A B-17 called Sgt Rock

[Mriswith]

With Axial's B-17 body release I just had to do it. After seeing all the tube work being done here I had to try my hand at doing that too. My first attempt ended being more of an unlimited desert buggy. I'm still trying to figure that one out. Must be the way I plan these things out or rather NOT planning these things out. So I threw that on the shelf and I plan to park my Dakota on it just to see how tough it really is. It holds my weight no problem.

Anyhoo, The rough sketch calls for TLT axles, Pede trans and some Dirt Hawgs I have laying around and a cutting board chassis plate. The suspension and trans mount to the board and the chassis mounts to it. I learned that on my buggy. Talk about building a ship in bottle. The tube work is built to the body but the way it's turning out I may not run body half the time. It's only my second attempt at a chassis but I like it naked. I like my first one too but it just too top heavy on narrow TLT axles

First day's work

Next day in mock up

The I got around to bed rails but I've stop there. I'm not sure which direction to go.

And mocked up again with the body

I turned down the bed rails because I need options. I'm looking at 3 of them right now.
1 - Leave it as it is with the bed intact and just finish it up
2 - Cut out the bed and tail gate, throw in a rollbar with braces running all the way back and mount a spare tire pre runnerish
3 - Cut the whole bed off and do a flat bed truggy kind of thing.

One thing I intend to do replace the bumpers. I want to braze up some plate and replace the lexan bumpers with some similar but functional. It depends on which direction I go but for now I'm thinking about just coping the molded ones.

 

[cammok5]

nice looking truck so far. i thought you were going to a scale version of sgt. rock from "trucks"

 

[broncoboy]

me too, that truck was so bad @$$, too bad stacey left the show before he could finish it...

 

[rckjeep]

dye those wheels black and you'll have a nice rig.

 

[JavelinSST390]

I knew that eventually someone would do this. I've been wanting to, but with some TXT/Jugg axles and leaf springs. "Sgt. Rock" is one of the baddest trucks i ever saw, what I'd call a monster truck for the street. (or anywhere else you might want to go) Yours looks great. Personally, I would cut out the bed and maybe make a styrene inner bed? But I like the idea of just cuttin ghte bed out and adding some rollcage braces, too. More of a "monster truck/tuff truck" feel.

BTW, your tube chassis is just AWESOME! I wish I had the stuff to build things like that, I've been wanting a tube Monster-truck style chassis since forever ago.

me too, that truck was so bad @$$, too bad stacey left the show before he could finish it...

You can see more of it. He has a new show on one of the ESPNS called Gearz. He does more than just trucks now. One project is putting a 400HP Ford V-8 into a Miata.

BTW, The real Sgt. Rock has twin, fake 50mm Machine guns mounted in the bed on a turret now. And they fire...:twisted:

 

[Mriswith]

I had originally planned to make this a bit more scale to Stacey David's truck. I'm not big on leaf springs so that had to go. I may still end up with exhaust stacks behind the cab using 1/4 inch brakeline and I know about the twin .50's in the bed (I've got a few Gearz episodes DVR'd)...

... but I don't want them here. They are cool but why spend time on something that I will rip off most everytime I run it. I do plan on flogging this rig hard. This is more of a " well, this is what I'd do different " kind of truck.

To keep it scale to the original project truck I should leave the bed alone. Well, drop the bead lower and maybe use some styrene to fill. But since I'm on the fence about doing the exhaust stacks and no plan to fab up some .50 cals in the bed it looks pretty plain in back. There are so many pics on here of the B-17 that I'm leaning towards modded the bed.

 

[karlos]

Why not cut off the plastic bed and fab one similar to the 1:1 above. You already have a good start with the way the top rails are set up.

 

[Mriswith]

Decided on the roll bar and spare tire mount, prerunner style. I cut out the bed and tailgate but left the rear bumper to keep the body tied together. The rear tire keeps the back of the body locked down and the upper bed rails keep it lined up since they are pocketed inside the body.

bare chassis

with body

I've got it a little farther along than shown here but once I get the pics uploaded I'll post them. I've added some more tube to the bed.

 

[4u2nv]

This truck needs some All T's

 

[Mriswith]

This truck needs some All T's

Not with TLT axles. The front axle's already making noises with the Dirt Hawgs getting bound up on my garage rock pile. Once I run out of TLT parts I may throw some Scorpion axles under it with All-T's and and fab up a bed with larger fenders to match. Right now the Dirt Hawgs fit the wheel wells and work well for me.

her'es some pictures. It's not finished but the bodies painted, mounted and it runs.

Playing on my rocks

It's got good balance but poor ground clearance. It runs exactly like I expected so I'm happy with the performance. It's a little top heave but not as bad as I expected. Time to edit up the video.

 

[rcjeepbuilder]

very cool truck it would lool sick with some boggers .are the 2.2s out yet?

 

[jesse096]

Man that looks killer! I've been waiting to see Stacy finish the SGT Rock build, but he got booted before he could...

-Jesse

 

[Mriswith]

Got a new pair of shoes

Took it to run with some local rigs and on the way there I picked some new rims. I also got around to finishing up the graphics. The main paint color looks grey in these pics but it's a heavy layer of pearl silver backed with white and then black. If I'd been thinking clearly I'd have added a light layer of pearl green before the white for a greenish tint to the silver. The chassis is either gonna be a flat black or zinc chromate once I'm done using the torch on it. For those who don't know zinc chromate is the funky yellow/green primer you sometimes see on airplanes.

This is pretty close to what I think should have been done on the real Sgt Rock. The real deal seems only good for the mud pit and I'm a baja guy at heart.

I've still got some things I want to do to it. I'll probably be redoing the whole suspension. It works the same as my FJ 4-Link so I'm happy with that but I need to gain some ground clearance. I was getting hung up quite a bit but no more than my old FJ that I was running with. But in their defense the 2 scalers were trying to keep up with a pair of Scorpions, my original Elvis WK and another modded WK. We were running in a bed of watermelon sized and bigger rocks along the river. The scorpions amd WK had major problems too so I figured it performed pretty well.

 

[gtxracer]

Looks awesome, like an old school power wagon. Love the tube work.

 

[Mriswith]

Spent time and cut the belly off. I wasn't too crazy about the way the cutting board/suspension link turned out. So I broke out the torch and redid it. It articulates the same but there is more ground clearance so it just works better. The trans sits a bit lower by almost half an inch and that helps the CG and drive line angles.

Before ...

... and After

Now here's a few better shots of the armor plated belly.

The rig might have worked a tad better with the beadlocked Geos because they are a hair taller than the Prolines but I tested it with the prolines to compare with my first test. It's a major improvement.

 

[jesse096]

That looks awesome man!

-Jesse

 

[dieselfuel]

very good looking rig man! i really dig the amount of work youve got into it.

 

[Mriswith]

Thanks for the compliments. I'm like a kid with his favorite toy, on crack, just hit the lotto and is dating 4 porn stars. I haven't touched my Scorpion or my WK thats blown apart on the work bench. In fact I think I may have lost some pieces because I keep shoving it around to make room for this one.


Mounted up the beadlocks for some runs to compare against the prolines. I had to drill some holes to get them to working the way I wanted.

I decided to make some body panels since I seem usually run with out the body. My wife came across some 1/8 inch cutting board so I used that for the panels. I'm planning on the chassis being black so I'm gonna try and use some automotive rattle can dye and match the panels.

Here's some recent test footage on my test range. I had originally named this because I was gonna do my version of the real one. Now I think the name is lacking. Once I get all the scale touches done and if it keeps performing like this as a scale truck, He's getting a commision. I like the sound of General.

 

[chaman]

Nice rig and nice song!

 

[701 Technique]

Sgt. rock slaughter

very nice build. i like the axial beadlocks on their, they look great with that body. also, cutting out that bed and mounting that tire looks badass. I havent had much time for crawlin, this semester ends in 6 weeks so i am busy, but i took the king to a friends home course on sunday and beat it forwards and backwards (and it was not easy). i kept up with an axial scorpion pretty well. keep up the good work, and let me know if you ever want to let this rig go!