Ooooh...a Tf2 Mojave 2 by Roo (and new2...rocks)

[2-shot]

I have a question regarding the red leaf springs.

With adding the longer and the medium size leafs below the red ones, will that lower the chances of getting axle wrap with the red leafs?


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[new2rocks]

Originally Posted by 2-shot

I have a question regarding the red leaf springs.

With adding the longer and the medium size leafs below the red ones, will that lower the chances of getting axle wrap with the red leafs?


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It definitely helps. You can still get some axle wrap if you're ham-fisted and try to power through a bind. But other than that, it's essentially a non-issue (and I'm not gentle with my other one). I actually had to pull apart the rear axle on my other one last night after stripping the ring/pinion on a rail run over the weekend (first true break in a year of hard driving), and the red leafs showed very little deformation. The full-length black helpers had actually bent more than the red leafs, and even that wasn't much.


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[new2rocks]

Work and family travel kept me away from the bench more than I would have liked and explain the lack of progress over the past couple of weeks. After seeing some of the issues that folks were reporting about the body, I decided to turn my attention to those areas next. The three issues I've seen are the front grill alignment with the fender and hood, the curve in the bottom edge of the cab/bed caused by the curve of the body and posts pressing out slightly on the body, and the taillight lens protruding slightly from the rear fender. I'll start with the front grill, as this is the most noticeable of the three.

1. Front Grill
When initially testing fitting the grill, it looks something like this:




The first step was using a heat gun (a hair dryer would do just as well) to heat up the fenders and then press into the fender next to the base of the headlight.





After the third round of heating and pressing, it looked like this:


Then the other side:


Next up was heating just below the headlights and pressing inward to create a tighter front/back fit at the base of the headlights:


I chose to do this with the grill off. Once I had that fit, I heated the grill again (while off the body) to create a bit more outward curve between the headlights so that the grill would stick out slightly in front of the leading edge of the hood as one the 1:1s. It now looks like this:


All told, it took about 20-30 minutes and wasn't particularly difficult to do. The most important thing (especially if you're using a heat gun instead of a hair dryer) is to be careful not to overheat the plastic.

The remaining two "issues" are minor and not really issues at all:
2. Curved lower edge of cab/bed
Because of the convex curve of the lower body panels, the body mounting posts under the cab press the cab out enough to create a slight bend along the bottom edge of the body and forward portion of the bed. Here's what it looks like:


After first seeing a post about this, I tried an original Mojave body on this same chassis, and it looked exactly the same as the Mojave 2, so this isn't anything new. If it bothers you, there are a couple of different (and equally simple) options for dealing with this, including using heat to bend out the fenders or inserting a few pieces of styrene underneath the bed between the fenders and bed wall to push the fenders out (as couple of others have done in their threads here).

Since I'm planning on a screw-less body mount system, I'm going to sort out the body mounts first before I decide how I want to straighten the lower edge of the cab and fenders. Regardless of which way I go, it won't take much time at all, and I'll post pix when done.

3. Taillights
The edge of the taillights sticks out slightly from the rear fender. Here's how it looks:


The options here are to heat the fender to press it out, file the lens a bit, and/or add some putty/styrene to build out the back edge of the fender to reduce the overhang. The first two in particular will be simple enough to do if I decide it bothers me enough by the time I get to it.

So...all in all, these fitment issues really are minor and can be addressed in an hour or less. We've been told that RC4WD is working on these three issues, so we'll post up as soon as we have news. In the meantime, if you already have the kit or are thinking about ordering one, there's really nothing to fear here, as the fixes are simple enough.

I hope to make more progress this week on my body mounting solution and will post up as I go.

[new2rocks]

More progress tonight, and it looks like I've killed several birds with one stone (apologies to bird-lovers). I started by trying out my new mounting idea. M3x10mm screws captured in the body with low-profile lack nuts and the exposed threads Dremel-ed off:


x4:


Trimmed 5-6mm off of the body mount posts to get this:


Used the heat gun with the body sitting on the chassis to straighten out the front edge of the bed just behind the cab on both sides to get this:


and this:


The last task for tonight was to straighten out the lower rear fender a bit so that the bottom edge of the fender lined up with the bottom of the rest of the bed and cab:


After that, I decided to test fit the taillight lenses and, lo and behold, the overlap was almost completely gone (and certainly well within my comfort zone):




The captured screw/posts hold the bottom very securely (I can lift the entire truck by the roof with not a hint of slip in the body), so I'm quite pleased with how that came out. Now I just need to put some air in those tires...

[1BadJeepBruiser]

I like the cab mounting idea, are you going to fill over the screws now and scribe door lines back in?

[new2rocks]

Originally Posted by 1BadJeepBruiser

I like the cab mounting idea, are you going to fill over the screws now and scribe door lines back in?

Thanks and yessir.

[2-shot]

Ok, I don't claim to be the brightest person!! LOL!!
What exactly did you do to mount the cab?

Edit: Nevermind!! I didn't scroll up far enough!! LOL!! See, I told you I wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed!! LOL!!


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[new2rocks]

Roo's been at it again. After seeing pictures of a real Mojave, he decided that he wanted the fixed leaf mounts ahead of the front axle and the shackles behind the axle. I tried explaining to him that there were plenty of real off-roaders that had the shackles ahead of the front axle (like Jeeps and Scouts and other cool trucks), but he was having none of it. So out came the Dremel (me, not him) to fab up some perches for the front. Here's how they came out:











As I suspected, there's no difference in suspension travel on the bench, and I'll bet that any difference in performance on the trails and rocks would be hardly noticeable, if at all. But Roo's happy, so I am, too.

Roo then got to work installing some new goodies from the good folks over at RC4WD, starting with the new Teraflex Revolver Shackle, which replaces the previous RC4WD Shooter Shackles:












As you can see, we decided to mount them straight to the chassis in front for now, though that may change once we get everything together and out on the trails.

Next up was a set of XVDs for the front axle. Since that means completely taking apart the axle anyway, I opted to drop in a set of helical gears while I was at it. Note that the helicals get shimmed differently from the stock ring/pinion.

Very thin shim on the pinion shaft inside the axle (as compared to a much thicker shim with the stock pinion):


Extra shim on the pinion shaft outside the axle to eliminate play:


No shims needed on the ring gear, as it sits nice and snug without:


That's it for now. I should have some more updates on the body soon.

[Jeepfixer1]

Really nice work. Ia have enjoyed the detail that is in your thread. Thanks for the in depth comparisons between the old and new kits. I give you and Roo two

[Maddog Madigan]

It rocks to see you passing it on to younger generation, I think I have a couple years yet but excited to do the same w/ my little guy. Looking forward to more. Thanks for sharing.

[new2rocks]

Originally Posted by Jeepfixer1

Really nice work. Ia have enjoyed the detail that is in your thread. Thanks for the in depth comparisons between the old and new kits. I give you and Roo two

Thanks. I'm glad you've enjoyed. There will be more coming soon. As soon as I figure out the best way to hide the screws sitting in the fins under the B pillars (I'm 0 for my first 2 ideas so far), I'll be ready to post my next update.

Originally Posted by Maddog Madigan

It rocks to see you passing it on to younger generation, I think I have a couple years yet but excited to do the same w/ my little guy. Looking forward to more. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks. He was a big part of the reason for getting back into the hobby, last year, and including him in all of the builds became a ground rule for me this year. The biggest hurdle I had to overcome in the build process was developing the patience to work at his pace, which is obviously slower than mine, lol. But once I started to see how much he took to it, it got much easier, and it's become better than I even imagined at this stage. He's really taken to the learning process, and the bonding time has been priceless. I look forward to hearing about yours as you get him involved (and feel free to PM if you want to hear more about the journey).


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[new2rocks]

Once it was onto bodywork, progress slowed. And then life intervened for a few weeks, so progress stopped altogether. But I've been able to get enough done to merit an update, so here goes.



First up was making screws and holes disappear. The ones along the rocker panel were easy (puttied, sanded, scribed, filed):









The post holes in the bed also went pretty quickly (glued styrene square underneath, puttied/sanded from above):









The screw holes in the grills on the B-pillars were more of a challenge. After trying a couple of things that didn't work well (scribing into sheet styrene, squadron putty, 2-part epoxy putty), I think I found something that will work. I started with this:





The spacing of the ridges on center is dead on for the grill, but the ridges needed to be thinned (grooves widened). Cut out a couple of small pieces and filed the groves to get to this:





Glued in place:





After a spot of primer:





It will take some puttying and filing to smooth things out, but I think it will work. Once I get this squared away, things should move a bit more quickly again.

[sb4pro]

With the mounting holes gone how do you plan to mount the body and will it work on the Tamiya F-350 body I plan on using ?

[new2rocks]

Originally Posted by sb4pro

With the mounting holes gone how do you plan to mount the body and will it work on the Tamiya F-350 body I plan on using ?

Look at post #44 above - lots of pix and details. The captured screws should work on the F350 cab with the RC4WD mounting kit, but you may have to do something different with the bed due to differences between how the F350 bed attaches to the cab and chassis.

[sb4pro]

Thanks rocks ! I'm thinking maybe the Velcro route , idk how yet but I'll figure something out lol

[Natedog]

Looks nice, but ime with 1:1 trucks the only thing revolver, shooter, or any type of folding shackle mount does is allow axle wrap and bent leaf springs. I like your body mount idea, interested to see how it holds up. Are you going to do double-shear mount for front leaf spring mounts?

Nice fix on the grill, front fenders and rear tail light/fenders.

[new2rocks]

Originally Posted by Natedog

Looks nice, but ime with 1:1 trucks the only thing revolver, shooter, or any type of folding shackle mount does is allow axle wrap and bent leaf springs. I like your body mount idea, interested to see how it holds up. Are you going to do double-shear mount for front leaf spring mounts?



Nice fix on the grill, front fenders and rear tail light/fenders.

Lol. As much as I love things with wheels, I've always been more of a sports car guy than a truck guy in the 1:1 world, so I'm the last person in the world to try to speak from any experience with 1:1 trucks. That said, there are lots of things that work very well on tiny trucks that would be a disaster on 1:1s (using tire foams instead of air under pressure, adding propertiionally significant amounts of weight to wheels to lower CG, vinyl/plastic axle housings to slide over rocks more easily, axles locked full-time, different gear ratios in front and rear, etc.). I've been running my other TF2 hard with T-Boxes and Shooters for over a year and have no axle wrap issues unless I do something really foolish in a really bad bind, so I'm not worried about this setup.



As far as the front leaf spring mounts, if you mean a bracket on both sides (instead of just the one side), I think I'm going to try it this way for now. The Delrin is very strong and rigid, so I'm thinking it should hold just fine. But If it doesn't, I'll do something that's 2-sided. Just another of my little experiments, some of which work better than others...

[SteveC6R]

Are you planning on running a winch? I'm like you and love the CCHand front push bumper but it doesn't allow for a scale winch and I'm not really visually liking any of the winch bumper options for the TF2.

[new2rocks]

Originally Posted by SteveC6R

Are you planning on running a winch? I'm like you and love the CCHand front push bumper but it doesn't allow for a scale winch and I'm not really visually liking any of the winch bumper options for the TF2.

I'm not planning on running a winch on this one, since it won't be a comp rig. I was torn on front winch bumpers for my other TF2 and ended up liking this one best of the lot:


http://store.rc4wd.com/Tough-Armor-F...-2_p_2670.html

[Natedog]

Originally Posted by new2rocks

Roo's been at it again. After seeing pictures of a real Mojave, he decided that he wanted the fixed leaf mounts ahead of the front axle and the shackles behind the axle. I tried explaining to him that there were plenty of real off-roaders that had the shackles ahead of the front axle (like Jeeps and Scouts and other cool trucks), but he was having none of it. So out came the Dremel (me, not him) to fab up some perches for the front.

As I suspected, there's no difference in suspension travel on the bench, and I'll bet that any difference in performance on the trails and rocks would be hardly noticeable, if at all. But Roo's happy, so I am, too...

Early American market Toyota dealer sold 4x4 pickups were conversions with divorced t-case, spring shackles in front (like a Jeep), tiny Dana front axle, iirc these were 1976-1978 or there-abouts with the Toyota factory manufacturing the 1979 and newer models. So, technically it could be correct either way.

Thanks for update, I wondered if it really made a wheeling difference in 1/10th scale. I was kinda figuring it probably didn't.

Do you have build thread for that "other" yellow Yota?