Demo Derby car (former crusher car)

[Metal Masher]

Well since i'm going to be continuously upgrading this i decided to start it's own thread. I'm re-posting the process to make my old crusher car RC for posterity

After i got the crusher cars back i decided to make one RC. here is how i did it.

Trying to keep it as simple as possible, I decided to use the running gear from the original chassis.

So i took the chassis,



Then pulled the electronics cover off to see how the front end was put together and was amazed to find the whole front suspension set up as a preassembled module.



This would work perfectly.

Next pulled the front suspension off.



The electronics I'm not using as I'm going with hobby grade stuff.

The rear assembly was just as easy. all i had to do was drive the hinge pin out.



Then to fit them to the chassis, I cut a hole in the floor the shape of the axle assembly.









That looks about right



Now to attach the front suspension i made up a simple skid



then i grabbed a micro servo i had for steering



next i made a servo horn



After that i decided to check the servo to see if it worked and of course it was dead. so i had to go with a full size servo.



To get it to fit i had to make up some more plates.





to mount the suspension pod to the plate i cut the post off the original chassis.





in front i used a simple piece of tubing for a post



Then i cut a space for the servo in the firewall



bolted up the plate assembly





then installed the servo



the rear was much easier with some simple angles.



Finally i cut the B pillar so i could fit the electronics starting with a pair of slots for the battery



then mounted the ESC and receiver to the package trey



There you go! a simple metal RC car, and if you are wondering why i didn't just use the whole chassis? not only did i want to use Hobby grade electronics but i wanted to see how the body would hold up as it was, pretty close to the 1:1 unibody construction.





I did some test runs and it seems to work good. i'll get the vids posted up as soon as i get them edited.

[rc2008]

that is cool!

[Metal Masher]

Thanks!

I got the test vids up finally.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGWZcJjNLkk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmwEsUu2PVg

[Metal Masher]

well I started the process of updating the bodies on the demo cars.

When i created the first 2 bodies it was right off the hard body and was not all that accurate as i was not able to press to hard for fear of braking the body so i used my usual process and began casting the body in resin.

I started with the sides



Then came the hood



Then the trunk



and the tail pan



the only part i did differently was the roof. Casting the roof would take a large quantity of resin, and at about $50 a gallon it's a little costly so to reduce the volume of resin required i built a wooden buck to take up much of the space in the roof







Here they are all together



Once i had the molds created i had to separate them into the individual sections so into the scroll saw they went

The hood and truck were pretty strait forward



the sides required a diagonal cut in top to define the door seams



Then i was able to separate the fenders from the rockers and doors



before i made a test panel i decided to trim off the door handles. mainly because it makes it easier to form but also a real door panel would not have it formed into it.



then i made a test panel and quickly realized just how accurate the latex/resin process is.



what you see is the process actually coping the screen printed numbers off the original body which you can see here



So before the next test panel i sanded the door down to get a smooth part



That's it for now. I'll post more after the holidays.

[pajey]

Awesome stuff man. I just love your work.

[ROSS]

the ghosted 01 is just awesome. im glad to see it came out so clean in the mold.

[Metal Masher]

I'm a bit behind updating this. I got more progress on the molds.

I cleaned up the edges of the hood, trunk, and cowls and made some test pieces.



Now with the molds not only do the panels have sides but the front roll under as well



then i moved onto the roof. I must admit i was a little intimidated forming the metal. so to make things a little easier i trimmed the extra posts in the middle of the side windows.



This allowed me to smoothly roll the sides of the roof over







it came off the mold rather easy and trimmed up nice.



the last molds that needed attention was the fenders. on the front ones, i cut along the hood line and made a ledge



the test panel worked out well







similar treatment on the rears





the last mold that needed tested was the tail lite panel.



Turned out pretty good.

I'm not sure if i'm going to re-skin the car in this thread or build a new one. i have some ideas though and i'm at least going to assemble some more crusher cars to see how the panels all go together.

[bob1961]

very nice work as always blake ....one of these days i'll need to make a road trip to your house for a lesson how to do this form and metal work ....

[Metal Masher]

Originally Posted by bob1961

very nice work as always blake ....one of these days i'll need to make a road trip to your house for a lesson how to do this form and metal work ....

Thanks! you are welcome to stop in any time. just let me know.

[bob1961]

yeah my PRO 4 build using a SC10 body I'm thinking on going metal for it, look up PRO 4 and look see ....

[Hacksaw707]

Very cool

[4door5speed]

Very cool, do you have any pics of the whole car put together?

[Metal Masher]

I'm a bit behind updating this. :facepalm:

well I never put new panels on the car but I did add some bumpers and painted it up demo style.

for the bumpers I used some of the same material I used on my demo trucks and simply cut access holes in the radiator support



then slid the material through and screwed it fast



Yah that looks right.



Done! well maybe not.



ok I trimmed it down a bit and welded it fast



same process for the rear







now it's looking like something





A shot of silver finished them off





Now for the paint. I wanted to pay homage to the show that made the car popular but being that it was green, went a different rout.







and some outside shots for effect





off to the ECSC demo it went. i'll post more on that later.

[EeePee]

Deuce?

[Metal Masher]

Originally Posted by EeePee

Deuce?

come on, it's a red neck demo car. of course it's going to be spelled wrong. or I ran out of room. i'll use any excuse I want

actually:

Duce (Italian pronunciation: [ˈdu.t͡ʃe], leader) is an Italian title, derived from the Latin word dux, and cognate with duke.

There we go, falls right in line with the Duke boys

[Metal Masher]

So I took the charger, along with my 4 other demo trucks, to the ECSC a few weeks ago. believe it or not the little bugger managed 2nd place! which is something to say considering it is about 25 percent smaller and weighs half as much as the other trucks.



it also survived in pretty good shape. I was thoroughly convinced it would be a ball of unrecognizable metal by the end of the run.





Since it survived and is still running good I decided it needed an upgrade. the weight was an issue and it just kept getting pushed around. also at one point the "frame" folded right in the middle so to add some strength and much needed weight I decided it needed a proper demo car cage.

first a pile of steel was cut



then positioned



then welded



next a test fit





feeling good the top of the hoop was next to go on



nice booger wekds:biggthumpup:



finally the dash bar



BAM! now it has weight and protection!



I forgot to add that I drilled and tapped the bottom of the cage and screwed it to the floor from below.

now it was time to run again. This time it was with family. Set up an arena in my driveway and had my 2 kids (4 and 11) my nephews (6 and and my brother in law (40 something) driving.



we started off with some oval racing which ended ugly. (my bro-n-law drove the charger)



cage did it's job and the added weight made a big difference.



Again the car managed a 2nd place finish in the demo with the belly dragging being the only thing stopping it.









Looks like a real demo car now! it still runs good so I think I'm just going to pull the front down and run it again!

This is too much fun!

[CM9000]

this is awesome!

[joe122]

Incredible how close to the real thing these are, what a fun thread to follow. Great work.

[rally racer #75]

is it really a good idea to have a antenna stick out like that?
btw, amazing!!!