Natedog's Vaterra ASCENDER

[Natedog]

Since my Honcho has new wheels and tires, these will be going on Ascender Two for now at least...I've got some tires to bake off the stock Vaterra rims to mount up so that both have the same TSL tires. I need CI foams for these too.

[Natedog]

Userid cgw has a great thread about improving side-hilling on the Ascender and since I've done some mods and crawled a lot it was time to actually put the protractor to my truck.

Just checked mine and as she sits I got 50* without body and with my body with lights/wiring and E6000/drywall tape reinforcements she went to 45* before she tipped over! Rear swaybar and all the other little mods I've done are really working!

[Natedog]

Swaybar is "milled"

[norcallump]

Keep it up Natedog!

[Bananaclip]

Nate, you are swaying me to venture away from axial for a future build.

[Johnnysplits]

Originally Posted by Bananaclip

Nate, you are swaying me to venture away from axial for a future build.

Venture away...it's well worth it!!

[Natedog]

Originally Posted by norcallump

Keep it up Natedog!

You bet!

Originally Posted by Bananaclip

Nate, you are swaying me to venture away from axial for a future build.

Hehe, sway on over to an Ascender for your next build, you won't regret it.

Originally Posted by Johnnysplits

Venture away...it's well worth it!!

X100, yes sir!

[13gmc]

Great thread! I have read through yours and Splits' ascender builds and I'm convinced to go vaterra. The difference between the new truck and your build is awesome! Thanks for all the info.

[Natedog]

Thanks, yes a few simple mods transforms the Ascender into a very capable crawler, you won't be disappointed.

New Ascender body getting matching trim around the bottom edges.




Trying the CI DW foams for Proline TSL XL in the Ascender tires.




Thinking of these wheels for the new build.



Re-did shut lines and black weatherstripping around windows, added the top line too.




Testor's red paint pen to make sure the positive gets plugged to positive.




Shortened my swaybar links using 3x16mm studs and bottoming the two rod ends against each other, swaybar works even better now and not rubbing the shock springs. Ideally swaybar arms should be parallel with the ground at ride height. The 3/32" Du-Bro collars fit the swaybar better and look cleaner, so I swapped those too. Shorter end links really made the swaybar work even better, my truck is very stable now.








Better picture of front rock light LED mounting as requested.

[steven318is]

hi natedog are the wheels from hot racing?

[norcallump]

Looking good bro

[Natedog]

Originally Posted by steven318is

hi natedog are the wheels from hot racing?

Yes, they are. If you buy them, there are 5-lug, 6-lug, pin drive (hubs) and hex drive (hubs), these are the hex drive hubs. I have a couple sets of them and they all work great.

Originally Posted by norcallump

Looking good bro

Thanks!

EDIT: BTW I've never seen an RTR plastic servo horn take so much abuse and keep on rockin.

[steven318is]

thanks wasnt shure on the off set ill be ordering straight away

[Johnnysplits]

Good idea on the batteries. When I had a few packs like those, I put a red dot sticker on the positive side.

[SMFtwstdHICK]

Nate..

How the new foams working out? I just have the stock foams that come with the RC4WD tires. They leave a little bit to be desired, so, I was gonna look for some other foams. I do have 1.7 wheels though.

[Natedog]

Originally Posted by steven318is

thanks wasnt shure on the off set ill be ordering straight away

I've been using them on my SCX10 and they are very durable and I like the 8-hole design better than the look of the RC4WD 10-hole design. If you like a different look, the front half holes can be carefully drilled out in small incremental steps to match the larger holes in the back half, looks really good when you're done! These wheels are available raw unpainted steel, black or white. These grey ones were originally black and I scuff sanded with some fine grit sandpaper, cleaned up with paint prep, dried, sprayed very light coats and baked them in an old toaster oven at 200F for one hour after each coat of paint. This made the paint very hard and durable, they've been through lots of rocks and have minimal scrapes and chips considering.

Originally Posted by Johnnysplits

Good idea on the batteries. When I had a few packs like those, I put a red dot sticker on the positive side.

Thanks, paint pen was $5, more noticeable and hopefully more permanent than stickers. I almost bought a pack of made in Japan Gundam Metallic Marker (Paint) Set but they were marked down at LHS from $35 to $20 and all I really needed was red. The Testor's paint marker works, but even after drying for a couple days, the second touch up coat ended up kinda wiping off part of the first coat and creating lighter colored streaks, I had to put it on kinda heavy to work well. It works for my use here, but I would have been very unhappy if I was trying to really paint something that mattered how it looked.

Gundam paint marker set:
http://www.amazon.com/GSI-Creos-Gund.../dp/B0009AFN4Y

Testor's Enamel Paint Markers (pens):
Testors

[Natedog]

Originally Posted by SMFtwstdHICK

Nate..

How the new foams working out? I just have the stock foams that come with the RC4WD tires. They leave a little bit to be desired, so, I was gonna look for some other foams. I do have 1.7 wheels though.

Which foams in particular?

The CI DW Rockbeast foams are working well, but when I get really bound up and stay on the throttle, I can see the tires starting to ball up a little, these are really not quite tall enough for the Vaterra TSL's, but work really well. I'm being as hard on them as I can, slipper is pretty tight and I've never heard it slip, I do know when to let off though lol. EDIT: These are best foams for the stock Vaterra Swampers!

I was going to install the larger CI DW foams for Proline TSL XL's in my other set of wheels with another set of Vaterra TSL's, but I need to disassemble my white spokes/TSL's to let them dry after yesterday's GTG crawl in the rain, hail (almost snowed too!), and mud...dang it was sticky! Soooo...I'm probably put the larger CI DW foams in the RC4WD white spoke wheels, just to keep it all apples to apples comparison. Might use the grey HR wheels too...we'll see.

[Natedog]

Here's a pic from yesterday, more to come!

[rc2000]

Nice pic...Sticky mud...the natural wheel weights.

[Itali83]

So did you just get another body because yours is getting best up or did you get a complete second truck? If you got a second truck what's your plans for it and your current truck?
Ben