A little Love for MST CMX-W

[JimInMiami]

I noticed MST doesn't get a lot of love around here, so in hopes of boosting its prospects thought I'd share some pics of the recent build I did for the Misses who's a huge Toyota fan.

Gotta say, of all our rigs this one turned out the cutest.



As usual I brushed on acrylic custom mixed to match this 1-1.



The kit was a fun build and went together really well.



Tried to dress up the cage with some accessories and painted the light bezels silver



It’s box stock for now except for the wheel/tire combo. I wanted to try my modified SCX10 III tires with every other center nob removed, but will probably install SSD steelies and Hyrax clone tires eventually.




My impression is that this is a first-rate platform with solid design and engineering.
The only substandard part are the tires that are so hard they can support the truck WITHOUT the foams installed, here’s proof:



And that’s with a heavy NIMH battery sitting in the back! IMO the tires are only good for display purposes and one’s already gracing the back of my UMG10 as the spare.

Speaking of Mogs, I really like that the body/cage rotate up and out the way for service.



OK, but can it climb, you ask?? With the remnant of Hurricane Zeta hitting South Florida this weekend, we weren’t able to take it out for a test drive. But that didn’t keep us from using our cat furniture to test it!!

https://studio.youtube.com/video/uDYxvjxRw3Q/edit

Let me know what you guys think??

[OSRC]

Great looking truck, color is spot on!

[JimInMiami]

Originally Posted by OSRC

Great looking truck, color is spot on!

Thanks!

[CD02]

Looks awesome! The FJ40 is one mean looking truck with a rear cage

Sent from my U693CL using Tapatalk

[JimInMiami]

Originally Posted by CD02

Looks awesome! The FJ40 is one mean looking truck with a rear cage

Sent from my U693CL using Tapatalk

Thanks and agreed, I like that body so much I'm thinking of ordering one for one of my other chassis.

[Nicadraus]

Looks great!

[JimInMiami]

Originally Posted by Nicadraus

Looks great!

Thanks!

[rockspider]

looks cool!
I've one to build too, that will be my third CFX-W
For your body, a nice realistic touch would be to draw all junction body lines with an extra fine black felt pen, like the ones to write on plastic and CD

[JimInMiami]

Originally Posted by rockspider

looks cool!
I've one to build too, that will be my third CFX-W
For your body, a nice realistic touch would be to draw all junction body lines with an extra fine black felt pen, like the ones to write on plastic and CD

Thanks, that's a good suggestion, but unless there's a very well defined grove for the pen tip to ride in, I'm afraid my hands just aren't steady enuf

[rustneversleeps]

Originally Posted by JimInMiami

Thanks, that's a good suggestion, but unless there's a very well defined grove for the pen tip to ride in, I'm afraid my hands just aren't steady enuf

Another good way to define your lines is a black wash the whole body and wipe off excess...I suggest you google it first before you attempt..
Nice truck by the way...

[Stormin2u]

Nice job, it looks great in blue. I have two MST drift cars but no trucks yet. If the trucks are as nice as they're cars they will do really well, no question.

[JimInMiami]

Originally Posted by rustneversleeps

Another good way to define your lines is a black wash the whole body and wipe off excess...I suggest you google it first before you attempt..
Nice truck by the way...

Hummm, I will look that up, thanks for the tip!!

[JimInMiami]

Originally Posted by Stormin2u

Nice job, it looks great in blue. I have two MST drift cars but no trucks yet. If the trucks are as nice as they're cars they will do really well, no question.

Thanks, wifey is happy with the color. I've been in RC all my life, tho mostly in planes. Tried crawlers after visiting a local crawling course (happens to be next to my rc flying field) at the end of last year and got totally hooked. https://markhampark.com/rc-truck-and-crawler-course/
It's amazing how much fun you can have going slow!!

[vinha916]

wow so nice.

[JimInMiami]

So the wife's been having fun with her FJ 45 for the past month and even ran it in our club's fun comp in December. With a few mods the rig can handle pretty much everything in the Markham park crawler course. We added some brass to the front: https://www.rcmart.com/xtra-speed-br...24001-00083542 and 8mm wide hexes to widen the stance a bit.

It's held up pretty well to the use with one exception:



That's the SECOND shaft thats turned into a plastic pretzel. When the first one failed I figure she had just gotten a wheel stuck somewhere and applied too much throttle, but this second one leads me to think the part is simply not up to the job. She has WAY more hours on her TRX-4 on the same course with zero failures.

We've since replaced the plastic MST drive shaft with the optional all metal unit part # 210574: https://www.ebay.com/itm/210574-MST-...-/113714130046 I think anyone considering this rig for anything more than light-duty trail running should order the metal drive shaft along with the kit.

[King Dork]

Originally Posted by JimInMiami

So the wife's been having fun with her FJ 45 for the past month and even ran it in our club's fun comp in December. With a few mods the rig can handle pretty much everything in the Markham park crawler course. We added some brass to the front: https://www.rcmart.com/xtra-speed-br...24001-00083542 and 8mm wide hexes to widen the stance a bit.

It's held up pretty well to the use with one exception:



That's the SECOND shaft thats turned into a plastic pretzel. When the first one failed I figure she had just gotten a wheel stuck somewhere and applied too much throttle, but this second one leads me to think the part is simply not up to the job. She has WAY more hours on her TRX-4 on the same course with zero failures.

We've since replaced the plastic MST drive shaft with the optional all metal unit part # 210574: https://www.ebay.com/itm/210574-MST-...-/113714130046 I think anyone considering this rig for anything more than light-duty trail running should order the metal drive shaft along with the kit.

Gonna bump this. Jim, my friend’s CFX-W twisted and snapped both center shafts on it’s very first run. After hearing that I prepped mine during the build by filling the hollow spline with 2 part epoxy. Mine got a good handful of runs but eventually twisted as well. Both of us replaced them with the center shafts for an Element Enduro. They bolt right on and no problems since, and this rig gets more use than almost all of my others. I’ve been debating doing 4 wheel steering on mine since it’s already set up for it given that the rear axle is already just a 2nd front axle with a lockout to keep the knuckles straight. Just need the 2 steering links for the rear axle. Truck already has impressive turning so 4ws would be the danglies!

[JimInMiami]

Originally Posted by King Dork

Gonna bump this. Jim, my friend’s CFX-W twisted and snapped both center shafts on it’s very first run. After hearing that I prepped mine during the build by filling the hollow spline with 2 part epoxy. Mine got a good handful of runs but eventually twisted as well. Both of us replaced them with the center shafts for an Element Enduro. They bolt right on and no problems since, and this rig gets more use than almost all of my others. I’ve been debating doing 4 wheel steering on mine since it’s already set up for it given that the rear axle is already just a 2nd front axle with a lockout to keep the knuckles straight. Just need the 2 steering links for the rear axle. Truck already has impressive turning so 4ws would be the danglies!

Hey KD, yeah - no doubt it seems that the engineers at MST did not correctly estimate the loads on the longer rear drive shaft on the 313mm chassis. We've run the rig extensively since my January posting and all else has held up fine. The rig gets a ton of compliments when out on the rocks and is a pretty decent crawler to boot.

[King Dork]

Remove the shock springs and run it full droop and your jaw will hit the floor