F350 Orlandoo Scaler

[Intashu]

Full image list here: https://imgur.com/gallery/WxOCB4j

Been tooling away at a few RC projects here and made enough progress on my Orlandoo crawler I wanted to share some progress. I'll add descriptions to each image below them so if you see something interesting feel free to ask. (but don't quote the first post as it's picture heavy!) xD





Current progress shot. I have several things I still need to do to this guy. Flare the rear fenders to clear the wheel, add a custom front bumper, roll bar, I just got the metal gears for the axles, check electronics and interior clearance to see if I can add a cover to hide it all or not, add LED's. and add a custom spacer to the inside of the wheels giving them a firm mount to the axles without slipping.



It started as a F150 Orlandoo kit. I added my old xmod truck tires to it and it looked great. Unfortunately the paint job was piss poor and I couldn't find the body alone to replace it so I started looking at toys for replacement body idea's. I wanted to keep the smaller scale and didn't want to go with a full 1/24 scale truck. I have one of those already and wanted to keep it smaller!



I found this F350 truck at "fleet Farm" nearby, it had a goofy offroad look to it with massive tires. but the scale was correct! It was just a whole lot longer.

what's interesting is, it uses a diecast front, with a plastic bed/rear end. so the weight will be forward still. I expected it to run full drop lowered on the shocks. it helps it look more stock and less WILD OFFROAD INSANITY. I love the scale look of trucks more than the absurd offroad performance monsters that dominate the small scale world.



First things first was to extend the frame. But I hit a few snags doing this.
for starters, the shocks are too far inward on the axle to clear around this modified frame.

Note the new forward link mount locations, the lower links mount as far back on the pan area of the stock frame as possible, with the uppers just past where that area ends. this isn't as triangulated as stock, but more than acceptable! The only risk is if the axle fell too low, it would pivot downwards and bind up badly. fortunately that is WELL beyond where I will allow it to fall.




Here's the modified replacement frame for the rear just tacked in place with some super glue. It mounts to the inside of the existing rails and works great with the shock mounting location. I wanted the tires to sit up close to stock looking under the bed, but still be able to drop away for clearance so this shock angle seemed to work out perfectly. at this angle it has basically no power to lift the rear end at all, but with the body's weight it wouldn't have stood a chance anyways!



Another angle of the new extended frame. It's taller to have the inside of the truck bed rest on it. and will be permanently mounted together with some plastic bonder epoxy Once all glued up it is very unlikely to break.



Flex test using the Epoxy lid as a reference. Granted this LOOKS amazing.. but is mostly due to the long frame than anything else. It doubtfully will never flex this much while driving around.


This is where it sits for now. Next week I got to flare the rear fender, remove the stock front bumper and add a custom 3d printed offroad one.
switch the axle gears to metal, and pick up a aluminum rod for the extended rear axle drive shaft.
I picked up a extra set of drive shafts for the Orlandoo, and will basically enshroud the current output from the middle to a cut extra outer shaft where it meets the axle shaft. makes it easiest to extend while not losing much durability in the process.

Feel free to ask questions! I'll have updates for this post as I go along but I think it's turning out pretty sweet and unique for what I've seen from many orandoo based rigs.

Check out the Imgur link at the beginning to see a few extra images which include how i setup the Panhard bar for the front axle.

[Intashu]

I've always been a fan of the SCALE look over performance. my Losi MRC turned jeep scaler a few years ago was more offroad than this guy but still kept very in scale with itself.

I want to get my hands on a GK24 this summer and build a more performance truck at this scale eventually. but I got to move first and shouldn't be picking up more projects till afterwards!