smogs Elements

[Doom!]

Really nice, ya gotta love the satisfaction of doing it yourself.

[smog]

100% true Doom!

Hit the cage with a coat of paint

Here it is off of the truck





And a mock up. Idea was to match the wheels





Next step will be to secure the rear of the body to the cage now thT the body posts are history. The plan is to use magnets

[borlo]

Originally Posted by smog

Next step will be to secure the rear of the body to the cage now thT the body posts are history. The plan is to use magnets

Looking forward to seeing how you make it happen with the magnets.

Being new to the hobby I love seeing the solutions to problems of our own making. I have an axial honcho body on my element kit. The rear cage leaves room for improvement in my mind and I am hoping to make a minimalist brazed cage/bed for it but am not sure how to secure the rear of the front half of the body once the cage/bed is permanently attached to the frame. Looking forward to seeing what you do here....

[smog]

Originally Posted by borlo

Looking forward to seeing how you make it happen with the magnets.

Being new to the hobby I love seeing the solutions to problems of our own making. I have an axial honcho body on my element kit. The rear cage leaves room for improvement in my mind and I am hoping to make a minimalist brazed cage/bed for it but am not sure how to secure the rear of the front half of the body once the cage/bed is permanently attached to the frame. Looking forward to seeing what you do here....

Ah, yeah the half bodies are attached directly to the cages on all of the off the shelf truggies. That will definitely take some thought and execution. I often create mounting points on lexan bodies by adhering styrene pieces to the inside. Right angle (L-shaped) styrene adhered inside the body will create a surface parallel to the top of the chassis rail. You will definitely need some surface that can absorb blows from tumbles. Perhaps brazed sliders that can support the sides of the body?
Look forward to hearing/seeing what you come up with.

[smog]

Came up with a simple method to hold the rear of the body down on the cage now that there is no longer a body post option.

First I made a hidden bumper mount which will not only serve as a point to mount up a bumper down the road, but also as a point for the magnets to hold the body.



Then once I determined where I wanted the magnets I adhered them inside the tailgate of the body using E6000



To keep the body from sliding up and out of position, I adhered a small strip of syrene to the top of the bumper mount that the top side of the magnets press against when the body is in place



Here you can see the space between the body and rear bumper mount where the magnets are doing their thing. Picture is taken from beneath the rig



The rear of the body is firmly in place

Invisible from the outside

[smog]

Horsed around with the airbrush while I drank my morning cup of bean juice. Reused my Area 51 stencil and threw a layer of black paint over my front flares. Spots of fresh paint look funny on a scratched up rig, but, as is goes, one outing on the rocks and you'll never know it was

[borlo]

Originally Posted by smog

Came up with a simple method to hold the rear of the body down on the cage now that there is no longer a body post option.

Very nice! I will put that idea in the file and likely do something similar when the time comes...whenever that may be.

[durok]

That's a perfectly battered and beat-up crawlin' rig!

[smog]

Originally Posted by borlo

Very nice! I will put that idea in the file and likely do something similar when the time comes...whenever that may be.

Thanks, seems to be working so far. Have the rig out at the lake this week so it's being trail tested

Originally Posted by durok

That's a perfectly battered and beat-up crawlin' rig!

I really like this rig a lot so it's definitely getting the lions share of my crawl time. With the back open I can watch the rear driveshaft spinning as it goes along ...simple pleasures

[B-MOW71]

I'm really digging how this rig is looking! Great job smog!

Great idea on the body mounting solution! Looks like it'll be a solid mount!

Cage work looks awesome! Perfect color too!

Nice airbrush touches! Looks like a well worn in and loved Jeep!

[smog]

Thanks B, I always appreciate your well mannered and motivating words.

Spent the last week out at the cabin. Took the Enduro out with me and got in some play time. The woods and water are a nice change from the dusty limestone quarry I mostly crawl in around home. I have a nice trail system I have carved out of the woods out there, both for walking and RC. It includes many sections of parallel trail that are RC specific. I must say, its nice not to not have a layer of dust over everything at the end of the day like I do every time I am in the quarry. Took took some pics and shot a bunch of video clips. I have yet to get to editing some of the vid, but these are some pics. Seems I went off on the wide angle lens for some reason

[CODYBOY]

Hey smog, looks like a great crawling experience you have carved out at your cabin. Can't wait to see the vids!
Ernie

[smog]

Originally Posted by CODYBOY

Hey smog, looks like a great crawling experience you have carved out at your cabin. Can't wait to see the vids!
Ernie

Hey Ernie, it's definitely a way to pass hours in the woods. Its comes with its seasonal bugs, but nothing some repellant can't handle.

Thanks for popping in and thanks again for all those brazing tips you've passed along over the years

[Doom!]

Beautiful shots and location. Some of the photos look 1/1 scale. Made me feel cooler just looking at them. I understand about the dust....comes with living in an arid environment here.

[smog]

Originally Posted by Doom!

Beautiful shots and location. Some of the photos look 1/1 scale. Made me feel cooler just looking at them. I understand about the dust....comes with living in an arid environment here.

doing what I can to keep RCC cool. Appreciate the affirmation.

It is amazing what a camera can do to make reality just a little more fantastic. Some days I can’t help but think the artificial lens has take the human eye to new places.

Thanks for the comments

[smog]

So, I am jumping around here. I have three Element rigs and decided I would move my Trailwalker onto a G-Speed chassis. Its basically been collecting dust. I have not yet gotten into small tires and this rig certainly did not change that for me. I ordered up the Enduro chassis kit from G-Speed to get started on my project.

Here is the stock stance on the Trailwalker. As you can see I have put a bit of paint over pre-painted body. The only other changes were some SSD pieces. Brass knuckles, front diff cover and aluminum C-Hubs.



Here is the Chassis built up with the G-Speed Carbon Steel rails. They are pretty heavy and I cant say I would recommend them based on that fact. I run a combo of rock and trail every time I am out and like a bit of weight on my trucks. I find my experience more enjoyable when I can take up some of that 3s speed and not be bouncing around. As most around here know, weight is always best kept as low as possible, these rails do not necessarily accomplish that. We shall see how she does, they can always be swapped out down the road.





Assembly of the Chassis was pretty straight forward. The biggest challenge came with the panhard mount. I am not sure how it came to be, but I was sent the AR44 mount rather than the universal mount. The universal is what works with the Enduro chassis. I tested the AR44 mount for shits 'n giggles, but as I expected, no bueno. The link was banging on the Diff and the servo horn was hitting the mount directly. I had spare Gatekeeper panhard mount in my field kit so figured I would see if it fit. Check it out! I can be used if you add a 4-5mm spacer(see above, see below). As you can see, the steering link and panhard are parallel and the same length. The configuration is stock. Crisis averted.





The Trailwalker body has a craptastic departure angle and even worse clearance on the low fender flares. I want to run Proline XL 1.9's and not drag my bumper. Decided I wanted to Bob the bed and remove the fender flares to start

Stock bed length



Bob-Job





Ended up removing a lot of lexan, bed and flares included





I used the G-Speed optional Body post mounts to set the front of the body in place. Lined it up for a easy bumper mount. The approach angle could not be better.





Here is the departure clearance after the bob



The Tailgate is not yet refastened. Have not 100% decided if I will use it



Some pics of the ride height I am currently looking at going with. Clearly the fender wells will be need to be re-sized







This is where I am at with this rig. I am not entire sure I am going to use this body yet, but would prefer to. Ideally I would like to lower it more, but if it requires losing the grill and most of the body lines on the TW then I may then switch to a different body altogether.

[treadway47025]

i like the trailwalker body. What tail lights you have in it?

[SteveB1]

Smog,



This is one of my favorite threads on the forum! Well done.



s

[smog]

Originally Posted by treadway47025

i like the trailwalker body. What tail lights you have in it?

Hi treadway, thanks for popping in. The ones you see are the TRX4 Blazer Tails. They are a really nice look for the body imo. They are very much usable but not quite the perfect fit. They do subtlety deform the TW body once they are tightened into place. I will see if I might be able to dig up more pictures. Unfortunately once I bobbed and threw on the XL tires the tails no longer worked. They rub on the tires. If you keep the truck bed stock you shouldn’t have any issues.

Originally Posted by SteveB1

Smog,



This is one of my favorite threads on the forum! Well done.



s

Super! Thanks for saying so, much appreciated. I try to keep it interesting, there are a lot of great build threads on RCC. I look forward to getting back on it. Am currently away on vacation but had been playing around with some cage work before I left.

[treadway47025]

thanks for the reply on the tails they look really good. I havent installed them yet but did pick some club5 ones up a while back