Thanks to RC4WD I was lucky to have the chance to get hold of the new TrailFinder 2. This is an amazing kit that comes packed with scale detail and a lot of potential for future modding.
Let's put it together stock first!
The package arrived at the beginning of this week. Felt like Christmas.
The kit comes together real easy. I had my camera at hand ready to document any issues during the build. There were none. It took me about 3 hours to get it up on its wheels. The instructions are very easy to follow and all the bags and parts are nicely labeled. Just remember to use thread lock - there's a lot of metal to metal mounting and the screws are sure to come loose if you save on threadlock.
After the first evening with the truck I had this:
I went with just the main leafs on all corners first. I also removed the spring from the shocks. The Ultimate Scale shocks really do look ultimate scale and are nicely smooth as well. Without the spring inside, they offer nice damping. I'll have to fill them up with oil, though. Later I added one short leaf at the front to the leaf sitting under the motor. The motor side was sitting lower than the passenger side and rubbed the front fender of the body. After adding the leaf, the rubbing is gone and the body sits as low as possible - just the way I like it.
Yesterday I added some electronics. An old MambaMax ESC (you have to love this ESC, I've had it since 2009 and it's been through many different vehicles and it still works flawless), a Savox steering servo and a cheapo chinese 10kg servo for the gearbox. The steering will need to have a BEC added, other than that everything works well. The gears shift nice and smooth.
Here's a video of the shifting of gears:
Shifting gears.mp4 - YouTube
There's great of low speed control in first gear:
Low speed control.mp4 - YouTube
Today I and my son just enjoyed playing with the truck, driving it around inside. I did some minor bodywork but have to wait for a new tube of Squadron's green putty as the old one has dried out. You don't necessary
need to do any filling but I want to remove a few injection marks before primer.
The Mojave body has great detail. Here are some pics of the body:
And then a few pics to show the scale detail of the chassis and drive train:
I'll run it stock for a while but I can see a steering mod coming. I'm thinking of putting the tie rod behing the axle and leave the servo to knuckle rod in the front. This will require a DIY custom part. The RC4WD TF2 XVD driveshafts should allow for more steering and I hope a few turns in the lathe will allow even more. But more on that later.
Next up will be to clean up the wiring and paint and detail the body.
Let's put it together stock first!
The package arrived at the beginning of this week. Felt like Christmas.
The kit comes together real easy. I had my camera at hand ready to document any issues during the build. There were none. It took me about 3 hours to get it up on its wheels. The instructions are very easy to follow and all the bags and parts are nicely labeled. Just remember to use thread lock - there's a lot of metal to metal mounting and the screws are sure to come loose if you save on threadlock.
After the first evening with the truck I had this:
I went with just the main leafs on all corners first. I also removed the spring from the shocks. The Ultimate Scale shocks really do look ultimate scale and are nicely smooth as well. Without the spring inside, they offer nice damping. I'll have to fill them up with oil, though. Later I added one short leaf at the front to the leaf sitting under the motor. The motor side was sitting lower than the passenger side and rubbed the front fender of the body. After adding the leaf, the rubbing is gone and the body sits as low as possible - just the way I like it.
Yesterday I added some electronics. An old MambaMax ESC (you have to love this ESC, I've had it since 2009 and it's been through many different vehicles and it still works flawless), a Savox steering servo and a cheapo chinese 10kg servo for the gearbox. The steering will need to have a BEC added, other than that everything works well. The gears shift nice and smooth.
Here's a video of the shifting of gears:
Shifting gears.mp4 - YouTube
There's great of low speed control in first gear:
Low speed control.mp4 - YouTube
Today I and my son just enjoyed playing with the truck, driving it around inside. I did some minor bodywork but have to wait for a new tube of Squadron's green putty as the old one has dried out. You don't necessary
need to do any filling but I want to remove a few injection marks before primer.
The Mojave body has great detail. Here are some pics of the body:
And then a few pics to show the scale detail of the chassis and drive train:
I'll run it stock for a while but I can see a steering mod coming. I'm thinking of putting the tie rod behing the axle and leave the servo to knuckle rod in the front. This will require a DIY custom part. The RC4WD TF2 XVD driveshafts should allow for more steering and I hope a few turns in the lathe will allow even more. But more on that later.
Next up will be to clean up the wiring and paint and detail the body.
