Tommy R's TTC Build - "Big Oly"

[Tommy R]

Looking good dude."thumbsup"

I got a small drive line if your interested.
http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j161/justinart24/IMG_3125-1.jpg

Its a cut down RC4WD Steel Punisher shaft.
http://rc4wdstore.com/2/product_inf...d=402&osCsid=044a422be622638241f31249631594e7

Thanks, man. Shoot me a PM with the length of that shaft and how much you want for it. I may be interested in it. I've got some extra Punisher shafts, but would prefer to keep them full length 'til I know what project I'll use them in. "thumbsup"

 

[Tommy R]

Tonight I built a motor/trans mount.

Everything came out great and there's no suspension interference or anything. The problem is this. Look how close the trans output is to the t-case input.

As you can see, I don't have much room at all for a driveshaft. I think I need something about 45mm in total length. Obviously, this cut down shaft ain't gonna cut it even if I continue to shorten it. There won't be any spline engagement left. :roll:

I'm not really sure if I've got any good options here for a really short driveshaft. I could relocate everything farther forward, but I'd really prefer not to. I may look into moving the t-case back, but then I may have issues with my front drive shaft being too short.

Anyone got suggestions? I guess I could cut down a Punisher shaft like justinart24 did, but I may end up with little to no thread engagement, literally. I could weld it, I suppose. I'm open to suggestions, folks.

 

[STANG KILLA SS]

have you tried the old school stampede yokes and DS's we all used to use? i think there smaller? i still use them on everything
i just measured one, from the set screw end, to the center of the pin that the 4 way yoke slides in is .45" in length.

 

[War Pig]

How about an MIP like this. Dennis made this for me....it's just a piece of pipe drilled out to .45" with an outer diameter of of around 5/8" and a couple of holes drilled for the CVD pin. You should be able to make it just under 2" long (overall end-to-end) if you need....you'll never break it, and there is practically no slop.

 

[Tommy R]

have you tried the old school stampede yokes and DS's we all used to use? i think there smaller? i still use them on everything
i just measured one, from the set screw end, to the center of the pin that the 4 way yoke slides in is .45" in length.

No, I've just used stuff I had in my stock pile, which I believe is all Axial. I measured them and they're only .07" longer than Stampede yokes. Probably not enough to make the difference.

 

[Tommy R]

How about an MIP like this. Dennis made this for me....it's just a piece of pipe drilled out to .045" with an outer diameter of of around 5/8" and a couple of holes drilled for the CVD pin. You should be able to make it just under 2" long (overall end-to-end) if you need....you'll never break it, and there is practically no slop.

Thanks, Tim! I think something like that would be the best solution for such a short shaft. For the yokes I have, I would need 1/2" tube with 1/8" wall thickness (exact length TBD), but then there would need to be clearancing so the yoke won't bind on the tube. I guess that's where the MIP yokes come in, huh? They look to be a much slimmer profile that the ones I'm using. I may need to look into picking some up.

In the meantime since time is tight and I'm trying to get the truck running for Sunday, I think I'm just going to move the t-case back a bit and make an adapter plate to mount it to the skidplate. It should work, but I'll be stuck running a plastic driveshaft. I wonder how long it'll last. :ror:

 

[War Pig]

Dennis ran a plastic shaft on his new 2.2 and it lasted half a run before it broke. If you run the plastic one, baby it. You should be able to buy just one MIP driveline for around $25 and make the tube body for it. I would do that from the get-go if you can swing it.

 

[Tommy R]

Dennis ran a plastic shaft on his new 2.2 and it lasted half a run before it broke. If you run the plastic one, baby it. You should be able to buy just one MIP driveline for around $25 and make the tube body for it. I would do that from the get-go if you can swing it.

Damn, you're up early, son! ;-) I definitely plan on babying it and having a spare for the comp, as well. My biggest concern is time. No local hobby shops in central Texas carry crawler parts so I'd have to mail order it and then start working on fabbing a tube. Not likely to happen before Sunday, unfortunately.

So I was looking at TCS' site and it appears this is the shortest MIP shaft I could find:
http://www.tcscrawlers.com/MIP-CVD-C-Drive-Spline-Kit-for-Dig-Rear-09137-p-18176.html

I guess this would be a suitable donor? I'm sure it's too long, but at least it can donate its yokes.

 

[vipornstar]

You can try two Tamiya hilift universals with a 5mm rod between them. You can make the rod really short so they the universals butt Against each other, plus they are really strong and inexpensive.

 

[team3six]

Good to see your going at it brother. I would hate to see this make its resting place in someone elses hands or on a shelf."thumbsup"

 

[Tommy R]

You can try two Tamiya hilift universals with a 5mm rod between them. You can make the rod really short so they the universals butt Against each other, plus they are really strong and inexpensive.

Not familiar with the Hi-Lift universals, but if they're metal, I may look into it. In the short term, I have a solution. Long term, I ordered an MIP shaft from TCS which will hopefully be here this week.

Good to see your going at it brother. I would hate to see this make its resting place in someone elses hands or on a shelf."thumbsup"

Thanks! I've got way too much invested in this thing to give up now!

So here's the short term solution. I made an aluminum adapter plate. It's threaded to mount to the orig. skidplate and also accepts the new t-case. It's mounted a little farther back and a little more toward center compared to my original location. It's what was required to fit my temporary driveshaft.

Long term, I'll either build a metal driveshaft to replace the plastic one or I'll relocate the t-case to my orig. location and make a REALLY short metal shaft. We'll see...

Here's a flex shot. That stack of boxes is about 6.25" tall. I lose about an inch of flex if the boxes are under a front tire due to the weight bias. The articulation may be a bit much, but I'll test it and go from there.

 

[2JSC]

I think the tcase relocation was a good move. The longer and more spline engagement the better, both for the plastic one and the future metal one. "thumbsup"

 

[Nickle]

I think the tcase relocation was a good move. The longer and more spline engagement the better, both for the plastic one and the future metal one. "thumbsup"

Agreed. Moving the T-Case back seems like a good solution in the long run as well as the short term. Would it be feasible to mount it further back in a more permanent method?

 

[Tommy R]

Thanks, y'all. I'm pretty happy with it's current location and I'm leaning toward leaving it there. I don't see much of a need to move it farther back now. I think with a metal shaft in there that there should plenty of spline engagement for the kind of power and weight I'll be dealing with.

Now that the suspension and drivetrain seem to be fairly complete, I need to start turning my focus on to other things like the electronics and storage for it all. I hope to have time to work on some of the exterior tube work before the comp on Sunday, but not sure if I will. I decided I'm not going to compromise anything in a rush that will take time/effort to re-do later on. So hopefully I'll get time to work on the tube work, but if not, it'll have to wait 'til next week. Then I've got to figure out how I want to do all the interior bits.....

 

[Tommy R]

So I made some good progress tonight. I started modifying the cagework, I worked on the tube fenders, and worked on a couple other little things. I also slapped the electronics in it briefly just to make sure things would work okay. They did. So I zip-tied everything in place temporarily and gave it hell. Guess what, the plastic driveshaft survived! :ror: Now I'm not naive enough to believe it'll live there indefinitely, but I think it may survive for a comp day if I don't get too stupid. Nonetheless, I've got an MIP shaft in the mail today and I may hack it up tomorrow. Kind of disappointed the male half isn't splined the whole length, though.

Anyway, the last thing I did tonight was the front tube fenders. I'm pleased with them. Of course, I need to figure out something to do with the front grill. I trimmed it rather haphazardly. The good news is that when flexed out, the tires rub only on the tube work, not lexan. Now I just need to build some rear tube fenders, finish the cage work, and figure more permanent ways to mount all the electronics.....

Fully stuffed/turned...

Fully stuffed/turned...

 

[Tommy R]

Well, yesterday I spent nearly the entire day working on this hoopty, not to mention most of Friday evening. I picked up some heavy duty drive pins for the Axial CVDs, but they didn't fit so I scrapped that idea for now. But I managed to get quite a bit done: installed a Gunnar front axle tube, finished most of the tube work, painted the chassis, did more body trimming, found slightly more permanent mounting locations for some of the electronics, and finally took it for a 2 minute test drive in the backyard. All this in preparation for today's scale comp.

The tubework getting prepped for a really quick mist of paint. It's not done by a long shot!

This is how it ran today. Weight as pictured is 8 lb. 2 oz.

I made a "tool box" to hide the battery out of 22 ga. sheetmetal.

Obviously, it has a long way to go. Full interior, properly hidden electronics, working winch(es), more front weight bias, lights, some drivetrain upgrades, lots of suspension tuning, fender wells, full bed, etc., etc., etc.... But enough of that.

So how did it do? Well, it's tough to say. It seemed to crawl okay, but there were plenty of issues that prevented a real test. I twisted the plastic driveshaft about 3-4 times today. And something is slipping in the rear axle badly! I was effectively in front wheel drive most of the day. I took it all apart at the site, but saw nothing wrong. It's full of grease so it made it hard to really determine anything. I'll dig into it further and will hopefully find out what's going on.

I'm having a hard time remaining motivated on this truck. unfortunately. To be frank, it still looks like a toy and not anything like a real truck. That's really disappointing for me because IMO a scale truck is nothing if it doesn't look and perform like a real truck. I suspect (and hope) it's just because it doesn't have an interior yet. But I really think the HPI Bronco body is just lacking enough detail. I'll stick with it 'til it's finished, but unless I really begin to fall in love with this thing, there's a good chance all the guts will go into something else.

 

[ColquittCustom405]

Thanks for the info. I feel your pain on giving the rig hell then to find out it might take a dump on you at a comp. I'm still trying different batteries pinions on my 1.9..Progress is looking good dude.I love those Rok Lox!

 

[Tommy R]

Got the rear torn down and cleaned tonight. So much for "heavy duty lockers". :mrgreen:

I guess it's time to look for stronger alternatives now....

 

[2JSC]

These might do the trick. Full carrier replacement. http://www.rcpcrawlers.com/product.php?productid=1150&cat=29&page=1

 

[Tommy R]

These might do the trick. Full carrier replacement. http://www.rcpcrawlers.com/product.php?productid=1150&cat=29&page=1

That looks like it's what I probably need, but I'd like to see more pics. I assume there is a flat inside there for the axles and the other side has the ring gear bolt holes? The pic doesn't exactly show a lot. :ror: