'll stick with the Bronco

[diggerj]

Great looking Bronco! I've been following your build for a while now as I am building an x-trail also.
I'm not to the point that it moves under its own power (waiting on moter and esc. to come in) but was wanting to bounce an idea off you. I am going to use the droop set up with my shocks. I have put the spring under the piston and am going to cut down some springs and put them over the piston for some up travel. Think it will work?

[Larson627]

Thats actually the same way I have mine! I have the droop springs installed, and then I have a set of soft losi spings that are 2.5" long and I want to say a 2.9 spring rate. There orange look around for a set, I got mine from the LHS ($5.00 for all four) and they work perfect. Good luck with yours, I will check out your build thread if you have one

[Larson627]

Well its been a while since I updated this but heres my bronco with Slash wheels/tires, they actually work pretty good too!!! I have more pics/vids I have to dig up but I will post them soon! They look super scale and work better than I though possible!

[newbie8324]

any progress on the interior?

[Larson627]

Nah I took the interior out because it was too fragile, I never posted pics of it finished I see, but it wasnt anything great anyways. It has since been ripped apart by the violent wrath of my workbench, I found peices of it all over the place last night when I was doing some cleaning! Oh well.

I also put the old wheels back on after reading through my thread, I had forgotten how nice they looked on it back then.

I am working on mounting my steering servo on the front of the chassis, but I am having trouble because when I hit any obstacle and try to steer, the chassis flexes to one side or the other and the wheels stay straight, as if I need a trac bar. Currently looking around for a solution, no idea what Im doing here, any tips?

[Larson627]

Got the steering figured out, Needed to make the chassis a little more rigid, along with the mount, heres how it looks! Steering isnt as responsive as it used to be in tight spots, but Its realistic I think, and therefore more scale....(?)

It was super easy to do to, I recommend giving it a shot if you have an x-trail chassis.








I know the green still needs to go, I've got an idea but I need to remember to grab materials from work...

Thats it for the moment

[Larson627]

Ok so Im back on track with the bronco!



Got the steering all done, reworking the interior, got a different set of tires & wheels (Better looks and wayyyyy better performance), set of custom bent links! ( bends not quite even ), tcs boomerang 4 link plate on the front (bye bye servo plate) got the straight axle peices but then realized I need the straight axles themselves ... pen cap hubs blah blah blah




so i think the truck looks much nicer now than it did. I need to rework the front bumper skidplate to cover the servo better, its missing in the pictures ( might tuck the servo up higher, not sure yet) anyways, heres the pics



I was ready to give up on this body after I cut the back off of it because I was having trouble making it work, but Im happy with the progress!

(Heres a mock up shot)




whaddaya think?

[slowdown]

Looks realy nice with the rear cut out , roll bars look good too.

[zoojunkie]

Nice!

[jimbiss]

looks really nice

[Tommy R]

Looks great!

[Larson627]

thanks guys!