**Canadian Crawler** RS10-XT Unveiling and ongoing build.
 

Okay, My RS-10-xt is a week old now, and I think I've done enough to it to warrant a couple pictures.

I've been tuning and experimenting with setup, and here's where I'm at so far.

Steel gears,
Spur pin upgrade
Proline Chisels W/ memory foam
Traxas ball joints on upper links
Sprung front suspension
Full droop rear suspension
tuned link and shock mounting points
Home-made delrin high-steer link
Hard plastic body from toy collection.
2 quick hits with the rattle cans (still drying in tese pics)

http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot..._4243539_n.jpg

http://a2.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot..._4213376_n.jpg

http://a2.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot..._7186567_n.jpg

http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot..._3271384_n.jpg

http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot..._5837677_n.jpg

well not bad ...you r rig look verry cool ...and you are canadian like me im from montreal !!!

FRom montreal? I Am french canadian and i hate the F'N french!:ror:
JUST KIDDING Ya gotta be one to know one.
Hey, did you buy your rig from a LHS store? or did you order it over border? Everyone I've found so far on the island here is scaler class!

I've just found these guys on http://www.crawlcanada.com/

Scale is alot of fun but, I want to go step or 2 beyond

Steeing looks awesome man

nice to see another islander, rig looks good.

that tierod is pretty slick.

oh...and the paint is badass for sure "thumbsup"

funny, i'm french canadian aswell :lmao: (born in Kingston ON, almost all my family is in Montreal, or Quebec)

Thanks for the comments guys. And please, don't take my french jokes seriously:).

I think I lost a bit of capability putting the springs back on the front shocks. I think I'm going to go back to running full droop. I thought it really helped the rig. But I'm going to have to make the top links the same length as the lowers. When the front axle torques up, it forces the shocks to extend, raising my CG, at the most in-oportune times.

I'll experiment, and torture test.

holy lord you still have the lansu servo,, you havnt ran it much have you? haha just messing with you mean looks very very cool"thumbsup"

Haha, I know. I ordered servos from crawford's when I bought the truck. Still waiting for them in the mail
I've run this thing plenty, and I'm surprised the lansu's are still kicking. I've been quite hard on them.

So I made some new lowers out of delrin, and swapped the old lowers to the top links. Just testing to see if it helpped keep the axles from torquing back and forcing my shocks to fully extend (from my droop setup)

http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot..._3642480_n.jpg

http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot..._6998997_n.jpg


I'm not completely convinced it made a difference. I may put the old uppers back on, but not before a good run on the rocks to make sure.

I probably just keep experimenting with inner springs and wheel weights.



Anyone Else Running Droop?

I ran droop for a couple of months, but went back to a sprung setup. The droop setup I liked the best was stiff springs and 100wt shock oil. It made my rig pretty predictable and the shocks didn't extend during sidehills and climbs when I didn't want them to. Have you swapped in some thicker oil yet?

My lhs didn't have 100wt, but they had team associated 1000cst Diff fluid, which sounds like the same as 100wt. I'm experimenting in 2 of 4 shocks.

(C'est toujours agréable de trouver des francophones sur un site américain :mrgreen:)

It's always cool to find some french speaking people on an american website.

By the way, very nice rig and body paint. Ho, and what body is it?

Just got back from my testing grounds! Broke an antenna post, pulled a tire bead, and popped out a ball joint on one of the metal shock mounts. Then kept driving till the battery died.

Good times"thumbsup"

My findings are;
- the full length top links don't make a lick of difference. they weren't bad, just not all that necessary.
-FULL Droop suspension rides really nice, but it also can allow the truck to get bound up like a pretzel if you stick it in some REALLY hairy situations to drive out of. I think I'm going to abandon this setup in favour of sprung, and maybe a bit of 'sag'.

http://images.rcuniverse.com/forum/t...27/Ay75688.jpg

This was a tyco mutator hard plastic body, From my pile of "butchered for parts" toys. It beat out my Jeep Rubicon body for fit and tire clearance.
I may do a lexan Rubicon body in the future.

SWEET! My CYS 15kg servos showed up today!!! No More LANSU'S:flipoff:

finally got some weight in those wheels. I wasn't sure how much to put in, but I have 3 1/2 ounces per up front, and 2 ounces per back wheel. I plugged the vent holes in the wheels, cuz I figured they are soft enough, and want to make her waterproof.

I put the stock upper short links back on, and am finishing putting the homemade delrin links on the bottom in the back. I'm mounting the shocks to the side of the links so I don't have a snagg point like the stock shock mounts did. this way I can move the shocks closer to the chassis and out of the way of the motor and tires.

I got a little bit of glitching the other day, but it turned out to be a loose battery connector. Just had to bend a bit of the contacts back into shape, after that she was great. but I have to run the antenna straight up. I can't do the concealed antenna without loose control. With me tuning and learning my crawling capacities, I'm prob gonna snap a few antenna straws. 1 so far.

I need to find time to get some video. workin on it. wanna mount the head cam on it.

nice rig

Action shots!!!
 

Got out for a sunset crawl today. remebered to snap a few before the battery died. This is my testing location. FULL of places to max out your capabilities. Truck and drivers.
http://i1179.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1302240101
http://i1179.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1302240101

Check out that break over. YEAH BABY!
http://i1179.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1302240101
http://i1179.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1302240101

I honestly didn't climb straight on here. but I did climb out of it no prob.

http://i1179.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1302240101
http://i1179.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1302240550
http://i1179.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1302240614

Hope you like em. I have fun makin em.

Whoops!
 

Need a design change. had a hunch mounting to the side of the link would cause probs. Got in a bind while rocking a river bed. back to the cutting board. (literally)

http://i1179.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1302324018

design change
 

Total rebuild from stock.
Ever feel like your two steps forward and three steps back?

So I decided to try clocked axles on my truck. this seemed like a good mod to me, then was confirmed by an ax10 guy with his custom build.

I clo0cked both my axles back about 20% towards center. this gives me more tire bite, allows steering when going up a wall straight up in front of you, and offers a lower center ofn gravaity throu-ought

clocked axles
 

Here's some pics of my clocked axle project.
for the ease of build, I'm doing this with almost ALL STOCK PARTS! I needed to re-arrange some of the nuts, bolts, and ball joints to make it work, but if your hobby shop is equipped, I recamend changing ALL bolts and balls to 3mm.

http://i1179.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1302841106
Stock lower links bent in 2 places, using the hex sides as a guide. Once to clear the motors, and once for high clearance.
* #1 goal of this mod is to get your links BESIDE the motor to clear it. NOT UNDER it! *

http://i1179.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1302841106

Once the links clear the motor, I moved the upper links back to the original shock mouting holes. (Which will change later) This points my axle up about 20 degrees. as you can see, this moves my rear steering rod up out of harms way.
http://i1179.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1302841106

Now my motors sit nice and low, giving me a VERY low center of gravity throuout the truck. Sure they'll get a bit more rock rash, but tough cookies!


http://i1179.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1302841106

Compared to before......

http://i1179.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1302841106

Now, Here's the biggest advantage! Now when I drive up to a vertical obstical, I can actually steer while climbing it, instead of going just straight up. This also helps the side knobs bite in when steering because the wheels kind of lean over.

http://i1179.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1302841106