My brother, Ram2500 got me started and addicted to this RC crawling stuff! Its wicked fun, but it takes me a long time to finish a build. He laughs at me when my current setup is all broken down as he fears it will never be running again. Fun stuff though. A big thanks to Keun for getting me started on a good compr!! I will only du 2.2 for comp, and 2.2 or more preforably 1.9 for scale. I have a bunch of proline boddies, and they seem to be better suited to 1.9 scale wheels. The HPI bodies are still scale with the 2.2 wheels.
Anyway, my first crawler setup, my brother helped me out quite a bit. Though it was actually a fairly easy build. I have to admit I was a little intimidated at first, not only was it my first crawler, it was my first serious RC vehicle, so it was nice that my brother got me on a good start. I used a wheely king 2wd a setup that we converted to 4wd. I ended up using the axles, shocks, links, and tranny from the WK, and mounted them on an MFM. I also used the stock WK reciever and transmitter but I purchased a Novak roaster crawler ed speed controler. No drag brake, just a walloping stop. Actually its not too bad but I wished I had got a different one. The tranny setup was hard to get low for a low CG. We got it lower, but not ideal, though pretty good for a scaler. The first truck was therefore more a scaler though it had the long WK shocks mounted at steep angles like a compr.
The tranny had a 75 turn Integy lathe motor mounted and was nice and quiet. It was mounted with struts to the MFM side plates to allow us to angle it down. To get the shafts to fit, we had to have an extra shaft in the middle and shorten the forward shaft quite a bit. This is due to the fact that we laid the trainy leaning forward. The wheel base was barely ten and a quarter inches but we still needed to have a modify shaft setup to reach the axles. The rear/middle shaft coming straight from the tranny needed to be supported so we took a piece of delrin and mounted it vertical, drilled it and put a large radial bearing in to hold the middle shaft. From that shaft went the rear shaft to the rear axle. It wasn't perfect and made a loud clicking nose as the shaft bounced around in the delrin plate. SO my brother found an emax steering knuckle and a stub shaft piece with yoke on the end. The stub shaft went through a bearing in the emax knuckle and yoked onto the tranny. On the other end, I slid another emax yoke onto the stubshaft to mount to the rear drive shaft. The emax steering knuckle replacing the vertical delrin plate, I mounted the st. knuckle to the mfm with struts, but I had to screw the struts into the soft plastic of the knuckle, and the shaft moved around a lot when applying throttle. So I filled the two side holes of the emax knuckle with fasteel and put the screws into this to make everything much more rigid. With this setup and some shorter and stiffer traxis shocks, The rig crawled pretty good though CG was still a little high. I had a proline K5 blazer boddy that I severly cut out the wheel wells on.
I put Junfac beadlocks with axial rock lizards on the blazer initially. It had a hard time going up steep rock faces, but when I swapped out the stinky lizards for some losi rock claws, the thing tore right up the steep stuff. It still couldn't side wall or do other stuff with the high CG. I broke down and decided that I would keep it more like a scaler, but I wanted to dramatically lower the CG, so I bummed a stealth tranny from my brother as well as some short buggy shocks that he was inittially going to put on his K23L. I than purchased some AX10 axles to pull the width in for more scale, and also make steering much better. I also bought a Proline Bushwacker and painted it a pearl mustard yellow by mixing some parma pearl colors. I cut vents in the sides of the front under the hood like I saw on an old 67 FJ, but they came out kinda jacked. Looks ok at a distance. I made a chrome front grille sticker in photoshop CS2 from an FJ photo found on the internet. The sticker went through a redesign with more grill texture, added grill screws, and added shadow on the chrome mesh. I made my own diamond plate from a photgraph as well, but removed it as it looked crappy. I may redo it.
I should have left the rear wheel wells alone. I cut them out to fit the 2.2s but its not that scale anymore for a stock fj. I have 1.9 HPI stock car wheels with rock crusher that look sweet with the FJ. I also bought some Proline 8 shooters. I have the chrome with black ring shown here with rock claws mounted. I also have some geolanders to mount up either on the black/black ring 8 shooters, or on the black RPM revolvers that I have. Anyway the CG was a lot better and the scale look a little better, though articulation was somewhat sacrificed with the much shorter shocks. I'm now going to make a leafer and put the fj body on it with a front bumper and guard. My brother laughs at me cause I will end up having 1 leafer and 1 compr, but I have a bunch of different bodies to switch out on them! We both use velcro to mount bodies onto side plates. This makes it easier to mount multiple bodies on one crawler. To adjust for bodies of a different width we make posts of a certain size to match the body width. My brother wants to make an adjustable pillar setup to that they don't need to always be switched out. The wacker/fj has a narrower front cab than rear cab so I had to make the front posts for the side body plates shorter than the rear. No big deal-just measure 20 times and cut once.
Some of the pics show when, My brother, my nephew, and I went to Las Cruses NM, this past Feburary for the Chili Challenge. We watched the challenge in the morning-flippn sweet!- and than we and other NMRC guys did a crawler expo at the Dona Anna fairgrounds which was the staging area for the Chili Challenge. We crawled on some bricks in the parking lot and some of the crawlers took a beating! The next morning, my brother, my nephew and I went up into the hills of Dona Anna near the wash where the Chili Challenge rock crawl was held. We found a nice rock outcropping and crawled our rigs while taking in the desert scenery. My nephew also found a bunch of shell casings from 45s and 9mms to take home with him. The whole area is kind of a shooting range on Sunday afternoons. I apologize for the cruddy initial pics. I am posting better pics below those.
You might have to scroll to the side rather than down to see the photos depending on your window.
GOSH I'm a pain!
Anyway, my first crawler setup, my brother helped me out quite a bit. Though it was actually a fairly easy build. I have to admit I was a little intimidated at first, not only was it my first crawler, it was my first serious RC vehicle, so it was nice that my brother got me on a good start. I used a wheely king 2wd a setup that we converted to 4wd. I ended up using the axles, shocks, links, and tranny from the WK, and mounted them on an MFM. I also used the stock WK reciever and transmitter but I purchased a Novak roaster crawler ed speed controler. No drag brake, just a walloping stop. Actually its not too bad but I wished I had got a different one. The tranny setup was hard to get low for a low CG. We got it lower, but not ideal, though pretty good for a scaler. The first truck was therefore more a scaler though it had the long WK shocks mounted at steep angles like a compr.
The tranny had a 75 turn Integy lathe motor mounted and was nice and quiet. It was mounted with struts to the MFM side plates to allow us to angle it down. To get the shafts to fit, we had to have an extra shaft in the middle and shorten the forward shaft quite a bit. This is due to the fact that we laid the trainy leaning forward. The wheel base was barely ten and a quarter inches but we still needed to have a modify shaft setup to reach the axles. The rear/middle shaft coming straight from the tranny needed to be supported so we took a piece of delrin and mounted it vertical, drilled it and put a large radial bearing in to hold the middle shaft. From that shaft went the rear shaft to the rear axle. It wasn't perfect and made a loud clicking nose as the shaft bounced around in the delrin plate. SO my brother found an emax steering knuckle and a stub shaft piece with yoke on the end. The stub shaft went through a bearing in the emax knuckle and yoked onto the tranny. On the other end, I slid another emax yoke onto the stubshaft to mount to the rear drive shaft. The emax steering knuckle replacing the vertical delrin plate, I mounted the st. knuckle to the mfm with struts, but I had to screw the struts into the soft plastic of the knuckle, and the shaft moved around a lot when applying throttle. So I filled the two side holes of the emax knuckle with fasteel and put the screws into this to make everything much more rigid. With this setup and some shorter and stiffer traxis shocks, The rig crawled pretty good though CG was still a little high. I had a proline K5 blazer boddy that I severly cut out the wheel wells on.
I put Junfac beadlocks with axial rock lizards on the blazer initially. It had a hard time going up steep rock faces, but when I swapped out the stinky lizards for some losi rock claws, the thing tore right up the steep stuff. It still couldn't side wall or do other stuff with the high CG. I broke down and decided that I would keep it more like a scaler, but I wanted to dramatically lower the CG, so I bummed a stealth tranny from my brother as well as some short buggy shocks that he was inittially going to put on his K23L. I than purchased some AX10 axles to pull the width in for more scale, and also make steering much better. I also bought a Proline Bushwacker and painted it a pearl mustard yellow by mixing some parma pearl colors. I cut vents in the sides of the front under the hood like I saw on an old 67 FJ, but they came out kinda jacked. Looks ok at a distance. I made a chrome front grille sticker in photoshop CS2 from an FJ photo found on the internet. The sticker went through a redesign with more grill texture, added grill screws, and added shadow on the chrome mesh. I made my own diamond plate from a photgraph as well, but removed it as it looked crappy. I may redo it.
I should have left the rear wheel wells alone. I cut them out to fit the 2.2s but its not that scale anymore for a stock fj. I have 1.9 HPI stock car wheels with rock crusher that look sweet with the FJ. I also bought some Proline 8 shooters. I have the chrome with black ring shown here with rock claws mounted. I also have some geolanders to mount up either on the black/black ring 8 shooters, or on the black RPM revolvers that I have. Anyway the CG was a lot better and the scale look a little better, though articulation was somewhat sacrificed with the much shorter shocks. I'm now going to make a leafer and put the fj body on it with a front bumper and guard. My brother laughs at me cause I will end up having 1 leafer and 1 compr, but I have a bunch of different bodies to switch out on them! We both use velcro to mount bodies onto side plates. This makes it easier to mount multiple bodies on one crawler. To adjust for bodies of a different width we make posts of a certain size to match the body width. My brother wants to make an adjustable pillar setup to that they don't need to always be switched out. The wacker/fj has a narrower front cab than rear cab so I had to make the front posts for the side body plates shorter than the rear. No big deal-just measure 20 times and cut once.
Some of the pics show when, My brother, my nephew, and I went to Las Cruses NM, this past Feburary for the Chili Challenge. We watched the challenge in the morning-flippn sweet!- and than we and other NMRC guys did a crawler expo at the Dona Anna fairgrounds which was the staging area for the Chili Challenge. We crawled on some bricks in the parking lot and some of the crawlers took a beating! The next morning, my brother, my nephew and I went up into the hills of Dona Anna near the wash where the Chili Challenge rock crawl was held. We found a nice rock outcropping and crawled our rigs while taking in the desert scenery. My nephew also found a bunch of shell casings from 45s and 9mms to take home with him. The whole area is kind of a shooting range on Sunday afternoons. I apologize for the cruddy initial pics. I am posting better pics below those.
You might have to scroll to the side rather than down to see the photos depending on your window.
GOSH I'm a pain!
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