Maxxmasher's 6x6 MAN Camper Build!

[MAXXMASHER]

Sure enough, I got my packages today! I quickly cut out the end panel, and glued it into place. I also got the last two front panels glued. After making sure they were sufficiently dried, I tended to the task of applying copious amounts of body putty to all the seams. I always figure more is better, as it can always be sanded away.

Hopefully, the paint will fly very soon. I've got the next two days off, so this should be a reality shortly. Although, the more pictures I look at, the more details I want to add. Already thinking it should have an air conditioning unit on the top towards the back. I also may add some roll cage protection and a ladder somewhere, too. It also seems to need fuel tanks. I have some from another rig build, but I may just construct some rectangular ones to better suit the lines of this vehicle. Still lots of possibilities....

I also got my little stash of scale accessories in today's mail as well. Some of them are pretty cool, and there's a lot of stuff included for a mere $15.

Speaking of accessories, they are starting to add up in the weight department, so I contacted Fungi to see if he still had any dual motor plates around. Eureka! He came through once again! I quickly sent him some funds, and he will send me the plate I need. Two 100T DDT Predator motors supplied by Danally should do the job!

I really like the looks of this ladder and the roof rack. The air unit looks pretty cool, too.

The lines of this truck's roll cage are pretty bad ass....

A ton of little goodies!

Had to place a few to see how they'd look.

Front panels in place. The angled section wasn't as tricky as I thought it would be. Shaping the joints with a sanding wheel made it easier.

Putty. Putty everywhere.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[MAXXMASHER]

Well, I didn't get around to doing any painting yet. It took awhile to sand everything. Just as I was about done, I put a little too much pressure while sanding away, and one of the seams cracked. Not the whole way, just a little, and enough that it would be seen after paint. So, i reinforced the seam with some glue, and re-puttied it. Another night of drying, and I re-sanded it. I also gave every seam a shot of extra glue on the underside. I started the sanding process with 60 grit sandpaper to speed things along, and eventually worked my way up to 400 grit over the whole box section. Pretty smooth now.

I then turned my attention to adding some protection, using 1/4" hollow tube as roll protection. Really looking great now. I was pleased to get the two bends near perfect the first time using a few passes from a torch and bending freehand until it looked right. Then came the fun part. Cutting and notching twelve little support pieces was a pain in the ass! Not to mention I probably lost three or more when upon cutting them, they flew into the abyss of my basement. I also added six cross members for structural integrity.

Next up will be to add an air unit on the top, which shouldn't be too bad after this project. I'm also thinking of doing a pseudo door on the rear, and perhaps one on each side. This Plastruct building is getting addicting!

Thought I had it almost done....

Whoops!

More putty....arrggggg!

Good thing I have a lot of clamps.

I like it!

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[MAXXMASHER]

Another duplicate? C'mon...

 

[MAXXMASHER]

Duplicate post....

 

[MAXXMASHER]

Had to work a little extra tonight, so I didn't get home until almost 2am. That still didn't deter me from doing a little work on the rig. This little task of making an air unit for the rear proved to be a little challenging. Not only did it involve cutting ten separate pieces, but I also had to put an angle on twelve of the edges to get it all to sit just right. Even still, the unit is going to need a little trimming with a knife, a fair amount of putty, and a lot of sanding to get it to look just right! After all of that, I will add some very thin strips to give it the right look before attaching it to the roof. A simple little project, but it took me almost two hours!

A lot of cutting....

Looks pretty rough now, but it's amazing what can be cleaned up with putty and sandpaper!

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[MAXXMASHER]

After two night's work, some trimming, lots of putty & sanding, the air unit is done. I added some detail strips to it, and glued it into place. For some reason, I felt it needed some protection, so I added some tube sections around it. The straight section was pretty easy, but the bent sections over top of it took quite a bit of fiddling around to get right. At least this stuff is easy to work with. A little heat, and what was bent too far can be bent back a hair or two till its looking good.

I was considering adding a door to each side, but now I'm not too sure about it. Just gluing panels to the sides doesn't look quite right. I was thinking about just going some black trim pieces to the sides, but it seems like it is getting too busy. Just not sure right now. Maybe I'll just add some storage compartments along the bottom of the box, or not. Or both. Undetermined....

Really came out pretty smooth. It'll all look better with some paint.

A little detail.

Protection in place.

Full body shot. I can't wait to get some paint on the box and add the graphics! I'm loving the scratch building aspect of this project so much. Almost time to start fiddling with some electronics. That will be a separate project in itself.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[MAXXMASHER]

I was happy to see my dual motor plate in the mail earlier today. I was fearful that it might not fit between the existing frame rails & that I would have to do some crazy modifications to get it to work. Those fears were unfounded as it turned out. It did interfere with the cab sitting flush to the frame however, so I did have to do a little cutting at the rear to get it right. No big deal, because it is all hidden.

The time consuming part was the actual mounting and operation of the motors. When I originally got the motors from Danally, he only had one metal pinion gear on hand, so he pressed it on one of the 100T units as I asked. At the time, a dual setup was not in the cards. Now, I was tasked with the removal of that pinion without damaging the delicate motor. I finally managed that. I proceeded to put on two matching plastic pinions, of course, and wanted ones with a pretty low tooth count. The problem was, One set of slots for a motor was a bit too parallel to the spur gear, and it seemed that it wouldn't reach it close enough to get a good mesh. I finally solved this by selecting some larger tooth count pinions and eventually got the mesh I so desired. I also took the time glue the worthless slippers in place, too. I always have done this with no problems.

After all that messing around, it was on to the task of wiring these little babies up properly. A negative lead to one motor, a jumper from positive to the negative of the other motor, & then a positive lead from that motor. Seems simple enough. Till I started thinking about the fact that they need to spin in opposite directions. I kept looking at the motor terminals, trying to work it out in my head. I soldered all the leads in place. I temporarily put a Losi plug on it and (crossing my fingers) slowly plugged it into a 3.7V lipo. If they did not spin correctly, it could be devastation. Fighting each other, could chew up all the gears, or worse come to a standstill and mess up a motor....

And the heavens sang! Eureka! It all worked in perfect harmony! Everything sounded nice and smooth! It all took so long, though. After that was done, I soldered on some better wire with plenty of length to reach the distant ESC and then some. Just a start of the wiring adventure to come....

A really nice looking unit....

The soldering completed....

Mounted to the chassis.

Just a minor problem....

Problem solved...

That's better!

I'm so glad I decided to make all the body components easily removable. Makes things a lot easier when modifications need to be done!

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[MAXXMASHER]

Had the last two days off, and after getting the motors installed, I pushed on full steam ahead and pulled out all the electronics for the rig project. My first step was binding, then on to calibration, & then servo set up. So far, so good. Then things got interesting. I knew the default for the esc was brushless mode, so changes had to be made. Went to plug in my Castle field card to the MicroX esc, and the card flashed all over like a Christmas tree! Never had that happen before. What does this mean? Turns out I've had this card since they came out and it needs an upgrade before it can talk to the esc. So, I pull open my little parts bin drawer labeled Castle link. Not there! Look in my file cabinet under Castle manuals. Not there! Searched & searched. Nothing!! Crap! Without that little gadget, I can't even do the upgrade with the laptop. Time to give up for now and move on.

I then turned my attention to the light kit. I knew this would be a major task for sure. Put one of these in my 1/10th scale 6x6, and it wasn't too bad. Well, the instructions for this kit are not super clear, and there is a lot less space to work in on this rig, so it was a challenge to get it all right. Another fun quirk was the size of the hole required to get the bezels to sit just right. The hole size is somewhere between two of the many drill bits I own. I ended up drilling a smaller than needed hole for each one, and carefully using a body reamer to get just the right opening size. This took a considerable amount of time and patience to do them all. The it was on to the plugging in of the leads to the control box. Either it was too early in the morning for me to try to understand all this or their instructions were lacking. I had to keep swapping them back and forth until they all worked as they should. I wasn't really concerned with proper wire lengths or neatness at all; just wanted it to all work, and it shows!

Also, I'm not sure if I like the headlights and fog lights or not. They need some kind of enclosure or something to dress them up. The tail lights and blinkers look alright, so that's where it stands now. At least it COULD be a runner!




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[MAXXMASHER]

Took awhile for my photos to transfer to my IPad for some reason, but they are there now. So here's the proof of yesterday's endeavors.....

Headlights look just too generic to me. Gonna have to think of a way to dress them up a bit.

Managed to catch the blinkers in action.

I like the tail lights...

Wiring madness!! This is gonna take considerable effort to clean up. All in due time....

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[MAXXMASHER]

Oh man, did I get some work in tonight! Worked early today, wife went to bed early, and I managed to get five solid hours of rc construction downstairs.

I unplugged the lights on the box unit, masked everything off, and laid down some primer and paint. Yes, the exciting color white is the main theme. Don't worry, I added some pinstripes and a few decals. I still have to cover the links at some point, and there was a plan to paint the chassis. Not sure that I'm still going to do that or not. The whole thing is completely covered.

There is still a jumbled mess of wires hiding underneath, but it is looking good on the outside. Adding to the coolness, I added all the roof accessories permanently and threw a ladder on the back. Should be a runner by next week. There will be a hiatus in the build when I leave for four days at our camp for some fishing and FUN with a dozen friends & relatives. Can't wait for that....
Oh yeah, here's some awesome pics...

Let the fun begin....

Ready for paint.

Speeding up the process.

And I present to you!!

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[MAXXMASHER]

OK, we're gonna need another post. Just posing on my indoor course....

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Fungi]

Looks great Lantz! Awesome work!

 

[crashradius]

That is some very fine work. Thanks for sharing.

 

[cleanandserenesteve]

NICE! I love it as is, but would still be curious to try some of those larger tires. haha Great work! Damn, now I want a 6WD....

 

[MAXXMASHER]

Thanks for the comments, guys! I'm almost sad that it all went by so fast and it is almost complete. I just wish I could find my Castle Link, so I can actually drive the thing! On tomorrow's agenda is to clean up my hog mess of a workshop & finish packing to go to camp for four days. Once that is complete, I will really look for that link. If that search comes up empty, I guess I'll have to buy another one.

Anyways, I did get a little more done on the rig. I "cleaned" up the wiring as best as I could. I can't really get as neat with it as I normally do, because I have to leave a lot of the leads as long as possible so I can remove the body parts without messing up the lights. At least it is all hidden so I really doesn't matter all that much.

I also got some trim painting done, too. I would have gotten a better result by spray painting it on, but I was too lazy to go through masking the whole body for a little black strip at the bottom. I simply put down a strip of tape and applied flat black with a brush. Had a few minor bleeds, but it doesn't look too bad.

I also got the windows installed in the box section. Used the same K&S ultra thin lexan sheeting as I did on the front of the cab. Put flat black on the inside, and glued in. Pretty simple. About all that is left is to cover the links, and get the esc to work the motors. Not bad for about two months worth of work. On to the usual pics.....

Black paint on the windows. Pretty exciting!

The "cleaned up" wiring. About the best it can get. Still bugs me....

Little close up of the bottom trim.

Windows installed.

Oh yeah, I got a perfect storage box for my KnK screw kit. I even got a little OCD with it and affixed the labels in the corresponding spots so I'll know exactly what I use the most and exactly the right length to replace. My bro Tim knows all about this. I have storage boxes for EVERYTHING....

And you guys may be right, it WOULD look great with some bigger tires. Wait and see, I guess. Yes. Scramblers may be in the future....



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[MAXXMASHER]

I had a great four days of fun at my camp and am now back to reality. I did manage to get a little time for some fun on the basement micro course after my bro TGH117 updated my field card and got my MicroX Castle ESC up and running.

The rig really looks great, but has some flaws. I knew this would be the case, as every new build needs some tweaks to get it right. I knew the approach angle would be bad, but it was pretty tough to handle any sort of hilly terrain. Also, the rear axles move around a bit too much and impede the rigs' movement. The tires get compressed against the bottom of the rear box section at times. I decided to solve (or at least help) the problem by trimming off some plastic at the bottom. I took a strip all the way around, eliminating the black trim at the bottom edge completely. I may also look into changing up the links a bit to cut down on the swaying motion.

In addition to this, the trim pieces on the bottom of the cab almost immediately began to come off as they scraped along the terrain. These were completely removed. I will do some sanding tomorrow and simply paint the bottom edge in flat black.

I also did a bit of shopping. I was contemplating using the RC4WD Scramblers anyways, so I bought six of them from RPP Hobby along with ANOTHER set of Rage beadlock wheels. I'm hooked on them. I also got some Lil Nova foams to go with them, as the weight of the massive rig is basically crushing the tires.

To go with these goodies, I added to the cart some more Plastruct sheets. I think I am going to build another body altogether to be purely for crawling prowess. Not sure if this will be a copy of an existing rig, or something of my own design. I guess I got addicted to scratch building while doing this build!

I also threw in some scale banners on my order for the upcoming micro scale garage build, too. I guess I won't be running out of projects any time soon. I also have an Orlandoo project on the back burner. The body choice is one I haven't seen before, so be on the lookout for that. Might as well post some damn pics....

A great time was had by all at our camp. Lots of beverages, lots of fishing, lots of spent ammo. The kids had a blast with the potato gun!
(That would be me holding up the red solo cup, deep into a jar of homemade apple pie 'shine!)

Our rigs in action...

The behemoth sets sail!

Whoops!

About as difficult terrain as it could handle....

Pretty heavy for a micro!

Time for some mods!

Doesn't look too different. I also have some MAN decals on the way.

Another shopping list....dammit Tim, you were right!

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[MAXXMASHER]

RPP is ridiculous! I got my stuff in the mail already!! Just in time. No work for the next two days. My honey do list is quite extensive, being spring and all, but I will make some time to attend to the MAN rig. Let the building continue.....

Nothing beats a box from RPP!

These tires are huge! Larger than the MiClaws, even. My micro tuber will get some use out of these, too I'm sure.

WAY bigger than the tires currently on the box rig.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[MAXXMASHER]

Not too much to report tonight. Just a tedious session of micro wheel building. These Rage wheels are like micro works of art! I stuffed them with the Lil Nova foams, which left enough room to throw in some buck shot lead pellets. Just enough room for them to roll around in there, yet still be a little stiff. This thing is gonna be a beast when I get it all sorted out!

I now have a set of just about every micro tire made! These are nice!

Beast mode!!

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[MAXXMASHER]

I haven't stopped working on the MAN rig. It came out better than I had envisioned in the looks department, but in terms of performance, it is still lacking. All the scale accessories and extra wiring plus components are keeping this truck in the mild terrain.

I haven't been snapping as many pics of the progress, but I will have a new body completed soon. This one, I am sort of making it up as I go along. The rear is already glued together. Some putty and primer, and it will get a coat of paint. The rear is sort of going to be more of a flatbed or a hauler than the box on the previous truck. The front end is going to be less boxy with significantly less front end protrusion and the sides will have little overhang to catch on stuff. Adding to less of a body, there will also be some fender wells to allow the truck to articulate to its full potential, instead of rubbing on the bottom.

I'm also playing with the links a little bit, as the rear axles have way to much freedom to move around. I can hardly get them to center up like they should. I fixed the swaying of the center by shortening the upper links and attaching to the frame instead of the tranny mounts. This is already helping a lot. I still need to work on the rear axle a bit to get it to stop flopping around.

Decreasing the weight of the behemoth will also help a great deal. I'm going to forgo the lights in the design of the new body, and make the light system removable when running this body. I knew the original design would be a bit cumbersome to drive, but I want something that will climb a bit better. Stay tuned....

Rear panels cut. This is going a lot faster the second time around. All I have to do is measure the existing body and hack away. Gonna have the same type of mounting system.

Glued up and ready for putty. Might add a tool box and some tubular protection as well.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[MAXXMASHER]

This building of a body is going a LOT faster than the first time around! I think I'm pretty much nearly done. Just gotta apply a lot of putty and do some sanding, of course. Didn't really come out as exactly like I thought it would, bit it looks pretty cool I think. Still playing with the link configurations, too. Just can't seem to get it right. Can't get the rear axles to be centered up at the same time. Constantly fighting each other. Gonna have to take everything off and really look into some solutions...

The cab is coming together pretty well. Same type of magnet configuration to get at the battery.

Gave the roof line a little angle.

The front panel will just pop off to enable battery changes.

Looks pretty good. Gave it some extra clearance above the tires.

No interior or anything this time. This one will be about saving weight and better performance. The windows will be blacked out. Not sure on the body color just yet....

Once the glue holding the metal tabs is cured, the body can be fully assembled.

I also got my decal pack from China, finally! This is a rare set. I could only find one other set on the whole web and eBay.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk