Dezfan’s GEN8RL return to crawling

[dezfan]

Originally Posted by Teng

Nice write up( beautiful Redcat ) and good to the Austar know off tires

Thanks! The Austar tires are known to wear rather quickly, but $20.00 for 4 tires!

I figured I’d give them to try.

[dezfan]

Don’t you hate it when things don’t go as planned?

I bouht the Gen 8 because I loved the Scout II body. I think Red Cat did themselves a great favor by choosing to license the Scout instead of going with an unlicensed knock off that kinda sorta resembles a Scout.

The only thing I wish Red Cat would do is leave the windows clear and offer more color option.

So I decided to clear the windows, did some research and found people where having success removing the paint from the windows with Citri Strip.

It’s fairly cheap, it doesn’t put off toxic odors, and worked great at clearing the windows on the Scout. It worked so well, I decided I would use it to remove the orange from the Scout so I could use something that would make the GEN8RL stand out.

That’s when things didn’t go as planned.

Not sure what happened, but as you can see, the Citri Strip damaged the body.

The transition between the fender and the hood cracked? No issues on the flat surfaces, but it damaged the seam?





Well I was pretty upset, as I said I really liked the Scout body.

So I just walked away from my work bench for a day or two.

I stewed about for a while, then I was like, well being mad won’t fix it.

So what am I going to do now?

I decided to go another direction. As much as I love the Scout body, it’s BIG! The fact that all of the inner and outer fenders, the bumpers, electronics trays, sliders, etc... where made for the Scout, I decided to remove them.

The Scout and all its accompanying accessories adds quit a bit of weight. Weight that I decided to remove in expectation of increasing the GEN8RL’s ability on the rocks.

So I starting removing stuff. When I was finished, the GEN8RL was nearly 2 POUNDS lighter!��





1 pound 13.2 ozs to be exact!

Losing that much weight should help the GEN8RL on the rocks.

Now to find a replacement body, something cool, old, light, and fits my personality. You know old, rounded, gruff.

I thought about the Pro Line 66 Chevy



I’m a Chevy guy, it’s about my age, and it was almost exactly what I wanted, but then I clicked on the Pro Line 46 Dodge Power Wagon!



I was in love!

That was it. I placed my order and awaited delivery.

More to come...

[mgputer]

Great story. I have been debating on that body myself. I'm not a Chevy guy but if I was I would be all over it.

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[allanon1965]

I love that power wagon body, there is one in my future as well

[dezfan]

Originally Posted by mgputer

Great story. I have been debating on that body myself. I'm not a Chevy guy but if I was I would be all over it.

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Maybe the 66 Ford F-100? Another good looking option.

Originally Posted by allanon1965

I love that power wagon body, there is one in my future as well

Pro Line has some killer bodies available at the moment.

This is another option I think I might try. The Associated Trophy Ray body.

Love the lines of this one as well.

[themountain]

The Ford body looks the tits , man!! :O

[mgputer]

Originally Posted by dezfan

Maybe the 66 Ford F-100? Another good looking option.













Pro Line has some killer bodies available at the moment.



This is another option I think I might try. The Associated Trophy Ray body.



Love the lines of this one as well.

I had thought about putting that associated body on a rig. Would be a challenge to get to sit very low like the picture but I still think it would be cool.

I like that short course body but it's a hair wide. The description says 9.5 but that's at the cab. At the flair it's around 11.5. I checked one out at the hobby store.

They do have the Ford cabs but none have that separate box like the other models for some reason. Maybe some day.

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[dezfan]

Well the body arrived and it’s as cool as I hoped it would be.

I hated cutting so much of if away, but I wanted to go light and small, do the Lexan slinging began in earnest.

I’m very happy with the the way the cab turned out, but the bed, I’m not sure I like it?





To get the body as low as I wanted? I had to cut out the recessed portion of the bed which exposes the Gen8’s shock towers.

While perfectly functional and fairly beefy, they’re not the most attractive design in the world.

I installed a 3D printed fuel cell just to help fill the area in the bed, I may add a scale radiator & fan set up in the bed as well.

Thinking of throwing a spare in the bed to disguise the shock towers a bit as well, what do you guys think?

[mgputer]

I like it. Not sure if you are going that route but a roll bar would look good on it I think.

I have an old Parma 34 Ford I was thinking of doing something similar but I can't get myself to cut it apart lol.

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[dezfan]

Originally Posted by mgputer

I like it. Not sure if you are going that route but a roll bar would look good on it I think.

I have an old Parma 34 Ford I was thinking of doing something similar but I can't get myself to cut it apart lol.

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Actually, the bed is just temporary as I intend to “back half” the GEN8RL and turn it into a truggy.

I got one pic to load, but it seems BIGGER. Tiny Pic has never acted up on me before, not sure what’s going on?

I hope they get it squared away ASAP. 👍🏼

[mgputer]

Originally Posted by dezfan

Actually, the bed is just temporary as I intend to “back half” the GEN8RL and turn it into a truggy.



I got one pic to load, but it seems BIGGER. Tiny Pic has never acted up on me before, not sure what’s going on?



I hope they get it squared away ASAP.

Can't wait to see how that comes out. Are you going to be doing some brazing or going to use something like the proline cage?

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[dezfan]

Originally Posted by mgputer

Can't wait to see how that comes out. Are you going to be doing some brazing or going to use something like the proline cage?

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I going to be doing some UPSing.

Vaguely using this as a template. But with much artistic license.

[mgputer]

That will look good and be light and low. Very nice.

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[dezfan]

So anyways, while waiting for my new Power Wagon body to show up, I needed to figure out where to mount all the electronics.

Got that squared away.



Also received my foams from Crawler Innovations.

Eddie rocks, sent me some free samples, some score sheets and he sent me a bunch of decals! A man can never have to many decals!



Got the foams installed in my Hyraxs and mounted them on my new wheels. I think they pretty “fly” as the kids say.



Also changer up the steering set up to minimize the bump steer.

I rotated the servo do that the servo arm would be closer to the side of Gen 8 that the link attaches to.

Switched out the stock rod end for SSD bent ends and attached the ends to the knuckle instead of the drag link.

I then went old school by using some Revo rod ends, some 4mm threaded rod, and some tubing and made my own replacement lower drag link to replace the stock unit.

Decided to use brass as brass seems to be all the rage on these new fangled rock crawlers.



And just after getting my electronics squared away, this shows up. Completely brain farted the fact that I had ordered it.



No problem as it’s actually smaller then the Red Cat HW1040 it’s replacing.

[dezfan]

Finally got the GEN8RL all painted up. Also installed a new bumper.

Got to get the magnets attached all it’s ready for our next GTG.

[mgputer]

Looks great. I like the bumper. I have the same thing on my trx4 defender.

Gotta love the power wagon.

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[dezfan]

Thanks, I think it turned out pretty good considering I handed painted a body in over 7 years. 😮

[cul8tr]

My Gen8 had the 66 C10. The body is thin at the back of the cab. Mine cracked and split. Shoegoo and window screen to the rescue. The C10 is a great looking body but it tends to get hung up with all the square corners on it.

Now on my Gen8. the power wagon body but the bed was flipped around and mounted. No fenders.

The power wagon on my 10.2. I inserted a small piece of battery foam where the cab and bed meet to eliminate the flex between them.

[RCruler]

Looking good, how did you do the citri strip on the windows only. Mask off around them and let it sit a bit and wipe paint off?

[dezfan]

Originally Posted by cul8tr

My Gen8 had the 66 C10. The body is thin at the back of the cab. Mine cracked and split. Shoegoo and window screen to the rescue. The C10 is a great looking body but it tends to get hung up with all the square corners on it.

Now on my Gen8. the power wagon body but the bed was flipped around and mounted. No fenders.

The power wagon on my 10.2. I inserted a small piece of battery foam where the cab and bed meet to eliminate the flex between them.

.

The 66 Chevy was on my short list for sure. I may still pick one up and do a class 1 build with it.

Thanks for the tip about using the foam strip between the cab and bed.👍🏼

Originally Posted by RCruler

Looking good, how did you do the citri strip on the windows only. Mask off around them and let it sit a bit and wipe paint off?

I masked around the windows and made sure the seal the edges of the masking tape to the best of my ability.

Applied the Citri-Strip to a paper towel and started applying in small circular motion being sure to be gently near the edges of the tape and using a fresh towel with freshly applied Citri-Strip often.

It worked really well on the windows, I was really bummed when I noticed the cracks in the transition between the fender and the hood.