I decided It was time to refresh my Ascender K10 after finding out my bumper mounted winch was too weak to be useful. Ditching the winch (bumper mounted) meant that I could make a much lower profile front bumper for a better approach angle. And with the bumper going I need to change up the sliders too
The original bumper stuck out a fair bit and it was often getting hung up, it was also wider than the body. (from RC4WD called rock armor I believe)
The rock sliders that I made to match this bumper were wider too.
I decided I still want a winch but went for a servo winch. I picked up a KMS servo winch and made some brackets that mount to the steering servo and extend up and forward for the servo winch.
My bracket placed the servo winch a bit too far forward so instead of remaking it I used a few spacers to tilt it in the right direction.
For the front bumper I made a little pipe roller in order to make the front curve of the body match the bumper.
I ended up cutting off 1/4"-3/8" (right to the end of the first bumper mount hole) or so off the front of the chassis rails so that I could get a nice angle on the plate on the underside of the bumper. This plate also extends just below the servo horn and linkage protecting it.
I added an inset area for the fairlead to go.
I modified my original sliders cutting them flush with the body and adding in a new runner (3/16" rod) so they only stick out the thickness of the rod. Oh and if you're wondering what the little nub in the slider is it a bump stop of sorts for the bodies roll cage. On roll overs the body used to slam into the sliders and it caused a fair amount of damage to the first body, so these cradle the roll cage on a roll over and prevent the body from hitting the sliders.
I also added some raised upper rear link mounts to the sliders
After that I had to move the sway bar down a bit to clear the links as well as driveshaft (I forgot about the driveshaft the first time and had to try again)
the raise upper rear links were likely to hit the bottom of the electronics mount (the arms)
So I made a new electronics mount plate that was wider
And then I heated and bent the mount arms out, but really the new wider plate and hole spacing will push these mount arms out of the way
Now theres much more clearance to the links
I was also trying to shave some weight off where I could and I ended up removing a bit of aluminum that I had made a license plate and brake light mount out of and i widdled it down to being just the light mounts. I had also made a trailer hitch mount that was pretty heavy so I took it off as well. I also added some SSD rear axle weights a while back and I removed them, I already have enough weight down low and I dont need any extra weight in the rear.
Depending on the wheels I use its anywhere from 7lb 6 oz to 8lb 3oz, I forget the old weight but it was in the 9lb range.
The black wheels are SSD steel slots with the Proline KM3 (4.19's) the silver wheels are Slot mag V2's with vintage finish (sandblasted) from GearHead with Proline Super Swampers. The SSD wheels have a much narrower stance while the Gearhead wheels stick way out.
new vs old bumper weight
I got to test it out last night and its still as good as its always been (its always been one of my best 1.9 crawlers), I hardly even scraped the front bumper which is awesome its providing much more clearance and improved approach angle. The servo winch is much stronger that the old bumper mounted version. I'm not sure I can tell the difference from the RURL mounts yet.
Oh and I'm really pleased with the new narrower/sleeker metalwork. I also used some different paint, Tamiya TS matte black, I used to use a gloss black and this one looks much better.
I very stoked to have this rig back together as its still my favorite.
The last tiny hurdle is to come up with some red leds to run off of the receiver, I used to have a axial simple light kit in it but I'm trying to free up space. Anyway I plugged in a few straight to the receiver to test this out and burned up like 3 sets just testing..... ok I know theres a right way to do this but I just wanted this last step done and I bullheadedly kept pushing and burning up leds. I must have spent 3 hours on this fruitless exercise.
So I've ordered some more red LEDs along with resisters so I can actually do this properly.
at one point I ran out of red LEDs and only had white so I decided to paint the light buckets red and I also added a light coat of black to smoke the lens a bit, it turned out great...... but turn on the LEDs which are white but really come off as blue-ish combined with red= Purple......I should have just quit earlier.
The original bumper stuck out a fair bit and it was often getting hung up, it was also wider than the body. (from RC4WD called rock armor I believe)
The rock sliders that I made to match this bumper were wider too.
I decided I still want a winch but went for a servo winch. I picked up a KMS servo winch and made some brackets that mount to the steering servo and extend up and forward for the servo winch.
My bracket placed the servo winch a bit too far forward so instead of remaking it I used a few spacers to tilt it in the right direction.
For the front bumper I made a little pipe roller in order to make the front curve of the body match the bumper.
I ended up cutting off 1/4"-3/8" (right to the end of the first bumper mount hole) or so off the front of the chassis rails so that I could get a nice angle on the plate on the underside of the bumper. This plate also extends just below the servo horn and linkage protecting it.
I added an inset area for the fairlead to go.
I modified my original sliders cutting them flush with the body and adding in a new runner (3/16" rod) so they only stick out the thickness of the rod. Oh and if you're wondering what the little nub in the slider is it a bump stop of sorts for the bodies roll cage. On roll overs the body used to slam into the sliders and it caused a fair amount of damage to the first body, so these cradle the roll cage on a roll over and prevent the body from hitting the sliders.
I also added some raised upper rear link mounts to the sliders
After that I had to move the sway bar down a bit to clear the links as well as driveshaft (I forgot about the driveshaft the first time and had to try again)
the raise upper rear links were likely to hit the bottom of the electronics mount (the arms)
So I made a new electronics mount plate that was wider
And then I heated and bent the mount arms out, but really the new wider plate and hole spacing will push these mount arms out of the way
Now theres much more clearance to the links
I was also trying to shave some weight off where I could and I ended up removing a bit of aluminum that I had made a license plate and brake light mount out of and i widdled it down to being just the light mounts. I had also made a trailer hitch mount that was pretty heavy so I took it off as well. I also added some SSD rear axle weights a while back and I removed them, I already have enough weight down low and I dont need any extra weight in the rear.
Depending on the wheels I use its anywhere from 7lb 6 oz to 8lb 3oz, I forget the old weight but it was in the 9lb range.
The black wheels are SSD steel slots with the Proline KM3 (4.19's) the silver wheels are Slot mag V2's with vintage finish (sandblasted) from GearHead with Proline Super Swampers. The SSD wheels have a much narrower stance while the Gearhead wheels stick way out.
new vs old bumper weight
I got to test it out last night and its still as good as its always been (its always been one of my best 1.9 crawlers), I hardly even scraped the front bumper which is awesome its providing much more clearance and improved approach angle. The servo winch is much stronger that the old bumper mounted version. I'm not sure I can tell the difference from the RURL mounts yet.
Oh and I'm really pleased with the new narrower/sleeker metalwork. I also used some different paint, Tamiya TS matte black, I used to use a gloss black and this one looks much better.
I very stoked to have this rig back together as its still my favorite.
The last tiny hurdle is to come up with some red leds to run off of the receiver, I used to have a axial simple light kit in it but I'm trying to free up space. Anyway I plugged in a few straight to the receiver to test this out and burned up like 3 sets just testing..... ok I know theres a right way to do this but I just wanted this last step done and I bullheadedly kept pushing and burning up leds. I must have spent 3 hours on this fruitless exercise.
So I've ordered some more red LEDs along with resisters so I can actually do this properly.
at one point I ran out of red LEDs and only had white so I decided to paint the light buckets red and I also added a light coat of black to smoke the lens a bit, it turned out great...... but turn on the LEDs which are white but really come off as blue-ish combined with red= Purple......I should have just quit earlier.
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