Dovenosing/ body work with lexan

[Kindofslowsped]

I recently bought the Ascender F100 and immediately put in a promodeler 470 servo, a great recommendation by a friend who has been driving rc's off all sorts for over 10 years. What I didn't think much about when buying it is that the Ford's have the shortest WB and the servo is actually mounted sideways compared to the K5 my friend let me test drive. I spent a bunch of time watching YouTube and reading forums to where I finally had the confidence to make a servo winch. (I more than blew through my budget with the upgraded servo, transmitter, receiver and my oversized BEC.
I am a newbie to hobby RC trucks and not affaid to admit it. Everythong ibe learned has been in the last 2 months. So I still have alot to learn.
Right now the plan is to stretch the WB about 1/4 inch so I can turn the servo 90° to be in the same position as the Chevy Ascender. Doing this will give me the perfect place to mount my servo winch. My friend has agreed to help me with this because I would never tackle this with my limited experience alone.
The idea was tossed around to move the body slightly forward to keep the front inline and Dovenose the front end giving a better angle of approach. Either way I really want to dovenose the truck. My wife overheard me talking about this, and suggested just buying a cheap winch to mount to the bumper, I really don't want to use a cheap winch that I know I'm going to fry when I built a strong servo winch that is capable of dead lifting the truck.
Does anyone have experience dovenosing trucks or cutting lexan and re-attaching it to itself? I feel like it's a lot of work but also a very functional modification. Any information on this is more than I have now, thank you.

 

[mgputer]

I have done it a few times but it never holds up that well on lexan bodies. Used Goop glue or shoe goo it's called sometimes. I have also used hot glue. You can reinforce it which helps but the reinforcing is attached to paint so it usually peals off after a while. You can put thin aluminum on the back and put screws threw which looks a little Frankenstein but it holds better. There's a thread I saw someone bobbed an ascender blazer and it looked pretty good but I'm not sure how well it held up. Maybe there's a glue or process I'm not aware of? He didn't really elaborate on how it was done.

The best one I did had a roll cage that I brazed up and put tabs on that I screwed the body together with small screws to the cage to look more scale.

If you were to dove an unpainted body and paint it on the outside you get better results also.

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[Kindofslowsped]

F100 finally done. Took alot of work. Learned alot about body work and painting. Found a great bonding compound for lexan, E6000. You can find it at most hardware stores. I also used some spare lexan and fiberglass drywall mesh tape, worked really good for added support. Coated it with the E6000. I have done multiple drop tests up to about 7 to 8ft and have had no issues. How she holds up getting tumbled down hills I will see.

 

[Kindofslowsped]

Wish I could post a photo, came out looking great. I have pics on FB through Vtcrawler group under Matt Prive if anyone is interested.

 

[mgputer]

Wish I could post a photo, came out looking great. I have pics on FB through Vtcrawler group under Matt Prive if anyone is interested.

I'll have to check it out. I did the same thing on my f100. It's a challenge but like you said you learn a lot.

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