After 14 years out of the hobby, BoilermakerFan is back! And building an Enduro Kit

[BoilermakerFan]

Not sure how many of the old guys are still around, but I gave up the RC hobby when my son was born in October of 2005.

He's 14 now and I gave him my NIB Tamiya VW Beetle kit for Christmas. This was the original re-release on the M-04L chassis. He put it togther with my supervision and I glued the tires for him. All he has left to do is decide what color he wants the body to be and painting it.

We had a great time so I dug out my old stretched TLT-1 crawler to see if I could get it running. Short answer is not at the moment, but I have a plan for it...


The RC bug bit me again and I decided it was time to get back into it for both of us to have fun crawling when we go camping. After watching tons of RC Review, Harley's, and SBG videos on YouTube, I decided the Enduro was the best kit for what I wanted to do with the truck until I can buy a Vanquish kit in a few months... And I'm hoping that Vanquish will release their version of the Capra.


I had Amazon Gift cards from the last two Christmases so I used those to order the Enduro kit. I decided to start with the Pro-Line Ambush body for now, but the Enduro will eventually be stretched to 12.8" and wear a 1976 F150 body.


I'm trying to keep this more of a budget build.

That means it's starting out with a Holmes 13T 5-slot motor and HW 1080 ESC. And I'll be using my old Hitec "high torque" digital servos for it. I still have the OG Hitec Servo programmer so I at least can tweak the servos...

I picked up RC4WD Deep Dish steel wagon wheels from my local Hobbytown. The motor arrived Monday, but my Duratrax Deep Woods tires won't be in until Friday.

I ordered some upgrades right from the start. Things that will improve the durability more than anything and a few bits to add weight to the front axle.

My Amazon order arrived today:



My Amain Hobbies order is scheduled to arrive tomorrow and my Club 5 Racing order is scheduled to arrive Thursday. I forgot to order a few things initially, like the steel balls for the links and the wheelbase stretch kit, so I need to get those ordered tonight and on the way so that they arrive by Saturday.

I'll start my build on Saturday.


- Cheers

[dezfan]

Welcome back.

There is no cure for this sickness. 🥴

[JatoTheRipper]

Damn, I actually remember your name (but nothing more). Welcome back!

[jason02ws6]

Welcome back! You picked a great platform to build.


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[BoilermakerFan]

Thanks guys!

I still have the P2300 chassis, but I never did get the production Stampede Transmission plates for it.

I had the prototype plates in my truck at the very first Green River Rock Crawl event in 2004...


Here's my old truck:




And the lid I ran at the comp:




I still have both of them and the TLT P2300 chassis, but I will be moving the TLT axles to the Hot Racing SCX10 Rock Racer Chassis, at least until they break:




I'll post up the hop-ups I grabbed later.


Right now I'm just trying to decide what paint scheme I want to do on the Ambush body. All of my vehicles back then had the purple to blue fades. Kind of feel like I need to keep that tradition alive.

[BoilermakerFan]

The long term plan for my build is to migrate to a 12.8" wheelbase so I can run this body:







And one of these sets of wheels:

[soze]

Welcome back! Nice choice of rig too!

[jason02ws6]

Originally Posted by BoilermakerFan

The long term plan for my build is to migrate to a 12.8" wheelbase so I can run this body:















And one of these sets of wheels:

I love the SSD steel wheels. I’m running them on my small tire set up.




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[smog]

Welcome back yo! Tho as Dezfan alluded to, do we ever truly leave?

An early-mid 70's F150 on an Enduro seems like a whole lotta win. I am just starting an Enduro build as well. Look forward to seeing where you take yours

[Mopar man]

Boiler up!!

[BoilermakerFan]

Thanks guys!



So a couple packages arrived today.


I'll just leave this here:





Just missing a few other bits that shipped out today other than the RC Screwz kit that is on back order until mid-February. I should have enough SS hardware to get through a few of the "Gates" tonight though.

[BoilermakerFan]

I had most of the SS screws in my spares for the chassis and the ones I didn't have will be easy to replace later.













The kit had 3mm x 15mm BHCS for the sliders. Seem like they are way too long to me, so I'll probably swap them out for 10mm or 12mm long ones when I pick up new sliders.



The aluminum servo/bumper mount from Club 5 Racing is a very impressive piece of kit! Since it's one piece, there is no chassis flex at the front.






I'll be jumping ahead in the assembly a bit, or rather jumping around since my new radio and new steering servo haven't been ordered yet. I still need to decide what I'm going to get. I'll probably just go with a 20kg servo for now. I have a NOS Hitec Digital HG5465MG that would work, but it's only 160oz or so at 6V. They worked great on my TLT rig, but I had dual steering and it was a lightweight truck.

[themountain]

For a rig like that 20kg servo is a bit weak . The Samix parts are the bees knee

[BoilermakerFan]

Originally Posted by themountain

For a rig like that 20kg servo is a bit weak . The Samix parts are the bees knee

Thanks man. I know the 20KG wouldn't be the best, but for $20 it's an improvement over my current servo from my parts bin while I decide just how much I want to spend on a new servo and the probably BEC to go with it. I'm digging the Protek RC Black Label servos, but I'm also looking at Reef's. In the past I would have just gone Hitec, but I feel like their higher end servos are priced too far above the competition for what you get. And i doubt my OG programmer would work with the new ones.


I've been impressed with the Samix parts so far. A couple small spots of thin anodizing, but I'm stoked to have all the extra shock mount options, especially for when I stretch the wheelbase at the rear. I'm probably going to try their drive shafts too when I stretch the wheelbase. So far, it looks like the only option to get the longer rear drive shaft I will need in an alooy or steel. MIP isn't sure if their X-Drive CVDs will work on the longer wheelbase, but they did offer a few suggestions for me. It's just hard to swallow the extra $45 it would cost on top of the $72 for the Enduro set

I have more Samix parts in the box. I'll be running SSD knuckles and one other SSD part because it was actually cheaper than the Samix. I have Samix brass balls for the links on the way too. I didn't buy any of the Samix cross braces, I figured my spec'ed parts with the Enduro hard plastic replacements would be stiff enough. I believe it is. There is almost no flex or twist in my chassis.

I basically added aluminum or brass on the parts where I wanted the weight or I knew that I would break a plastic version. I added the Club 5 Racing front and ST RC rear alloy bumper mounts to stiffen the chassis.

I was attracted to the Samix battery tray, but you have to use their servo/bumper mount and lose the spot for a winch servo. I'm not willing to give that up and I didn't want to have to run a winch on the front bumper. I love the way they look, but it kills the approach angle more than I'm willing to sacrifice for the look.

[rnagenetics]

I'll need to take a pic of my current setup as it pretty closely matches exactly what you are doing at the moment. I also added the ssd aluminum c-hubs with the ssd brass knuckles.

[BoilermakerFan]

Originally Posted by rnagenetics

I'll need to take a pic of my current setup as it pretty closely matches exactly what you are doing at the moment. I also added the ssd aluminum c-hubs with the ssd brass knuckles.

Post the pic here in this thread. I have the SSD aluminum C-Hubs too. Very impressed with those two parts. I think I'm going to order the SSD brass rear axle weights simply because I don't like the two little BHCS holding in the bearings. I'll see what my other options are.


I found out my Duratrax Deep Woods tires are on back order through my local Hobbytown, even though they show available online. I picked up the ProLine Class 1 Hyrax tires to get me by for now. I had planned to pick them up later anyways. My LHS did have the Savox SW1210SG in stock so I grabbed it along with a Protek arm and my HH 13T 5-slot motor while I was there.






I built the axles tonight. I love the Club 5 Racing axle skids. They fit perfectly, as did the Samix aluminum 4-Link mounts. I also have the C5R center skid and the test fit was perfect for it as well.







The last bit of upgrade kit that I have at the moment is the C5R "Husky Link" HD M4 Steering Links Kit. I wanted to try it to see how it was. Another for it.





If I wasn't going to stretch the wheelbase of my rig to 12.8", I would definitely grab his full link kit. I may reach out to him and see if he can make the extended wheelbase links (or has some that are already close enough) once the AE kit arrives next week so I know what the new link lengths are. Of course, that would make the Samix brass link balls I have on the way kind of unneeded on this build. Oh well, I can use them on the TLT axle rock racer build.

Looking at all of the unused parts from my kit, I think the only things I need to build another set of axles are the bearings, driveshafts, and pinion gears. Oh, and diff covers, but I'll be ordering the C5R ones for my rig if I get the link kit so I'll have those soon enough too.

[soze]

Club5 Does have longer links. You can piecemeal and order a variety of lengths from his shop.

[Panther6834]

Originally Posted by dezfan

Welcome back.



There is no cure for this sickness.

Not entirely true. Depending on one's 'perspective', "Death" could be considered a 'cure'. After all, upon death, one wouldn't be purchasing any more RCs...right? So...here's to a long life.

~ More peace, love, laughter & kindness would make the world a MUCH better place

[BoilermakerFan]

Originally Posted by soze

Club5 Does have longer links. You can piecemeal and order a variety of lengths from his shop.

Fantastic! Thanks for letting me know soze. I will definitely reach out to him once I have the factory extension kit link lengths.

Looking at the Samix aluminum drive shaft kit, I should be able to make the longer rear drive shaft length I need from two kits combined. Plus that route will let me run either 12.3" or 12.8" WB very easily. If I don't just break down and buy the Vanquish Origin Pro kit, I'll probably build a second rear axle to match my current one so I can just leave the longer links and the lower half of the drive shaft in place on the axle, then pull the whole unit with the links and swap in the original one.

Originally Posted by Panther6834

Not entirely true. Depending on one's 'perspective', "Death" could be considered a 'cure'. After all, upon death, one wouldn't be purchasing any more RCs...right? So...here's to a long life.

~ More peace, love, laughter & kindness would make the world a MUCH better place

I'll drink to that! Cheers!

[B-MOW71]

Welcome back!

You've picked a great rig to start with. Nice bundle of upgrades too!

Can't go wrong with the Samix. The fit and finish of these parts are really nice. I've been running the Samix on my Enduro, TRX-4 and SCX10.2 and have had zero issues with any of the parts.

Looking forward to following along with the build! Subscribed!