Build Complete: Another Traxxas Telluride

[fyrstormer]

It was about a year ago that I put my first Telluride into service.



That one is still running great; in fact, it was such a good loaner truck for little kids that it ran pretty much continuously all weekend last Memorial Day. However, at one point I made the mistake of loaning my Wraith to a kid who wanted to run a truck alongside the Telluride, and, well, the motor in the Wraith didn't appreciate the full-throttle/full-brake/full-throttle driving the kid was doing. So this year I bought an insurance policy:



This Telluride doesn't stray from the formula I used for the first one: On the outside it has Pro-Line Badlands SC tires on ProTrac-offset wheels, Traxxas factory-option lights in the front, an RPM 4Slash bumper and wheelie-bar wheels in the back, RPM debris guards for the shocks, stock springs, and the front shocks are mounted to the front A-arms in extra holes I drilled 7mm inboard of the stock holes to get more suspension travel.



On the inside it's also nearly the identical to the first Telluride: An Axial AE-5 ESC set to 50% drag brake (so kids don't have to remember to slow down), a homemade Lexan ESC-mounting plate, a Dynamite 15-turn 550-size disposable motor, a Spektrum 2-channel receiver, 12/47 diff gears from the brushed 4Pede, the rear diff is filled with OFNA diff-lock "putty" which is basically extra-sticky 500k silicone oil, 9/56 32-pitch pinion and spur gears, a Tekno Big Bone center driveshaft, and a Tactic TSX45 metal-gear analog servo (they only cost $15 on eBay). Nothing fancy, but it works well.



There *are* a few differences, though. The axles are stock plastic instead of MIP X-CVDs, the front diff is semi-locked with silly putty instead of fully-locked with JB Weld to keep from over-torquing the front axles if a front tire gets jammed, the tires are premounts with stock closed-cell foams instead of beadlock-mounted with HPI Blitz soft open-cell foams, the steering is the stock plastic unit with the servo-saver still enabled instead of the Hot Racing aluminum unit with the servo-saver locked, and the shocks are stock plastic instead of STRC threaded aluminum. Also, I haven't painted the fenders on the new Telluride's body with truck bedliner yet; the stock black decals will look awful after a few scrapes, but I'm going to let that happen before going through the trouble to mask the entire body so I can spray-on the bedliner. Also also, I haven't bothered to build a custom wiring harness to add lights to the rear bumper; it's just running the 4 lights that come with the Traxxas front light buckets.

The reason for these changes was partly to save money, partly to see how well the stock parts actually work since I replaced them all immediately on the first Telluride, and partly because I already have a "nice" Telluride so I didn't have any motivation to splurge on the second one, since it's purely a loaner.

I still really like the first Telluride I built. With a few mods it's quite a capable trail-truck and light crawler, and it's a perfect truck to loan to kids Now that I have two of them, they can have twice as much fun.

[fyrstormer]

Test video recorded a few minutes ago:

https://youtu.be/yCjFvdnR_p0

[wyd]

Looks like it works just fine. Another fun trail machine you have built.

[fyrstormer]

Yeah, I'm pleased with how well it stays wheels-down even without the heavy steel MIP X-CVDs to lower the center of gravity.

[BJoe]

Ah, I just watched that one, looks like a good little rig.

[wyd]

I like those RPM back bumper setups you added. Gives the truck a nice look from the back.

[fyrstormer]

Thanks! I thought the wheelie-bar cage looked kinda goofy without something attached to it, and the RPM Slash 4x4 bumper did the trick.

I did something similar for my 4Pede, using an RPM bumper for the T-Maxx:



The light buckets are spare parts that came with my Axial Wraith.

[wyd]

The wheels on your Pede, are those the 2.8 sized? If they are did you ever try them on your Telluride? I know they are probably fairly wide and not scale but I'm not really worried about a scale look but more that they work pretty good overall.

[fyrstormer]

Yes, those are Trencher 2.8's. Never tried them on my Tellurides, I've been happy with the Badlands SCs on those trucks. The Trencher 2.8's are about 1/2" taller and about 1/5" wider than short-course wheels. The wide offset might make clearing the Telluride body easier, but I can't say for sure.

Trenchers have less side-bite than Badlands, so for side-hilling they wouldn't work as well. However, the extra width of the monster-truck version might make up for that, I dunno. I do know my 4Pede is much more likely to slide instead of traction-rolling on wet grass, which is perfect for the role that I built the 4Pede for, but it would annoy me when trail-driving.

[BJoe]

I've got those Trenchers on my 2wd Pede and they are probably the best tire I've run on it in the 17 years I've owned it! I do usually run the M3 compound SCT Trenchers with HPI's soft SCT foams on my Telluride though.

[fyrstormer]

Too bad the M3 Trencher SCs are discontinued.

I have the same HPI soft foams in my "good" Telluride. This one got premounts because it was easier and kids won't notice the difference.

[Chainsaw10]

What did you "build"? It's a stock ready to run with different tires. Your title should read "Purchase Complete:Traxxas Telluride".

[Chainsaw10]

....and you really needed to start another thread? You couldn't have just said you bought another Telluride in your first "Purchase Complete:Telluride" thread?

[BJoe]

Wow, you're bitchy.

[wyd]

Originally Posted by Chainsaw10

....and you really needed to start another thread? You couldn't have just said you bought another Telluride in your first "Purchase Complete:Telluride" thread?

Or you could start your own post on how you can do so much better.

[fyrstormer]

It is obviously not stock, though it looks stock from the outside. That was the point, I like the way it looks.

I think Chainsaw is still upset about a comment I made in his Summit LT build thread on a different forum a year ago. People were going nuts because they'd never seen a Summit LT build on that forum before. I posted that it was a good build but people were overreacting because there are lots of Summit LT build threads here on RCC. Chainsaw proceeded to get very upset, to the point that he actually came here to count exactly how many Summit LT threads there were on RCC, and several other people took his side to comfort him. Apparently I have a way of sounding mean by accident, I dunno.

I guess he never really got over it, and this was his revenge. (in addition to insulting both my Wraith and my first Telluride at the time.) Okay.

[Sneetches]

C'mon man...

It is obviously not stock, though it looks stock from the outside. That was the point, I like the way it looks.

You literally have a whole paragraph just saying that the truck is all stock except for the wheels/tires, RPM Bumper, and you stuffed the diff with silly putty. That's it. I like your first Telluride build because it has some actual things done to it and I think people rag on the Stampede as a crawler platform too much, but to be fair, this is a thread for a stock truck that's a way less upgraded version of your first...

I guess it doesn't make a difference cause this sub-forum is dead as hell, but still.

[fyrstormer]

I also modified the front A-arms, added a Tekno Big Bone center driveshaft, replaced the diff ring and pinion gears and slipper clutch, and replaced all the electronics.

You're right, it doesn't have much done to it. The point of my first Telluride build was to upgrade it as much as I could without trying to turn it into a completely different truck. With this build, I saved a bunch of money by not using MIP axles, beadlock wheels, and aluminum shocks -- items which are nice to have, but a year of driving has shown they're not absolutely necessary.

The point of this build (aside from having a second loaner) was to determine the bare minimum of modification necessary to make the Telluride capable of climbing over rocks. That's not very appealing to the super-customizing crowd, but it's useful information for a kid who got a Telluride for Christmas (or a parent considering getting their kid a Telluride for Christmas) who has almost no spending money and just wants it to drive a bit better.

[wyd]

People are really messed up. Why if one don't like the thread why not just leave and go to another they like better. WTF is wrong with these people it's a toy truck. F it I like the thread.

[mtnbiker4evr13]

I say its cool, I think a simple tough and reasonably built trail truck is a great thing to post. Could it have gone in your other build... probably. Was there fabrication involved... not really, but that just means easy parts replacement and more time to run it. Most(not all) scx/wraith/TF2/Gelande... are bolt on builds too. Nay sayers will nay all they want. Will I look at this when I want a Telluride... Definately.