Sherman's "Caballero" Sendero

[Sherman]

So, like everyone else, here is my adventures with my RTR Element Enduro Sendero.

Since learning about the RC crawling hobby I looked at lots of different options from Traxxas, to Axial, and eventually settled on the Element Sendero. My father was gracious enough to purchase one for me for Christmas so now all the boys in the family have a truck. I was the odd one out who didn't go Traxxas, but I stand my my decision with how well made this truck is and I love the stock body.

Right out of the box on Christmas evening

After driving it around on Christmas evening I took it home and immediately began making it "unique" by adding a bit of my own customization with my limited budget. This included some hood stripes and rocker panels covered in aluminum air duct tape. It would be easy to remove later if I decided on something else and made this truck MY truck by being a little different then the others right out of the box. I also added a decal from my US Army Sherman tank of a little bucking bronco, cowboy, and the word "Caballero" which means Spanish Gentleman, Knight, Cavalier, or Horseman. I felt it went with the ranch-look of the truck and the Enduro Sendero Spanish sounding name of the truck. I also added some silver paint to the grill and added a custom Ohio license plate

I liked the look of roll bar/cages so I saw some tips on using plastic coat hanger and a heat gun to create a roll bar for my truck. It's not perfect, but it works for me and scratches my itch with only a $1 budget for a pack of coat hangers.

Finally, my first "real" upgrade came after I saved up some extra cash for a new bumper from Injora off of Amazon and installed it along with the lightbar my father bought me for the truck because my headlights weren't bright enough when we took the trucks out in the dark a few times with his Traxxas light kit.

That same weekend, I picked up a can of semi-gloss black and finally added some color other than grey to my truck. I've been wanting to do it for a while after seeing a few other Sendero's done the same way. I removed the silver tape from the rocker panels and painted them and the bed black. I feel it fits well, especially the bed where it helps tie the black roll bar into the theme.

I did internally have to swap out the stock servo to a Traxxas one as my stock servo failed. I called Associated and they sent me a replacement one, but told me to just keep the old one. So I'm currently cracking it apart and modifying it so I can turn it into a servo winch.

That's all I've done for now. I have plans for future upgrades...wheel wells, interior, new rims and tires, etc.

Thanks for looking! Happy trails!

 

[durok]

Pretty sweet ride, Sherman - glad to welcome you into the crawler club in general, and the Element club in particular!

"thumbsup"

 

[Sherman]

I've been busy over the last week or so. Most of my upgrades are all going to be "budget" until I can save up for more expensive or bigger pieces.

Finally used some of the stickers that came with the RTR kit now that I got the truck looking somewhat like what I had always planned.

On Saturday I took the truck over to the local hobby shop with my father and finally got it on some rocks. Definitely left with a few battle scars.

Oops!

So my brother had bought one of those antenna two-packs you see floating around online and gave me the shorter one that he wasn't using. I found a place for it on my truck. It's not horribly scale...but I like the look of it for now. To keep it from "twanging" on the roll bar I zip tied a piece of foam to where it hits.

Finally got out and did some real crawling with the family. In the picture is my Dad's red TRX4 Sport, my brother's TRX6, my Sendero, and bookended by my two sons' tanks they got from grandpa for Christmas. They had fun, but had to stay out of the water since their's weren't waterproofed.

Did some hill climbing...but ended up flipping and rolling down the hill. My brother's TRX6 made it up higher (out of frame) but flipped and his magnetic mounted body came apart so my boys climbed up the hill to retrieve it.

Random nature beauty shots

The aftermath of the day...

 

[Sherman]

So during the stay-at-home order in Ohio I've just been driving the truck around in the back yard a bit. I placed an order for some new parts that will be arriving between now and June (slow boat from China). After they arrive my truck is going to have a whole new back-end. So I figured I'd post some shots of the current setup now that I've added a tool box from Tractor Supply Company and finally figured out how to keep the spare tire from falling out. Once the new back-end arrives it has a built-in spare tire holder, so that will make things so much easier.

I am going "truggy" next. The new back end is one of the Injora back cages. I ordered a set of Club 5 Racing mudflaps and finally some wheel weights to help keep the truck grounded. I'm keeping the Sendero front-end for now. Its been growing on me ever since I took it out of the box. So for now, I just wait...until parts arrive in the mail.

 

[Sherman]

My parts from Club5Racing came in and I got them installed right away. Still waiting on the rear cage on the slow boat from China. I opted for the 6mm extended weights which add 54 grams of weight at each tire. This thing is a bit heftier now! They also give the wheels a more scale look by not having the axle stick out so much. I ordered a set of scale lug bolts and some mud flaps too.

 

[Sherman]

New toys arrived in the mail today! All nice and shiny. Of course I had to promptly "destroy" them by making them look used.

Temporarily mounted it on the spare in the back with zip ties until I get the rear cage in and decide where I'm putting all the tools permanently.

 

[Sherman]

I was curious, has anyone had any luck or issues with mounting new tires on the original Method rims Element provided? Anything to watch out for?

 

[Sherman]

My INJORA back half-cage never showed up from China, so I got a refund and purchased the Proline version. A little more pricey, but works and looks amazing.

The Club 5 Racing mudflaps I bought broke within a day...some sort of hybrid resin-rubber compound that didn't hold up to getting bumped around on rocks. I ended up cutting my own, longer ones, out of thick rubber.

 

[RCBrutus]

Truck looks great!

I had the same problem with my Club 5 mudflaps.....one day on the rocks and they were ripped and almost falling off.

 

[Sherman]

Truck looks great!

I had the same problem with my Club 5 mudflaps.....one day on the rocks and they were ripped and almost falling off.

Thank you very much!

Bummer! I contacted them and they gave me a refund rather than replacing them, so I'm assuming they realized they have an issue. They look like they're poured into a mold, so I am wondering if it's a hybrid resin-rubber that just doesn't stand up to the abuse.

I was able to use the original brackets and made new flaps, but I had to get new hardware because the rubber I used was thicker. My replacements have held up for at least 4 crawling sessions now with no issues.

 

[Sherman]

Decided to buy some new tires for my truck. I've always felt the original General Grabbers were a bit too big for the truck when looking at it as a potential "scale looking" truck. Being the budget-conscious guy that I am, and not wanting to be in the doghouse with the wife. I went with a set of "Goolsky Austar" tires off Amazon which are essentially Dick Cepek Mud Country knock-offs. They do actually say Dick Cepek Mud Country on the side. They are only 100mm tires, so they're smaller than the General Grabbers by about 10mm.

I took a quick photoshoot in the o'l garage.

Now, I had questions from folks who own an Element RTR truck and still are using the stock shocks. Have any of you had luck with a droop setup on these shocks? I tried using the "pen spring" method as seen on Youtube, but what I found was the external springs overpowered the internal pen springs and the shock wouldn't droop at all. Maybe I'm using too big of internal springs? Does anyone have any tips on what type of springs to use to make droop work with these Element shocks? Thanks in advance!

 

[Dirt Runner]

Curious how those knock off tires perform?

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[durok]

Those tires look great on the stock rims, nice OD and width as well!

I may need to pick up a set... "thumbsup"

 

[Sherman]

Curious how those knock off tires perform?

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I felt like they performed pretty well. I'm no expert, so I can't say for sure. But they definitely seemed to have more grip than my General Grabber's. I could hear the lugs gripping on things which I hadn't heard before with the original tires. Now, I also don't know if that's because my original tires might have worn down over time and are less grippy?

The only other disadvantage is I'm getting hung up on the axles a bit more now that they sit 5mm closer to the ground. My first run out with these I didn't pick the best spot to go running, the area I picked had lots of big rocks so I definitely did lots of axle scraping and bumping.

 

[Phyro]

How’s the durability of the back cage? Been looking at using it for a build towards the end of the year.


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[Sherman]

Pretty dang durable so far! The one on my truck is the Proline half-cage. I ordered an INJORA one from Amazon too, but it took so long to arrive that I bought and installed the Proline one instead. I have a backup, I guess, in case something happens to this one.

The Proline cage has a "fuel cell" which the body mounts mount through. So it's pretty sturdy as it's clipped through the front and back of the shell. None of it actually seems to touch the ground when it rolls as the spare I have in the back is so large it sticks up over the top of the cage and the rear wheels are wider than the cage itself.

The INJORA cage would have mounted direct to the frame and allowed it to tilt back to access the battery and electronics if done correctly. That would have been a cool feature, but oh well.

 

[Sherman]

Wrenching this thread back from the depths of time to bring some updates. Last year I decided I wanted a hard body for my truck and had a 3D printer and some scratch-building tools. My plan was to turn my Sendero into an off-road wrecker similar to that of the Youtuber Eric from "BSF Recovery".

3D printed Dodge Ram cab, not the best quality...but I can work with it.

Scratch-built wrecker bed using "sintra" or foamed pvc board. Just had some images from the net, an idea, and an exacto blade.

I love the look of the truck in this shot. So menacing.

The "mostly finished" body ready to go. Snaps on with magnets, has a boom that goes up and down (by hand). Not made for actual towing, just for show.

Need to get this rig outside too, it's been sitting inside getting worked on. I'm ready to get it out and scratched up, weathered, etc. I still need to wire up my lights, figure out something for a windshield, considering a shallow interior, more accessories for the wrecker bed.

 

[smog]

Great looking wrecker. The wheel offset, cab choice etc. are great. It looks tough and broad like an off road wrecker really should. I should also acknowledge your fine work with the foam board. Nice crafting

 

[durok]

There's some Chinese no-name wrecker boom kits on eBay/Amazon, they don't look this good but I have been thinking of adding one to the RC4WD metal work truck bed I bought to convert my Marlin...

They do allow the use of a winch for some functionality, though.

 

[Sherman]

And like that, it's back from the dead again. I did some work on the wrecker body, I didn't ever finish it...and it was starting to get cumbersome. I didn't like how high up the truck sat, but wanted it to still be maneuverable on the trails. I also took it out for a crawl, rolled it over, and cracked the "light wing" that holds the flashing service light. I decided to take a step back from the build and shelve it.

Then had a crawl planned with dad and bro so I tossed on my dad's old New Bright Bronco shell with some velcro and this thing looked great and stayed on well. Some minor issues with the front axel not lining up with the wheel wells, but reminds me of when folks scoot the front end of Jeeps out to make them crawl better.

So now I've been working on decking it out make it my own.