Lee's first SCX24 build

[discgolferlee]

I have been in and out of crawling since 2007 and rc for around 25 years from racing to crawling to bashing. long time forum member on here but stuck to mostly 1/10 scale for crawling. My son wants a power wagon scx24 for xmas so I decided i might venture into the tiny trucks world a bit and build myself one to go along with his soon to be power wagon. I wanted to build something from ground up rather than buying a scx24 and basically replacing everything. I saw the Meus Racing axles on youtube from cape crawlers and thought they look pretty nice and included alot of things most people ended up bolting on for weight etc. I decided to order those and ended up ordering a few more parts from there to start my build. I had not seen any builds with the lcg chassis they sell.
Ordered the chassis, axles, skid, brass servo mount and the transmission.
Those parts can be found here
https://www.meusracing.com/collections/axial-scx24

Wheels and tires I ended up ordering the injora beadlock wheels and 1.0 all terrain crawler tires in 58mm. I thought the tires seemed like a good mix of semi aggressive/still real scale looking and not super duper tall. I would like to try out the pins tires at some point too.
Wheels- https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09JCBMRFG?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1

Tires- https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B128PLP6?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

Shocks will be probably be a buy a few sets and try out kinda thing but my first set I ordered were the Injora 39mm
Shocks- https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BB18H88P?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1

After asking around a facebook group the NSDRC RS100 servo was highly recomended and I have not used that brand before so i decided to give it a shot. I really liked the red special edition as I have a little red theme going.

Servo- https://www.amainhobbies.com/no-superior-designs-rc-rs100-limited-edition-micro-servo-high-voltage-red-nsd-msrvor/p1503624

For the esc and motor combo I am going to order the furitek torpedo combo which comes with the cedar motor and mount and the python pro esc. I really liked the built in bluetooth feature of the python vs having to hook up an additional module to program. I have not ordered this yet as it's out of stock everywhere.

Motor and Esc Combo- https://www.furitekusa.com/collections/scx24-electronics/products/furitek-torpedo-brushless-power-system-for-axial-scx24

Batteries- I am unsure on which batteries to get as I would like to build this out and see what kind of room I have for a battery. Open to suggestions on what packs people are having success with.

For a body I am going to try out the cliffhanger style body and see how it fits. The Meus racing site shows the chassis with this body mounted so I am assuming it fits well. I actually let my curiosty get the best of me and was buying some stuff on Temu for my son and found a knock-off on there on special for less than 8 bucks. figured I would order it and see how bad it was.... well it seems they are over 14 bucks now
Body - https://www.temu.com/scx24-clear-body-shell-1-24-rc-crawler-plastic-rc-car-shell-for-axial-1-24-rc-crawler-scx24-axi90081-axi00004-diy-scx24-upgrades-accessories-scx24-plastic-clear-body-shell-axi00004-g-601099532487244.html?top_gallery_url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg.kwcdn.com%2Fproduct%2FFancyalgo%2FVirtualModelMatting%2Fc33527d997dacf187126b04f6ad33346.jpg&spec_gallery_id=2048009110&refer_page_sn=10009&refer_source=0&freesia_scene=2&_oak_freesia_scene=2&_oak_rec_ext_1=MTQ0Mw&search_key=scx24%20body&refer_page_el_sn=200049&_x_channel_scene=spike&_x_channel_src=1&_x_msgid=211-20231201-17-B-672731454870704128-427-b2g2VbXp&_x_src=mail&_x_sessn_id=ba7cn52bdb&refer_page_name=search_result&refer_page_id=10009_1702478348507_z6braniah7

more to come soon.

 

[discgolferlee]

I should have got some pics during assembly but I wasn't really planning on documenting a build. The nice thing about the 1/24 scale I am finding is working on them takes up a lot less room. Usually work on my table in the basement but I was able to set up a tv tray in the living room and build while "watching" a movie with my lady hahaha.

I decided on this chassis because it came with links, driveshafts, rock sliders and magnetic body mount. Figured it might be easier and cheaper than trying to piece together all those things seperately. Also I liked the angled skid design. ** note it does not come with an actual skid so I ordered one with it.**

It would have been great if it came with any form of instructions but it went together pretty easy and came with a TON of extra screws which is always a bonus. The links are pretty beefy and impressed me with metal pivot balls included. I am unsure if I will use the included battery mount or design and print something later but it was nice that the rails had slots for the battery mount included.

 

[discgolferlee]

Wheels, foams and tires.. or no foams but TPU inserts instead.
I have never used tpu inserts but figured I would give it a shot since I am very familiar with tpu printing. I got into FPV drones the last couple years and did a LOT of TPU printing from that.

I designed a few options but ended up deciding I liked the feel of the simplest design of them all.

Here are a few designs that I came up with but didn't end up using. at least not yet.

I ended up printing all of them but liked the feel of this simple one the best. I got them all mounted up last night and am pleased with the way they feel as well as the look of the wheels and tires. I am really enjoying this so far.

Also a little mock upish of body and wheels

 

[surfishjoe]

Following- interested in converting my og scx24 into a lcg version like this.

 

[discgolferlee]

Following- interested in converting my og scx24 into a lcg version like this.

I am interested to see if it turns out like I picture in my head haha. waiting on axles to arrive still and then I will post some pics up but they look pretty nice from what I have seen online.

 

[discgolferlee]

Well the holidays came and kept me busy but got more parts in and got some progress in.
Meus Racing axles came in and they are very nice quality. metals all feel nice quality and were assembled nice even with a good amount of grease. First step was removing gears to install the underdrive gears in rear. I used my vanquish grease on the new gears and decided to clean out the grease on front axle and also apply the vanquish grease I like to use. They were well greased from the factory so that is nice to know for anyone interested. The only tricky part is getting the front axles back in to seat in the axle gear. They are multijointed so it made it a little tricky to slide them in and rotate them so the flat spots on axle shafts fit into the diff gear. My best advice is to take them out fo the front knuckles to accomplish this. It wasn't terrible by any means but not as easy as a normal cvd style is. The joints on the front axles seems very beefy and well made especially for tiny truck parts.

 

[discgolferlee]

A note on servo mounting.
I didn't notice somehow that the servo mount IS included with axles and I ordered the Meus Racing brass servo mount when I ordered my chassis.
https://www.meusracing.com/collections/axial-scx24?variant=41353403302025
*** This mount will not fit the Meus axles*** I am guessing it is made tofit stock scx24 axles. The hole spacing was off to fit Meus axles. So Installed the one included with axles with no issues and it fit great.
I will try and install the brass one on my son's stock power wagon scx24 he got for christmas to check fitment on stock axles.
I got the included mount and my Nsdrc Rs100 micro special edition in red installed and looking sharp.

 

[discgolferlee]

now to mount axles up to chassis.
1 quick tip I can give on this chassis is that be mindful of the rod ends. I didn't pay attention I guess because they all looked the same when I built the links, but they actually include some rod ends with built in hex shape and some that are totally smooth.

I got the links mounted up and was having a lot of binding on the links to skid plate. I was frustrated and about to look at other chassis or at least some other link options with a little bend or thinner ends when I noticed on the website right in front of my face they kinda show you to use smooth rod ends on lower link skid plate connection point. So after swapping link ends around I finally got a free moving chassis with smooth flex and no binding.

 

[discgolferlee]

The only real problem I had with the chassis was the servo would hit the front cross brace before full compression of front axle. I will say some instructions for this chassis build would have been nice as it came with none. I assume the front gets a brace but I ended up removing it and will probably design and 3d print some sort of brace that bolts on above the chassis brace to give full servo clearance. Not sure how often if at all the whole front axle suspenion will compress both sides at once but I didn't want anything hitting. The chassis does not feel weak with the brace removed as the body mount brace is pretty sturdy but I may 3d print something like shown in pic below.

The axles mounted up great with the chassis and the injora shocks actually fit pretty good.

I ordered a furitek torpedo combo over the weekend with the python pro esc and cedar motor. The meus transmission I orded sadly has some slop in the spur gear. I will tear it down and see if I can shim it or something and if not I will need to shop for a transmission. Once I get that sorted and the furitek combo comes in I can get that stuff mounted up and figure out where I am going to mount my esc, battery and RX. I think the battery tray might be a little close to the cedar motor once installed so I may end up mounting battery to one of the metal rock sliders but we will see.
https://www.furitekusa.com/collections/scx24-motors-accessories/products/furitek-torpedo-brushless-power-system-for-axial-scx24

for a radio and RX I will be using my brand new Radiomaster MT12 and the tiny ER3C-i expressLRS receiver. This thing is pretty small!
https://www.radiomasterrc.com/products/er3c-i-2-4ghz-elrs-pwm-receiver

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[JatoTheRipper]

That's a nice build. Looks as expensive as a 1/10th scale!

 

[Gramps]

It will be real interesting to see how the no-foams work. Sometimes simple is better.

 

[discgolferlee]

That's a nice build. Looks as expensive as a 1/10th scale!

It certainly isn't "cheap" especially splurging on the furitek brushless combo but I decided to not "cheap out" on this. I found myself looking at cheaper electronics and few other items but sometimes it ends up being cheaper to just spend the money upfront rather than going cheap and breaking or replacing the cheap if that makes sense. I also am thining about durability factor.

 

[hnoroian]

Great selection of components.

 

[surfishjoe]

Actually the price of the meus kit isn’t bad when you compare it to some other options and it comes with a lot of neat stuff. Is the included servo mount the adjustable variety? That’s weird the servo interferes with the crossmember usually the adjustable servo mounts can clear such obstacles.

 

[discgolferlee]

Actually the price of the meus kit isn’t bad when you compare it to some other options and it comes with a lot of neat stuff. Is the included servo mount the adjustable variety? That’s weird the servo interferes with the crossmember usually the adjustable servo mounts can clear such obstacles.

Yeah after yesterday I started adding things up and and it's not as bad as it seems. The brushless kit is quite expensive but not much for options out there. The Meus chassis kit comes with all the links and stuff so not a bad deal considering some chassis kits out there selling for 100 bucks without links. The links are really beefy and nice quality too. Yes the servo mount has 4 positions I believe to slide the servo forward and back so I could probably adjust it and get it to clear but for steering linkage lining up I like it where it sits. It does not feel weak or anything without the crossbrace and looking at pics on website maybe it's not supposed to go there per design as they show a front bumper mounted up there that does not span across.