HBX Devastator turned micro Wheelie Van

[Brake Weight]

I had this body for several months wanting to use it. My Trail Trekker assumed another life of similar tastes as a classic VW Bug. This Samba Van needed new life as well.

Less than $10 off Amazon as a cheap throw away, but nicely detailed, RC.

The HBX was torn down so quickly upon arrival I didn't take any photos. So I pulled some from the vendor's website.

I quickly toyed with it building it and tearing it apart, time and time again. I couldn't get the axles right, couldn't get the wheelbase right, over and over until it was right. OCD sucks. It's more like a micro Wraith now.

Here's how the body will look. There's still more to figure out. How to mount the body? Tranny skid to clock the motor out of the way? Springs too stiff?

I intend on rebuilding it for the last time using loc tite. The bolts and stand offs tend to work themselves loose. I also am going to try one more approach and that is flipping the chassis plates upside down and see how it'll land out. Especially since I intend on clocking the tranny out of the way. The two side plates won't be needed any more.

I've opened up the Rx/ESC and battery box. The batteries are 2 simple 18650 batteries wired up as one. Nothing fancy, but heavy. I'll be doing something along the lines of the Losi Micro crawlers for attaching electronics.

 

[CrawlinMike]

Hey that's great! I have one ordered but it's certainly taking its time getting here. Interested if you get any video of it. Keep up the good work

 

[Sparks1337]

Looks great 8) I like how you reconfigured the chassis. Have you tried it upside down yet?

That body is cool - might be a bit slow for a wheelie truck tho ;-) Does it have an interior?

Might help to lay the shocks back a bit more, but I guess you've tried pretty much everything by now. Where exactly is the motor fouling - lower or upper links or just the back of the axle/servo?

 

[Brake Weight]

The motor lays sideways on the same plane as the output shafts. All up in the way of everything really: driveshaft and links.

Here is v1.0 of a tranny skid. I put it offset slightly so I'll be able to slip a lipo in there. This is all the time I had for today and the electronics will have to wait for another day. I did put the original Rx/ESC/batteries in there upside down and held on with a rubber band to check angles and they were binding enough to make it lurch around. So I took the advice of lowering the shock angles to lower it some and it worked so far.

I'll try spooling a few coils of the springs off and see how that acts. The plastic piece I used was a bit from a bumper mounting plate hacked up, screwed and chopped.

 

[Brake Weight]

From the top.

It makes contact on the link that directly underneath the motor. It's minimum and only when I compress the suspension with my hand. Not during any flexing.

 

[johnnyh66]

What's your wheelbase at now?

 

[Brake Weight]

120mm axle stub to stub.

 

[Sparks1337]

Nice work

Sounds like the link hitting the motor won't be an issue. I'm pretty sure it did that with the stock setup when compressing by hand.

 

[Brake Weight]

On the next skid I'm gonna move the tranny more toward centerline. I'll keep it off enter enough to get a lipo in there and there may be enough room to slide the Rx/ESC in, too.

Sliding it over will get the motor off of the link more.

 

[Brake Weight]

I couldn't find anything to make another skid out of at my house besides wood yesterday. Then I found the wife's cutting board in the cabinet. So this morning when I dropped off baby girl at preschool I cruised through Walmart and picked up two smaller cutting boards. I think it'll do just fine if I countersink the bolt holes some and likewise with the tranny, too.

 

[Brake Weight]

Got bored this afternoon and resumed tinkering with this thing. I've reworked it a dozen times again: without side plates, with plates, standoff a on lower links, I even tried it with the chassis plates upside down and that didn't work all too well.

I put it back together without the side plates one last time and I'm liking it this way. The wheelbase has grown some and the van body won't fit anymore. The driveshaft angles are too high to make a conventional skid like I tried earlier. But if I were to hang the tranny from the top I'd be able to lower it just past the bottom of the chassis some. I think I'll be able to pull it off if I can fab some sort of skid plate to go on the bottom of the tranny, but it won't be mounted to anything but the tranny. I don't foresee any amount of torque that would flex this bad enough to cause problems either.

 

[Brake Weight]

After I figure out where to put the Rx/ESC permanently and a battery I'll leave it be. I'm thinking of maybe some sort of body panels, but I'm tired of fooling with this one. I ran it for about 5 mi Utes with a rubber band holding the electronics in and it did aight. The tires aren't even in the same league with the Bug Trekker and the MiClaws. I've got them weighted down with lead to about 41g each, IIRC. Once I find some m2.5 nuts I'll lose the standoffs on the shocks. I may space the tranny down lower but it did fine. It wasn't lurching like it did the time before.