Grumpytruck's wraith kit build

[Grumpytruck 909]

Ok, I'm a newb on the crawling scene but have been lurking here for a while and thought i'd post my Wraith kit build. I thought I'd build one from scratch but thought before I spent hundreds of dollars on parts that I had no idea of how they went together I decided I'd buy a kit and go from there. I bought some upgrades and as money and time went buy. I got it up and running just to see if it would run. I'm running a Novak rockstar 35T with the eiger pro esc. Thought I'd try out the Flysky radio and haphazzardly hooked everything up to see if it would run. I took it out in the snow and drove it around a bit and everything worked fine,(once i figured out the radio and got it bound correctly) So now It's time to tear it down and add a few upgrades and try to put it together so it can handle what I have in store for it.

I will post more soon.

[Grumpytruck 909]

I spent most of the last two days getting the body painted, ( I got an airbrush for Xmas) A shot of the upgrades etc. Will start on the teardown next.

[evan03]

I see so me duratrax gears. . Looks awesome specialty the flames

[zero1]

close up of your battery mounting? thanks

[Grumpytruck 909]

Originally Posted by evan03

I see so me duratrax gears. . Looks awesome specialty the flames

I thought I'd try the Duratrax gears if I choose to change the gearing. Thanks, It was my first try with an airbrush. Still have to put a backing coat on it.

[Grumpytruck 909]

Originally Posted by zero1

close up of your battery mounting? thanks

I just had the battery laying in there on a battery tray that I bought. I will show the mounting of it when I get to that stage of the build

[GeoffC77]

Originally Posted by Grumpytruck 909

I spent most of the last two days getting the body painted, ( I got an airbrush for Xmas) A shot of the upgrades etc. Will start on the teardown next.

Love the paint work!

[Grumpytruck 909]

Originally Posted by WantaWraith

Love the paint work!

Thanks for the compliment on the paint job. I hope it looks good when I mount it on the frame.

I installed Hot Racing bevel gears in the axles and put in bigger screws for the chubs and rear lockouts.

Then I put Robinson racing gears in the tranny and put it back together. I was able to fit the 60 tooth 32 pitch geat in the cover by grinding down the hump inside for the driveshaft clearence.
Then I mounted the tranny on the skidplate and hooked up the links to the axles. I used the Axial aluminum links but wil more than likely get some titanium ones in the future.
I put the driveshafts in and almost have a roller. I used an MIP for the rear driveshaft and thought I'd try something for the front.
I bought a Scorpion roller for the wife and it came with the MIP driveshafts on it plus it came with all sorts of stock driveshafts and such.
I took one of the stock driveshafts and threaded a 8/32 piece of thraded rod into it with a bit of CA glue on the end and cut it off after it was screwd in all the way. It will be interesting to see how it hols up.

Shocks and frame next.

[Grumpytruck 909]

Well I got the shocks built and mounted on the axles. Then mounted the frame and hooked up the steering and put the wheels on. Took a few photos and wondered how it would look with the body on it.

Don't look to bad, I still have a little painting to do.

Next is figuring out the interior and to get the lights and wiring hooked up.

Any suggestions or coments are welcome.

[Ballistic17]

Looks really good.

[alexcreation]

awsome !!

I like your paint !!!

[doc.hamilton]

That paint job is gnarly!!! Like the flying tigers look...

Thanks for posting up!

Cheers,
Doc

[Grumpytruck 909]

Originally Posted by doc.hamilton

That paint job is gnarly!!! Like the flying tigers look...

Thanks for posting up!

Cheers,
Doc

Thanks to all for the compliments on my paint job. I still have to make a panel for the back and paint the interior. I'm undecided on what color to use on the interior, thinking about faschange red?????

[Grumpytruck 909]

I got the interior painted so I can mount the light controller and the BEC inside of it. I had an extra receiver box so I took the rear battery tray and cut the sides and the front of it off and CA glued one of the boxes to it. I wanted the receiver at the back so the antenna mast will come out behind the roof. I mounted the other box in the stock location and I will put the ESC in it. I have a servo extension to run to the back and I will solder an extension for the ESC radio wires.I have a Y connector for the light control unit and the glitch buster but might just splice them together. I will also have to make extensions for the BEC also. I'm thinking about just soldering that to the bottom of the ESC where the power wires are soldered in. I'm still thinking about the two switches for the ESC and BEC....I might just splice them into one switch. I'll start working on all that tomorrow

[buddamonk]

Looks awesome!

[Grumpytruck 909]

Back at it again I decided to solder the wires for the BEC on the underside of the ESC and then coated the exposed contacts with liquid elec tape. Then I put the ESC in the box up front and ran the wires down thought the battery plate and into the the skid area. I spliced the wires to the BEC and hooked everything up to see if everything worked.

[Grumpytruck 909]

Now it's time to get out the wire ties and get everything routed and out of the way. I put the top on the rear box and used two sided foam tape to secure the light controller to the back of the interior. I wire tied the BEC where a dig unit would go. I tied up a few more wires and installed the interior. Next thing is to mount the lights and figure out how to secure the battery and see how it runs.

[Grumpytruck 909]

Well after working on this for most of the day I got it all together. I used velcro and wire ties to hold the battery in place. I got he lites mounted and had to go through the steering to get it fine tuned. I didn't like the angle of the differentials so I added spacers to the upper links to straighten out the driveshafts . I cut some picture hangers off a bit and rebent them to make hinges for the hood and used magnets to hold it down. Put the rest of the body on and took it ouside. It climbed the frozen snowbanks with ease and seemed to run pretty good. I'm sure there will be some fine tuning needed but overall I'm pretty happy with the way it came out.

As most of my projects they are never finished

[ssyork]

Paint looks awesome! Thanks for sharing it.

[Grumpytruck 909]

Since It's snowing here in Maine I thought I'd better put my snowtires on