Building; Mud Patrol

[Verdion]

Oke, first, I wanted to build a car that could drag race in mud or sand. this build totally self made, my own design chassis and car set-up. I had the inspiration from the early 1980's Mud racing championship. Those days we watched Eurosport for the monstertrucks and the Mud Bog racing! Early 80's Champions were Tom Martin and Greg Stone ie. These were the drivers of the famous car called Mud Patrol!
USHRA Mud Bog Racing Pittsburgh Civic Arena 2/2 - YouTube
Back in the days, this was our favoured car.

Anno 2013, i couldnt find anything rc related to this car.. or any mud-racers... till now, these FoFF's are quite simular, but a lot shorter. My thoughts were why not make a mud racer?? And there was my goal: Build a Mud/Sand racer like the Mud Patrol from the 80's!!

Build starts around half way of Januari 2013.

So first thing to do is make some chassis to build on. The prototype is on this forum elsewhere, but here are some pictures..
Springs and shocks

The tires to get power transferred to traction. Formula's up front, Panthers on the rear wheels.

Here is the chassis i designed on the computer. This is the prototype to build on. As you see, it is quite long! I start with a wheelbase of 19,7inch! At the point of typing this thread i realized it is just about 2 inches too much :ror:. This will be better with version 2.0 of the chassis.

So, a very long chassis, some ax-10 axles and gearbox. New 65mm alu shocks, new tires. Rest was in order at that time.
spur on 66 or 80, not sure yet. pinion on a 18 or 25.
Mamba max esc with a 5700kv motor on it with a 3s lipo.

Few weeks later

Trying to get the axles and the links in the right positions.

This way i got an idea where to put the holes to mount everything on. Meanwhile as i was waiting on some things to arive i started to cut out the body.
Here you can see what was left from an original Ford body."thumbsup"

Masking tape on the windows and on the body like this:

And after the spraycans did their job i had this as a result:

But when i pealed the survace cover from the outside i saw it was a mess.. i screwd this up.. and this body is everything but cheap:x! I tried all kinds of stuff to get the paint removed from the body, but it was of no use at all...
Only one thing i could do .... repaint it on the outside..

Hope you guys have fun reading this build thread. Stay tuned!
To be continued...

Greetz, Verdion

 

[stelerzman]

Re: Mud Patrol

This will be very interesting. I'll be watching.:mrgreen:
Have you figured out the turning radius, 13'??? Just messing.
I really suggest you move the motor/trans up front where you have the wood block or box, that would put more weight forward and help keep the front end down on launch. I feel it will just wheelie and probably flip over backwards.
After you get that worked out then get another AX10 trans and split the difference to the rear axle. I would recommend MIP's .


Now, go gettem."thumbsup"

 

[M1tch]

Re: Mud Patrol

That looks awesome. If i had the time I might consider building something like that. Maybe one day.

 

[Verdion]

@stelerzman, Not sure where this thing is going to be honoust. I only build the car in my head for now. Got some stuff on paper and for the rest ill make it when i progress.
Check my last build and you have an idea what to expect:mrgreen:
http://www.rccrawler.com/forum/1-9-scale-rigs/399063-building-car-trailer-my-honcho.html#post3882707

Next thing in line was the bottom or base plate. Made this from aluminium like the chassis parts. Some holes in there for mounting and putting cables through.

With this in place i started on the driveshafts. This is one of the biggest challenges i had. The driveshaft for the rear axle was pretty easy. Just bought some extra long aluminium shafts. The real problem was the front shaft. It should have a length of 7.2inch. And they arent for sale..:roll:.
First attempt was something like this:

Brilliant idea, no? Well, it is when u can pinpoint the very centre of the axle and put a bearing in the hole.

And that's where the idea had its flaw. I couldn't get it centred enough to get the axle stable at speed. And when i had the motor running i just gave a liltle too much throttle. Result: not centred = BIG fail. Broken outdrive shaft and the other one got bend. Ordered a heavy steal one to replace it. Back to the drawing board.

I decided to make the chassis 2 inch shorter, this would solve a lot of problems.

to be continued..

 

[RMK]

Lookin good! Those mud drag vehicles are nuts to watch. They are too cool. I agree with stelerzman, put the motor and primary transmission further up front for better weight trannsfer and gut everything out of an ax10 except keep the output gear and bearings and use it as a carrier bearing halfway from the primary output and the axle. It removes all of the centering issues you are having and you can still use stock style driveshafts...... Keep it simple and still precise.

 

[stelerzman]

Lookin good! Those mud drag vehicles are nuts to watch. They are too cool. I agree with stelerzman, put the motor and primary transmission further up front for better weight trannsfer and gut everything out of an ax10 except keep the output gear and bearings and use it as a carrier bearing halfway from the primary output and the axle. It removes all of the centering issues you are having and you can still use stock style driveshafts...... Keep it simple and still precise.

Nicely worded."thumbsup"

 

[Verdion]

Lookin good! Those mud drag vehicles are nuts to watch. They are too cool. I agree with stelerzman, put the motor and primary transmission further up front for better weight trannsfer and gut everything out of an ax10 except keep the output gear and bearings and use it as a carrier bearing halfway from the primary output and the axle. It removes all of the centering issues you are having and you can still use stock style driveshafts...... Keep it simple and still precise.

That is indeed a very solid solution for the problem. But where can ik put my battery then? ie; i had in mind to put the long driveshaft next to the battery, so the weight goes to the front. Put a cover on top of that and put the esc and receiver on top of that.
If i use an extra tranny it is pretty space consuming? or wouldnt it? not sure. ill try it out also.
Thnks for the advice, appreciate it!"thumbsup"

Also have the chassis version 2.0 finnished. Will post pics later.

 

[Hounddad]

Only one thing i could do .... repaint it on the outside..

Hope you guys have fun reading this build thread. Stay tuned!
To be continued...

Greetz, Verdion[/QUOTE]


Hope I'm not too late(just found this thread).
Try some denatured alcohol on that paint. With some gentle scrubbing it should come off and you can try again.
Hope this helps.
Otherwise looking forward to seeing this complete.

 

[RMK]

You can still run the center driveshaft off center to make space for the battery. I would install both transmissions as far to the side as it will fit. It would be very similar to the setup you currently have, you would just be running another tranny instead of that aluminum carrier that you currently have. If there still isn't enought space to allow the battery to lay flat, I would put it on its side. I don't know what size of battery you are running, but most are wider than tall....

That is indeed a very solid solution for the problem. But where can ik put my battery then? ie; i had in mind to put the long driveshaft next to the battery, so the weight goes to the front. Put a cover on top of that and put the esc and receiver on top of that.
If i use an extra tranny it is pretty space consuming? or wouldnt it? not sure. ill try it out also.
Thnks for the advice, appreciate it!"thumbsup"

Also have the chassis version 2.0 finnished. Will post pics later.

 

[stelerzman]

You can still run the center driveshaft off center to make space for the battery. I would install both transmissions as far to the side as it will fit. It would be very similar to the setup you currently have, you would just be running another tranny instead of that aluminum carrier that you currently have. If there still isn't enought space to allow the battery to lay flat, I would put it on its side. I don't know what size of battery you are running, but most are wider than tall....

You are right on point, I would take RMK's advise, regardless of what drive shafts you use you can off set them to make room for most any battery. Ie, if you want to run a 5000 Mah battery and it's too wide you can install it on it's side.
My suggestion is to map out the battery location you intend to use and then see where the drive shafts and trannys line up. This should help you make room for both.
Now, what is the width of your chassis? This will help us figure out what you dealing with.

 

[Verdion]

The width of the chassis is 80mm. Its the same like an ax-10.
i have a feeling the upfront tranny will be to high for the cars hood. Need to measure that still.
But nonetheless ill give it a try.:thumbup:
I also have another solution at hand if this isnt ginna fit what im looking for.

greetz from holland

 

[Verdion]

I finished the drawings on the new chassis, baseplate and some other metal parts. Next post will show how i have it in mind and there will be also the solution for the two trannies, or in this case a very long driveshaft problem i had/have.

Till the metal is done, i'm back on the body again. And after i tried some ways to get the paint out of the body i repainted it on the outside. (Sorry hounddad, i read your reply too late)
Anyway, the result is much better, not perfect, but it will have to do.
Also i made some stickers to give it a higher "WOW" factor!8)

And mounted it on the chassis version1. Here u get a lil bit of an idea how its gonna be like!

The wheels wich will hold the rubber have arrived. Very much what i was looking for, except i have to buy another package. There are 4 pieces in 1 package, but the is 2 with and 2 w/out a hex in the centre... Didnt notice these wheels were for a 2 wheel drive car:roll:.

Tomorrow i get the metal and will be getting it together hopefully.
cya

 

[stelerzman]

Looking good, I'm wondering why your using bent lower links?

 

[evan03]

Straight or bent doesn't matter really

 

[grob23]

I'm not sold on all these FOFF rigs, they don't seem to be too different than a crawler with a big ass brushless system and a set of paddles. But this rig on the other hand... this rig looks pretty awesome!

 

[evan03]

Seems most the foff rigs even if crawler based have more tuning into them then just a bug jazz motor. Custom links and such , a lot of scale crawlers haven't a clue. The guys here are difrenr

And this rig deserves its own forum

 

[M1tch]

+1

Quite a few of the recent builds have been really good with custom chassis and parts. The work put into them makes them unique.


Oh and my build must be the slowest ever. Still not run again due to rain.

 

[Verdion]

Thanx for the nice replies guys!:thumbup:
@stelerzman. These are not the links im gonna use. This is still proto-setup.
I made Custom links to fit on there.

greetz from holland

 

[904crawler]

I remember the the mud patrol from way back when

 

[stelerzman]

Thanx for the nice replies guys!:thumbup:
@stelerzman. These are not the links im gonna use. This is still proto-setup.
I made Custom links to fit on there.

greetz from holland

That's what I thought."thumbsup"
How much are you going to cut out of the chassis to shorten it?