Natedog's Trail Findering TF2 Tiny Truck

[mgputer]

Originally Posted by HumboldtEF

Yeah its an odd design but the hub threads into the wheel portion. It took seeing a video for me to get it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0q7yKCXm4uY

Wow those are really neat. I might have to look into getting a set.

Sent from my ZTE A2017U using Tapatalk

[Natedog]

Mama and young ducks came round to investigate the larger foul swimming.

[Shinchu]

Gorgeous scenery. Truck is looking mighty capable too. Cant wait to see you put some scale touches on this. Hopefully sprawled out over 20 pages like my ford. Its awesome how much you can pour into a truck with a personal history.

[Natedog]

Dumped my decades old liquid Testors brush on glue out (that stuff stinks like heck!), rinsed bottle twice with acetone, then partially filled with acetone and began chopping up red RC4WD sprue. Got my styrene slurry done and nicely thickened up, dang there's either a cat hair or a Nate hair in the bottle I gotta fish out. Then Marked off with exterior masking tape for cutting, removed 1/2" including saw thickness.




Started with XActo razor saws, too short to span the bed width leading to some blade wandering especially in the bed floor area. Did most of the cutting with Husky 14" Pro Mitre Back Saw, much easier to maintain straight and square cut. Old towel underneath to catch all the plastic particles. Gotta sand it all square and/or fill in with my red styrene slurry.




Side view fitment, used a square and straight-edge, measured both pieces from good reference mold lines, black marks are high spots that need sanded down a little to square it all up.

[HumboldtEF]

Chop chop!

So is the styrene slurry a bit of a gap filler/glue?

[Natedog]

Yep!

Yes, glue that hopefully doesn't run all over and a gap filler.

[mgputer]

Getting brave now! Looks great!

Sent from my ZTE A2017U using Tapatalk

[Bananaclip]

Nate! doing big things with your little yota! I'm loving the tech and the recent climb photos... Spot on so far my man..... I was wondering when the saw was going to come out on that box!

[HumboldtEF]

Originally Posted by mgputer

Wow those are really neat. I might have to look into getting a set.

Sent from my ZTE A2017U using Tapatalk

Hey just a heads up these wheels are being a major pain to mount tires on so I cant say I'd recommend them too highly because of that.

[Natedog]

Originally Posted by mgputer

Getting brave now! Looks great!

Thanks!

Originally Posted by Bananaclip

Nate! doing big things with your little yota! I'm loving the tech and the recent climb photos... Spot on so far my man..... I was wondering when the saw was going to come out on that box!

Yes, thanks!

Originally Posted by HumboldtEF

Hey just a heads up these wheels are being a major pain to mount tires on so I cant say I'd recommend them too highly because of that.

Good to know, thanks!



All glued up, holes filled, bed sides filled and glued to the rear tailgate around the taillights. Used Acetone and styrene slurry for everything, be sure to work with a little thinner than you want because the acetone evaporates quickly on a hot day. Ready for a new rear bumper.

[mgputer]

That looks great. Some guys Bob to much but that was perfect!

Sent from my ZTE A2017U using Tapatalk

[rockhugger]

Originally Posted by mgputer

That looks great. Some guys Bob to much but that was perfect!

Sent from my ZTE A2017U using Tapatalk

I agree, that is just right.

That looks freakin awesome!!!! Looking forward to crawling this weekend and seeing the improvement.
I can't wait to build bumpers for this bad mamma.

[OSRC]

Very nice work! Agreed that bobbed too much sometimes looks odd, but that came out perfect.

[Natedog]

Originally Posted by mgputer

That looks great. Some guys Bob to much but that was perfect!

Thanks, agreed!

Originally Posted by rockhugger

I agree, that is just right.

That looks freakin awesome!!!! Looking forward to crawling this weekend and seeing the improvement.
I can't wait to build bumpers for this bad mamma.

Yes, thanks for the comments and suggestions! I had liked nharkey85's TF2 thread a couple years ago but forgot about it until you mentioned his bed bob angle cut rear lower, separately mounted bed and cab. My 1:1 Yota had a couple different beds and cuts over the years, but I wasn't quite sure how I wanted to cut my TF2. Marlin edition comes with straight cut under the bed and most peeps cut there's same. After seeing the angle cut, I went with that am really happy with how it came out, leaves more wheelwell visually for the tire to tuck up into. Can always straight cut it later, but I think the angle is here to stay. I've figured out how I'm going to separate the bed from the cab (and cut the flange off), solid mount the bed with four buttonhead screws. I'll fill in the front of the bed with styrene, but need the rear of the cab open to allow some flex to remove/install it from the four screwpins. I'm thinking of a thin sheet of painted lexan attached just below rear cab window to cover this and still allow flex in the cab.

Nharkey85 TF2 thread:
yet another TF2 thread.......

Originally Posted by OSRC

Very nice work! Agreed that bobbed too much sometimes looks odd, but that came out perfect.

Thanks!

[Levi]

Really like that cut off in the back of the bed looks really good and very functional. Always something to do on these good trucks. Love the pictures on the rocks looks like lots of fun.

[Natedog]

Tiny truck survived Rubicon camping week, but going to need some maintenance soon I think. Was giving it the once over returning home and the front diff the gears feel like they are starting to eat themselves, almost nobody except Amazon has the spiral cut set in stock, paid more than anywhere else and ordered anyways. Dear RC4WD please keep more parts in stock!

Front kingpin screws extend an extra 2-3mm top and bottom and this had kinda bothered me. Confirmed that these screws drag on the rocks often enough to start grinding down the 3mm buttonhead screws. I've ordered the Yota2 steel kingpin bushings (Yota1 are brass) because they look shorter (like they should be) but even RC4WD doesn't list bushing dimensions for the brass version. In the meantime, I'm going to file the brass stockers shorter and install shorter buttonhead screws. While it's apart I'll measure and see if Axial or Vaterra bushings will fit (I've already got spares of both).

Bowhouse High Clearance skid is working great and wear is minimal so far.

TF2 does great with all leafs in stock location, removed inner shock springs, 3000wt diff fluid in all four. I did taper grind corners of the leafs, carefully used needle nose pliers to remove tweak at spring ends, mine front leafs looked like the whole rtr was dropped off a high-rise building during shipping to the LHS, as the leaf springs ends were also off the frame end pivots!

80mm Superlift (Marlin Edition) shocks that I bought new are perfect travel-wise up front, but one shed almost all the chrome off the shaft first time out! Very disappointed with the quality even though the design is better than the stock shocks. Downside is the rears can't be moved to top outermost hole (increased damping for better sidehilling) because they are fatter OD than the stock silver 90mm shocks. This is why I only used the Superlift 80mm up front.

TRX-4 driveshafts work great, but the plastic rings at the ends that hold the cross-pins in are getting pretty worn and eventually will fail. Traxxas should make metal pieces to replace these, if they don't already. I need to check, but better scale shafts would be nice. Does anyone know if Axial Wildbores or TRX4 shafts offer more angularity?

Sorting through pictures and will post a few later.

Edit: The Protek 3S 3600mah LIHV batteries that I've been using and loving for size, weight and power have let me down. 3 out of 4 of them have puffed despite babying them unlike any lipo I've ever had, one is to the point of super puffed! I've had better luck with much cheaper Turnigy, Rhino, HobbyPeople, etc.! I emailed AMain and they didn't respond for several days (even though website says reply in 24hrs or less), so I called A-Main. They gave me a partial store credit, better than nothing, but nowhere near offsets the cost of 4 of these batteries. I'm very disappointed and can no longer recommend these batteries.
Not a great battery especially at $60 each plus tax and shipping.
ProTek RC 3S 100C Silicon Graphene HV Shorty LiPo Battery (11.4V/3600mAh)

I'm looking for some compact, thin 3S batteries to fit in TF2 stock location.

[HumboldtEF]

That sucks about the batteries. I was hoping it was a fluke or my fault but I had one puff a bit that I disposed of and the replacement I picked up drained unbalanced, I sent pics and they sent me a new battery but that one was brand new at the time.

I'm hoping you've got some pictures to share of the Rubicon trip!

[Natedog]

Originally Posted by HumboldtEF

That sucks about the batteries. I was hoping it was a fluke or my fault but I had one puff a bit that I disposed of and the replacement I picked up drained unbalanced, I sent pics and they sent me a new battery but that one was brand new at the time.

I'm hoping you've got some pictures to share of the Rubicon trip!

Yes, it does, according to AMain mine had been too long for battery replacement. I used my partial credit to buy some crawler parts other than batteries. I'm going to buy a few other batteries to try, see how they hold up longer term, so far I'm not convinced that paying more gets better lipo quality unfortunately.


Didn't take as many pictures this time, was too busy hiking and swimming everyday. Sorted through and here they are.


Brand new RC4WD Superlift shocks peeled the chrome off the shafts first run.







Little three wheel down by the lake, dirt to granite, up and over!

[Natedog]

Great supper cooking view of sunset on the lake!




After supper coffee on my recliner rock




Return

[mgputer]

Beautiful views! Looks like she crawls pretty good.

Sent from my ZTE A2017U using Tapatalk