Buck's 1/6th all metal Willys Jeep

[danielbuck]

First off, I'll say that I am new to RC and scale stuff, this is my first project. But I'm not new to general fabrication, and jeeps. This will probably be different than most crawlers, because I'm not really going for a light weight vehicle.

Anyway, I didn't really have a game plan when I started this. I had a 1/6th scale metal jeep model, which was really nice. (I'm sure someone somewhere is crying because I hacked up such a nice model!) I decided I wanted to make an RC car out of it, so I picked up a Mad Torque crawler that happened to have the right wheel base for what I wanted.

Hind sight being what it is, I probably should have just pieced together all the chassis myself, because now that I've had the Mad Torque for a while, all the plastic parts are starting to bite me in the butt due to the weight of the metal body.

So, this build won't really cover the body, since most of the body is already done, and I didn't take any photos along the way.


So, I have a set of all metal (aluminum mostly?) Super Bully axles on the way. I would have liked to have the Bully XLD axles, which are an inch narrower, but I couldn't find them in stock anywhere. Are they still made?? Hopefully I can make up some of that inch with different backspacing wheels. I'll be buying metal rod ends and making the links the length that they need to be out of steel rod, or possibly aluminum if I can't re-use the aluminum links that are on there now.


Aaaany way, like I said I'm new to RC stuff and electronic stuff in general, so I'm sure I'm going to have some questions regarding motors, servos, and what not along the way. I'm keeping the axles MOA instead of dealing with driveshafts and transfer case and all that, just seems simpler, and I don't care about the weight of having two motors.

Here's where it's at right now, basically a bone stock Exceed Mad Torque chassis. In the next few days hopefully more metal parts will be arriving. So this build will mostly be about the chassis.





And here's a video of it driving. The body vibrates alot in this video, because it wasn't fully bolted down to the frame. Now that the roll cage is in, it's fully bolted down and doesn't vibrate near as much. Quite solid. I'll take another video soon.

[Mike Flea]

Where did you find a metal bodied 1/6 Jeep, that is cool!

[danielbuck]

I got the body off of Ebay, it wasn't cheap, it was 2 or 3 hundred dollars. Nice model, would look good on a shelf, but I tend to use and abuse my stuff, so sitting on the shelf isn't for me I spent a good day cutting and grinding on the model just taking out all the interior parts, engine, driveline, and what not just to get it to fit on the chassis and have room for the shocks.


Here's a few photos as it sits right now. It's sitting a bit high, I was messing with the shocks, ideally it would sit 1/2-3/4" lower.

I don't like how the Mad torque has the shocks attached to the control arms, instead of directly to the axle. I get why they did it, but I'm going to most likely modify the placement of them once the metal axles are under there, and I'll have the rear shocks sticking through the rear wheel wells on shock hoops, and the front's will do the same, possibly sticking through the hood, I need to do some measure before I commit to that though.

My HOPE is, that I can move the shocks away from the center of the vehicle, so that I can put back some of the interior details (mainly the seats)

Cage is made of 1/4" steel round bar, welded together. Main purpose of the cage is simply to give me a nice handle to pick the thing up by with one hand Weighs probably around 20 pounds or so.







And for scale:

[Mike Flea]

Review some of the other 1/6 Jeep builds here, we may have done some stuff that will give you ideas for yours, this is going to be an interesting build. I'm looking to purchase a big Tonka metal Jeep, just to have that metal-crunching experience. I've seen them on e-bay for $20-40.

[danielbuck]

Yea, I'm starting to look at some of the threads now, kinda reminds me of looking at real vehicle build threads on other forums. I can see how this gets addictive, I already have 2 real jeeps, now this one, haha

[Mike Flea]

They are a blast!

[danielbuck]

I got a set of wheels with a more standard mounting system, and a set of tires (which are slightly smaller than the tires I have now).

I'm starting to think that the Super Bully Axles will be a bit to wide still... so I MAY hack up these wheels to force some more offset out of them, if the wheels/tire doesn't start to contact the knuckle. We'll see, I need to spend some time tinkering.




and just for shiggles, the big willys and the little willys

[Mike Flea]

Sweet ride, Dan! I'd rather own that, than a Corvette. Corvette may be worth more, but I can do more with a Jeep!

[BigSki]

I'd love to dimension that 1:1 grille to make some scale replicas of it. What a bad ass ride to have in the garage.

[danielbuck]

Originally Posted by BigSki

I'd love to dimension that 1:1 grille to make some scale replicas of it. What a bad ass ride to have in the garage.

I've got both an MB grill, and a '46 civilian CJ grill (hanging on the wall in the garage), if you want any measurements let me know.




Axles arrived, all metal Bully 2 comp axles with 12mm wheel spacers. That gets me the track width that I think will be just right. I'm going to leave it front steering only. Though I may attempt to setup a front dig with a new controller and ESC in the future.







I ordered a set of all steel heim joints and some (I hope) appropriately sized steel tube to make the links (I'm going to 4 link front and rear). I'm going to try both drilling and tapping solid rods, as well as simply welding on a nut to hollow rods. I'm thinking welded nut on hollow rods will probably be the way to go, I hate tapping such small threads.

Hopefully by the end of the week I'll be messing with the links, then I'll move onto the steering and motors.

********
Speaking of motors, here's a noob question: What do I need to do to get both more power/torque, AND more speed? The axles are "Gear ratio: 40.75 : 1 w/14t pinion", how do I go about choosing a motor for the axles? Keep in mind this is probably heavier than most 1/6 scale crawlers.
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[Mike Flea]

Check out Bitter End's build, "Scrap Metal" he made a 1/6 Jeep with MOA's

[danielbuck]

Here's a mock up of about where I'm going to have the axle and body positioned. The heim joints haven't arrived yet, so I've not been able to start working on the links.

I wish the tires were a little bit bigger, but they were the largest ones I could find for the 2.2 wheels. Later if I find some that are larger I can always swap them out I suppose.

[Mike Flea]

They actually look real good on there, but if you want bigger, ProLine has the Interco TSL SX XL's @ 5.8" tall. RC4WD has the Interco TSL Boggers or Mickey Thompson Baja Claws @ 5.7" tall.

You might want to bring the rear axle in a tad, but I guess it depends on how the bigger tires fit.

[danielbuck]

These are the Interco Iroks, which are already 5.75" tall and almost 2.4" wide. Thats' roughly a 35" tire in real life. A 39" or 40" would be perfect I think which would be around 6.5" scale.

[Mike Flea]

What's next? 40 series? Summit tires are 7" & X-Maxx are 8"

[cmbscx10]

Originally Posted by Mike Flea

What's next? 40 series? Summit tires are 7" & X-Maxx are 8"

For in between those measurements and more scale the Axial Yeti XL's are 7.35 and the PB RB Xl's are 7.3 http://www.pbxrc.com/Pit-Bull-Rock-Beast-XL-3-8-RC-Scale-Tire-p/pb9009zdk.htm.

I would get the PB Xl's but i now have Qty 8 of the Falken 3.8's. Be a while before i wear them out.

[Norton]

Just for for size reference, these are 1\6 scale with Proline Super Swampers 2.2 XL'S. Dragon Willy's and Jeep Gladiator.

[danielbuck]

Originally Posted by Mike Flea

What's next? 40 series? Summit tires are 7" & X-Maxx are 8"

they would not fit on 2.2 wheels though, correct?

[Mike Flea]

Probably not, I think most 40 series are 3.8 wheels, unless you do a cut and shut, which I can't help you there, but you might try a search.

[danielbuck]

Ok, starting on the links. I opted to make these out of steel tube and metal male joints with a nut welded at each end of the tube, so that they are assembled and adjusted just like real links. This probably isn't the easiest way to do this, but to me it seemed the simplest.

Cut the tubes to length, and use a long 5mm threaded rod to snug the 5mm nuts up to the tube so that they don't lift up out of parallel when welding.

Worked pretty good. 1 down, 7 more to go.



rear lower links layed out:


welded up one, removed the threaded rod. Before and after:


test fit the heim joint:


1 link complete, and is adjustable, can be adjusted to be up to approximately 1/2" longer if I unthread the heim joint and snug the jamb nut again, just like real links