Papa's Wraith Re-Build

[frostyrc]

the driver looks amazing! so jealous

[Mighty1]

lookin good President!

[papabash]

Originally Posted by Mighty1

lookin good President!

LOL, thanks bud.

[papabash]

I really like my Crawler-Dad LED light bar on my Honcho, so I ordered up another 5" Version 2 for this rig. While I'm waiting for it to get here, I had a little roof re-working to do. Of course, after doing the fastback mod, I had to cut the roof in half. I want to mount the light bar on the bottom of the roof so the top is nice and smooth to help out in those way-too-often times that I find the rig wheels-up. The "V" shaped bar in front would make this impossible, so I turned the roof around. Turning the roof around causes all the stock angles to be off a bit, which makes the front bar bow down pretty bad; still not good for mounting a flat light bar to:



So I took the roof off, heated the front bar with my propane torch, and bent each side down while being careful to keep the very ends with the threads relatively straight:



Now with the roof re-mounted, the front bar is much straighter. There is a little bit of wave to it, but not enough to matter once the bar is mounted and the Lexan roof is on:

[papabash]

My light bar came in today, thanks Crawler-Dad for the super fast shipping. The first thing I did was to waterproof it by applying 2 coats of liquid electic tape. If you just slop some on and then wipe off the excess with a paper towel, the liquid tape will shrink up and look really nice when dry. I just wipe enough off to make it flush with the tops of the LEDs, making sure to get all of it off the faces of the LEDs. This also gives them a nice scale appearance:

Without liquid tape:



With liquid tape:



Also be sure to dab some around the base of the wires where they come out the back to keep water from seeping in:

[Kitty]

from where did you get the driver?

[jclc]

Hi,
that is awesome!! Good job!!

[ROLANDROCKSHOP]

Looking good Big PaPa!



I thought bare alum was sexy??

[papabash]

Originally Posted by Kitty

from where did you get the driver?

The body is a Tamiya Wild Willy "L" parts tree available here:
Tamiya Wild Willy L Parts Tree Driver and Acc.

The head is the "Psycho Miko" head from Headhunter Heads available here:
Heads & More - FreqEsKinz.com

[papabash]

Originally Posted by jclc

Hi,
that is awesome!! Good job!!

Thanks!

[papabash]

[QUOTE]

Originally Posted by ROLANDROCKSHOP

Looking good Big PaPa!

Thanks Josh!

I thought bare alum was sexy??

Sometimes it is, sometimes you wish it had a bit more on, kinda like shoppers at Wally World...

[papabash]

I angled the sides of the light bar on the disc sander to match the angle of the sides of the windshield area. Then I grabbed some scrap fiberglass and made some mounts.





I mounted it just a hair below the roof bar so there's room to adjust the angle of the bar to point more up or down. A couple of O-rings keep the tension on it so it will stay put:





Now the bar is nicely protected and there's nothing on top of the rig to hang up when I'm going under an overhang or trying to drive upside-down.

[papabash]

Work's been crazy lately, so updates have been slow coming. It's a roller at last, and I went out for it's first shake down today and discovered the BEC had gone on permanent vacation. Fortunately, I was still at home for the testing, so I was able to go back in and steal one from an ESC I had sitting in a drawer. After a quick bit of surgery, everything was good. I'm running Motoworx (of course) 2.2 LE 8 Spoke, raw on black wheels along with the Motoworx scale hubs. I LOVE these wheels! I have them mounted with a set of PitBull Rock Beast II's and of course, C.I. dual stage foams. Here's a crappy pic just because:



We have a comp this weekend, so I'll be able to give it a real test run then and see how it does/what needs to be changed.
Next up is deciding what to do about a new body......................

[90Finder]

I like what you did with the roof and how you mounted that light bar!

[Billy D]

yes the light bar looks awesome. gonna have to get me one of those

[papabash]

Originally Posted by 90Finder

I like what you did with the roof and how you mounted that light bar!

Thanks Mike!

[papabash]

Originally Posted by Billy D

yes the light bar looks awesome. gonna have to get me one of those

I am very happy with Crawler-Dad's lights, they're really bright on 3S and the Delrin housing makes them very easy to modify for mounting.

[drunkyoda]

could you give me some more info on how you did the rear cage mod? that looks really nice.

[papabash]

Originally Posted by drunkyoda

could you give me some more info on how you did the rear cage mod? that looks really nice.

Sure, it's on page 1, post #17.
And thanks!

[papabash]

Had our comp yesterday, and I'm pleased to say the rig drove/handled very well, managing a first place finish. Wish I had thought to have someone take some action shots, but it didn't happen.
Still have to decide on what to do for a new body, kicking some ideas around.