Bronco to monster truck advice needed.

[jmw_man]

So I have the Bronco Ascender and I was thinking of converting it to a monster truck. I posted elsewhere and got a couple tips but I need to make sure I'm fully schooled on my choices before I start spending money.

The Bronco wheelbase is 10.75" so I'm thinking tires that are around 5.35". The two options I've learned of are the HPI wheely king tires and the Proline Destroyers. They are fairly close in size but the Wheely king tires are pretty cheap so that might be the obvious choice. Not sure if the Destroyers are better in any way. Thoughts?

The next thing are the wheels. The axle is 7.56" face to face. I haven't fully decided if I'm going to stick with the bronco body, but I'd imagine the bronco body is wider than most other bodies out there. With the fender flares the bronco body is 9.5" wide at its widest point. The wheels will definitely need to be offset. Honestly, there's probably no amount of offset that will be enough to get outside of the bronco's fenders. I'll probably have to go with a new body. Suggestions? I might just do a pickup. Not sure what width I should expect. I have an old one here that's junk and it measures 6.75". The wheely king tires are 2.75" wide. So I might need something close to a 1" offset. Does that exist? Someone suggested the Traxxas 3672 but I'm not sure what the offset is on this? Anybody know?

Lastly, it's suggested that I will need to get the bronco lifted. How do i go about doing this?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Natedog]

I'd go with the Pro-Line tires, looks great, widely available, better rubber compound.

Yes, Vaterra Bronco body is wider than all the others 1/10 scale that I recall. Traxxas Stampede Bigfoot body would be sweet and prolly good wheelbase and width. Keep ride height as low as possible, trim wheel arches slightly if needed. Start building and then test fit bodies if you can before buying, maybe swing by LHS for this?

Edit, tire sizes are almost identical, but HPI Mud Thrasher tires are kinda hard rubber compound, whereas Proline are M3 compound.

 

[jmw_man]

I love the Traxxas Bigfoot body. The question is, is it possible to get one already painted and has all of the other attachments already assembled? For that matter, is there anywhere that I can get a cool body that's already painted and an additional pieces are already installed?

I'm also interested in finding a way to avoid putting holes in the body. Velcro perhaps? What do I need to do to modify the posts on the Ascender itself?

Lastly, my second RC is a Kyosho USA-1 that I bought around 1990. I've recently pulled it out of the attic, updated the electronics, installed a second servo for the four wheel steering and now I'm ready to look at replacing the old body. I know there's a company called Team Blue Groove that started remaking the original USA-1 body. They have an Ebay store:VINTAGE KYOSHO USA1 USA 1 AND TRACKER BODY FITS NITRO AND ELECTRIC TRUCK | eBay
I'm partly interested in having the era correct USA-1 body, although, I dislike having to paint the bodies, and this one doesn't have anything over the windows to keep you from painting the windows. So I may get whatever they have at the local hobby store. I also dislike that it's a chevy which makes me interested in turning my USA-1 into a bigfoot. Anyways, the reason why I'm mentioning all of this is because I'm thinking about making the bodies interchangeable. And I would simply use velcro on both trucks. Any thoughts?

 

[JatoTheRipper]

I love the Traxxas Bigfoot body. The question is, is it possible to get one already painted and has all of the other attachments already assembled? For that matter, is there anywhere that I can get a cool body that's already painted and an additional pieces are already installed?

I'm also interested in finding a way to avoid putting holes in the body. Velcro perhaps? What do I need to do to modify the posts on the Ascender itself?

Lastly, my second RC is a Kyosho USA-1 that I bought around 1990. I've recently pulled it out of the attic, updated the electronics, installed a second servo for the four wheel steering and now I'm ready to look at replacing the old body. I know there's a company called Team Blue Groove that started remaking the original USA-1 body. They have an Ebay store:VINTAGE KYOSHO USA1 USA 1 AND TRACKER BODY FITS NITRO AND ELECTRIC TRUCK | eBay
I'm partly interested in having the era correct USA-1 body, although, I dislike having to paint the bodies, and this one doesn't have anything over the windows to keep you from painting the windows. So I may get whatever they have at the local hobby store. I also dislike that it's a chevy which makes me interested in turning my USA-1 into a bigfoot. Anyways, the reason why I'm mentioning all of this is because I'm thinking about making the bodies interchangeable. And I would simply use velcro on both trucks. Any thoughts?

You can sometimes find the Traxxas Bigfoot bodies complete on eBay. People just buy the RTR truck and part it out. They were going for around $100, but I haven't seen them on there lately.

You can use Velcro for the bodies. I've used magnets, but the magnets pulled off the body and took the paint with it. The same could happen with Velcro.

 

[jmw_man]

Is there an easy way to life the Ascender?

 

[rag6]

Do you mean leaf?

 

[jmw_man]

Typo, I meant lift.

 

[Natedog]

Typo, I meant lift.

Drop all your frame link, shock, panhard, steering mounts down, but lifting the truck is going to make it crawl worse. Maybe just bigger tires and cut out the wheelwells more since your looking for monster truck look. This would be easier than dropping everything down and making the panhard, steering and all work properly. You could do leaf spring conversion though, or do front four link without panhard and run servo on axle, the Ascender kits come with bracket to axle mount the steering servo.

Make or buy inner fenders to hide the internals for more scale looks."thumbsup"

 

[Hobbezco]

Easy? no. Can you do it? Oh yes.

 

[Natedog]

Dam that's hawt, we need a build thread, video, something more! 8)

 

[jmw_man]

Dam that's hawt, we need a build thread, video, something more! 8)

I was gonna say, I'm in love, lol.

I want to see a video of it run too!

 

[jmw_man]

So, while I love the stock form of my Bronco Ascender, I want to do more than just crawl, I want to "bash?" a little, lol. Maybe do a few jumps, etc. Actually, I have an E-Maxx and while that vehicle is supposed to serve that purpose, as well as my vintage USA-1, both of those vehicles are just all wheel drive with independent suspensions and I want a traditional 4 wheel drive truck with a solid axle. So I thought why not the Ascender.

Well, I already spent some money and now I need to avoid it going to waste, lol. First, I bought the 2.78" wide Proline Destroyer 2.2 tires. At first I put them on the Traxxas rear wheels (for the stampede), and learned that they won't fit on my Ascender, so I went out and bought a different set of wheels; proline 2.2 traxxas front wheels (for the stampede), they still wouldn't work, so then I bought some 15mm hex spacers. Then I learned about scrub radius (which isn't an issue on bashers typically, my e-maxx has a scrub radius, but if you want to do some combination of crawling and bashing, zero scrub radius is best. Well, even with the set of wheels with maximum positive offset, the scrub radius is still more than I want. I need a different set of wheels that can fit the super wide 2.78" destroyer tires. Has anybody else used these tires?

And Hobbezco, can you post a front pick of your blazer?

 

[jmw_man]

Those tires are growing on me still. I wonder when rc4wd will have them available again...

So, those tires are $30 for a pair right? and the wheels are $50 for a pair right?

 

[Hobbezco]

Sorry for the late reply, Horizon Zero Dawn came out and I basically closed my shop for a week and have done nothing but play it.

The tires run about $30 a pair, the rims are $50 for a full set. Here are some front end shots, the only camera I have charged atm is my phone so they are not great. The bumper came off a truck with a winch, so that's what the hole is all about. I will likely remake it when I have the time. I still need to take the plates that I made for the transmission off and redo them so that they dont look so trashy. I also need to get that $8 servo out of there and get a nice waterproof savox in its place. It ran well for the little that I have been able to test it. Been off my feet most of the winter from knee surgery and I am just getting to the point of being able to walk normally.