Sold my project car and I bought an Ascender!

[jaydubya2003]

I had been working on a 1:1 project for some time now, an 1983 Volvo 242 Turbo. These cars are kind of hidden gems in a lot of ways, solid rear axle, manual tranny, iron blocks and heads that can take a TON of boost, very stiff car with solid structure, and pretty classic styling if the front ends is converted to the euro single round headlight version.

Lack of time, motivation, and cash killed this project.

'

I sold that car this week and promptly went out and bought an Ascender RTR, as well as the basics to get started since I didn't have any batteries, chargers, or even connectors left from my previous time in the hobby scene.

Happy late birthday to me!





Poser shot!



Well that's it for now, I've got to run back up to the hobby shop today to get the connectors. Didn't even think about it until I got home, then went to charge the battery and was like..."damn it, seriously!?!?"

The fine folks at RC Hobbies in Lacey WA were sympathetic to my plight and offered to solder the connections for me if I brought everything back up.

[jeepgeek2002]

yeah 1:1 projects are buzz killers.. I have my Rubicon thats in dire need of attention.. i can't justify spending the $1000 in control arms for a weekend warrior right now
Good choice on teh X1 charger! i had 2 of them.. I had to upgrade to a x4 because at one time i had over 16 rc's!

[jaydubya2003]

Yeah it seems like a pretty decent charger, being that it can do all the battery types I need I like it.

[MacTheRipper]

Hope you will have fun with the new hobby
I would have bought your Volvo in a heartbeat :P

[jaydubya2003]

The 242s are not all that rare up here, I saw a good handful that were in decent shape for sale over the time I spent looking for this one/owned this one. I'd be happier in the end with a running car that I can mod accordingly.

[jaydubya2003]

So I took my truck out on it's first run, the bolt that held the left rear shock on the hoop backed out at some point. Also the body kept getting in the way of the tires :-)

I came home last night and the truck sat until this evening. I added some "rope" to the front and rear bumpers (and the body clips as they're a pita to get off and not lose), I took the rear fenders up to the top line of the factory "flare" as they were rubbing quite a bit, and I took the corners of all the fenders down a bit as they too were rubbing/binding when the rig flexed.

[jaydubya2003]

Went to the hobby shop today to pick up some shock oil and some wheels, left with all that and a new servo/servo horn. My stock servo had warn a few spots on the main gear for the motor and was stripping itself. I opted for a much better servo (wife is gonna beat me later), so from there I had to upgrade the horn as well since the 333oz servo stripped the plastic one in about 30 seconds...lol

I'll have more pics of the upgraded parts later, for now some shots of the truck on the RC Hobbies rock pile in Lacey WA.

[jaydubya2003]

Here is the new horn and Servo, also notched the dampers in the shocks and put 30wt oil in, much happier with the overall performance of the truck now.

[jaydubya2003]

Aaaaaaand boom goes the dynamite...



Off to the hobby store tomorrow for a new set of drive-shafts.

[jaydubya2003]

Well RC Hobbies didn't have a stock set of replacement shafts, so an upgrade was in order. I also read up on how some folks had some luck getting the Ascender tires to fit in the RC4WD stamped steel beadlocks...well that's not entirely accurate. The beads in the Ascender tires are "fatter" and taller than those found on other tires. Now if you employ some kind of clamping technique like I did to get the beadlock wheels bolted together (larger bolt in the center clamping the two pieces of wheel together and then start one or two of the five "hub bolts") you could most likely get them to work without issue. Honestly if it wasn't my first time dealing with a set of RC beadlocks (in about 7 years...lol) I might have been able to get the Ascender tires to fit, I bought some RC4WD boggers to go with my wheels once I tried and failed to get my Ascender tires to fit.

In the end...I'm glad I did. The larger tire really fits the truck, and the all black wheels/tires look damn good too (thinking I might white out the letters)





The new larger tires stuff up in the body pretty damn well (keep in mind I've lowered my body, and trimmed the fenders before I put these tires on and it will need more trimming to fit properly with minimal rub)





If you're still using the stock battery tray (mine is "hard mounted" to the frame in the front as well to comply with Class 2 regs) you'll have to clearance it if you upgrade to the MIP shafts.





I've got a gtg tomorrow with some local guys so we'll see how it goes.

One piece of sad news, I had to put my dog down tonight :-(



Everything came on pretty quick, he was acting out of character and wouldn't touch food (very strange for a dog that would normally jump up and down when dinner was served). Come to find out at the emergency Vets office he had some kind of growth on his heart, that growth tore/ruptured and was fulling the lining around his heart with blood. We opted to put him down instead of giving him temporary relief that had no chance of lasting any significant amount of time. We were with him as he passed, held his head, loved on him a bit more, and shed a tear for a damn good dog that was one hell of a friend to our family.

[MudMonster]

Really sorry to hear about your dog bud. Truck looks good though






.

[BigChevyTruckin]

Sorry to hear about your dog bud. That's never easy. Unfortunately it is a part of life though. Truck looks awesome by the way!

[SPLATT]

Sorry the hear about your dog. We had to put our lab down in January due to cancer.

[jaydubya2003]

Took the truck out for it's first real outing this morning, overall I was very pleased with how it performed. It kept up with the other heavily modded rig there, and obviously out performed the leaf sprung crawler that was there.

[bayareaaxial]

Definitely looks like it was worth the trade to me. Have a blast with your rig, great choice.

[jaydubya2003]

I'm having a ton of fun with it, I spend equal amounts of time getting frustrated and getting amped up working on/moddifing the damn thing...lol

[Crawlin' Lobster]

Originally Posted by jaydubya2003

Took the truck out for it's first real outing this morning, overall I was very pleased with how it performed. It kept up with the other heavily modded rig there, and obviously out performed the leaf sprung crawler that was there.

Where is this spot? I'm in Olympia and would like to check it out.

[jaydubya2003]

Originally Posted by Crawlin' Lobster

Where is this spot? I'm in Olympia and would like to check it out.

This was in Lucia Falls, about two hours south of Olympia east of BattleGround.

Let me know if/when you would like to check it out and I'll see if we can get a group together. Beautiful park to enjoy as well.

[jaydubya2003]

A few little things have been bugging me about the Ascender from day one.

1 - The bumpers stuck out in front and behind the body (didn't add to the scale looks to much)
2 - The sliders stuck out a good 1/4 inch away from the body (they would get hung up on a lot of BS)
3 - After my first run in the wet dirty WA weather I knew I needed inner fenders (floor pans would be nice too)

I wanted to get the bumpers up under the body but I didn't want to raise the body from it's lowered position. So I "notched" the body to fit the bumpers and brought both the front and rear in a bit (Vaterra has spacers installed from the factory). From there I moved onto narrowing the sliders a bit (also had some factory spacers, which I cut in half to get my desired position)

Last but not least was a set of inner fenders, I've been toying with plastic and other material to make the inner fender, I've settled on "aluminum flash" basically very thin aluminum that comes in a roll from Home Depot in the roofing section.

I took that along with some "craft mat" which is like a foam padding and made up some inner fenders/floor pans that I think turned out pretty damn good. They still need some finishing touches, but all in all I like where this is going.

I'll have an in depth write up ready for the drivers side of the truck, wanted to finish one up and then duplicate it with a good "how to" for other Ascender owners who want to give it a try.

ON TO THE PICS!!!

Inner fenders, bumpers brought under the body, sliders tucked in against the body.







Some better shots of the inner fenders

[OkinawaCrawler]

Nice truck and mods, I've enjoyed reading this