F-350 Recovery Truck (now a dually!!!)

[maxxa87]

So I got this F-350 extended cab honcho truggy. I love this truck and it's scale abilities.



But, I recently bought a Wraith so now I'm planning to build this truck into a recovery type vehicle. I have a bed but I will either have to cut it down or extend the frame. How would one go about extending a scx-10 frame without having to buy more frame rails to donate material from? Anything from the hardware store?

I want to step up to a bigger tire. I think 2.2's would be too big though. Any ideas? What else should a hardcore recovery truck have? I know from and rear winches. I would like to make it a dually, if I can make it feasible though. Where can I source some dually fenders?

[schmaged88]

Get a stepside donor body for the dually set up is my suggestion, then again I am a newb,

[junkyardc10]

I work at a salvage yard I extended mine with geo tracker wiper arms ...they look great .....flat with the same bend as the stock frame

[maxxa87]

So this is going to be a slow build. Lots going on at the moment. Here's where I'm at so far. Made new floor pan. Fits tighter to the trans than the old one. Still got to paint it black. Been tinkering with getting the servo mounted on the frame today without much luck. Method I tried didn't leave much articulation before the axle hit the servo. Still want to make it a dually. Exploring options there. If anyone has any links to dually builds with Axial axles that would help. I think I need to narrow the rear axle a smidge to get it to look right. The rear axles on 1:1 trucks are a few inches narrower than the fronts.

[sniper101]

Looks awesome, keep us updated.

However, as someone who just purchased a Honcho, and someone who owns a 1:1 supercab F350, I have to know what the details are on the body . . . custom job of the Tamiya cab?

[The-Blacksheep]

looks good so far i recently did a handmade CMS myself there is a really good thread that shows you how to do it with stuff already on the truck! works well, just have to fab up a panhard bar!

[The-Blacksheep]

scx10 Chassis Mounted Servo CMS mod detailed write up here is the link for the cms kit using jsut whats on te truck!

[maxxa87]

Yeah that's the one I tried but the servo hits the axle after less than a 1/4" of movement. I'm going to make another plate to raise the servo up more. Have to look into making a panhard bar too.

[maxxa87]

The cab is made from two tamiya cabs. I didn't make it scale. I made it so that it fit the out of box wheelbase of the Honcho. Start looking around and pick up a couple used cabs and a bed. It's way too expensive, in my opinion anyway, to buy it all new. Eventually I want to order the clear window set for it and make an interior. Someones also makes rubber mirrors I need to pick up. I braced the inside of the cab with styrene and put two thin sheets on the roof to make it easier to blend together.

[maxxa87]

Got a homegrown CMS and panhard bar made up. I'll copy/paste it from the other thread over into this one.

First I mounted up the plate just as the OP did. I did not like how low the servo hung though. I flipped the servo mounts and put the servo on top and drilled new holes near the bottom of the plate. I also countersunk the holes with a larger bit. I used two angled rod ends, the original steering rod, and a short TLT suspension link to make the new steering rod. For clearance and to keep the steering link and panhard bar as close to parallel as possible I mounted the drag link under the knuckle arms. I had to trim the plate to clear the head of the screw and the servo arm. With the panhard bar, I used a TLT link mount on the axle, and offset rod end, straight rod end, and a long TLT suspension link. I stuck a longer screw in one of the servo holes and through the mount and used that as the upper mount for the panhard bar. It works well enough. I want to make a stronger mount that uses both holes on the axle and maybe find some metal servo mounts. Or, the bumpsteer really wasn't bad so I might just keep it a four link.

[northernerbill]

I actually really like it with the honcho rear on, would be a great cab to do a truggy?

[CountryChevy15]

My scx topkick has a narrowed rear axial axle. I had some custom aluminum axle parts made and cut down the axle shafts to make it a perfect track width of a 1:1 scale dually.

[maxxa87]

Yeah northernbill the cab has been used on lots of builds to do truggys. I can think of one that the guy made it look like it had no fenders in the front, he made the inner sttructure out of styrene and doved the front of it so it was only as wide as the stock grill. I liked the truck with the Honcho bed on it but now I have the Wraith so this is going to become my recovery rig and my slow build of an ultra scale rig. Down the road I will change it over to a leaf sprung suspension front and rear and build an interior for it.

[maxxa87]

CountryChevy15, I'm going to look up your rig now and check it out, thanks.

[JtsYfz450]

Originally Posted by maxxa87

So this is going to be a slow build. Lots going on at the moment. Here's where I'm at so far. Made new floor pan. Fits tighter to the trans than the old one. Still got to paint it black. Been tinkering with getting the servo mounted on the frame today without much luck. Method I tried didn't leave much articulation before the axle hit the servo. Still want to make it a dually. Exploring options there. If anyone has any links to dually builds with Axial axles that would help. I think I need to narrow the rear axle a smidge to get it to look right. The rear axles on 1:1 trucks are a few inches narrower than the fronts.

What is the white plastic 4 that covering up everything but the motor and tranny

[maxxa87]

That's my floor pan. The inside of the cab has servo posts bolted to it that will bolt to this in the rear and velcro on the front body posts holds the front. It makes the under side of the truck look alot more scale plus I plan to add an interior an interior later. Also, all my electronics are mounted to this. I'm planning to tear it back down today since it's all mocked up and paint the floor with bedliner.

CountryChevy15, I tried to look up a build thread for your dually but all I found was your thread about narrowing the rear axle. You have any updates for that thread? How did you do your shafts? They holding up?

[maxxa87]

Here's my most recent update. I got the truck, if it were to be a single wheel, just about done besides paint. But since this will be a dually I have quite a bit of work still to go. I have PM'ed Captain Scale over on scale4x4 about some of his fenders but he has not gotten back to me as of yet.And, I got the rear axle narrowed. Easy as it can be. My stock front axle is 8-1/2" and the rear is now 7-1/2". Completely reversible too. I did not cut the housing. All I bought was an extra set a plastic adapters to cut and some RC4WD stainless straight axles since they are the same diameter all the across the axle. I put the bearing in the end of the housing like the front before the C-bolts on. I took the adapter and cut it down to just outside of where the adapter steps down to slide over the axle housing. I found a washer in my hardware box that fit snug inside the adapter to hold the bearing in. After doing this, I had to elongate the holes so the adapter would still bolt to the housing. I could have narrowed the axle more but then the tire would get into the shock but this works well. To fill the gap between the adapter and cross pin I found a couple bushings I kept from my old TLT axles, again in my hardware box, and slid it on. Feels solid to me. For cutting down the axles I just cut the over length from where the axle steps up to the total diameter from 90mm to 75mm. I marked where the axle needed to be filed down to go into the locker and wrapped it with masking tape, clamped it into my bench vise and went at it taking material off little by little checking with my calipers until it was right. Onto the pics. If anyone has any questions about anything just say so.





Edit:Apparently the angle was a little off and I couldn't tell until I got the pic uploaded but the axle is 7-1/2" from end to end of the shafts.

[rebel35747]

so you only cut down the straight axle adapter's and not the axle housing? very interested in a dually wheel.

[arcanecrawler89]

Rc sparks did a dually build he took four wheels and bolted two of em together and drilled out the center for the rim that would be facing out so he could bolt em normally there's a video on YouTube he also stretched the frame too if you were still looking into that...

[maxxa87]

I think he used pieces of a donor frame to extend his and just bolted the pieces together. Unless I can find some frame rails cheap then it doesn't make sense to me to spend something like $35 on new frame rails to only use a couple inches. For me, the way he did the wheels just ruins the realism. To each there own but I want this truck to be as scale as possible without breaking the bank of aluminum wheels and other high dollar parts. It's supposed to look like a jacked up dually.

And yes, the housing itself is untouched. As long as you got a couple spare bearings or bushings and some washers then all it cost is $25 for the shafts and a few bucks or whatever it was for the plastic adapters unless you want to cut the ones already on your truck. For tools, all I used was a small metal ruler that you can see in one of the pics, a caliper for precise measuring of the end that goes into the locker, and a dremel with cut off wheels. A bench vise is also handy for holding the shafts while you cut them.