Wrangler TJ Locked & Loaded 1:1 (Build)

[Browneye]

Late update here...a few more detailing parts...
My second comp over the weekend and we had a blast. Brought a new guy along and he's ready to buy a rig. Three of us drove 175 miles for this comp, brought 5 rigs, and had a ton of fun. Nice event.

[Itali83]

How'd the Ironsides do? Glad it was a good time!

Ben

[Browneye]

Originally Posted by Itali83

How'd the Ironsides do? Glad it was a good time!

Ben

Stickier than alien snot.

Traction is remarkable with these smaller tires. The only thing holding the rig back is lack of ground clearance.

The cool thing is they setup nice courses and gates for C1 that are really enjoyable to drive - difficult enough to be a challenge but not so hard you destroy your rig.

I did end up using the stock foams, just shaved off the shoulders.

[Itali83]

After you shaved some off the foams, did the tires squat at all? Guess I'm asking if these tires need to squat to get good traction or they can be still fairly stiff and the lugs still get good traction. I've got modified stock foams in the rear that may or may not squat much and some custom foams in the front that barely squat with the truck just sitting on the bench but will while out on the rocks. But not too soft to fold under in side hill situations. Thanks!

Ben

[Browneye]

Originally Posted by Itali83

>snip
...barely squat with the truck just sitting on the bench but will while out on the rocks. But not too soft to fold under in side hill situations.

^^This. The tread profile is also a little more rounded. I was trying to get a little more shoulder bite.

And they tend to take a set a bit - like flatten out from just sitting there. I took the wheels off last night to install standard size tires - standard rock beasts - and there was a flat spot in all the Bravens. The new gray foams seem to be okay here, but I'm still not that excited about them. As you mentioned though, the CI foams in this size were simply way too soft.

On my JKU I did the same thing with the RB XL's, shaved shoulders on stock foams in the back with CI foams in the front. Good support from both, don't roll over, but squat out for traction. The JKU climbs like a mutha - it did really well in the comp. I was going up some stuff with some driving tips from good drivers - stuff I thought it simply could not make. There's a LOT to the driving and picking good lines. The CI's are quite a bit softer 'till you hit the inner core. Seems to be a reasonable combination.

[Browneye]

Unbeknownst to me my crawler buddy shot a vid of my first round in Class 1 crawling comp...enjoy.

[Browneye]

A little tinkering over the weekend...
Got some LED lights and controllers from ebay-china. They're cheap and fast, certainly way less than anything for sale in LHS's in these parts. I've seen light kits for near $100 - just not in my realm.

I posted in the tech section about getting these controllers to work with an aux radio channel. They're about $4 but no documentation whatsoever, how they work, how to hook them up, nor how to operate them. With some experimenting I found the center poles are the negative side, the outers positive, so got lights to turn on. The controller has 5 modes which continuously cycle for each radio signal. So if you have an on/off setting for the auxiliary channel each time you turn the switch on and off it cycles to the next mode - all on, one or the other channel on, slow alternate flash, fast flash, all pulse, and all off. Setting a digital radio - my Spekctrum - to momentary for the aux channel means for each click it cycles to the next mode. Do-able. And cheap - me like.




Next doing some browsing for light buckets and DIY, here and elsewhere there were lots of suggestions for setting up lights. One idea was to use plastic pump-spray bottle caps, cut down and drilled for LED's. This worked out rather well, and I had masked off the headlight area before painting so all I needed was some light behind them for headlights. Painting the buckets silver makes them opaque enough that there is very little bleed through on the back side, inner fenderwell area.
They're glued on with CA so rather permanent. LED's last for forever anyway so I'm good with it.



I had already installed a white and red led harness for front and rear bumper lights and plugged directly into the receiver for power. Now with my controller I was able to plug the new headlights harness AND the four bumper lights into the controller and plug that into the aux receiver channel. The light controller fit inside the Ascender receiver box. A servo extension lead comes out to plug in the headlights which are attached to the body.



Now I have lots of lighting which are controllable with the radio transmitter.








The lenses aren't super clean, but since the lights are mostly on anyway it's not a dealbreaker. I scribed horizontal and vertical lines into the back of the lens area of the body, then sanded lightly with 360 grit paper to give it a sealed-beam kind of look. Made a trim ring with a black sharpie. I wish I could figure out a cleaner way to do this, but it's do-able.

[Natedog]

Cool comp pics and nice video, thanks! Jeep looks amazing with those RC4WD beadlocks and smaller 1.9 tires. Those pump spray bottle caps work out pretty well, brush on a little black paint over the silver and that will stop the remaining little light blead through. Nice scribed lines on the lense, looks good. I tacked my Axial light buckets on with CA and then strengthened that with a little E6000 on the backside.

[Browneye]

Originally Posted by Natedog

...brush on a little black paint over the silver and that will stop the remaining little light bleed through.
>snip

Great idea!

[Browneye]

[Browneye]

Front-yard obstacle course...
Did a whole circuit, maybe a half-dozen 'gates'.

[JatoTheRipper]

I just saw your TJ in the Ascender photo thread and I had to come back and tell you how much I love this Jeep. It's perfect. Every time I see it on this forum I want to build one of my own. I even have the body at home so all I have to do is build a truck for it.

[DMS70]

Originally Posted by Natedog

Cool comp pics and nice video, thanks! Jeep looks amazing with those RC4WD beadlocks and smaller 1.9 tires. Those pump spray bottle caps work out pretty well, brush on a little black paint over the silver and that will stop the remaining little light blead through. Nice scribed lines on the lense, looks good. I tacked my Axial light buckets on with CA and then strengthened that with a little E6000 on the backside.

What are you guys doing about keeping the grille attached on the k10 once you cut out the fake headlights for buckets, and does it hold up to abuse?

[Natedog]

Originally Posted by JatoTheRipper

I just saw your TJ in the Ascender photo thread and I had to come back and tell you how much I love this Jeep. It's perfect. Every time I see it on this forum I want to build one of my own. I even have the body at home so all I have to do is build a truck for it.

Yes, it looks great very scale! Build it!

Originally Posted by DMS70

What are you guys doing about keeping the grille attached on the k10 once you cut out the fake headlights for buckets, and does it hold up to abuse?

I used E6000 and then 4 small screws with washers and flat nuts around each headlight bezel area. I wanted 0-80 stainless for scaleness and should have ordered them online, LHS only has brass wth? so went with 2.5mm buttonheads, not quite as scale but looks decent. I need to update the picture in my thread, it's pictured with some too large 3mm buttonheads, I just re-did this the other day.

[Browneye]

Haven't posted here in awhile...this rig got new tires...
And the C10 is getting a new body...

[Shinchu]

aw man THAT looks fun!

[Natedog]

Ooh love (likey lol) the Jeep Kaiser pickup style body, done yet?

[Browneye]

No, it's mocked up but never painted it. But the K10 it's to replace is getting hammered enough now that it's ready.

The K10 that trained 4 new drivers is gray over yellow. When it wears on the rocks the yellow shows through and I think would look great if the under color was a rust color. Could even accelerate the look a little with some sandpaper. I'm going to try that on my next builds - body color on the outside with an inside color a dark rust red. Could even look like damp-proof red primer showing through. Flat color on the outside, vintage style.

[Natedog]

OK, sounds like good replacement.

Yes, do it.