Oldbear and his cub's crawlers

[Oldbear42]

My son and I have been into rock crawlers for the past few years with our Axial 1/14th scale units. Fun trucks that work well enough outside and are great for crawling indoors during the winter and rainy summer days.

We had been looking at getting a couple of 1/10th scale as they work better for "natural" terrain and are more entertaining to build scale trail trucks (IMHO). A good friend gifted us his Toyota 4Runner, his son's Jeep and his nephew's pickup. They had not used them for years. All are 1/10th and fairly detailed, with the Chevy truck begin a work in progress - mostly all custom stuff.

We have been testing and tuning, making repairs and changes as we go along. I've had my 3D printer running full time making things for the crawlers (both scales). I'm printing a Rock Hopper camping trailer right now.

Here are our units as we got them. I went through the copious amounts of spare parts (almost enough to build another rock buggy). I'll be documenting our progress here as we build and change things.

 

[Oldbear42]

The 4Runner (which I have claimed) is a recreation of the original owner's RL offroad truck. I'm planning to keep this one very close to the way he built it. I will be adding an interior with covers for the motor and gear, inner fender wells that work as a battery tray and a skid plate to protect the motor. It came with a trailer that was close to his old trailer too. I'm building the offroad camper for this unit. It is a blast to drive.

I am working on magnet mounting the bodies so we can add Lipo batteries to the system - all the batteries are currently NiHM and are set up to charge in the trucks. I like having a spare for each truck so you can charge while playing and I like charging in a Lipo bag or box to avoid the fires...

I even got the Steve Irwin working again but he is destined to drive the Chevy.

 

[Speedy-Triple]

those new additions look great, They seemed to be well loved and designed, I'm pretty sure the owner is happy that they will be getting used and enjoyed.

 

[high plains drifter]

Agree 100% with the above post ^^^. Nice work and tough lookin' trucks.

 

[Gula]

I get this feel8ng that the jeep and chevy, once belonged to me. Not sure why

 

[OSRC]

Some nice looking rigs you've scored there. Really like the 4Runner!

 

[Oldbear42]

I get this feel8ng that the jeep and chevy, once belonged to me. Not sure why

They are from my friend Steve. He builds hot rods and custom interiors as his business. The work he put into the RCs shows.

 

[Oldbear42]

those new additions look great, They seemed to be well loved and designed, I'm pretty sure the owner is happy that they will be getting used and enjoyed.

They had not used them in quite a few years so they gave them to us so they could keep being used. The trades have gone the other way too - One of the many hot rods he built had axles and other parts I had gathered for various cancelled projects in my shop.

 

[Oldbear42]

The steering linkage was just a threaded rod and looked less scale. The servo arm was stock and was too short so the angle of the drag link was causing steering issues - it's tucked up into the hard body of the Jeep to look more realistic. We found an extended-length servo arm (twice as long as stock) and I covered the threaded rod with heat-shrink tubing. I might still bend the lower drag link ball-joint mount to make it not as angled. I know that steering stabilizer shocks are horizontal but I like the look of this. The bellows are just a plastic bendy straw - dollar store for the win again.

My son wanted a winch for his Jeep (like I have on the 4Runner) so his grandparents got me to order one. This collection came with a spare bumper (not sure which it was meant for) that we will be modifying to better fit the Jeep without being in the way. My son has also asked to repaint the Jeep - which it needs after I repaired a re-damaged/broken front fender. So all of this will be coming apart again. He will be getting a can of spray paint for Christmas - his choice of colour. I'm using this to teach him (12) how to teardown, paint and reassemble things.

 

[JimK]

Looking good so far! I'm looking forward to seeing all the upgrades and changes you make to these rigs. "thumbsup"

 

[Oldbear42]

We got the bumper and winch all done. The light bar is on and everything works. I even got the rear hitch mounted after a bit of reworking.

 

[Oldbear42]

Did some wheeling in the Drumheller Valley last week. We are only 30 minutes from there, so we often drive by (doctors, stores, etc). We planned to stop after a doctor's appointment and have a coffee break. The ladies went for a hike looking for snakes, cacti, and rocks, so my son and I crawled on the crazy terrain of the Canadian Badlands.

We got to test some changes and determine how the machines do on tougher natural terrain. I found the Chevy is a better crawler than my Yoda (Yoda looks cooler though). We had a few wrecks, but the only damage was the fake jack-all on the Jeep hood and a shock that came apart (screwed back together after.

 

[Oldbear42]

Just this last weekend, we entered our first crawler scale competition at the Blackfoot RC Park in Calgary. It was very fun and also educational. Our 15-year-old technology and used crawlers were not that far away from the current technology and newer rigs.

We got to the others and asked for advice and tips. We have now ordered two Fusion SE brushless motors (one for the Jeep and one for the Chevy). We are also replacing the steering servo and steering arm on the Jeep and the Chevy. The Jeep's steering angle was too much for proper steering, and the servo didn't want to move much with the longer arm. It then mostly failed during the competition (didn't want to steer to the left strongly and would shift on the rocks when under pressure. The Chevy servo is mounted vertically and is also at a poor angle for steering, so I'm remounting the servo to get a better angle and use the longer arm. I have previously tried to bend a longer arm to make it work, but I'll just change the mounting position. I also lost a shock mount nut on the Chevy (found the bolt and spacer in the rocks)... good day for all.

Lots of upgrades and changes are coming to our machines.

 

[JatoTheRipper]

Nice looking rigs. Good to see some OG Axial axles in the wild.

 

[Oldbear42]

Nice looking rigs. Good to see some OG Axial axles in the wild.

These rigs were built more than 15 years ago by our friend and his son, and they gifted them to us. We're just in the process of bringing them up to current technology. The axles are working great so far, but I do need to lock the front diff on the Jeep ( or buy new metal axles for my Chevy and give the other diff to my son's Jeep).

 

[89Industries]

Am I just not seeing the panhard bar in the picture of the Jeep front steering linkages?

You could also put the drag link (link going from hub to hub, might not be the right term) on top of the hub mounts and then stack the steering link on top of that. Would gain you some ground clear6 and move the steering link up a bit which could help the servo move it back and forth.

It does make that single shear bolt on the steering link side longer and might be some clearance issues at full up travel.

Otherwise your 15 year old trucks are cooler than most current stuff just because there's lots of homemade stuff I can spot.

 

[HVACTeacher]

The picture of the Chevy in post #12 looks like it could be a 1:1 on any job site somewhere.
Those trucks are way cool!