New Project (for me)

[Mike Flea]

Found this at a garage sale last weekend for $5, and the Avalanche in someones trash a couple months ago. The Avalanche was going to be the project, until I found the Jeep. I have been admiring the handiwork of Willy's owners here. The Avalanche may end up going free to a good home, as I would have had to make or purchase a frame for it. I already have a complete chassis, from my wroncho, that has the exact same wheelbase as the Jeep.

[adamargue]

looking forward to more. I have been looking for one of those avalanche bodies for a long time they are real cool.

[Mike Flea]

I had taken the body off the chassis, so the original new bright chassis and tires are gone, and when I found it there were no front doors, if you're still interested, pm me your address, and I'll get in out as soon as I find a box big enough for it.

[Fumbles]

Jeep! Jeep! Jeep!!! Gotta love these large scale Jeeps ! Can't wait to see what you do with it !

[Mike Flea]

It's an original Hasbro G.I. Joe Jeep from the 60's, so it's like Frizzelfry's. It probably won't be as classy as yours, but I'll take a decent stab at it. I'll start getting some build pics up hopefully this weekend. I've shaved all unnecessary plastic off the bottom of the body...coincidently, the little motor sounder on it worked before I cut it all out, lol. I'm going to use the scx10 chassis and wraith axles from my wroncho, but today I ordered a wraith skidplate for the chassis to widen it up a bit. The way I had it for the wroncho worked ok for a Lexan body, but I think it'll be too narrow for the heavier plastic Jeep body. Below is the Dodge Wroncho, and the way I had set up the links for it on an scx10 chassis. It had good flex, but the upper link ends were rubbing on the frame rails.

My plans are to put the motor and trans in the engine bay, and run a driveshaft down to either another axial trans or an RC4WD disruptor . These 2.2 swampers are really big even for the Jeeps' rear wheelwells, may have to open them up a bit.

[Fumbles]

Yeah - I think that Wraith skid will be the way to go on it. If its an original then you might want to look at using SCX10 axles are they a tad bit more narrow. The Wraith axles might stick out too far on that older model of Jeep. Just a thought....

Another Jeep ! COOL !

[Mike Flea]

HAH! I thought this was going to be an easy body swap with my wroncho...but not so, lol. Stripped the chassis all the way down to the frame rails, and starting all over. I got the wraith skid in and shaved the side edges off, still need to shave the thickness a little to fit inside the scx10 frame rails, then will have to drill new holes in rails.

[Mike Flea]

A few pics, not going to cut the body until I get some 91mm aluminum links to use as crossbraces on the frame, then I'll mark off where I need to cut.

[Mike Flea]

Received some parts the other day, but haven't had time to put them on. Veggie garden blooming, passing out extra produce, helping the wife make stuffed green peppers, and gawompki (stuffed cabbage), and coating the mountain on my outdoor large scale railroad, have been taking up a lot of my time lately. Supposed to be hot again next weekend, so I'll spend more time in the garage then.

[BigSki]

Pics of the outdoor railroad? I always manage to piss off someone every year in February when I go to the local large scale model railroad show and post pics of the large scale stuff!


Oh, and it's Golumpki. I miss my grandma's old world cooking.

[Mike Flea]

Still a work-in-progress, the idea behind it is to p/u the harvest and bring them around to the greenhouse for washing before they go into the house. Still working on the mountains, got the one with the mine covered in "flexfoam", which is like a flexible mortar, still need to add groundcover, trees, and shading, and then need to do it all to the second mountain. The second mountain is flat, for the pig farm that's going up there. In the last picture, the fence will eventually be hidden by a piece of foambard carved like a mountainside.

You have the spelling right, but my parents, who both spoke fluent Polish, pronounced it how I spelled it, lol. We made up a stock pot full today, for dinner tomorrow, served with sliced cucumbers in sour cream.

[BigSki]

Originally Posted by Mike Flea

You have the spelling right, but my parents, who both spoke fluent Polish, pronounced it how I spelled it, lol. We made up a stock pot full today, for dinner tomorrow, served with sliced cucumbers in sour cream.

Same here for my family, we always called it 'gawompki' as well. I also miss the Perogies and all of the other Polish foods.

The railroad looks fantastic. Do you run the locomotives on LiPo's? That seems to be the trend, especially for the outdoors large scale railroads. The oxidized track is no longer an issue to good running trains.

[dadrab]

Very fine train set-up...functional, too.

I like it.

[Mike Flea]

Thanks for looking and the compliments, eventually, the all engines will go to battery power, right now, I have 2 on battery power, radio controlled, and 3 on track power. Once the track is cleaned the first time, in the Spring, as long as I run a loco with the cleaning car ( gondola with a scotch-brite pad) once a week, I'm good to go all season. What gets it oxidized is when we get a big snow, and I can't get out to the layout, to run the trains, then it becomes necessary to be able to have a strong battery powered loco to push the plow, which both of the battery locos are running on about 9v. To push snow, I need to be able to run on 14 to 22 volts. My home made push plow weighs in at 3lbs, which may not sound like much compared to the RC trucks we run, but when you're pushing a plow with a full blade of wet snow on brass tracks with steel wheels, you get a lot of wheel slippage. The other hazard, is running into an ice flow off the fence from the party lights. I had to rebuild the lead truck of the plow this past spring due to shearing them off when I hit a buried ice flow across the track. Fortunately, it happened on the fence side of the track, right where the mine is now, so it and the engine didn't topple off the layout. That 2 ft drop would have shattered the plastic plow or engine body. That's the one downfall to having an elevated layout.

[Mike Flea]

Ok, back to the build, separated the frame rails from the wraith skid today to grind off a bit of the skid at the front. The scx10 rails bend inward a bit, and the way I had it before, you could see the front of the rails were farther apart than the rear. Got them back together and put a 91mm link both at the front and the rear. Will probably add another 2 in between after I figure out where the tranny and motor are going, and at the top of the shock towers for stability. Also cut out the body at the front to see how the chassis will fit.

[Mike Flea]

I got the front axle and links hooked up today, but will have to change the location of the front crossbrace as it interferes with the servo on flex. The front of the body will need to be cut as well, as it interferes with the servo horn. Might be able to mount the servo to the front of the body, but it'll be seen through the grill. Might also think about extending the front of the chassis by 1". The links are traxxas 102mm with the short link ends.

[Mike Flea]

Installed the rear axle and links today, 106mm Traxxas with short link ends. Still need to trim out front of body below grill to clear servo. in the third picture the chassis is not sitting level because I still need to notch the body in front. I moved the front crossbrace to a location behind the servo, and in front of the shock tower. Those are T-maxx shocks on there, any suggestions for a shorter shock?

[Mike Flea]

No pics today, forgot to charge camera batteries, no AA's at home, and phone pics suck, but I did cut out the floorboard to clear the skid mounted motor and trans, as well as trim more of the front of the body to fit the chassis better. Will mount the rear of the body with a couple screws through the body to the rear chassis brace. The front is another story, may have to make some brackets to come off the front of the frame to the body to the soon to be made front bumper/stinger. Also need to order a new rear driveshaft. I overlooked the longer skid. The motor and trans was originally mounted to an scx10 skid on this chassis. I didn't realize until today that there is a greater distance between where the rear links mounted on the scx10 skid to where they mount on the Wraith skid. DOH!!

[Mike Flea]

Picked up some 1" angle brackets from the local hardware store to fasten the rear frame to the body, the screws and nuts on there are just temporary as I'll be taking it apart to make changes. The cutout in the floorbords turned out neater than I expected, shouldn't be too hard to make a new tunnel out of styrene, might end up boxing in the rear shocks too. I've been looking at some of the other early Hasbro Jeep builds, and most of them cut the front bumper off, I'd like to keep mine, but the lock to lock turn with the Super Swampers hit. I don't want to pull the axle back because that will cause other issues, and if I move the chassis back on the body, I'll have to extend or comp cut the rear fenders, which I really don't want to do.

[Mike Flea]

Took the springs off to get a better idea of where I needed to trim rear wheelwells so tires wouldn't rub. Tried smaller diameter tires but didn't look right. Much as I didn't want to do it, I cut off the stock front bumper, still need to fabricate a new one. Used another couple small angle brackets to make front body mounts.