Stretching my Ascender to WB5!

[greenz]

Picked up a used New Bright Jeep Intimidator body off of ebay the other day and decided to try and make it work on my ascender.

Example of the body:





I don't care for the black windows but for now it will be fine.

Knowing that the wheelbase was longer on the jeep then the wb4 k5 body i also picked up some 105mm links for the rear and waited for everything to be delivered.

Once I received my goods I set in to stretch the wheelbase, I didn't take any photos of this because everyone knows how to change links. Once that was done it was time to figure out the rear drive shaft. Not wanting to guess on a replacement that might work and have to order and wait for it just to not work I set out to extend mine. I ended up heading to Lowes to see what I could find. The factory plastic drive shafts have a hole all the way down thru them so I picked up a long screw and threaded sleeve and ended up hacking this together by first threading the screw into the shaft to cut threads into the shaft, then removed the screw, cut the shaft and then screwed it all back together with the sleeve between the two halves of the drive shaft resulting in this.



I then trimmed off the head of the screw and installed it, low and behold it works.



Next was to get the body fitting, I started buy removing the factory running boards, and bumpers then cut out some of the bed floor to get it down where I wanted it.




That's about as far as I have made it for now but will continue to update as I go.

[Yeti.stealth]

I don't know if it will work, but I have been thinking about another option for an extended tailshaft myself.

How about cutting the big end off an inner shaft and have it " float " between two outer shafts, I think that's what axial call there wild boar driveshaft, from memory it's got some kind of floating inner shaft.

[greenz]

Originally Posted by Yeti.stealth

I don't know if it will work, but I have been thinking about another option for an extended tailshaft myself.

How about cutting the big end off an inner shaft and have it " float " between two outer shafts, I think that's what axial call there wild boar driveshaft, from memory it's got some kind of floating inner shaft.

I think that would work if you had aftermarket shafts or pinion, im still running the original style that mounts to the pinion without a set screw.

[Hobbezco]

This is the only picture that I could find of what I did in your same position. The center piece is an inner and outer stock driveshaft chemically welded together into a spacer. the two outer parts of the shaft both slide free on the center spacer. It worked well for the few months that I used it before upgrading to MIP shafts and using Super Shafty's extended length dogbone.

[greenz]

Finally got around to doing some more work on this. Finished up the rear suspension links and out boarded the shocks. Swapped the springs in the shocks to a softer spring, and got the body mounted.I just trimmed the edges of the stock rear bumper to a width i liked, and removed the spacerto tuck it in. Notched the spare tire cover to clear. Next is the front bumper and sliders.

[greenz]

Did some more work over the weekend, my brother had these sliders and front bumper so i thought i would try them out. front bumper fit like it was made for this body imo, sliders are a little wide for my liking but not worth messing with.

[greenz]

Did some more work over the weekend, my brother had these sliders and front bumper so i thought i would try them out. front bumper fit like it was made for this body imo, sliders are a little wide for my liking but not worth messing with.