Soze's UMG10 - 80's toy/cartoon theme build

[soze]

Originally Posted by B-MOW71

Looks great Soze! Love the Cobra theme! Seeing this took me back 37 years to my first G.I. Joe's!

Boy... we old.

Originally Posted by Shinchu

CO - BRAAAAAA!!!!!!!!

hahaha awesome!!!
I totally took a stab in the dark on that!
Hey you know I have some A.R.B.C.O. decals for custom vehicles. I cant remember the name of the site where I got them. Maybe it was reprolabels? Anyway I can send them your way if you want!
(For those not in the know, ARBCO was cobras super clever "disguised" name for thier businesses usually run by the twin crimson guard commanders tomax and xamot. IIRC...)

GREAT WORK SOZE!!!
I still have not yet "figured" out a way to tie in my two favorite hobbies of RC and figure collecting. I think you nailed it here!

LOL ARBCO! Thanks for the offer, but it's cool. These were just printed and double-side taped with clear tape on top. I originally wanted to just paint them on, but I didn't have any red paint, and it was hard to create a mask for it. Which came to the need for a vinyl cutter. If I had a vinyl cutter, I could probably make a mask for painting, or at the very least use red vinyl cuts. It's something I can revisit easily later anyway.

Right now I need to fill out the back a little bit, and I have a few upgrades ready to go in already. I need to give it a drive before I start upgrading though. I just want to see how it runs first.

[vinnieb729]

Stellar. Love it. In the 80's I was huge into G.I.Joe. I used to get the Cobra items and my cousin got the G.I.Joe. Used to have some fun battles that would take days to play out! I think I just peed a little...

[mgputer]

Turned out fantastic. Love the theme.

[antigacho]

this is how a building thread should look, nice build

[RiderZ]

Very nice.Shows how creative one can get with a kit to make it unique and different from all the rest.
Good job!!!

[2mtech]

Originally Posted by soze

Boy... we old.

PULLLEEEEZ! I got one of the first year release original Joes my second Christmas. Sure wish I still had that in the box....

I'll take back the unlimited expense account remark anyway.

[soze]

Originally Posted by 2mtech

PULLLEEEEZ! I got one of the first year release original Joes my second Christmas. Sure wish I still had that in the box....

I'll take back the unlimited expense account remark anyway.

LOL, no worries it didn't really bother me at all. There was a time I bought a lot of "robots" and stuff... before getting married, kid, etc. Luckily that was a hobby where some stuff "appreciated" in value.

[Still Bill]

Absolutely a beauty! Congratulations!

[OSRC]

Love the GI Joe theme - well done!

[Browneye]

Like.

It is much more detailed than I had thought. That is a hard one to resist. I've toyed with buying a 1:1 - a high school buddy of my son's was over some years back and his dad brought him over in a real live old time Unimog with the om232 diesel. Took me for a ride and I was hooked.

And we wheeled with one in the jeep club and it was quite surprising how capable it was - box stock. The portals and low gearing, big wheels put it over rocky terrain that would amaze you.

A rough one is in the ten-grand range. And cruising speed is about 50.

I'm really liking the exterior painting and low-sheen. My next two rigs are going that way. Looks authentic. Going to try some Krylon Fusion.

Gee, so many rig options...so little time.

[soze]

Originally Posted by Still Bill

Absolutely a beauty! Congratulations!

Thanks!

Originally Posted by OSRC

Love the GI Joe theme - well done!

Thanks! I know you're a Transformers guy (at least I think you are)... shall we see a Transformers themed build from you?

Originally Posted by Browneye

Like.

It is much more detailed than I had thought. That is a hard one to resist. I've toyed with buying a 1:1 - a high school buddy of my son's was over some years back and his dad brought him over in a real live old time Unimog with the om232 diesel. Took me for a ride and I was hooked.

And we wheeled with one in the jeep club and it was quite surprising how capable it was - box stock. The portals and low gearing, big wheels put it over rocky terrain that would amaze you.

A rough one is in the ten-grand range. And cruising speed is about 50.

I'm really liking the exterior painting and low-sheen. My next two rigs are going that way. Looks authentic. Going to try some Krylon Fusion.

Gee, so many rig options...so little time.

That must've been a hoot to ride in! Sounds like quite the experience.

I think exterior painting is the way to go now too... This was my first exterior painted body. I really like the way it turned out.

This will probably be my last fully rattle canned paint job. Finally sucked it up and bought some airbrush paint. Now there's no excuse of me being afraid to use the airbrush equipment that's been sitting in my garage for the past year. I've still got a few rattle cans left, but I think I should go all-in on the airbrushing now and get my feet wet.

[Ghonda99]

This turned out really nice. I like the paint color a lot. I never thought about painting the outside like this but the results speak for themselves. The flat blue definitely looks like something you would have seen on the original cartoon. So you just painted the inside black and then the outside blue with the flat clear on top. Always interested in new paint techniques. It would be nice to know, because knowing is half the battle.

[calcagno45]

Looks really good. I think I'd have to trim those rear fenders and extend the WB out to 12" tho.

[soze]

[DIRT HAWG]

Originally Posted by soze

Axial needs to rework there Spur gear mold.Spur gear does not spin true.


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[Griffin]

Love the Cobra themed build. Brings back fond childhood memories of playing with G.I.Joe as well. Been thinking of getting a UMG to go along with the 6x6 I have. This is making it harder to resist.

[soze]

Alright, time to get back to working on the UMG10. After I ran it last time, I knew a few things that I wanted to change right away.

First thing were the wheels and tires. I really like the way the Axial MT45 look, but I wasn't too thrilled with the performance. I also really liked the wheels as well, but with the UMG10 being a bit top heavy, those really light plastic beadlocks just weren't going to cut it.

For the wheels and tires, I decided to go with the following:

- Pro-Line Grunts (eBay)
- GRC 1.9 Military Beadlock wheels (eBay)

The Pro-Line Grunts have that look that I'm going for, and the size is around the same 4.5-4.6 range so there is no modification of the fenders needed. It really was an easy choice as I'm a big fan of Pro-Line's G8 compound. They just work for me.

It took me a while to find some military style beadlocks that I liked, and I finally pulled the trigger on a set from GRC. They are heavy wheels, but I think in this case, it works in my favor due to the top heavy nature of the UMG10. I'm not too worried about the rotating mass, as this rig will never be driven at any speed faster than crawling, and scale crawling at that, as I'm not as willing to take risks with this beautiful body like I do with my more performance oriented rigs.

A bonus with these wheels is that the stock caps also fit on these wheels. I think the combination looks pretty good.








Safe to say, that this combo looks real appropriate to this rig.

[durok]

Lovin' it!

Looks perfect - great choice on sticking with military style wheels and tires.

I hate to say it, but you may have forced my hand on what body I eventually install on the parts I'm gathering (this is for WAY down the road)...

A Unimog is needed to complete the collection of famous classic offroaders that I want to end up with.

[addiemonster]

Cooobbbrraaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!

[soze]

As we all know, the UMG10 comes in at a wheelbase of 11.4" or 288mm. As appropriate as that wheelbase may be for this rig, I didn't enjoy driving it this way, and I decided to increase the wheelbase just a little more to a 12" or 305mm wheelbase.

To lengthen the wheelbase I decided to pick up the following:

- Club5 Racing Husky 305mm wheelbase links for the SCX10II

I have a few of their links now, and I'm overall pretty happy with them. The rod-ends are also Traxxas rod-ends, so light years better than the stock Axial ones as well as coming with metal pivot balls.




The stock links that come from the SCX10II kits (Cherokee, UMG10, RBK) are nicer than their RTR links, but the rod-ends are what really bring them down.




The quality of the Club5 Husky links are much better.




Got the front links on...




Comparison of the length difference of the rear 288mm wheelbase links and the new 305mm wheelbase links




You'll also need to lengthen the rear driveshaft in order to accommodate the 305mm wheelbase. Luckily I've got enough Axial WB8 Wildboard driveshaft parts sitting around.




Front and rear links all installed!




But wait! What's this? The infamous issue of the rear fenders not lining up when extending the wheelbase of the UMG10. What to do....






So... the many UMG10s that I've seen with an extended wheelbase all cut their rear fenders, or removed them altogether. I would like to keep the rear fenders if possible to keep the overall look.

After studying the rear cage and body mounting system, I thought this might be a good chance to learn how to create my own 3D prints.

So this is what this post has been building up towards. How do you keep and avoid cutting or removing the rear fenders when you extend the UMG10 wheelbase to 305mm?

Well for this you'll need the following:

- UMG10 Rear Bed Set (eBay)
- REVolutionX 305mm Wheelbase Extension parts (Thingiverse)
- M3x30 Cap Screws (eBay)
- M3x20 Cap Screws (eBay)


Here are the parts I used.




I created a chassis brace/hinge and some spacers for the doubling up of the rear cage bar.

Here's the doubled up part of the cage with my spacers in order to extend the length of the cage.








Doubling up the base part of the rear cage turned out a lot better than I expected!








Here's the rear brace I made. The ugly looking parts are the areas where I used support braces on the printing plate. This is actually an older version, and I actually have a new one with the little round tab next to the last hole instead of another hole.








Here's the latest revision mounted up to the chassis. You can already tell it's going to reduce some of the chassis flex as well.




I kept the rear LED holes, so you'll still be able to mount LEDs back there.




Body hinge with the body attached






And finally, the outcome of my first 3D print design. I've achieved extending the wheelbase to 305mm and keeping the rear fenders intact and lined up in the process!














These changes are really subtle, and I think at first glance, no one would even suspect the wheelbase has been extended unless you take a closer look!

I had fun using this for my first 3D print design project. I've got plans for the UMG10 6x6 next!