wallaz
Landy mad
With all the recent Land Rover Defender builds happening I thought it time to get in on the action.
At present the HPI bodies are not available in the UK (as far as I know) so I unearthed the body that I bought off Unimoger many months ago.
This was then re-bodied to take a series body shell from Kamtec and happily beaten for many months.
I attempted to modify the original frame to be able to fit a metal bumper and winch mounts. Unfortunatley there was too much flex from the aluminium angle I was using. Rather buy some thicker angle I decided a new chassis was required. The K2-3L looked nice and was very popular, as did both the Diaz and BB51's. To be slightly different I plumped for the Crawler Store Scale Kit with motor mount.
A few days later the parcel turned up as did a number of other items I had ordered. New axles, c-hubs, knuckles and drive shafts.
The axles went together relatively painlessly and so I started on the frame.
Nice and easy until it came to adding the rod ends. Here came my first problem. Using associated rod ends meant I had to mod the motor mount so out came the dremel and away I chopped. Here's the end result.
Eventually all the links fit, but then I found the spur gear was rubbing on the opposite side frame. This was overcome by adding two M3 nuts to the width of the chassis seperating bars.
I had lying around some spare sevo mounts so managed to shoe horn 2 inbetween the chassis rails. The left hand takes the winch servo, the right hand takes the steering servo.
I had decided I wanted a sperate front bumper and also wanted to have a winch. I cut up some angle and made some extensions, onto these I added some cut C-channel for the front bumper and bolted it all together.
I have ended up with a slight problem which will mean limiting the flex slightly as the tyres rub on the bumper
I'm really quite happy with the way this bumper looks, and will eventally get round to adding a fairlead on top of it.
A couple more shots of the bumper.
Body is going to be mounted with velcro. I've added pieces of angle on top of the shock supports so I have a level base for it. Also to complete soon is a battery tray up front inbetween the transmission and the servos
Also to be completed are the electronics tray on the back. I've added 4 standard servo mounts to take the plate that they will be fitted to.
Other plans include possible rear winch, side bars, light bar around the fairlead (when it's made) along with a host of scale accesories from the usual vendors, highlify, roof rack, coolers. I may even try and make up a rear wheel carrier. The links will also be sleeved with 6mm aluminium.
The main job I have thought of is to make a custom bed to replace the flat lexan body.
It will also receive a damn good clean to get rid of all the mtal filings
A couple of other items of information.
Servo mounts are from Twinset here in the UK.
Wheels are from RD400 and may well be swopped for a narrower set
Tyres are narrowed geolanders by extreme-rc.
Winch motor is a hitec 645 I had
Steering servo will be a chicken butt when they arrive
Electronics are a waterproof tekin rebel 2 along with a futaba 6 channel RX.
Main battery packs are 2600mah 9.6V AA's and I will be running a sperate RX pack
And finally if your still awake, a couple of poser shots with the body in place, but not secure, hence the red tin.
I will post more as it happens. Thanks for reading.
At present the HPI bodies are not available in the UK (as far as I know) so I unearthed the body that I bought off Unimoger many months ago.
This was then re-bodied to take a series body shell from Kamtec and happily beaten for many months.
I attempted to modify the original frame to be able to fit a metal bumper and winch mounts. Unfortunatley there was too much flex from the aluminium angle I was using. Rather buy some thicker angle I decided a new chassis was required. The K2-3L looked nice and was very popular, as did both the Diaz and BB51's. To be slightly different I plumped for the Crawler Store Scale Kit with motor mount.
A few days later the parcel turned up as did a number of other items I had ordered. New axles, c-hubs, knuckles and drive shafts.
The axles went together relatively painlessly and so I started on the frame.
Nice and easy until it came to adding the rod ends. Here came my first problem. Using associated rod ends meant I had to mod the motor mount so out came the dremel and away I chopped. Here's the end result.
Eventually all the links fit, but then I found the spur gear was rubbing on the opposite side frame. This was overcome by adding two M3 nuts to the width of the chassis seperating bars.
I had lying around some spare sevo mounts so managed to shoe horn 2 inbetween the chassis rails. The left hand takes the winch servo, the right hand takes the steering servo.
I had decided I wanted a sperate front bumper and also wanted to have a winch. I cut up some angle and made some extensions, onto these I added some cut C-channel for the front bumper and bolted it all together.
I have ended up with a slight problem which will mean limiting the flex slightly as the tyres rub on the bumper
I'm really quite happy with the way this bumper looks, and will eventally get round to adding a fairlead on top of it.
A couple more shots of the bumper.
Body is going to be mounted with velcro. I've added pieces of angle on top of the shock supports so I have a level base for it. Also to complete soon is a battery tray up front inbetween the transmission and the servos
Also to be completed are the electronics tray on the back. I've added 4 standard servo mounts to take the plate that they will be fitted to.
Other plans include possible rear winch, side bars, light bar around the fairlead (when it's made) along with a host of scale accesories from the usual vendors, highlify, roof rack, coolers. I may even try and make up a rear wheel carrier. The links will also be sleeved with 6mm aluminium.
The main job I have thought of is to make a custom bed to replace the flat lexan body.
It will also receive a damn good clean to get rid of all the mtal filings
A couple of other items of information.
Servo mounts are from Twinset here in the UK.
Wheels are from RD400 and may well be swopped for a narrower set
Tyres are narrowed geolanders by extreme-rc.
Winch motor is a hitec 645 I had
Steering servo will be a chicken butt when they arrive
Electronics are a waterproof tekin rebel 2 along with a futaba 6 channel RX.
Main battery packs are 2600mah 9.6V AA's and I will be running a sperate RX pack
And finally if your still awake, a couple of poser shots with the body in place, but not secure, hence the red tin.
I will post more as it happens. Thanks for reading.
