JimK's Chevy Trail Truck

[JimK]

This showed up on the front porch yesterday. Going to start some assembly a little later today.

The plan for now is to keep it simple for now so I can get the truck rolling quickly.

I'm going to put an Axial 69 Blazer body on it...the open top model with the roll cage. I'll paint it orange cuz wifey likes that colour and so do I.
For electronics I'm going to use the Spektrum DX3 Tx that came with my Gladiator and a Firma 40 esc/rx. I'll also drop in the 35 turn motor out of the Gladiator.
I've got a 25kg Annimos servo on the way to handle the steering duties.
Tires will be Falken Wildpeak A/T's mounted on Gmade black beadlocks for that old farm truck look.

I'm hoping I can find the body in Canada. Shipping from the USA is more than the body itself costs. If not I will bite the proverbial bullet and order it from one of the US.



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[smc-93]

Hopefully you've got some quality drivers and all your holes (into plastic) are correctly molded/tapped. I recently built one for my dad and several holes in the transmission weren't molded correctly or threaded at all. I noticed the screws weren't threading correctly, tried to back them out, two of them wouldn't budge. Very much could be operator error, but some of the holes I could pull the screws from, were messed up. Just something to look out for. (Or just new mess it up somehow like me)

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[JimK]

Originally Posted by smc-93

Hopefully you've got some quality drivers and all your holes (into plastic) are correctly molded/tapped. I recently built one for my dad and several holes in the transmission weren't molded correctly or threaded at all. I noticed the screws weren't threading correctly, tried to back them out, two of them wouldn't budge. Very much could be operator error, but some of the holes I could pull the screws from, were messed up. Just something to look out for. (Or just new mess it up somehow like me)

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Thanks for the heads up. I'll keep an eye out for that for sure. If need be I have all of the metric taps to thread the holes.

[smc-93]

I do too... After having a few ruined, immovable screws stuck in the transmission... Not a huge deal though, I'm not worried about my dad breaking/having tho rebuild the trans.

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[JimK]

Axles assembled. Pretty straightforward so far.



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[JimK]

Links assembled and installed.



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[JimK]

A few more goodies just showed up.
Of course the steering knuckles show up just after I finish assembling the axles....lol
Amazon also sent the wrong servo...supposed to be a 25kg.

The Tekin motor is going in the shiny red Gladiator.



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[JimK]

RC4WD aluminum steering knuckles installed.



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[ScaleLifeNewbie]

Good start so far! I just built my 10ii RBK about a month ago, and I favor it over my TRX4. I think you'll have tons of fun with it! I like that your doing the 69 Blazer body, that's one of the best looking bodies Axial has made

[JimK]

Originally Posted by ScaleLifeNewbie

Good start so far! I just built my 10ii RBK about a month ago, and I favor it over my TRX4. I think you'll have tons of fun with it! I like that your doing the 69 Blazer body, that's one of the best looking bodies Axial has made

Thank you.

I think this is going to a fun truck for sure. I checked out a couple other bodies before I stumbled upon the Blazer...I was hooked as soon as I saw it!!

[JimK]

I got the shocks assembled today with green slime and 40 wt oil in all. I can tweak that later once the truck is done if need be.

I was also able to order the 69 Blazer body from a Canadian source which will save me a boat load of money in shipping costs.
Very happy about that!!





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[JimK]

Today I got the transmission and Wild Boar drive shafts assembled.
A bit of Lucas Red and Tacky grease in there to keep the gears happy.
Feels nice and smooth. Everything went together nicely without any issues.





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[JimK]

The new 35 kg steering servo showed up this morning. Sent the other one back as it was not the one I ordered.



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[JimK]

I got the axles and tranny mounted and finished up the rest of the chassis. I built it with the 12" wheelbase to fit the Blazer body.



Wheels mounted and ready to install the electronics. It's officially a roller know. I quite like the wheels and tires.





Rear suspension wouldn't compress/flex for some reason?? Only took a second or two to notice that the drive shaft was the issue.
Took it off and reassembled it with the shorter shaft sections and we're good to go now.



All in all I'm pretty pleased with how the kit went together. Pretty straight forward and no surprises along the way. I'm disappointed that the kit version of this truck came with plastic shock bodies and plastic pivot balls but other than that I have no complaints.

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[smc-93]

Glad to see you didn't run into any issues with your kit build. I too was disappointed by the shocks, so I used TRX4 GTS shocks instead

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[JimK]

Originally Posted by smc-93

Glad to see you didn't run into any issues with your kit build. I too was disappointed by the shocks, so I used TRX4 GTS shocks instead

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I probably know that it won't end well but I thought I'd give the plastic shocks an honest try. Pretty sure I have a set of GTS shocks laying around somewhere and possibly a set of Axial aluminum bodies shocks. We'll see how it goes and take it from there.

[food2000]

I've built 5-6 of them (got my buddies to buy one) and yea... 90% of them went with the trx4 gts (best bang for buck imo).

The stock shocks perform well but no matter what i did... they just leak (even the aluminum body icon ones).

Ebay is a pretty cheap source for GTS, i went different spring rates elsewhere since the stock trx4 seem too stiff to me.

Looking good, stock axial shocks will last a little bit !

[addiemonster]

Originally Posted by JimK

The new 35 kg steering servo showed up this morning. Sent the other one back as it was not the one I ordered.



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I use this servo horn on all of my SCX10II's as you can get a ton of them for like $15 on Amazon. The only problem is they're a little long in the front and foul on the frame rail. You'll want to chop off the front screw hole and grind the "step" section on the bottom side flush with the rest of the horn so it and the screw clears the frame rail at full steering throw. Hope this diagram make sense:



I do this to all of my similar servo horns, and they give a great throw, keep everything inline, and have never stripped/broken. You'll also want to orient the servo so that the wire and splines are toward the front of the rig. Hope this helps, if you need me to I can snap some photos of one of mine for reference!

[JimK]

Got the electronics installed tonight. Still need to bind the Tx and do a little wire management as well.
I also need to center the steering servo and hook up the linkage.



Dynamite 35T motor with 12T pinion and a Spektrum Firma 40 esc/Rx.



A birds eye view of the layout.



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[JimK]

Originally Posted by addiemonster

I use this servo horn on all of my SCX10II's as you can get a ton of them for like $15 on Amazon. The only problem is they're a little long in the front and foul on the frame rail. You'll want to chop off the front screw hole and grind the "step" section on the bottom side flush with the rest of the horn so it and the screw clears the frame rail at full steering throw. Hope this diagram make sense:



I do this to all of my similar servo horns, and they give a great throw, keep everything inline, and have never stripped/broken. You'll also want to orient the servo so that the wire and splines are toward the front of the rig. Hope this helps, if you need me to I can snap some photos of one of mine for reference!

Thanks for the heads up on that addiemonster. I'll take it to work with me tomorrow and make those modifications before I even install it.

Have you had good luck with that servo? This is my first time trying one of them.