55ovalcharlie
Rock Stacker
Ok - so I know that defenders aren't everyones cup of tea (especially on the other side of the pond) but I'm getting to be rather partial to them
So after pretty much finishing my Death Proof UK D110 truck
and my bomber based U4 D90
Was time to swiftly knock up another one- wanted something a bit different this time and to base it on a platform that I will quickly be able to swap complete bodies with.
So used an SCX10ii chassis that I chopped about 1cm off the rear end.
Stock kit transmission but with a Vanquish top shaft.
SSD Pro44 Diamond axles
SSD Brass knuckles
Traxxas TRX4 shocks
home made stainless links and a hand full of other nice bits
For the bodies - yes - bodies! wanted 2 x different styles for this - 2 x el-cheapo D90 hard bodies
First one will be a tray back body - it's undergone some drastic surgery to convert it into a single cab trackback with some steel tube fenders.
Cab will also have a full eco-cage and connected in turn to the rear tray back setup which will be hinged from the rear.
So the entire cage & cab will lift up as one for super easy battery changes.
I'm not one for taking a photo of every single step - so sorry about that
Cage is all 4mm outside diameter, 2mm internal diameter stainless steel tube.
tacked together with MIG and then silver soldered with 55% silver solder.
First cuts done and rear screen panel glued back in place.
some of the 1:1 trucks I took inspiration from
The cage is designed so it bolts to the body using the 4 x stock 3mm holes running across the bottom of the 2 rockers and 2 x small tabs on the front hood. Simply clamped in place and thats all that holds the body in place.
the cage is then hinged to the back of the 2 x chassis rails to allow tilting up / down - and is secured at the front with 2 x small tabs that get secured to the front chassis cross member.
Cage was pretty much sorted in a couple of days resulting in this.
For the front end the tubing was bent to shape and then the top of the fenders was filled with some sheet stainless soldered into place.
The front hexagon grille is actually cut from the case of a broken desktop PC case we had at work
Fairlead is secured to a simple tube bumper and a servo winch will be used.
put some brackets on the back end for an alloy hi-lift jack and some rear spots .
Rear mounted winch too.
soldered up a land anchor to dangle off the front end also
Used a friends vapour blaster to clean up the cage
As for paint - just wanted to use what I had lying around - so this happened
:laughing:
Added some decals I cut on my plotter too
Added the spots too
and fuel cell and radiator
and then a Mr Wild Willy seemed to fit the bill after chopping up the interior a bit to clear the motor / tranny
Long story short - through various deals and winning a raffle - I amazingly ended up with 2 new sets of 1.9 CNC Custom Wheels.
These things are amazing - and if you ever get the opportunity to have a set - I strongly recommend you take it.
They're pretty rare things over here in the UK so as soon as they arrived with me here a set had to go on - fitted with Locked Up Rc Rings, some scale hardware, SSD hubs and brake rotors. - and with the 1.7 RC4WD Iroks stretched over them with some crawler innovations foam
Now I've just got to finish off a few details and then wire it all up
SO
for body number 2 !!!
Thought it would be cool to have a second body setup that I could easily swap over with this tray back - and seeing as I had a slightly beaten up "new" body shell Wanted something a little bit different so decided that I wanted a "soft top / cabrio" version as you don't see too many of those over here in the UK.
here are a few 1:1 images for inspiration
so out came the hacksaw and the body lost its roof!
Few hours later and I'm left with this.
Main cage is made up with 6mm OD stainless tubing to give it a bit of a beefy look on this one.
All silver soldered together,
The bottoms of the front windscreen hoops extend down about 1cm through holes drilled in the top of the fenders and it all ends up being rather solid.
Still got plenty more bracing needed on the rear section, and debating what to do with the front.
But just like the tray back, this has been built to be hinged from the rear so you can lift the entire body and cage as one for easy access to the battery / electronics.
Added some front tube work - this wraps down around the front headlight areas then a cross bar has a couple of tangs sticking downwards that nicely slot into holes drilled in the front bumper to locate everything - as this body / cage will also hinge up from the rear for battery changes.
Also finished up the rear cage structure.
All in all - it ends up one super stiff cage when everything is bolted down to the body.
next steps are to sort out the final interior placement, leaving enough room for a driver etc...
then fab up some kind of bulkhead to go behind the front seats.
trucks pretty much done now.
to clean up all the gunk after heaps of silver soldering I gave it a session in a vapour blast cabinet - It came out really nice so will definitely be being left in raw finish.
after the cage was prepared it was time to finally sort out the body.
Primed it then painted it using a "Montana" brand spray can I had kicking about. Great colour!
The wheel arches had previously been chopped off so I chose to fit some SDI rubber "cut to size" wheel arches which really are a fantastic product. Super easy to fit and really durable, nice soft rubber. Look way nicer than hard plastic arches too.
I trimmed down the stock interior to fit around the scx10ii gearbox and battery etc...
the seat backs were ditched in favour for some of the sport seat backs from DJ Designs that fit into the holes on the stock interior.
The front grille and headlights were replaced with another now discontinued (until he makes some more) DJ Designs SVX Grille. Had to alter them a little to be able to get working lights in there.
The fender top air intakes are also from DJ Designs.
I also chopped out the rear fuel filler from the standard body and fitted a far more scale DJ Designs fuel filler too.
After that - cut out some simple graphics on my vinyl cutter, and painted up a quick wild willy driver bloke
Just realised I've not taken any pics of the mounting / hinge mechanism.
So - as per the green tray back body, the blue cage/body hinges up from the rear of the chassis rails, allowing the entire "body" to be lifted out of the way for easy battery changes and maintenance.
The front bit of cage work then has 2 x vertical drop down "tabs" (kind of below the headlights) - when the body is lowered down, these 2 tabs drop into matching holes in the aluminium front bumper. There is then a drop down tab in the middle of the front cage bit that lines up with a threaded hole in the bumper - allowing you to secure the cage down with just 1 x M3 screw.
All in all it ends up being a REALLY stiff structure once its all buttoned up.
The ESC, servo and receiver are all hooked up and the truck works - yay - so
Next steps :
Wire up the 2 x winches
Sort out a few LEDs
Make a rear bulkhead to cover the back of the gearbox area
Maybe a bit of chequer plate in the rear
then - possibly have a drive of it???
So after pretty much finishing my Death Proof UK D110 truck
and my bomber based U4 D90
Was time to swiftly knock up another one- wanted something a bit different this time and to base it on a platform that I will quickly be able to swap complete bodies with.
So used an SCX10ii chassis that I chopped about 1cm off the rear end.
Stock kit transmission but with a Vanquish top shaft.
SSD Pro44 Diamond axles
SSD Brass knuckles
Traxxas TRX4 shocks
home made stainless links and a hand full of other nice bits
For the bodies - yes - bodies! wanted 2 x different styles for this - 2 x el-cheapo D90 hard bodies
First one will be a tray back body - it's undergone some drastic surgery to convert it into a single cab trackback with some steel tube fenders.
Cab will also have a full eco-cage and connected in turn to the rear tray back setup which will be hinged from the rear.
So the entire cage & cab will lift up as one for super easy battery changes.
I'm not one for taking a photo of every single step - so sorry about that
Cage is all 4mm outside diameter, 2mm internal diameter stainless steel tube.
tacked together with MIG and then silver soldered with 55% silver solder.
First cuts done and rear screen panel glued back in place.
some of the 1:1 trucks I took inspiration from
The cage is designed so it bolts to the body using the 4 x stock 3mm holes running across the bottom of the 2 rockers and 2 x small tabs on the front hood. Simply clamped in place and thats all that holds the body in place.
the cage is then hinged to the back of the 2 x chassis rails to allow tilting up / down - and is secured at the front with 2 x small tabs that get secured to the front chassis cross member.
Cage was pretty much sorted in a couple of days resulting in this.
For the front end the tubing was bent to shape and then the top of the fenders was filled with some sheet stainless soldered into place.
The front hexagon grille is actually cut from the case of a broken desktop PC case we had at work
Fairlead is secured to a simple tube bumper and a servo winch will be used.
put some brackets on the back end for an alloy hi-lift jack and some rear spots .
Rear mounted winch too.
soldered up a land anchor to dangle off the front end also
Used a friends vapour blaster to clean up the cage
As for paint - just wanted to use what I had lying around - so this happened
:laughing:
Added some decals I cut on my plotter too
Added the spots too
and fuel cell and radiator
and then a Mr Wild Willy seemed to fit the bill after chopping up the interior a bit to clear the motor / tranny
Long story short - through various deals and winning a raffle - I amazingly ended up with 2 new sets of 1.9 CNC Custom Wheels.
These things are amazing - and if you ever get the opportunity to have a set - I strongly recommend you take it.
They're pretty rare things over here in the UK so as soon as they arrived with me here a set had to go on - fitted with Locked Up Rc Rings, some scale hardware, SSD hubs and brake rotors. - and with the 1.7 RC4WD Iroks stretched over them with some crawler innovations foam
Now I've just got to finish off a few details and then wire it all up
SO
for body number 2 !!!
Thought it would be cool to have a second body setup that I could easily swap over with this tray back - and seeing as I had a slightly beaten up "new" body shell Wanted something a little bit different so decided that I wanted a "soft top / cabrio" version as you don't see too many of those over here in the UK.
here are a few 1:1 images for inspiration
so out came the hacksaw and the body lost its roof!
Few hours later and I'm left with this.
Main cage is made up with 6mm OD stainless tubing to give it a bit of a beefy look on this one.
All silver soldered together,
The bottoms of the front windscreen hoops extend down about 1cm through holes drilled in the top of the fenders and it all ends up being rather solid.
Still got plenty more bracing needed on the rear section, and debating what to do with the front.
But just like the tray back, this has been built to be hinged from the rear so you can lift the entire body and cage as one for easy access to the battery / electronics.
Added some front tube work - this wraps down around the front headlight areas then a cross bar has a couple of tangs sticking downwards that nicely slot into holes drilled in the front bumper to locate everything - as this body / cage will also hinge up from the rear for battery changes.
Also finished up the rear cage structure.
All in all - it ends up one super stiff cage when everything is bolted down to the body.
next steps are to sort out the final interior placement, leaving enough room for a driver etc...
then fab up some kind of bulkhead to go behind the front seats.
trucks pretty much done now.
to clean up all the gunk after heaps of silver soldering I gave it a session in a vapour blast cabinet - It came out really nice so will definitely be being left in raw finish.
after the cage was prepared it was time to finally sort out the body.
Primed it then painted it using a "Montana" brand spray can I had kicking about. Great colour!
The wheel arches had previously been chopped off so I chose to fit some SDI rubber "cut to size" wheel arches which really are a fantastic product. Super easy to fit and really durable, nice soft rubber. Look way nicer than hard plastic arches too.
I trimmed down the stock interior to fit around the scx10ii gearbox and battery etc...
the seat backs were ditched in favour for some of the sport seat backs from DJ Designs that fit into the holes on the stock interior.
The front grille and headlights were replaced with another now discontinued (until he makes some more) DJ Designs SVX Grille. Had to alter them a little to be able to get working lights in there.
The fender top air intakes are also from DJ Designs.
I also chopped out the rear fuel filler from the standard body and fitted a far more scale DJ Designs fuel filler too.
After that - cut out some simple graphics on my vinyl cutter, and painted up a quick wild willy driver bloke
Just realised I've not taken any pics of the mounting / hinge mechanism.
So - as per the green tray back body, the blue cage/body hinges up from the rear of the chassis rails, allowing the entire "body" to be lifted out of the way for easy battery changes and maintenance.
The front bit of cage work then has 2 x vertical drop down "tabs" (kind of below the headlights) - when the body is lowered down, these 2 tabs drop into matching holes in the aluminium front bumper. There is then a drop down tab in the middle of the front cage bit that lines up with a threaded hole in the bumper - allowing you to secure the cage down with just 1 x M3 screw.
All in all it ends up being a REALLY stiff structure once its all buttoned up.
The ESC, servo and receiver are all hooked up and the truck works - yay - so
Next steps :
Wire up the 2 x winches
Sort out a few LEDs
Make a rear bulkhead to cover the back of the gearbox area
Maybe a bit of chequer plate in the rear
then - possibly have a drive of it???
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