Jato The Trail Finder 2 - Leaf Spring Mafia Edition

[Col_Sanders]

I have ran the light kit on a couple different trucks and wondered the same damn thing. I really dont get it when a company makes such a half assed effort at doing something. Oh well, at least its cheap.

[calcagno45]

Has the light bucket arrangement evolved over time with these TF2 kits? Are there more light holes now than before? That would be the only explanation for such tomfoolery.


Plus side of things. It looks good with the light.

[JatoTheRipper]

Originally Posted by calcagno45

Has the light bucket arrangement evolved over time with these TF2 kits? Are there more light holes now than before? That would be the only explanation for such tomfoolery.


Plus side of things. It looks good with the light.

Good question. Was there ever a Mojave 1 body?

[JatoTheRipper]

I'm looking for door panels for the TF2. I see that CC Hand makes them, but I can't justify the price. Does anybody else make them besides the shitty, FDM 3D printing "companies"? I can't even find them on Shapeways.

[svt923]

You can get the entire Mojave 4 door interior set and cut it down for less than the CCHand door panels.

https://www.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...AaAknREALw_wcB

[JatoTheRipper]

Originally Posted by svt923

You can get the entire Mojave 4 door interior set and cut it down for less than the CCHand door panels.

https://www.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...AaAknREALw_wcB

That interior would be perfect if it wasn't wrong hand drive. It is an option though - I could use only the door panels. Definitely something to think about. Thanks!

[svt923]

Originally Posted by JatoTheRipper

That interior would be perfect if it wasn't wrong hand drive. It is an option though - I could use only the door panels. Definitely something to think about. Thanks!

The dash looks nearly identical to the stock dash, shouldn't be hard to adapt it to the interior.

[JatoTheRipper]

Originally Posted by svt923

The dash looks nearly identical to the stock dash, shouldn't be hard to adapt it to the interior.

Valid point! That crossed my mind. And if I don't use it I'll have some materials to practice my weathering techniques. I think you convinced me. Thanks for helping me spend money!

[JatoTheRipper]

Originally Posted by svt923

You can get the entire Mojave 4 door interior set and cut it down for less than the CCHand door panels.

https://www.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...AaAknREALw_wcB

I got the 4 door interior today. I also found something that might work better. I'm waiting delivery of those.

[JatoTheRipper]

I watched Imthatguy's weathering video on his Scale Builders Guild YouTube channel and now I think I'm a weathering expert (not) so I gave it a shot. The interior color on this truck came out horribly. It's a nasty shade of brown. I used some wash to give it a bit of weathering. I did the same to the dash. I think it looks much better. It's a little bit streaky and I'm going to have to figure out a technique to minimize that. I'm guessing the streakiness was at least partially do to my choice of brushes. But anway, I think it turned out pretty well.



My driver, whose name is apparently Peter, had a rough time. The lanky bastard was way too tall for the interior. He hit his head so I had to get rid of his ass and "junk". I now call him Peterless Pete. This was such a mess because I used a Dremel. Peter dust, not to be confused with fairy dust, was all over! I could have used a sharp knife instead, but then the mess would probably have been my blood. I like my fingers so I chose the Dremel method.




He fits pretty well, don't ya think?

[Levi]

Looks like you did good fitting pete in the truck. I think the weathering is something that takes practice. I want to do the same with my tf body i think one day after it gets beat up over time.

[JatoTheRipper]

I forgot to mention that Peter was extremely nervous before his surgery/torture...




Here you can see the weathering on the dash. It looks like an old, dirty and dingy dash so I think it came out well. Again, it's a little streaky, but not bad. I'm happy with it.

[JatoTheRipper]

Last night I used Shoe Goo to take the LED light wires to the body. I still have to stick the wires down at more spots, but I was anxious to get the truck outside for a test run with the driver and the lights.

[JatoTheRipper]

I received my A&M Garage Shackle Reversal Kit AKA correction kit since RC4WD has the front leafs backwards.

Nice kit, a little overpriced since they come in bare metal, but I'm looking forward to putting this on. The plan was to install this and the Bowhouse skid plate that I've been sitting at home since the middle of the build, but rare sunny weather on Saturday meant I went out on my motorcycle. Sunday I was away from home. I did manage to get the A&M parts painted black though.

[Bananaclip]

She is looking really good Jato!

[LSXGMC]

Jato - I keep coming back to this thread and can't stop admiring the color choice on this truck. It looks amazing! What an awesome build you've done here.

[JatoTheRipper]

Originally Posted by LSXGMC

Jato - I keep coming back to this thread and can't stop admiring the color choice on this truck. It looks amazing! What an awesome build you've done here.

Thanks! I personally love the color as well. neilus and his bobbed Hilux were my inspiration for the color. Mine is slightly different, but I couldn't be happier with the color.

I'm glad you said that because it reminded me to give neilus credit; His bobbed Hilux can be found here: Just a Bobbed Hilux for FUN!

[JatoTheRipper]

My girlfriend gets up at 3AM for work and she works long hours while I'm a night owl (diagnosed with Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome or basically nocturnal ) that can barely make it to work on time at 8AM. Because of this I often get alone time to build. I got in a good session last night and I concentrated on the TF2.

Here's the A&M Shackle Reversal Kit all painted up. As I said before, they come raw. I really wish they'd come powder coated black, but rattle can will have to suffice.




One thing that surprised me, in a good way, is that this kit includes this little instruction flyer. That's great especially for people less experienced in modifying RCs. Installation isn't 100% straight forward because you have to enlarge a hole in the frame with a 5/32" drill bit. I hated drilling the frame because there's no turning back if, for some reason, I ever want to revert the front shackles back to the stock location. Oh well. A drillin' we will go!




Here's the starting ground clearance. The shovel, err I mean skid plate, is just barely riding on the red lid of this container. This skid plate gets hung up a lot in the rear world, even on mild trails, in my limited experience with the truck.




Here's what we're starting with sans the one shoulder bolt that I removed before thinking to take photos.




Things are kinda tight up front on the TF2 so instead of struggling to get to screw heads and nuts I just pulled out the motor and trans. OMG she looks nekkid!




While the trans was out I went ahead and installed the Bowhouse skid plate. The biggest pain was trying to remove the two screws that thread into the body mounts. The heads are on the inside of the frame so you have to use an L-wrench or a long ball tip wrench. I don't have a long ball end Allen wrench so I was stuck using an L-wrench. Tedious things test my short patience, but alas I got them out without too much struggling.

The stock, metal skid plate is threaded whereas the 3D printed Bowhouse is not. What I did, instead, was to use longer screws and a nuts on the inside as seen in this photo.

One thing that always baffled me is that the frame has cutouts/recesses just in front of the skid plate where you'd think the skid plate would mount. These go unused in my standard TF2.




Here's the A&M kit installed. It looks nice. As you can see, the front, solid mount interferes with the RC4WD inner fenders so I had to trim mine.




The Bowhouse skid looks nice. You can see the unused cutouts/recesses in the frame that I mentioned above.




And, finally, we are all back together. You can see I gained a significant amount of ground clearance without raising ride height or center of gravity. Always a good thing!

Installing the shackle reversal kit reminded me that the front shocks are pathetic. At rest they are nearly bottomed out. I will have to tackle that at some point.

I didn't get a chance to test these mods out, but I'm happy with them at this point.

[Natedog]

Shackle reversal looks good. I've wondered about those machined recesses in the TF2 frame also, seems like they'd be good for mounting a low profile skidplate of some sort. How you liking the G-Made driveshafts?

[JatoTheRipper]

Originally Posted by Natedog

Shackle reversal looks good. I've wondered about those machined recesses in the TF2 frame also, seems like they'd be good for mounting a low profile skidplate of some sort. How you liking the G-Made driveshafts?

I wonder if the recess is used on one of the other RC4WD vehicles. If not I'm confused.

I have the Junfac/GMade driveshafts on a few different scalers and they work well for me. Some people complain they wear faster than the rest, but I haven't found that to be true.