JHTreyIII's 'Big Metal Bitch' Wraith Build

[JHTreyIII]

'Big Metal Bitch' Wraith Build Update:

Photo Taken 3/11/12:



Current specs include:

Holmes Hobbies Crawlmaster 20T
Holmes Hobbies Waterproof BRXL
GForce 3S 3300 mAh Battery
Castle 10 Amp BEC run straight into the servo, set at 7.4V
Hitec 7950 Servo, 486 oz at 7.4V
Homemade Lexan Front Electronics Plate
Robotronics Servo Horn
RC4WD 2.2 IROK's
Die-Laughing Hoopty Pro Wheels, Aluminum Centers, Delrin Rings
Axial Aluminum Lockouts, Chubs and Knuckles
Axial HD Ring and Pinion Diff Gears 13/38 front and back
Highland Crawlers No Slop Locker in Rear
RCP Stainless Locker up Front
Biggin69 Beef Tubes
STRC Aluminum Internal Diff Holders
STRC Aluminum 4 Link Trusses
ATRC Aluminum Link Mounts
Die Laughing Stainless Links (Suspension & Steering)
MIP Drive Shafts
VP CMS Kit with Panhard Bar Setup
Robinson Racing HD Steel Transmission Gears
RCScrewz Stainless Hardware
Advanced Metal Fab Aluminum Body Panels
Dinky RC Drop Bed
BGR Front Stinger with Winch Mount
3Racing Winch w/ heyok Controller
Mad Dog RC Winch Upgrade Kit
RC4WD Aluminum Bumper Mounts
GH Racing Aluminum Skid Plate
GH Racing Aluminum Front Upper Shock Mounts

More updates to come! Thanks for checking it out.

[johnnyh66]

Looking good Trey

[JHTreyIII]

A couple upcoming mods are Biggin69's new wraith beef tubes (ordered) and some aluminum body panels from CFM (also ordered). Might hold off installing the aluminum body for a little while, the grunge metal skin looks pretty sweet. CFM is going on a break for a while though and I wanted to get an order in before that happened.

Also got some 32P gears coming. I've only run this once and the motor got pretty hot and eventually quit. I was running it with the stock 20/80 gearing. The motor seems to be fine thank goodness. Maybe my 14/60 32P setup will help prevent that from happening again.

Edit: Photo added near top of first page to show where we started...1/26/12:

[WarTrader]

Start off with 56-14 if you can I've never overheated anything I've put in mine with that.

That thing is looking good bud we may need to do a WRAITH day on the trails soon LOL.

Who is driving and that and where did you get it ???

[JHTreyIII]

Originally Posted by johnnyh66

Looking good Trey

Thanks!

Originally Posted by WarTrader

Start off with 56-14 if you can I've never overheated anything I've put in mine with that.

That thing is looking good bud we may need to do a WRAITH day on the trails soon LOL.

Who is driving and that and where did you get it ???

Thanks man. I went ahead and ordered 14/60, hopefully that's close enough, I'll keep an eye on it.

I got that chick on Amazon, she's a Revoltech figure. It's kinda japanese anime and she's super posable but she's a little too fragile. I started having to glue her body parts back on, haha. Her arms will just fall off so I don't recommend those figures. She wasn't cheap either. I've since replaced her with a new driver. She's from the Danger Girl Comic Book Series, Sydney Savage. I'll get a photo of her up tonight. She's a little taller and fit the truck much better. I also ordered the other two Danger Girl Characters but they haven't showed up. Don't want poor Sydney to be lonely (really did I just say that?). They required some baking skill though! Had to put her in the oven so she'd sit down.

31 years old and still playing with action figures!

[JHTreyIII]

My new driver...Sydney Savage from Danger Girl. Abbey Chase will be her passenger eventually.

[JHTreyIII]

Oh man, got some new goodies headed my way. Found and aluminum hood to go with the new body and aluminum boat sides with a skid that runs all the way across the bottom on ebay. Also ordered a super shafty beefy top shaft and RRP heavy duty slipper 56T.

I think I'll shoot all the aluminum with smoke paint to give it a gun metal look.

[JHTreyIII]

The aluminum hood and boat sides/skid arrived and look sweet, especially the hood. I'll get some photos up as soon as I get the mounted. Side panels and roof should be delivered today. I shot a sample piece with the smoke paint and I think it looks better just as the aluminum color. Also have a 3Racing Winch, heyok controler and aluminum stinger/bumper with winch mount headed my way. The stinger is from BGR Welding. If it turns out nice, I may have to order his rear bumper/stinger. It can be found here: http://www.rccrawler.com/forum/axial...nch-mount.html

I saw a banner for GH Hobby today on this website. I hadn't seen that one before or even heard of them. They've got a couple wraith parts so I figured I'd give them a shot. I ordered aluminum front upper shock mounts and an aluminum skid plate. We'll see how they turn out. They look like direct replacements and I'm out to shed as much plastic as possible. Also ordered the RC4WD aluminum bumper mounts. Sooo lots of parts coming...

I had to order some new batteries too, the 3s's I got were just too big to fit under the hood. I kept breaking the plastic hinge for the hood because it was torqued over the huge battery. I'll probably try to sell my other ones, they're brand new G-Force 3S 5000 mAh 30C from valuehobby.com.

[johnnyh66]

Hey Trey, the big bats are great for gtg's but you may want to look into some much smaller bats for comps.

BTW, your new driver looks like a... healthy young lady

[JHTreyIII]

Originally Posted by johnnyh66

Hey Trey, the big bats are great for gtg's but you may want to look into some much smaller bats for comps.

BTW, your new driver looks like a... healthy young lady

Yeah I found some 3300's that will fit nicely, still pretty big though. As long as the hood shuts I'll be fine with them. I've got a lot of weight down low so hopefully it won't be an issue.

Ha, yeah Sydney Savage is very...healthy. I need to get her passenger in there, I just haven't had the chance. She's also quite healthy.

[johnnyh66]

For comps, I'm running Hyperion 900mah 3s 45c lipo's.

HYPERION G3 EX 0900 MAH 3S 11.1V 45C/90C LIPOLY PACK HP45C09003S Nano Tech 5C charge


they are TINY!
Weight: 85g
Dimensions (LxWxH): 70 mm x 34 mm x 18 mm

I used to run 2 big 4200mah's... I got like 3hrs run time but they added about a pond of weight... down low.

[JHTreyIII]

Alright so my aluminum body panels arrived today. I bought the sides and roof from CFM and the hood and bottom skid/boat sides from Advanced Metal Fab on ebay. Still need to attach the hood. Check it out:



The hood and the skid turned out fantastic, check out the skid:





So it will be a little more challenging to drop the bottom skid.

The body panels and roof turned out really nice too but they're 0.025 aluminum and the skid and hood are 0.040 so it's a night and day difference in the thickness. The guy that sold me the hood and skid also makes a roof so I went ahead and ordered that so it would be 0.040.

The 0.025 looks like it will dent pretty easy while the 0.040 is hard as hell. Advanced doesn't have sides yet...yet. I haven't seen him on here, he's got this stuff on ebay. CFM did a nice job with theirs, I just like the beefier ones better.

Also got my beef tubes in the mail today, I'll get those in as soon as I can.

[JHTreyIII]

Got my beef tubes installed in the rear tonight. Perfect fit, love them. I think I'm going to wait and do the front. I need to order and RCP locker for the front and I might as well only pull it apart once. The highland locker won't stay tight. There is simply too much force on it when I'm turning and it works loose even with a shit ton of thread lock. That means a new ring gear as well since I went with the HD hardware. That sucks...maybe I should try some red thread lock first.

[JHTreyIII]

Ahhh screw the red thread lock, I'm tired of messing with these damn highland lockers. RCP locker ordered...now I won't have to screw with it again.

[johnnyh66]

Originally Posted by JHTreyIII

Got my beef tubes installed in the rear tonight. Perfect fit, love them. I think I'm going to wait and do the front. I need to order and RCP locker for the front and I might as well only pull it apart once. The highland locker won't stay tight. There is simply too much force on it when I'm turning and it works loose even with a shit ton of thread lock. That means a new ring gear as well since I went with the HD hardware. That sucks...maybe I should try some red thread lock first.

I went to dismantle Melons front axle the other night and the MIP's pulled right out of the Highland locker! That was after one comp and blue locktite. I'm going to install them in the rears (multiple trucks) and if that doesn't work... I'm going to install them in the classified section!

[JHTreyIII]

Originally Posted by johnnyh66

I went to dismantle Melons front axle the other night and the MIP's pulled right out of the Highland locker! That was after one comp and blue locktite. I'm going to install them in the rears (multiple trucks) and if that doesn't work... I'm going to install them in the classified section!

I think they'll do just fine in the rear (I think) because you don't have the two tires fighting each other as much as you do in the front in a turn. Only time will tell. Lessons learned I guess.

[JHTreyIII]

Liked this photo too much to leave it out of the build. Aluminum hood looks sweet! At least the girls think so.

[WarTrader]

Originally Posted by JHTreyIII

Ahhh screw the red thread lock, I'm tired of messing with these damn highland lockers. RCP locker ordered...now I won't have to screw with it again.

Originally Posted by JHTreyIII

I think they'll do just fine in the rear (I think) because you don't have the two tires fighting each other as much as you do in the front in a turn. Only time will tell. Lessons learned I guess.

Go with felsenfest! I red locktight one side before I install them I line every thing up using a mic. then I red locktight one side the other I blue lock tight right before I install (I put a very small notch on the red side so I don't drive myself crazy during maintance). They have never backed out never given me a bit of a problem.

Rig it looking great bud cannot wait to see it in person I want one of those skid/boatsides hrmm.

[Cableman]

Originally Posted by JHTreyIII

Ahhh screw the red thread lock, I'm tired of messing with these damn highland lockers. RCP locker ordered...now I won't have to screw with it again.

I have the highland crawler lockers also, havent had any problems yet due to lack of use
What if you double set screw it, looks to be enough room. maybe 2 smaller set screws.

[Die-Laughing]

Ive also had great success with the felsenfests. Thats a great procedure you have there WarTrader. Im going to adopt that.. It makes good sense.
Ive just been eyeball centering them and blue loctite both side without problems.