It begins. . .First build gets its start.

[JamboreeTJ]

Pretty stock E-Maxx right now with the HPI Rubi body. I painted it up this weekend and I'm pretty happy with it for a first-timer. The silver undercoat came through the metallic burgandy in a couple small areas, but otherwise, pretty neat job. My wife put on the decals. We named it Kira Krawler for our daughter.

The hood decals are a couple leftover Rock Krawler decals that came with my suspension for my 1:1.

I have a 72 tooth spur gear. I'm waiting on a couple 12T pinions and spools. I have to do something about the tires eventually, but I'll run it around like this for awhile.

[JamboreeTJ]

I was having fun with this yesterday doing donuts in the snow on my driveway. Still not quite a crawler, but having fun anyway.

Hobbytown finally got in my spools this week. I was on a coffee buzz last night and put the front one in. Not to bad considering I didn't bother with directions, but I think I could have spooled my TJ faster. There I was thinking how cool it was to be able to work on the complete diff assembly with it in my hand. Big hands, small screws, 3 hours later. . .

I didn't realize you don't have to completely disassemble the front end just to get the diff out. Well, that will make the rear one go faster tonight. Lookin' forward to being locked.

Looking at these pictures again, I think I'm going to black out the wheels. I have some paint left over from the body.

[mr.maxx]

I hate to tell you, If you lock the front and rear with spools you are going to need 4ws or 30' to turn it...

Looks good...

[JamboreeTJ]

Originally Posted by mr.maxx

I hate to tell you, If you lock the front and rear with spools you are going to need 4ws or 30' to turn it...

Looks good...

Hmmmmm. I missed that in the E-Maxx area. :-( What I did read was that locking one diff would cause driveline probs. Spooling is the 2nd tip in the to-do list. :-(

Originally Posted by Building an E-Maxx Sticky

As you all know, a Maxx in stock form is not very capable.To turn a Maxx into a capable crawler, you will need to do a few things to it.There is no need to go out and do a complete rebuild just to make it go.

first you can only use 4 shocks( 1 per corner) and stiffen the springs up( due to suspension sag)

Then lock the diffs with either spools(highly suggested),JB weld( not the quick stuff ) or moose doo http://www.rccrawler.com/forum/showt...=locking+diffs
TIP* DO NOT only lock one diff at a time. It will raise havock with your driveline and break axles.

I would have just spooled the rear if that is an option until putting in 4ws.

Can I get away with the F/R spools at low speed and maybe narower tires? What's your recommendation?

[mr.maxx]

It will run fine with front and rear spools but it won’t turn very well. I am sure you will get irritated until you get the rear steering in.

Are you going for a full blown crawler? There are a lot of mods to make the truck a crawler that you won't want to do if you are looking for a basher...

Here is a shot of mine...

[JamboreeTJ]

Nice truck. I thought this was rccrawler.com, not rcbasher.com.

No, this will grow into a crawler. I'm not interested in racing. I just wanted something that was RTR so I could feed my ADD while I'm building it. I'll try to crawl with the 4wis and slowly engineer a 4link and chassis then transplant.

[JamboreeTJ]

I spooled the rear and it actually isn't too bad for turning. It is worse than open/open, of coure, but liveable.

I'm going to sipe the stock tires some with my dremel this weekend and run them out for awhile. Maybe I'll get to install my 72T spur gear too.

[trickedoutTLT06]

Originally Posted by mr.maxx

It will run fine with front and rear spools but it won’t turn very well. I am sure you will get irritated until you get the rear steering in.

Are you going for a full blown crawler? There are a lot of mods to make the truck a crawler that you won't want to do if you are looking for a basher...

Here is a shot of mine...

didn't know you had a maxx(haha), that's pretty nice looking. I like the color of the body. Got a link to the paint you used??







I think the maxx you have will turn out good, just lock out the Independant susp. and make a new chassis!

[JamboreeTJ]

Thanks tricked. That is the plan. I'm going to wheel it like it is for awhile to get the hang of this less than 1:1 stuff. Then I'll start working on a chassis and links, lock out the IS, and swap it over.

I just put in a 72T spur gear which produced nice result. If I can get ahold of some 12T or 9T pinions locally I'll put them in too. I can't see paying shipping on a couple $4 parts and I'm not ready to spend money on tires yet.

[mr.maxx]

It is a tamiya color that the LHS had....

Originally Posted by trickedoutnylint06

didn't know you had a maxx(haha), that's pretty nice looking. I like the color of the body. Got a link to the paint you used??







I think the maxx you have will turn out good, just lock out the Independant susp. and make a new chassis!

[JamboreeTJ]

Well, my Maxx build is going slow. But I did manage a couple of mods this last weekend.

I got out my dremel and smoke-siped the stock maxx tires.



They are pretty grippy now compared with stock condition. Not at all comp-worthy, but good for foolin' around.

I also went to single Trinity extra heavy springs on each corner and installed 12T pinion gears to go with my 72T spur gear. That is a very nice combo.

I had to replace the 2 rear axle shafts after I twisted one splined section and ripped the other off at the diff yoke. Gotta love carnage.

[tltman12]

those tires are sweet

[JamboreeTJ]

Originally Posted by maxxsucker

those tires are sweet

If you have a dremel, a cut-off wheel, and about 1 1/2 hours to kill it is easy work. I cut 3 deep grooves on the outside and then 5-7 shallow groves in toward the center. Sure beats paying $40-$60 for new tires before I burn these off.

The heat build up from the cut off wheel softened the compound a bit too, I think.

Oh, and do it outside. It smokes a lot.

[JamboreeTJ]

So I spent the summer bashing around the back yard with the 4WIS with just a few mods.





Since we're snowed in in the Northeast this last week, I finally got some free time to start thinking about doing something new with it.

After searching around here I decided to go with a torsion suspension to start. I got most of the chassis fabricated over the weekend and I'm going to work on the A-arm lock outs and mounting the electronics this week.

I used some aluminum c-channel for the chassis, some aluminum angles for the axle brackets. The stock maxx motors and trans are mounted on the c-channel and I used some spare stock axle shafts for the center driveshafts. One of the lower chassis supports will act as a mount for the trans skid.

The wheelbase is stretched to about 16 1/2".

I'm going to use the stock maxxx drag links for the A-arm lock outs. Then I just need to fab up servo mounting plates for the 4WS and some steering arms.

I'll see if I can get some pics posted tomorrow.

[JamboreeTJ]

I've been working on the 2nd incarnation of the Kira Krawler over the last week or so. I'm converting it from 4WIS to a custom torsion chassis suspension.





These flex shots aren't quite fair because the 4WIS is still live. I'm waiting to get some links to lock out the A-Arms later this week. Still, I think I will get more flex out of it than the pics. I can twist it 90* now without too much trouble. :smt096



I still have to mount the receiver, finish rigging up the front steering, fab up some servo mounts, fab up the rear steer and figure out how to mount the body. I also have to trim that motor mount that is hanging down and make up some kind of transmission skid. Oh yeah, and mount the batteries.

I have a set of these on the way too!