XJ Prerunner

[TBex]

So I bought this body last year and started this project. I cut the wheelwells and the hatch on it and made some framerails. Then I lost interest due to lack of funds for the electronics, and drivetrain. Since then Ive realized how screwed up my last frame would have made the truck. So now 1 year later Im still broke but now Im broke and jobless, and have some tubing stacked away in the corner. So I got the body down and done some more cutting to it and came up with this

Oh, I might add, I made it a one piece clip

So now with the body cut, it was time to start the chassis, I bent up my 2 new tubular frame rails and put a crossmember in to set the width, then got to remembering how I needed my motor, and tranny next before I went any further with anything so I wouldnt end up with a useless chassis that I couldnt finish. At that moment I looked in the corner and saw the 1/16 Nitro Chaos from my 1/18 Nitro Late Model and thought to myself well, This shouldnt really weigh much more than that car, it had plenty of power, and the motors relatively lightweight, and its doing nothing but sitting there. So I got thinkin, and I thought that the 1/16 might be a little underpowered, but then I measured the belly of that Chaos and it just so happened to be the same width as what I had just made my frame rails. So I welded a tab to the framerails and hacked a little of the Chaos belly and bolted it on. Then I bend up a little bit of tubing for the cage, and thats where I sit at the moment. The Motor tucks rather nicely into the body, Just hope its got the power. I figure with it mounted on the Chaos belly pan it saves me alot of work fabbing a new one thats going to work the same, and there really isnt a need in spending that much time on that when that may or may not be the power of the operation when completely finished. Wont know that until its together and I get a fully op. test run. At least this way it wont be hard to change out if I dont like it. If i do use this setup though I will be changing it out for my own belly pan

Only a couple of more joints will be MIGed, The rest will be silver soldered, Im just not all too good with silver solder, although catching on quickly.

These arnt the tires I'll be running, just happened to conviently be the same diameter as what I plan on running when finished so I used them to mock up some of the rear section...

The tank will be mounted under the front clip, hence why I made it one piece, hopefully tomorrow I will get the other half of the chassis to the same point as the driver side, and get them X'ed together and the back of them tied into the chasis rails, at that point I figure would be a good time to add in rear suspension and axle so I dont add tubes to places that will need moved a touch. Then I plan to move up and tube the front clip and get it tied into the rest of the chassis, then Im going to invest alot of time into fabing this front suspension, probably going J-arm, cant decide between it or I-beam, probably going J-arm though. then add shocks, and then finish the detail tube work into the chassis shes done. Sounds simple and quick but its gonna be a longgg project. and Yes, that big, ugly, gay wing will be coming off and in its place will be 8 LEDs, 4 ambers, and 4 reds. BTW this is in 1.5 because in the end it will be on RC4wd 1.5 BFG M/Ts

 

[Grumpster1980]

Looks good! That should be a cool truck once it's done. I am an electric guy and have never messed with Nitro engines so is going to be very fast or more of a trail truck?

 

[TBex]

Its going to be fast (hopefully). One way or another, even if it means swapping out motors to something bigger

 

[mrwonderful]

I picked up the same body with the intentions of making a JeepSpeed. That was a long time ago, :ror: maybe one day I'll get to it...

Good luck!

 

[TBex]

Got the tube work as far as Im going with it until I ge the rear suspension under it so I can put the tubes in relative locations for mounts. Had to redo some of the tubes, had to do some mods to the exhaust to get it to clear because it was hitting tubes that couldnt be moved anywhere else, plans are to run off of the outlet of the muffler with some 3/8 breakline and run it out the bedside. Found out today just how narrow this body really is, after I got the back half done with the most all around clearance for tires, and axle I have 2.75" to squeeze in a driveshaft, trailing arms, upper arm, and 4 shocks. The track width has to be 6" outside to outside for the tires to tuck into the body during comp. Seriously thinking about cutting the bedsides off and making my own out of foam and then I could also make them more scale like hannemanns instead of these TT looking ones thats on it, and the front would be easy to do as well, just glue it on, shape it, sand it in, and then hollow out with a dremal. That way I could gain about another .75-1" of track width. Im afraid 6 is going to just be to narrow and it will be rolling all the time. Anyway, heres todays progress, done til saturday night most likely. Plans for then are to lay some sheetmetal to hold the back of the belly pan in place, and then do the trailing arms, and upper arm.

 

[TBex]

Heres a small update on my Prerunner XJ, got the rear suspension mocked up, had to link it up to find where to put the bend at in the trailing arms Im making, Upper link is done other than boxing it in and cleaning it up. Rear pulls a solid 2" travel which is pretty decent, had 1.625 and I dont geometry changes and got it up to 2" with good pinion deflection numbers so now I just got to make trailing arms the same length as my lowers for mock up and add shocks and the rear is done. Front will be started tomorrow! Plans for it should make it go pretty quick and easy. Using a old XXX-T frontend just to save the hassle of building everything from scratch. The lower arm is a A-Arm and the top is a single link, so the bottom Im going to make my own arms to narrow up the track to the body width and then J-Arm the top link. "Should" make pretty short work and have it rolling on all 4s by the weekend if all goes right. The only issue Ive ran into so far is figuring out what wheels Im going to use, the company I want to buy tires from makes them odd sizes so you have to buy wheels from them too but they dont make a bearing mounted wheel so Im unsure what Im going to do there.. anyway heres so rear suspension droop and comp shots, cant wait to get these fugly tires and wheels off ...BTW.. this is not the axle I will be running when finish, just mocking up with this so when the real deal gets here it will be a plug and play type deal, just clearing up that it will not have rear steer lmao

 

[TBex]

Front suspension is 75% done! Got to do the upper link and redo the pass shock mount, it got rotated about 3/32 between mockup and welding so I gotta cut it off and make a new one. Hopeing to have front done stamped along with rear shocks hung tomorrow night by this time.



*These Pix except last one are with tires .5 bigger than what will be ran

Ride Height

Springless/ Full Bump

Full Droop

and Full Comp with correct diameter Tires

 

[mrwonderful]

Any pics of the whole truck with the hood?

 

[TBex]

Any pics of the whole truck with the hood?

Hvent got the clip mounted yet, still got to finish all the front chassis then make the braces and mounts for it, would already have it mounted but had to order screws. Should have it done by the end of next week!

 

[JEEPADDICT]

Have you thought about dropping a proline xj on this chassis? could make for a sweet jeepspeed look

 

[amorton94]

Have you thought about dropping a proline xj on this chassis? could make for a sweet jeepspeed look

What's wrong with its looks now? I think it looks awesome. I want a video of it when it's finished "thumbsup"

 

[TBex]

Have you thought about dropping a proline xj on this chassis? could make for a sweet jeepspeed look

Why would I swap a XJ body for another XJ body that I would have to hack and working onto the style as what Ive already got?

 

[JEEPADDICT]

^ wow, dont take offense guys, build looks good, just making convo w/ a fellow 1:1 XJ'er.

 

[TBex]

Its cool, I had looked at using it because its alot more XJish in the doors and frontend detail than what Ive got but the overall dimensions arnt any different so Im just gonna stay with this one. If it had been wider then that would top off the pro's of going with the proline body and I was gonna make a switch but with it being the same width Im staying. Its just the 6" track outside to outside is going to killlll its performance so eventually if Im happy with the way the XJ dones in a straight line over whoops and jumps then Im going to widen the body with foam and widen the track to hopefully 7 or 7.25ish