Maxxmasher's Double cab Hilux build!

[MAXXMASHER]

I bought this body awhile back on Ebay for a sweet price. I never got around to building it, (and I'm glad!) My first Losi Micro scaler had to be a replica of my F-150; I'm sure many of you remember it. It's still going strong, but the urge to build another scaler has hit me again. I haven't got a micro yet, but I have started the project by painting the parts I'm going to use for the build. I'm going to use part of the model's chassis and thick plastruct to house the tranny. I'm gonna need some threaded rod, mini ball ends, an extra driveshaft set, and I'll be on my way. I'm also going to use RC4WD Rok Lox and Hot Racing beadlocks. I also found an interesting driver while shopping for a present for my nephew. SHE has plenty of attitude to "work" the rocks. She also posesses "other" skills...... stay tuned for more. PICS!

Made by Blue Fin in Japan. $14 shipped!!

Bit and pieces...

Nothing glued or screwed, just placed to get an idea. Got the light guard from a micro hummer model.

Front quarter shot

Feisty!!

She needs a truck to haul her bike around. Boyfriend's truck is usually full of beer....

Gotta make extra money for parts somehow!

 

[murderface]

youre having too much fun with that little toy lol and i would go with bwd wheels over the hr's oterwise sounds good

 

[Stampedekid]

youre having too much fun with that little toy lol and i would go with bwd wheels over the hr's oterwise sounds good

I agree, plus IMO the BWD ones look better. Have fun with the build, I saw your F150 being built, hopefully this turns out just as good if not better!!

 

[MAXXMASHER]

youre having too much fun with that little toy lol and i would go with bwd wheels over the hr's oterwise sounds good

You have to be over 21 to see the other pics I posted of her! LOL!

Yeah, I like the looks of those wheels. May have to go that way. Won't have any updates for awhile. Leaving for the airport at 3am for a flight out of Pittsburg to head to Sarasota, FL. to help my Bro-in-law move back up here. I'll be driving a 26 ft. truck towing a car all the way up here. I'll be picking up my Micro BnD as soon as I get home.

 

[murderface]

when you gonna get that sucker built ?

 

[orangeplug]

Looking good man,please keep the paint like that it looks so good!

 

[MAXXMASHER]

when you gonna get that sucker built ?

I finally got back home last night around midnight, so I'll be tearing into it soon. I'll probably go pick up the BnD on Monday. After that, it'll be full-blast building......

 

[murderface]

I finally got back home last night around midnight, so I'll be tearing into it soon. I'll probably go pick up the BnD on Monday. After that, it'll be full-blast building......

lookin forward to it "thumbsup"

 

[MAXXMASHER]

Still haven't picked up the Micro. Been pretty sick since returning from the state of Florida. Too much work and traveling and not enough sleep. I think I was only off the couch for maybe two hours total in the last two days. I am feeling better today, so maybe I'll sneak off to the Hobby shop for a quick visit.....

 

[MAXXMASHER]

Managed to make it out and pick up my micro. Felt like I was drunk to be out walking around. Ran around for two hours and then spent the next six on the couch sleeping next to the dog. More updates tomorrow, uuuggg....

 

[shadowrejects]

Sounds lke a good project!

 

[MAXXMASHER]

when you gonna get that sucker built ?

Just be patient you bastards!! LOL! Just kidding! Man, was I sick. Last night brought another sort of fun, which had sprinting to a small room in the house all night! I think you know what I'm saying....WOke up today and felt good. Better than i have since getting home. Alright, enough blabber! On to the build....

Like I said, I picked up the Micro A.K.A. victim. I wonder if Losi realizes how short a lifespan some of their Micro Crawlers have in the stock configuration. The upside to my sickness is that it prevents me from accompanying my wife who has left for a (long) weekend at her sister's and I stayed home, 'cause i don't want to infect the outside world and especially my 18 month old nephew. Already the pround owner or his first RC! My bro in law (who has two scalers and multipe RC's) is an engineer and sis in law is a teacher. The kid is really something. Kid can pick jeeps out of a parking lot full of cars....

Anyhow here is the donor in mint condition.

Got the ball ends, threaded rod & aluminum tubes

The first thing I did was make my transmission housing and figure where I was going to mount it. Plastruct is easy to work with and it's definetely strong enough to do the job. I used the same set-up on my other micro that I built almost a year ago and it works great.

I kind of got overzealous in trimming the floor to hide some of the tranny. I corrected this by gluing a thin piece of lexan to the floorboard and painting it flat black. Just like puttin' in a little sheet metal! I helped my buddy replace the rotting floor in his Gran Torino back in high school with donated road signs back in the day! Someone got a laugh if they ever took up the carpets!

Tranny fits; although, I had little mishap. Not sure what I was doing, but I dropped the asembly onto my concrete basement floor and broke the rear of the frame off.

I made a repair by drilling a couple of small holes and securing the frame to the interior with a few zip ties. They'll be covered up on the top by the esc and the housing that will cover it. I even hit them with a bit of flat black to hide them a bit. I also secured the front of the frame with four tiny screws. I usually don't glue many of the major components in case I need to take it apart for repair or changes. I also threw in the seats and dash to see how they covered everything up. (Those screws will be trimmed and painted flat back before all is said and done.)

I also got into configuring up the wiring and locating the esc. I pretty much ran all the wiring through the center sonsole above the tranny. Lots of tedious soldering! I stiil have to lengthen the battery lead from the esc and also lenthen and locate the on/off switch, but I'll get to that when things are a bit more permanent.

I threw the body on and made the links for the front. Had to relocate the shocks after the first spot was at a worse angle than anticipated. Gonna have to shorten the links just a bit.

From a different angle, it doesn't look too bad. Still gotta change 'em. Not bad for a first day's work. Probably get some more things done tonight. All I have to do in the morning is sleep in.

 

[murderface]

I wonder if Losi realizes how short a lifespan some of their Micro Crawlers have in the stock configuration.

mine stayed stock all the way up until i took it out of the box lol. i had the springs off trans flipped esc de cased drilled out some holes to move things around tweaked the stock chasis and ran hairtie droop all before the first battery charge :twisted:

 

[MAXXMASHER]

Got some more done today. The bed is all glued together and attatched to the frame. I'll be further securing it to the rails with a couple of screws; I'll probably tie that process in with mounting the rear shocks.

For me, at least on my other micro, I like to trim a bit of the spring to allow just a bit of droop and a bit of compression. Kind of a 50/50 set-up, I guess.

I managed to get all of the wiring done and when the seats are in, most of it is covered up. I'm gonna cover the esc with a small sheet of plastruct that looks like diamond plate. Looks cool when it's painted silver. I left a small hole in the sheet to access the button just in case I need to.

I had to put it all together to see how it looked. The flip down tailgate is a nice touch. Tonight's mission is to get the rear links done. After that, it's just minor details. Man, when you do this the second time around, it goes a lot faster!

 

[MAXXMASHER]

Got some more done today. The bed is all glued together and attatched to the frame. I'll be further securing it to the rails with a couple of screws; I'll probably tie that process in with mounting the rear shocks.

For me, at least on my other micro, I like to trim a bit of the spring to allow just a bit of droop and a bit of compression. Kind of a 50/50 set-up, I guess.

I managed to get all of the wiring done and when the seats are in, most of it is covered up. I'm gonna cover the esc with a small sheet of plastruct that looks like diamond plate. Looks cool when it's painted silver. I left a small hole in the sheet to access the button just in case I need to.

I had to put it all together to see how it looked. The flip down tailgate is a nice touch. Tonight's mission is to get the rear links done. After that, it's just minor details. Man, when you do this the second time around, it goes a lot faster! 8)

 

[MAXXMASHER]

I burned the midnight oil last night deep into the wee hours. The micro Yota is about 99% done. :shock:

First thing to be done was to get the rear links done. I actually got them right on the first shot. The thing I don't like is the ride heighth, mainly due to the shocks being too long for where I can mount them. I ran into the same problem with my other scaler and I fixed it by swapping the shock bodies with ones from a micro-T. I'll be doing the same thing with this set.

Got the wires routed just where I want them and gave them a light coat of flat black to further hide them and attatched the diamond plate cover to the esc.

Once that was done, it was time to put the seats and console in and place the "essential" trail items. Home-made ice axe, fire extinguisher, and large caliber semi-auto....

I also got the dash details done and installed.

I did a little detail painting to the bumpers...

And the iconic logo for the tailgate.....

Got my driver stuffed in there (not much leg room, so she got a little "extreme makeover" :twisted:with a dremel) and the truck is pretty much complete....

Powerplant under the hood. 150 Mah's of pure crawlin' power!!

Hood installed

And now for the first test run.....

Overall, the truck performed pretty well, the only problem being the suspension set-up. The shocks are just too long and the ride is too high. The major problem I had was during a moment of extreme articulation, the rear driveshaft slider popped out like i knew it would. Shortening the shock travel downward will prevent this and lower the truck, preventing it from having too much torque twist also. Oh what a feeling!8)"thumbsup"

 

[MAXXMASHER]

I got my fill of college footbal today and then turned my attention to finishing up the fine details and adding a few scale goodies to my micro. I first started with the rear end of the truck adding the tailights, the rear bumper, and a hitch ball.

Better shot of the hitch ball.

I found a muffler and tailpipe from another build and threw that on there....

I decided to put the running boards on. If they start to get hung up, I can get them off there without messing up the truck.

If this Toyota's a-rockin, don't come a-knockin'! :lmao:

Got the headlights installed and added a front vanity plate....

Close-up

I also threw some scale goodies in the bed....

After that, I got the final detail glued up. A tow bar/rock guard completes the truck.

And finally some shots of the completed scaler on the indoor course.

Now I have two micros in the scaler garage!

The couple that crawls together, stays together!

 

[MAXXMASHER]

Got a little free time and ran about four packs through the new micro. It's kinda fun with extra ground clearance, enabling it to clear lines that my F-150 can't because it sits a bit lower. I'm still gonna change up the shocks for shorter ones, because it has a bad habit of rolling over too much. I also added a bit of glue to the light guard to keep it in place. I just had the slots of it pressed into the grill. After awhile it kept popping out. Should be fine now. Anyways I snapped a few more pics while playing on the indoor course.

 

[murderface]

where do you live i wanna run that course it looks nice

 

[MAXXMASHER]

I'm a transplanted Buckeye living in central Pennsylvania. I'll probably add to that course this winter. Easy to make! Styrofoam and wadded newspaper covered in plaster cloth and airbrushed to taste.....

Here's how I did everything......... http://www.rccrawler.com/forum/showthread.php?p=2477097#post2477097