Kaetwo's Jeep Wrangler

[kaetwo]

Well I've got a tone of PM's asking me about what kind of mods you can do to these CC-01's, so I thought I would post up a master list. This list is of course limited to my rig as there are many other that can be done

- Ball Bearings - This is a must have and should be done as you build the rig. If you fail to do this early on, you could run into a lot of problems with the gear box.
- Lock the front and rear diffs.
- Cut the A-Arms for more down travel. You will see a small section of the A-Arm preventing it from droping down further. Just clearance this part and in instantly have more suspension travel up front.
- Move the rear springs up front and install brown Associated buggy front springs for a softer feel. The reason that I opted for this mod is that I wanted the rig to really articulate over terrain. I also used 25wt oil in the front and rear. I also like the suspension to have about 30% down travel. I achieved this by cutting the springs until the ride height was where I wanted it with the sag.
- Install an Upper 3 Link. This was done, because I can't stand the stock links. I have yet to replace my lower links but they will be shortly. The 3 link setup is very smooth and simple to do. All I used was a pair of TLT rods, some Axial rod ends and an Axial 3 Link Y connector. Just link it up to the stock forward holes and to a single rod end attached vertically to the rear axle. I'll attach a few pics to a better view on things
- Next up was to address the steering. I opted for a BB steering kit from a buddy of mine. It worked well but kept breaking the idle are. Having gone through a few of these, I decided to braze up my own setup. You can see this mod on the 1st page and let me tell you, it helps a lot!!!! Something that I really like about my bearing mod is that I can run a few spacers on the bottom of my outer balls. You'll see green spacers on my steering kit, vertually illiminating the bump steering that these rigs are so famous for.
- Install MIP CVD's (TA-02) or Tamiya TA-02 Universals. These are rare and mainly found on ebay but if you have the funds and luck to snag a set, I would. It really increases the steering throw and prevents the all to famous loss of the dog bone from over steer.
- Soon to be installed is a set of FF-01 front C-Carriers and TA-02 steering knuckles. Why? There shiny and cool looking They also have a more solid feel and allow you to install a turnbuckle upper link. This mod basically takes a lot of the slop out of the front end.
- Titanium Steering links. Because there Titanium biatches!!!!
- Traxxas Metal Yokes and Traxxas drive shafts. There a lot more solid feeling and there smooooooooth! They give the rig a solid surface, allowing the rig to breakover stuff easily.
- Install a 65x1 motor with a 3C lip. Tons of wheelspeed and nice slow crawling.
- Tekin B1-R ESC. It's small, easy to setup and has a killer drag break. Holy crap a drag break on these rigs is a must have!!!!!!
- Move the rear upper shock mounts back. This allows the shocks to be mounted straight up and down and prevents any binding. Now this may or may not be the case with your rig, but my shocks where binding big time and by moving them upright, all that binding faded away.
- 2 ouces of weight in the front of the chassis and 1.5 ounces in the rear. Then I ran 2 ounces of weight in each wheel. These rigs love weight down low and what a difference it makes.
- RC4WD Mud Thrashers - I love these tires!!!! There a great compound (as good as Losi Blue) and the looks are amazing. I run HPI Stocker Rims mounted with memory foam from Pro-Line.
- Tamiya metal locking hexes. I love 'em
- Now for the biggie....Cutting the shizat out of the front end. I cut the front end back and in from the sides to give it a nice compound angle. No more brick wall on the front of this thing. Once I cut the chassis, I used styrene to fill the holes and then filled the whole front end with shoe goo. I can still use the stock body mount and it didn't effect the gear box or any of the steering.
- Hitec 645 servo with a metal steering arm.

Well that about covers if for now. Like I said there are other things to do, but it's all about a work in progress :-)

I will say this though, a CC-01 is one of the best kept secrets in the scale market. There amazing rigs and with some time and patience, they will shock the hell out of you with what they can do.

Now let go down a quick list of must have's for the CC-01.

1 - Bearings
2 - 65x1 or greater for low speed control
3 - B1-R or FX-R (for the drag break)
4 - A Good set of tires

These are my top choices.

I hope this helps and appologize for any spelling errors. I'm running on no sleep

[blackfoot]

Great list, I agree with alot of your setup and have gone my own way with some of it as well.

I fully agree with the 65t motor, I also am running a 75t and love that as well.

Another great kept secret is the Losi LMC(I hate the MRC Term, that term has been spoken for nearly 30 years now) ESC. It haqs no problem in running a high turn motor and the drag brake is great. Most will sell these lil ESC's for under $30 and I snaged mine for $15 and it was still new. Replace the small wires with 12ga and you are in business.

I like to use Axial links and stick with the 4 link setup but thats just me.

Moving the rear shocks is a must, no question about it.

As are the bearings, there is too much friction with the busings and you are only asking for very near future headaches and early parts replacement.

Anyone who runs these trucks with the front brick wall in place, has no idea how much better it will perform with it cut away. Its a lil scary at first, but once you cut it away and start fabing up a replacement panel, you are like, wow, that was simple.

I haven't attempted the steering setup yet, I will not do the Pantablo setup, I just hate the look of it and it will be in the way on both my trucks. I am waiting for a kit version to come out, so its a simple bolt on. Though honestly, I run 50% in the loose dirt, 50% in the mud and ZERO% on the rocks, so the sloppy steering has never bothered me at all.

The Pede shaft upgrade is another must, I have one truck with it and one with the stock metal shaft, the Pede setup engages instantly, the one with the stock shaft, I can spin the front tires 1/2 a rotation before the rears will engage, due to the sloppy ass driveshaft design.

NEVER and I repeat NEVER lock the diffs with anything like JB Weld or hot glue, why would you want to when the parts to lock it are already inside the diffs. Just pull one of the spider gears off the Y holder inside the diff and mesh it in between the other 2 and put it back together. Fully locked and easy to reverse, no mess and no failure or FUBAR diffs due to the hacked slather assed JB Weld/Hot Glue lock.

I haven't had any issues with the stock dogs on either of mine yet, so I personally do not see a need for me to do the CVD swap. I ran them on my Axial Crawler and hated the CVDs and went back to dogs, so I don't really see the benefit, I actually lost steering throw with CVDs over the Dogs. But like I said up a lil further, I do not run on rocks at all, unless its wet flat shale and slag in the creek beds, so some of these things are not an issue for me.

Great writeup Kaetwo, we really do need a sticky for CC01/XC mods.

[4drmopar]

For thoseof us a little slow to pick it up.. what do we look for in this Losi ESC?? model #? etc??? no overheating issues??

[TrickyNickro]

I just moved the rear upper shock mounts back and it made a huge difference. Thanks for the tip.

[kaetwo]

I'm glad that I could help

Here are a few pics of the rig lately. I've lowered the position of the electronics a bit and was able to tuck my batteries nicely in the stock location.

I've also shot a few pics of the upper 3-Link setup for those that requested more detail.

Thanks!

[pardonmyn00b]

Originally Posted by 4drmopar

For thoseof us a little slow to pick it up.. what do we look for in this Losi ESC?? model #? etc??? no overheating issues??

losb0828

[blackfoot]

Here are several new ons on EvilPay. Keep your eye in the BST section, I see them NIP going for around $25 or less and used for $15ish quite often.
http://toys.shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nk...=&_osacat=2562

Not a single issue with mine getting hot and I even have it in a sealed waterproof Radio Shack Project Box. I can run 2 4500mah packs through it back to back with zero issues running a 65t motor in my heavy weight(7lbs 6oz) Defender

[pardonmyn00b]

Originally Posted by blackfoot

Here are several new ons on EvilPay. Keep your eye in the BST section, I see them NIP going for around $25 or less and used for $15ish quite often.


Not a single issue with mine getting hot and I even have it in a sealed waterproof Radio Shack Project Box. I can run 2 4500mah packs through it back to back with zero issues running a 65t motor in my heavy weight(7lbs 6oz) Defender

That has me sold! I need a new esc.

[pardonmyn00b]

In that 3rd pic down is that a vent hole in your sidewall?

[blackfoot]

Originally Posted by pardonmyn00b

That has me sold! I need a new esc.

Great Scaler ESC, tiny footprint, very user friendly and pretty strong drag brake. I would recommend de-soldering the small battery and motor leads and soldering on some larger ones to help it work easier. The only issue I fo have is it cant handle a 11.1v lipo, but I can live without that for the price.

[kaetwo]

Originally Posted by pardonmyn00b

In that 3rd pic down is that a vent hole in your sidewall?

LOL!!!! You have an eye for detail

Yes that's a vent hole. It's the only way I vent my tires these days. A quick punch with a leather punch and your good to go.

[pardonmyn00b]

Nothing gets past me!

Originally Posted by kaetwo

LOL!!!! You have an eye for detail

Yes that's a vent hole. It's the only way I vent my tires these days. A quick punch with a leather punch and your good to go.

[SMUDGEBUG]

Originally Posted by blackfoot

Great Scaler ESC, tiny footprint, very user friendly and pretty strong drag brake. I would recommend de-soldering the small battery and motor leads and soldering on some larger ones to help it work easier. The only issue I fo have is it cant handle a 11.1v lipo, but I can live without that for the price.

I have 3 on the way lol, never even thought about the mini crawler ESC, great idea. I do have one question and I have searched to find the answer but to no avail...... does the ESC have a non delay reverse ? and also will the standard BEC fitted to it handle a high torque servo ?

[blackfoot]

No delay at all, instant reverse and I run a Tower Pro 995MG with mine with no issues at all.

[flybird]

I did search but there are several part number for TA-02 Universal.
Can someone please let me know which one is for CC-01. Thank you in advance.

For Ex.

(#53115) - Tamiya TA02/TL01 Front Universal Shaft Set

(#53172) - Tamiya 4WD TA02 & FWD Car Universal Shaft Set

[constantmotion]

Originally Posted by flybird

(#53172) - Tamiya 4WD TA02 & FWD Car Universal Shaft Set

Is what you would want from Tamiya (good luck finding these, though.)

[kaetwo]

Originally Posted by flybird

I did search but there are several part number for TA-02 Universal.
Can someone please let me know which one is for CC-01. Thank you in advance.

For Ex.

(#53115) - Tamiya TA02/TL01 Front Universal Shaft Set

(#53172) - Tamiya 4WD TA02 & FWD Car Universal Shaft Set

You will need #53172 but good luck finding them as they are very rare. If you can find the MIP CVD's for the TA02, that would be best as there the strongest setup that I've found. I'm on about 6 months worth of driving my CC-01 and the MIP's are still kickin.

There are also some great alternatives from GPM and such that Toyofast has found to work with hit and miss results.

[killswitch]

CVDs for the TA03 also work. I picked mine up from sheldons hobbies via feebay, but i dont think they have enough stub axles left to do a set. Ive been digging thru my dealer manuals and have found a few tamiya hop ups that would work on our cc01 chassis. Im in the process of putting together a list of stuff that will work with corresponding part numbers.

[kaetwo]

Originally Posted by killswitch

CVDs for the TA03 also work. I picked mine up from sheldons hobbies via feebay, but i dont think they have enough stub axles left to do a set. Ive been digging thru my dealer manuals and have found a few tamiya hop ups that would work on our cc01 chassis. Im in the process of putting together a list of stuff that will work with corresponding part numbers.

I question whether or not TA03's work. I thought they where longer or the stub axle was different?

If they do work, please confirm with us, because that would be a heck of a find.

[killswitch]

they work. TA03 uses the same stock tamiya bones and stubs as the cc01/ta02n. I tested them in my ancient hacked xc chassis and I installed them a few nites ago in my new jeep kit. There's a few hop ups that will work on the front end from tamiya... hardened outrdives and heavy duty kingpins are the 2 that come to mind while i am at work. I think TA05 king pin/ball studs may work if you use a wheel with some offset (6mm hpi rims or the set of stock car rims with the excessive force mod). With a kingpin/ ballstud setup it may be possible to drop the front skid/arm mounts down to the limit of what the front driveshafts can handle and still keep the upper link geometry correct to avoid any crazy camber changes when the suspension cycles. I had the hardened outdrives back in the days of the xc. They are even listed in the hop up listing in the instruction manual for it. As for aluminum knuckles and C carriers, there were a ton of companies that made hop ups for the TA02 chassis back in the day... Cross, Kose, Tobee Craft, Kawada, Eagle, GPM, etc. Ill post some pics of the TA03 cvds up and hopefully get that cross reference parts list on here tonite when i get home from work.