1:6th scale Willys - yeah, yeah...another one.

[dadrab]

1:6th scale Willys - yeah, yeah...another one. With video at the end.

This has been posted on a couple of other sites, but I know this site has an active larger scale clientele, so I figured I'd toss it out here too in case anyone's interested.

I've been building stuff since I was 11 years old. The thing is, adulthood has put a serious crimp in my playtime.

Well, it's time...

It all started a while back when I decided to redo an old Soldiers Of The World Willys Jeep that I'd made remote controlled for my kids. Basically what had been done before was a rush, hack job. I took an old hobby grade RC buggy that was about shot and transferred pieces and parts to the Jeep.

It wasn't great work, but it was damn fast (to the point that I had to strap the action figures to their seats to keep them from being slung out in hard turns) and it was mostly for my kids. :ror:

Here's where the build started:

Not much to look at, right?

So, I gathered up some of my helpers and I had a chat with them about what I wanted to do.

The reception was...um...less than enthusiastic, to say the least.

So, I started without them. They'd either get on board, or get left behind.

Finally, I got some begrudging approval.

 

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Here's a little more of what I was working with:

All that had to be taken apart. So, this is what was left:

Needed some axles. Axial provided the solution for those as well as a transmission.

And, of course, I'd need a chassis. This was hand cut from a piece of aluminum bar stock. Not bad for a first attempt. As you all can see, I opted for leaves. The leaf springs are made from ordinary rake tynes, heated and shaped; then, reheated and retempered to provide some "spring." The shackles are made from chain links; brackets are hand made.

More to come.

 

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Since I was using leaf springs, I had to design and make a set of U-bolts and plates. It wasn't much trouble, to tell the truth. I just used all-threaded rod, heated it up a bit and bent it around a template about the same size as the axle diameter. The plates are just pieces of aluminum bar cut and drilled to fit.

A lot of Dremeling going on there... :laugh:

Of course, I had plenty of help from the guys.

And, they tried to do a lot of the work themselves. Still, I believe they were glad to see me from time to time.

Below, my boy Maxx Steele bit off a little more than he could chew trying to install the RC4WD Killer transfer case by himself.

Another one of the guys talked me into the notion that my rake tyne springs were too stiff. He gave me the idea of making another set out of Walmart stainless steel rulers. They were pretty easy to cut, but a bear to heat, bend and retemper. Once they were in, though they worked really well. The trouble was, the further along the build went, the heavier the Jeep got. Turns out I went back to the rake-tyne springs after all, but don't tell the guys. Some of them are kind of thin-skinned, as we've seen.

 

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Now, the next thing to do was test fit the axles and the body. My buddy also put a temporary body mount in once everything was centered up.

We constructed a set of transfer case brackets out of some light gauge steel. They didn't seem stout enough, so I bent up another set out of some heavier aluminum stock.

Just a word about all this fabrication: It is true that most of this stuff can be purchased. There are some beautiful chassis and such available, but I chose to do all of that myself. It's not that I'm a glutton for punishment so much as one can spend a TON of money on the prebuilt stuff. Mine's not nearly as fine looking, but it is functional and should hold up well. Besides, the joy in this stuff is - for me, anyway - is coming up with a way to hurdle the obstacles.

So, I put the boys to work taking everything apart so the new chassis could get a coat of etching primer and black paint.

A Novak 45 turn motor provides the power for the rig. Here is a shot of that motor mounted to the Axial transmission. I chose a 45-turn to try and balance wheel speed and torque. More on that later, though.

A platform had to be constructed to hold the motor, tranny, speed controller and other various components.

Here's a shot of the platform with the motor/tranny combo mounted. It also shows the main drive shaft I had to construct to get power to the transfer case.

And, thanks to my kids, I'll never lack for a way to hold a chassis up while it's worked on.

Easy, there buddy. I swear, sometimes it's tough keeping the fellas in line... Can't say I really blame them, though.

Back to business. If you take a look at this underside shot of body, you'll notice a couple of things. First, there's a sizable tunnel molded in from the factory. I built the chassis so that the main shaft and the transfer case would fit up into that tunnel. The motor and tranny will remain under the hood, so there was no need to hack the body further for fitment there. Secondly, there's a pretty substancial recess where the fuel tank should be on the 1:1 (the driver's seat sits on top of it). I took advantage of that recess for tucking away the receiver and some excess wiring.

You might also notice there's a pretty sizable hole in the back of the Jeep where the rear bench seat used to be. That hack was put there to make room for the motor and rear axle in the original incarnation of the RC project. It had to be repaired. You can also see where some repairs were made under the front fenders.

Body pre-repairs:

And, post-repairs:

All the figures were pretty stoked to finish the project. Some got a little ahead of themselves.

 

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Everybody knows a good trail rig needs some protection.

Everybody should also be aware that I'm no wizard with a torch. I can weld, but I've got no rig, so putting together a bit of roll-over protection was going to present a challenge.

I had to learn to braze. I'd never done it before nor had I ever seen it done; however, I can read, so I got on-line and read several article on the art of brazing.

I'm still not very good at it and the raw joints presented below are a shameful display. But, they cleaned up pretty well and I think they'll turn out OK.

I started by putting the basics together

If you're going to attempt this, I heartily recommend getting a torch with an "auto striker" in the nozzle. Simply pull the trigger and you've got fire. This is a pretty good one.

After a bit of practice, I cobbled together this ugly contraption out of brake tubing and some smaller brass tubing I had lying around.

Then, I tried it with the body.

Well...there is some sort of shape being taken there, I reckon. Pretty good fit, too.

Sometimes, the boys and girls get a little ahead of themselves. At one point, they got to trying to move the chassis around a bit. Then they couldn't get it back up on the Lego jack stands.

I asked an old friend to go give them a hand.

 

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Sometimes I'd be out in the shop working and just say, "pick up that (whatever) and hand it to me, please." While I was really just talking to myself, the guys would sometimes get a little indignant.

Naturally, a good woman always comes to the rescue. Living proof that size does matter...

After getting them all calmed down, I settled in to braze up a set of sliders for the rig. Every good trail rig needs them.

Little did I suspect what was going on behind my back...

 

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Another old friend dropped by one evening.

 

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Time for a little update.

As always, I had help whether I wanted it or not...

Since this was a pretty big project, I decided to bring in a supervisor, of sorts. Seems I was having a helluva time keeping the figures in task. It was like herding cats...

So, I brought in "the man."

 

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Good afternoon, all.

Been rather busy with son #2's baseball season (part of it...), but I made time for an update. Sorry it's been so long coming.

Recently I had occasion to take son #1 to an official college visit. He's a swimmer and the coaches will bring prospective students in for a weekend here and there. On this occasion, we went to East Carolina University in North Carolina. Since I knew I'd be stuck in a hotel room for a couple of days with very little to do (the coaches don't really want the parents around after about the first two hours), I took the project with me to work on. Of course, I had to deal with stowaways...

It took them a while to acclimate, but we soon got to work.

I had an el cheapo radio system sitting on the work bench, so I took it along. Instead of sitting still the whole time, I found occasion to search out a hobby shop for a few things and a Radio Shack for a battery.

On the platform there, the motor and transmission are already screwed into place. The main shaft going to the transfer case is also visable. All that will be under the hood once the body is mounted.

And, test it I did. Truthfully, it was geared really slowly...too slowly in fact. That was about the time I decided to upgrade to LiPo batties so I could run one with 11.0V and conserve space. Still, the tests went well. There was torque to all be damned. The bare chassis would crawl up a curb with no trouble at all. I did considerable driving through the hotel flower garden as that was the most challenging terrain available. :blink:

I was actually beginning to have a pretty good time until the powered chassis went dead. The motor would still spin, but there was no movement.

So, I picked up the chassis and went back to the room. I got there just in time to witness this:

Now, that's entertainment. Still, rules are rules and the guys and gals know they're not supposed to smoke. Back to the suitcase he had to go.

I'd needed an extra long section of drive shaft to bridge the distance between the transmission and transfer case. So, I put two Axial axles together with some brass tubing inside the plastic shaft and epoxied it all together. I reckon I discounted the amount of torque being sent to the transfer case. That was a mistake. It spun in two within 10 minutes with far less weight than the finished vehicle should have.

I've since replaced that shaft with a custom-made one in steel. It won't break again.

Stay tuned.

 

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In our last episode, the battery and radio gear had been installed and we'd taken a test drive only to spin a makeshift drive shaft.

Well, we got home from the university visit and the figures set about the task of preparing the body for paint.

First up, all the accessories and pieces of body armor that had been built had to be coated. Everything got hit with some 320 grit sandpaper to make sure it was all nice and smooth. Next, we washed it all. Then, we got to spraying.

Here's Old Guy for some commentary:

Next, we sanded the body with progressively finer grit papers beginning with 200 and ending with 400. The outside of the body got taped up and masked so the interior could get a shot of black. I use regular old rattle can paint from the auto parts store. The black on the inside is designed for bumpers, so it's got a bit of texture to it.

Here's one of the guys working on the tape job...

Of course, the spraying didn't take very long. I believe he was a bit upset at the next step...

What 'cha gonna do???

Once completely dried, the inside had to be taped up so color could go on the body. I have no paint booth, so I choose a nice calm day and set my work up in full sun. Spray paint likes sun and open spaces. The paint will "flash" off nicely outside and the warm sun helps get drying started. As long as there's no breeze, there's little chance of trash blowing onto the paint. Be careful not to leave it out too long, though. Bugs seem to be attracted to drying paint and they're a pain to sand out.

After the color, three coats of clear were applied. That will offer a little protection to the top coat.

When everything was dry, we all settled in to admire our handiwork.

Until next time, all...thank you for watching.

 

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Try though I did, I couldn't get that sorry bunch to help me with the following, so I had to go it alone.

The steering wheel was pretty "plain" looking. I contemplated making a new one, but scrapped that idea when I tried the following and really liked the way it looked.

I took some OD colored heavy nylon twine and simply wrapped it around the "business" part of the wheel. It was finished off with a light coat of superglue.

Here's the result:

And, of course, we can't have a restoration of an old rig like this without some leather on the seats, right? So, here we go, leather seats:

(I know, I know...smart alex...)

Now that there's been some progress, maybe I can get that no-count lot of 1:6 wonders to help me a bit.

 

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I've always wanted an RC vehicle that had an RC animated driver as well. I figured this was as good a time as any.

Despite our boy's protests, I removed his head (not a simple "pop-off-and-on" type. I cut a plate from his back using my trusty Dremel.

From there, I could access the slotted tabs that held the head on. With his head off, I ground out the tabs, thereby making space for a microservo. In the above photo, you can see how I altered his neck post to fit a circular servo horn.

Below, you can see how the servo fits in the chest cavity. It's not pretty, but I used hot-melt glue because of it's quick drying properties and the fact that I had to get the servo in the correct place in one shot. The glue gave me a little wiggle room, but didn't take two hours to set up.

The hole in the middle of the horn is what attaches it to the servo and it's splined. I was hoping for a friction fit and it worked. Still, his head comes off pretty easily, so I might be forced to make further alterations.

My apologies for the sloppy looking work, but it's going to be covered up by clothing anyway, so what the hell...

And, then he found the servo cord... It wasn't pretty.

Our boy was raising so much hell, I just put him in a drawer for a while to cool down some. When I went back to get him, he'd calmed a bit and was far more rational.

Here you can see the top of the servo in relation to where his head will be.

And, this is how the surgery turned out:

he moves.AVI - YouTube







I explained to him that he'd be drivng the Jeep all the time, hence the modifications.

:lol:lol I, somehow, don't believe him...

 

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Good morning, all.

I reckon it's about time I wrapped up this build. I've been working on it on-and-off for several month's now, but about three weeks ago, got down to cases.


I didn't like the original cage I'd build for it, so I pulled it apart and remade it. I'm still not much with a torch, but the newer incarnation looks a little better. It probably won't hold up in a "horrendous crash" as they used to say on The Dukes Of Hazard, but it'll do for what I need.

There are a bunch of little bits that have been added. See for yourselves. Roll the pix:



The toys wanted some non-skid texture on the hood, fenders and door steps, so I accommodated them. It's actually some high-quality skateboard deck texture cut to fit. It comes in sheets, so really easy to work with.





And, how about a real mirror for that rear view. I found some at Hobby Lobby that were just right.



Found the lantern at HL, too.





Here's an interesting tidbit. I really wanted some retro looking tail light lens, but something a little different. So, I heisted a couple of peppers from a string of old red-pepper lights we got from somewhere and cut the tips off them. If I cut them at the correct spot, they fit just right inside the light bezel on the factory body molding. I'd already drilled a hole inside the light bezel areas and installed some LED bulbs. The pepper tips fit over the LEDs and inside the bezels so sweet... Turned out rather art deco looking.



In the reflector bezels, I put some reflector material. If one uses a regular old paper hole-punch to pop some holes in a strip of reflective tape, the part that pops out fits inside the bezel perfectly. Too easy...



And, here's a top view:




I believe I'll turn it over to Old Guy to be the tour guide for a while.





















































Well, that about does it. I'm going to try and toss a video out there since I recently took the Jeep and a camera on a bit of a trail ride.

I'm very pleased with all the torque. No problem pulling a pretty steep grade.

Oh yeah, meant to write about it earlier... I had to replace the steering servo. That piece of junk I used for a place holder during the build just wouldn't cut it. It was replaced with a Savox sporting about 300 oz. of torque. Now the steering's nice and true.

The Jeep is fairly devoid of meaningful articulation, though. It's rather like a real Willys, but I'd still like a little something more. Perhaps those leaf springs will soften up some with use.

Thanks for looking all. Feel free to comment, complain, criticize, grouse, demean or whatever...

 

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As I strive to be a man of my word, here's a video of the maiden run of the Willy's. It was never really designed as a crawler, so nothing strenuous. Just a nice easy trail run.

Put your headphones and your seatbelts on...

RC one sixth scale Willys Jeep - with some attitude. - YouTube