Carisma F-150 on my TRX-4

[Fiveflat]

Carisma 2-piece F-150 body arrived for my TRX-4. I only bought the chassis kit because I wanted to be different with my body and well I'm a little in over my head with it being my first lexan body to prep and paint...

I wanted to go all out with a scale setup but the first shortcut I'm taking is reaming holes for the mount.

Also, I watched some videos and one in particular a guy was saying absolutely do NOT drill holes in lexan, you MUST buy a reamer for that... I tested my drill in one of the wheel wells and it seems to do a fine job???

[Phildirt]

I use a drill. Just make sure you are committed to the location and go in at high speed/don't mess around. If you don't have enough bit speed it can grab the lexan and tear it, major bummer when that happens. I drill a very small pilot hole first. If you have a good feel for drilling other surfaces/objects that should be second nature.

[mass-hole]

I dont have a whole lot of experience with it either, but if you are gunna drill it, maybe use a piece of wood to back the lexan so you have something solid to push against.

[Phildirt]

I have had worse luck doing the backing thing. Grabs/twists/spins more.

[high plains drifter]

Body post hole drilling often times requires some precision that a drill bit may not provide. With a drill, even if you don't get splitting/ cracking of the lexan ( which doesn't necessarily happen but CAN), there's the aspect hole size and centering... that can get away from you pretty quick with a drill bit as opposed to a reamer. So yeah... it can work but it doesn't always and as critical as the size and location can be on a fresh lexan body, the reamer method often times offers more assurance that everything will be lined up and sized perfectly.

[TBuggy]

I second these comments and would use both of the posters above advice.

I personally do a lot of wood working and placing a backing board on your material you are drilling will help avoid "tear out" in the material you are drilling. A block will keep the body from flexing and if it flexes that's when your bit will start grabbing and possible tear the body.

[indybama]

I used a short piece of 2x4 to back my bodies with n use a drill for the body holes. So far, knock on wood, ive not had any issues with tears or cracks

[Fiveflat]

So... I actually found a reamer on amazon with same day delivery. hindsight is 20/20 but I'm using the drill. I get a cleaner hole with the drill bit. Except for the headlight socket - that's a big 14mm hole.

[Fiveflat]

Decided to just dive in. Not like I'm going to lose my birthday over it if I do a bad job...

[Fiveflat]

As you can see from the previous post, the glass is taped off. I feel like a lot can be done as time allows in the future so for now, I want an old ford highboy that's been sitting out for a while...
so with that, here's the first coat:




And of course I got all wrapped up in the job at hand to get more progress pics so here's the latest. mirrors and wipers will go on tonight. Plans for light are in the very near future but I think I want to order some parts from the Traxxas Bronco to complete that.

[Phildirt]

Looks fantastic to me. Perfect color.

[ScaleLifeNewbie]

I agree looks killer. Love the Highboys, my favorite being the 79 with square headlights. One day I'm going to build a dually using this body.

Anyways, looking good, excited to see more progress.

[high plains drifter]

Looks great. Loving that color.

[Fiveflat]

Thanks,
Growing up as a kid my Dad's friend had a highboy in two-tone avocado. I used to think it was hideous when I was 7 or 8 years old, now 35 years later I wish I had one that color.

[Fiveflat]

I'm really feeling what High Plains Drifter was saying in that other Carisma thread about the scale look.
How much of a difference will the gmade steels wheels and 4.2" tires make?

What about going down to a 1.55"?

[high plains drifter]

Originally Posted by Fiveflat

I'm really feeling what High Plains Drifter was saying in that other Carisma thread about the scale look.
How much of a difference will the gmade steels wheels and 4.2" tires make?

What about going down to a 1.55"?

The Thornbirds that are on the truck now are 4.59" and while they're on the large size for a 1.9 tire, he was dead set on them for this project. So in order to try to keep the scale as "real" as possible, the body had to be lifted too. Aside from the portals, I think we achieved that fairly well. I also confirmed with him yesterday that he is in fact running the stock Traxxas hexes. With that body width being a little on the narrow side, extended hexes made the wheels/ tires stick out way too much. Even with portals, I think that a 1.55" tire/ wheel is going to significantly reduce performance... especially given the longer 324mm wheelbase.

I look at it like this... There's always going to come a point that performance will suffer in the quest for scale looks. And I think that's fine if a crawler started out life with limitations ( the TF2 is a good example of this with leaf springs out of the box). And I love my TF2 for what it is but taking a great performing ( linked with portals) platform and reducing it's performance due to replicating scale just doesn't make sense. If I'm going to spend money on aftermarket parts, I have a hard time doing that, knowing that those parts are going to ultimately reduce the performance.

That's why I agreed with my buddy that this project needed to address performance as well as scale... despite that he was forced to go a little over the top on tire size. Like he said, there were a lot of these old 70's Fords that wound up getting heavily modified... people swapping in junkyard tons and taking sawzall's and torches to the fenders and lifting the hell out of em. So in that regard I think that the scale was pretty well maintained... even though it's been taken pretty far from stock scale.

At the end of the day the changes that we made... raising the bumpers, floor pans, and sliders... and lowering the COG ( ditching the stock defender body) as well as putting more weight over the front axle/ in front of the axle, and adding larger more aggressive tires... took this TRX4 to the next level of performance. I used to outperform him on almost every kind of terrain and obstacle. Now it's all I can do to keep up with his. In that regard and with the overall appearance, I think that we did just about as good a job as we possibly could have regarding the balance of scale and capability.

[Fiveflat]

Agreed. Thanks for all your input. To be honest a "scale" rig was never really my intention but I'm sure many of you know how it gets started lol

[Phildirt]

For what it's worth I agree as well, I like "80% scale" or so. I think half of the fun of this hobby is slapping gigantic tires on a 4x4 - something I could not do in real life, have you looked at the price of a 44" Interco? I say run whatever tire combo looks neatest, but to contradict that I like a large 1.9 better than a 2.2. I agree the Thornbirds make that other Ford. That is what I'd expect to see on one around here anyways.

[Fiveflat]

Originally Posted by Phildirt

For what it's worth I agree as well, I like "80% scale" or so. I think half of the fun of this hobby is slapping gigantic tires on a 4x4 - something I could not do in real life, have you looked at the price of a 44" Interco? I say run whatever tire combo looks neatest, but to contradict that I like a large 1.9 better than a 2.2. I agree the Thornbirds make that other Ford. That is what I'd expect to see on one around here anyways.

Absolutely!
With that said, tires are easily swapped and that's the fun in this hobby - experimenting and playing around. Although expensive, and one set may sit around for no good reason I have the option

[Fiveflat]

Surprised how quickly I got things done on this. Took it for a test drive this afternoon to check fitment of the tires.
Good thing things are a bit rusty on the front fenders because it's gonna need some trimming but it's definitely usable...