Yeti.Stealths Ascenders

[Yeti.stealth]

Yes the old Meccano steam engines are cool, my boy loves firing it up and sawing paper in half, about the only thing it's got the power to cut through.

Portals? I dunno, first thought would be TRX4 but have read something about gearing...

The RC4WD Australian Challenge was a blast! Great location, courses and good turn out. Everyone had a good time.

Seems I was flying the Vaterra flag by myself today, not one other Ascender there that I saw.

Couple phone pics for now. Got more pics with the GoPro and some vids too. May be a while before I can spend some time on that stuff! Stay tuned.



In the que waiting my turn.







My Ascender pressed into service as winch vehicle, no one in C2 was able to drive this gate, we all needed a winch. One of the organisers told us that a C1 rig drove it no problems on another day when they were scoping out lines for the challenge.

[Yeti.stealth]

Bit of tug of war action from the Australian challenge.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sQ2rmx...u6mwqIGHpxI%3D

[Yeti.stealth]

I got a little RC4WD Australian Challenge update for you guys.
No scores could be given out on the day due to flat batteries in the scorers laptop, but news has just come through that I won C2 with my trusty old K10 Ascender!

I gotta say that I was just happy to be able to pass tech inspection and be allowed to participate, aside from crawling and a bit of friendly comping with the local guys, I have never been to an event before and had little to no knowledge of SORRCA stuff. I must admit I was a bit intimidated by the rules, time limits on course, winching, scale items, points etc I really didn't know what to expect,nbut the RC4WD guys were awesome, friendly and very helpful to everyone. Well done and I will definitely make an effort to get to the next one!

It was fun in the weeks leading up to the challenge modifying my truck to comply with the rules and the tech guys dragged about 27 scale points out of it during the inspection, still don't know how that points side of things works or if 27 points is much of an effort on my part?

Still smiling from such a fun day crawling!

[Yeti.stealth]

Posted a bit of rc4wd Challenge footage in the video thread.

RC4WD Australian Challenge

[Yeti.stealth]

Excitedly waiting for my RC4WD prize pack to turn up! So a bit of maintenance on the Bronco in the meantime.

The stock drive shaft pins are worn out and clicking, I heard the clicking but let it go a bit long and the rear diff pinion pin sheared off. What a pain they are the disassemble if you let them go to the point of failure! Not much to grab hold of to allow the pinion gear screw to be taken out, and the screw is loctited in as well!

So I bent up a small clip type thing to install in the cup to give me some thing to grab hold of.


Worn out pins, if you hear them clicking under load they will look like this. Change them before they fail.


I make my replacement pins from hobby shop piano wire, so made a clip out of same stuff to aid disassembly after a pin has failed.


Squeeze clip together and put into cup


Now I have something to grab hold of to stop it turning while I undo pinion gear screw.

[rs10man]

loving both the builds, once the young fella gets a bit older ill teach him how to play, only 2 this year.

in regards to the alloy upper link mounts, did you source them locally or from overseas? I can get them from rpp in the colour I want but their postage doesn't impress me.

[Yeti.stealth]

I'm still running the stock plastic upper link mounts on both rigs, I have the slipper clutch backed off a little on my boys Bronco so it's unlikely he will bust the mounts screws off.

[Natedog]

Ingenious use of wire to get pinion gear out! Gunther Pins are very nice, pm him on here or make your own out of piano (music) wire.

[Yeti.stealth]

comp day!

couple of pics for everyone to enjoy. I even dusted off the old RTR Blazer tyres. they are glued onto the stock unweighted plastic rims and have the early single stage foams inside. the tyres are well worn and foams are well broken in and very soft now. I think my truck looks great with the stock wheels and tyres, and performance was not terrible either, pretty good actually, better than I expected.

Confused now, just when I think im getting a handle on things/tyres/foams/weighted wheels and the old Vaterra Swampers on glue on platic wheels work damn near just as good as my big heavy scorpios! maybe I will make another youtube with these tyres and try and drive all the same lines I did in my test and tune vid to see how they stack up.

[Yeti.stealth]

My son having fun running his Bronco with some smaller tyres in the scale class.

both trucks running fine, couple die hard Axial guys I comp with starting to take notice of the Ascenders, My son has been anything but gentle in the past at times with the Bronco and it has only ever worn out the drive shaft pins and busted 1 plastic ball link. I believe the Ascenders are quite a strong truck.

[Yeti.stealth]

a few of the other trucks from today.

[durok]

I even dusted off the old RTR Blazer tyres. they are glued onto the stock unweighted plastic rims and have the early single stage foams inside. the tyres are well worn and foams are well broken in and very soft now. I think my truck looks great with the stock wheels and tyres, and performance was not terrible either, pretty good actually, better than I expected.

Confused now, just when I think im getting a handle on things/tyres/foams/weighted wheels and the old Vaterra Swampers on glue on platic wheels work damn near just as good as my big heavy scorpios! maybe I will make another youtube with these tyres and try and drive all the same lines I did in my test and tune vid to see how they stack up.

I think your rig and specifically its original tires are just aging like fine wine or whiskey in a barrel!

Every new pic you post looks more badass... Punisher - more like "Punished"!

(I guess the Punisher would drive his rig really hard, though.)

Normally I don't like the stock wheels, but that seems to be because they have too much of a chrome plastic look - as yours have been battered and gotten dull, they look much better.

My fave Ascender build, for sure...

[Natedog]

Thanks for gtg pics, very nice to see em on the trails! Vaterra tires work pretty well especially if you treat them with Simple Green, Codyboy heavy axles weight it down even though you're using RTR plastic wheels.

[Yeti.stealth]

Originally Posted by durok

I think your rig and specifically its original tires are just aging like fine wine or whiskey in a barrel!

Every new pic you post looks more badass... Punisher - more like "Punished"!

(I guess the Punisher would drive his rig really hard, though.)

Normally I don't like the stock wheels, but that seems to be because they have too much of a chrome plastic look - as yours have been battered and gotten dull, they look much better.

My fave Ascender build, for sure...

Well Durok, it got a bit more punishment today! I took the boy and his cousin out for an after school trail run and filmed a bit of GoPro footage for a bit of a tyre comparison YouTube vid. It took a few tumbles ( big ones! ) at my hands trying to film and drive, then it was handed over to the nephew for some bash and crash style trail running alongside the Bronco. Filmed the boys having fun and will tack that footage onto the end of the tyre vid.

Thanks for liking my old ascender, I think is bad ass too!

Natedog, after today's test with RTR wheels and tyres I think I will add a bit of weight to them to see if it makes an improvement. It will be rough and ready cause I'm just gunna hot glue lead sinkers to the rims on the outside!

They performed pretty damn good today, even surprised me a few times.

[Yeti.stealth]

Tyre and weighted wheel comparison vid

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i9rhPBki4xY

[Yeti.stealth]

bashing the Punisher in an old gravel pit, in slomo!

enjoy

https://youtu.be/UtnhoeC9Mv8

[Yeti.stealth]

Originally Posted by Yeti.stealth

I'm still running the stock plastic upper link mounts on both rigs, I have the slipper clutch backed off a little on my boys Bronco so it's unlikely he will bust the mounts screws off.

Had to go and open my big mouth!

Gave the boy an extra half turn of slipper clutch, I shouldn't have, everything was just fine. Snapped a rear axle upper link mount screw.
Doh!

Was lucky enough to get the broken off piece out, new screws installed and did the old "3rd screw in the upper link mount" mod. And used a blob of plastiweld as a spacer between mount and diff housing. Solid as a rock now, and slipper backed off again.

Top arrow is the 3rd screw mod
Bottom arrow is the screws that will snap off without it.


Plastiweld blob left to set hard before drilling, serves as a spacer between mount and diff housing

[Itali83]

How much does the k10 weigh? I've watched your videos and it seems to climb straight up! I'm trying to find out if there is a sweet spot weight wise for vertical climbing. I see you have both codyboy axles and such too. I'm going through my Ascender #1 and lowering everything I can to get the cog as low as possible. I'm also trying to make it as light as possible too. I've yet to put my brand of codyboy axles on this truck yet as I've just never gotten around to doing it. There's a specific local spot that this truck made but was almost left to luck if I made it or not. Only one or two others can make it. Needless to say, I want to just walk up it while the others struggle!! This is where my dilemma comes in. Add all the brass goodies down low and end up with a 10ish pound truck, or just ditch all weight possible, lower cog and have an 7-8 pound rig.

By the way, I've been able to lower stock battery tray 5mm's in the front and 10mm's in the rear and keep the pivoting tray functional. I'm also converting my servo winch to an internal spool design which will allow me to flip the servo so the heavy side is down and also lower the whole thing 5mm's too. I'm trying everything to get the cog down.

Ben

[Yeti.stealth]

That's a good amount of work Itali83, your COG should be great!
My K10 weighs in about 7 pounds 12 ounces (3.5kgs) from memory.
I got extra weight in the wheels, front wheels a good bit heavier than the rears, servo winch and steel winch mount up front and Codyboy axles. Rear links are WB4 plus 5mm spacers (2.5mm each end upper and lower)
The rest is stock. Battery tray disconnected and cable tied to shock towers so it's permanently stuck in the raised position. I run 2s shorty hard case packs.

My truck could never climb some of those lines, I would watch in amazement at the other guys scx10's LWB rigs drive straight up. I asked how do they do it? Answer was lower truck, stretch wheel base and add weight to front wheels. Guy took his weighted front wheels off and put them on a kids rtr scx10 Dodge Ram, kid drove straight up That 60 deg rock, the first one in my vid.

So bit by bit I have been chipping away at that damn 60 deg rock, smaller lighter battery, no go, less weight in front wheels, no go, stock jacked up shocks, no go...etc

Lowered the truck as per Natedogs thread.
Shocks have internal limiters (9mm) and rubber bump stop removed. front shock Pistons are stock with about 37 weight oil that makes them slow to react, only run the big springs in all shocks, front has the preload nut backed off a few millimetres too far, so when the front axles droops the spring falls away from the preload nut.

Rear shocks have notched out Pistons with a thinner oil and a nice and quick acting. I have abit of pre load wound on, so it's got a lowered front/raised rear stance, plus the rear sway bar.

All these little things made it possible to concour that damn 60 deg rock and many more! But the guts of it is, lowered, longer and weight in front wheels.

[Yeti.stealth]

Working on a surprise for my boy! He really wants a pickup body now, keen on putting scale items in the bed. So it looks like we will retire the Bronco body at some time....

Choose the Vaterra C10 body for the onroad rc car and will adapt it to fit the Ascender chassis. Cab is identical to K10 size wise but mount holes are different, wheel arches and flares are smaller, but even on the K10 body I cut most of them away so after I'm done trimming it will be ok I think. Chrome grill and mounting holes are the same as K10 but it also includes a separate front chrome bumper. To bad I'm gunna just cut the bumper part of the lexan off.







My first thought for the bed was to pinch the rear and install a pinched K10 rear cage, make it look like a competition truck, with 1.9 XL rock beast tyres on a chassis that's a clone of mine, But now I'm not sure, maybe a standard bed farm truck, looks like WB2 chassis would be a good fit......or maybe a tow truck with rear crane made from night crawler lower links and servo winch hoist.......

Anyway, we will end up with two K10 chevys, like father like son I guess!