Hammered ascender

[Stets]

Got myself an ascender and assembled the kit..
Swapped the standard gearbox from this with my twin hammers... And put all the old elecs from the TH into this .... For now. I've also stolen the old TH beadlock wheels and foams and wrapped them in the swampers rubber.
Running a team colour pattern with reverse scheme sees these 2 looking good together...

Of course the twin hammers doesn't look or act like the twin hammers it started as anymore though











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[Stets]

I got some steel beadlock rings made specific to suit the vaterra beadlock wheels.
Added around 40g of lead inside the valley of the wheel.
Total weight of front wheels is around 210gm
Total weight of rear wheels is around 170gm

Seriously improved the drive ability and capability of this truck without any substantial outlay or a whole list of aftermarket parts






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[Stets]

Well the ascender has taken another turn...

Chasing scale points, and after measuring many different hard bodies, asking measurements of even more, I decided upon the new bright 4door jeep.



I originally bought a red one, and shortly after exchanged it for the Matt black version from a mate.

Now came time to calculate how I was going to bring about a 327mm wheelbase. At one stage I tried using 124mm/125mm links front and rear, this suited for length, but caused fouling issues with the front links on the chassis. So I cut my skid in part, moved the front part forward 12mm and removed the spacers in the front links to bring them back to 112mm.


This brought it back to standard (314mm) ascender geometry front and rear, while having the chassis extended an extra 12mm, and keeping the 327mm wheelbase... No fouling throughout the suspension range of movement.

I already had the gcm front mount motor/gearbox plate mated with the gcm transfer case fitted (when I was using a gq swb patrol body and 290mm wheelbase), but I did need to make a custom driveshaft from the gearbox to the transfer case. This was done by using an axial driveshaft cut to suit.
The gearbox output shafts had to be ground flat to cater to the axial parts, but that was no hassle.

Next was driveshafts, up front was easy, I ordered a couple sets of vaterra HD driveshafts, so I used the long male and shorter female parts. For the rear, I needed to make the driveshaft much longer, so I used the 2 long female shafts and 1 short male shaft (which was cut to leave only the splines) and centred that using a set screw to hold it in place.
While I was at it, I upgraded the diff pinion gears to the vaterra HD units.

So with the wheelbase set to suit the body and drive to the wheels I had myself a drivable chassis..... With a gap in the standard skid.... So I fabbed up a new skid cover plate out of some .6mm stainless steel... Strong and slippery!!



Next came time to fit the body... I already knew all of the motor and elecs would fit up front under the hood and the battery sat on the transfer case to keep the weight low... But I had to find a way to set the rear of the body down without cutting the interior.... I sourced some cantilever shocks and tried them.... They let the body sit right, but eliminated any real articulation.... Soo, they had to go and I opted to make a set of custom shock towers and braced it using an Ali chassis cross member from another truck.... Problem solved...
Rear shocks tuck nicely in the hollowed section of the rear seats and allow use of full length ascender shocks on all 4 corners... Set in droop (soft springs removed and ring dialled down to set height)





Perfect fit!!!!

Now the body is sitting right, with no modifications what-so ever.... I have full ascender performance and a jeep hardbody.... Test drive time!!!

Front bumper has to go!!! Body moves all over the place when rubbing on rocks. COG is appalling!!! And ramp over sucks!!!





So body posts have been used.... Front moulded bumper was swapped out for the ascender unit....





Now how do I get COG lower, while raising ramp over? This took some effort!!! The battery being on the transfer case wouldn't let me lower the body, the esc sort of got in the way so they had to find new homes.

Once I removed them, I lowered the body as low as it could sit without needing any modifications to the interior....

Next came ride height, to suit scale 1 I need no more than 25mm between the top of the tyre and the wheel arches... Easy, raise the suspension height back up.... To do this I put the softer coils back in and fine tuned the preload to set ride height just right. COG stayed around the same, but ramp over was increased a bit....

Next came addressing COG, sticking to the 1:1 principle that "if the wheels are on the ground, it won't roll".... I utilised the articulation of the ascender to effectively control COG, I added weight to the wheels.... I mean lots of it.... Almost 200 gms of lead to each one!!! This will mean that my COG is lower than the skid, even with the front mount motor sitting high, the hardbody sitting on top and all the other bits that are on the chassis.
With around a 60/40 front/rear weight distribution, and rear links mounted just above the chassis rails (old battery tray mounts on the side step brackets used), I can climb, side slope, descend and articulate with ease.

After trial and error with a heap of foams, I found the vaterra race claw foams to be just right for allowing the wheels to do what they need to do, while still holding up all the weight I've added.

Now to find a home for that battery and esc....

Early on during the first test drive I realised that the hard body isn't as stiff as Id like, so with that in mind, I decided to brace the hardbody using the ascender sidestep braces (without the actual side step) and made some flat lexen plates to mount the battery and esc too. This brings the battery& esc weight down as low as possible sitting either side of the chassis rails.

Another test drive.... Talk about bouncy!!!! Reminded me of a captain America bobble head, so out came a variety of different oils of different consistencies.... I didn't want to alter the flow rate of the dampener inside so I found some thin paraffin oil and whacked that in....

Test drive.... Very little bounce, further reduced torque twist a touch, flows through the dampener with enough ease to allow fluid articulation over the rocks, yet slow enough to soak up the bumps and knocks ....

End result for the time being...
Ascender benefits of awesome steering, CMS, pan-hard arm, long travel shocks and easily extended chassis rails being crossed with 1:1 performance principles giving me a scale 1 realistic looking truck that performs quite well.





Various build photos








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[lcbsc]

Mucho props on the build...looks great and truly functional too. I wish I had the time and patience you put into this killer rig. Thanks for sharing your update!

[joe122]

Well done!

[Stets]

1st comp for the truck last week... And it took first... Still a few little performance enhancing tweaks needed, but I'm happy with it


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[Natedog]

Any pics from the comp? What's your planned tweaks to enhance it more?

[W1ck3d0n3]

Those beadlock rigs, are they made from washers? If so what size?

[Natedog]

Originally Posted by W1ck3d0n3

Those beadlock rigs, are they made from washers? If so what size?

Looks like laser or waterjet cut steel like BPC wheel rings.

[SMFtwstdHICK]

Very nice man,.

Still waiting for time to get mine together..

[Stets]

Originally Posted by W1ck3d0n3

Those beadlock rigs, are they made from washers? If so what size?

Water jet cut from 3mm flat plate steel


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[Stets]

Originally Posted by Natedog

Any pics from the comp? What's your planned tweaks to enhance it more?

I've cut standard 1.9 axial foams in half (like a bagel) and stuffed them either side of the wheel weights/TH foams. This stopped the foams/tyres shifting across the inner beadlock ring when driving... Made A solid difference.

Will make some flare plate sliders/steps Which will hold battery and esc either side of the chassis and hold/protect the hardbody. Incorporate some wheel wells into it all as well


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[Natedog]

Originally Posted by Stets

Water jet cut from 3mm flat plate steel


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Nice.

Originally Posted by Stets

I've cut standard 1.9 axial foams in half (like a bagel) and stuffed them either side of the wheel weights/TH foams. This stopped the foams/tyres shifting across the inner beadlock ring when driving... Made A solid difference.

Will make some flare plate sliders/steps Which will hold battery and esc either side of the chassis and hold/protect the hardbody. Incorporate some wheel wells into it all as well


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Mmmmm....bagels lol. Sorry had to. TH foams are same as Ascender two stage foams, how's the tire flex on the rocks? Still get good forward traction?

200 grams of lead in the wheels, plus wheels and then the weight rings...that's a lot of weight...I"m guessing it still flexes the tires well.

[Stets]

Foams that came with ascender were soft single stage foams.... Designed for swampers (so much bigger than the race claws foams for TH) 2 stage vaterra foams for the ascenders are a good foam but won't fit in the 4.19" tyres.

Tyres are a bit stiff, but they still form over rocks and provide plenty of bite.

I'm using rc4wd black steelies with over 200gms in each wheel plus foams and tyres.... I also have the vaterra brake disc/knuckle weights....
I'm also still running long shocks to allow the wheels to drop
All intending to keep COG as low as possible to provide maximum stability.


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[Natedog]

OK, thanks my RTR tires were already glued so I haven't seen the foams yet, but they feel really good and so far are holding up. I'll bake the tires off and replace with some CI foams if needed. Those steelies look really good.