Tommy R
I wanna be Dave
Hey y'all,
So about 4 years ago we got a group of scale guys together to crawl. I was running my green Jeep LJ, but my motor was acting up and it left me DOA. Fortunately, my buddy Ray happened to have a second rig with him....an RC Model X (or whatever) Defender D110. He let me wheel it all day and I had a revelation that day.
You see, that truck was super top heavy. The ground clearance was minimal. There was a ton of weight (possibly literally!) on the rear end. The tires weren't aggressive. The dampers weren't damping. It may have been one of the least capable scalers I'd ever driven.
And I loved every second of it! :mrgreen:
Here's a video of that day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-A96mkeXs0
I'd gotten so wrapped up in SORRCA competition that I had succumbed to building rigs that just barely met the letter of the law. I didn't like that I was doing that, but I wanted to be competitive. Driving Ray's D110 made me realize where the REAL fun is with scalers: trail runs with rigs that look AND perform like their 1:1 counterparts. I soon decided to sell my Jeep (though I wish I'd kept it now) and have been itching for a D110 similar to Ray's. After a while, RC4WD released their Gelande II Defender D110, but the price was a bit steep. Prices recently came down, however, so I finally pulled the trigger!
Here it is! A box!!
In relatively short order I had the rolling chassis build and it went pretty smoothly. A couple points...
So first off here you can see that the rear of the body is resting on the chassis. It can't go any lower without clearancing.
But here you can see that the body needs to come down several more mm in order to be screwed in.
Then there's the bumper issue. Wouldn't this look so cool installed on the front of this truck??
Unfortunately, the bumper contacts the body before the holes line up. I can space out the bumper mount a couple millimeters or drill new holes in the mount, but was hoping to keep it as tucked in as much as possible for a better approach angle.
Since I've been out of the loop in the crawler world for a while I'm not sure if these are common/known issues or if my situation is unique. Guess it's time to do some research and come up with some solutions!
So about 4 years ago we got a group of scale guys together to crawl. I was running my green Jeep LJ, but my motor was acting up and it left me DOA. Fortunately, my buddy Ray happened to have a second rig with him....an RC Model X (or whatever) Defender D110. He let me wheel it all day and I had a revelation that day.
You see, that truck was super top heavy. The ground clearance was minimal. There was a ton of weight (possibly literally!) on the rear end. The tires weren't aggressive. The dampers weren't damping. It may have been one of the least capable scalers I'd ever driven.
And I loved every second of it! :mrgreen:
Here's a video of that day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-A96mkeXs0
I'd gotten so wrapped up in SORRCA competition that I had succumbed to building rigs that just barely met the letter of the law. I didn't like that I was doing that, but I wanted to be competitive. Driving Ray's D110 made me realize where the REAL fun is with scalers: trail runs with rigs that look AND perform like their 1:1 counterparts. I soon decided to sell my Jeep (though I wish I'd kept it now) and have been itching for a D110 similar to Ray's. After a while, RC4WD released their Gelande II Defender D110, but the price was a bit steep. Prices recently came down, however, so I finally pulled the trigger!
Here it is! A box!!
In relatively short order I had the rolling chassis build and it went pretty smoothly. A couple points...
- The track bar needed to be moved to the other side of the chassis mount. This fixed the bumpsteer, but also increased room between the track bar and the servo arm.
- As has been documented before, the interior is from a shorter D90 so custom syrene work will be required to do this one properly.
- It is easy for the suspension to bind somewhat depending on how you install everything because not everything aligns perfectly. I paid close attention as I was tightening things down and the drivetrain rolls very freely.
- The rear of the body rests on the framerail, but it prevents the body from sitting low enough to screw the body to the chassis. I've got some pics below to illustrate.
- I also picked up an RC4WD ARB front bumper (c'mon, I HAD to!), but it doesn't fit straight away. I've got pics of that, as well.
So first off here you can see that the rear of the body is resting on the chassis. It can't go any lower without clearancing.
But here you can see that the body needs to come down several more mm in order to be screwed in.
Then there's the bumper issue. Wouldn't this look so cool installed on the front of this truck??
Unfortunately, the bumper contacts the body before the holes line up. I can space out the bumper mount a couple millimeters or drill new holes in the mount, but was hoping to keep it as tucked in as much as possible for a better approach angle.
Since I've been out of the loop in the crawler world for a while I'm not sure if these are common/known issues or if my situation is unique. Guess it's time to do some research and come up with some solutions!
