JimK's Cherokee X-Trail Revival

[JimK]

For fun I put the tires on the axles and sat the body on top. Gives a pretty good idea of what the the finished truck will look like.

I kind of like the squatted stance. I think I'll try to keep the body as low as possible when I set up the shocks.

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[JimK]

Tonight I gathered the spacers I needed and got the shocks mounted. It turned out pretty good and I like the ride height but damn is the suspension ever stiff. Pretty sure I'm going to need some softer springs.

5mm spacers on the top.

6mm spacers on the lower mounts.

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[JimK]

Next I installed the steel drive shafts and bolted up the wheels.

The wheelbase is just a hair over 13 inches.

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[JimK]

I set the body back on to see how it looks. This is pretty close to where it will actually sit when its mounted permanently. The front bumper is off my SCX10 III and I think it will do nicely on this truck.

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[JimK]

I had some time to tune the shocks this afternoon. I made a few changes and I think The suspension works much better now. It was way to stiff and wouldn't even flex when you lifted one wheel.

I drained out the the 50 weight oil and replaced it with 10 weight. The 50 weight turned out to be way to heavy for these shocks.

I also opened up the slots in the piston. The left side is original and the right side has been opened up with a needle file. I did both sides on each piston.

I also removed the shock adjustment collars for now. The springs are long enough to still be slightly compressed without them. The shocks cycle much easier now and actually sag slightly without the body on. Hopefully this set up will suffice when the truck is all done. If not I'll try to find softer springs or perhaps just go with different shocks.

I ordered a 35 kg steering servo and a HobbyWing Fusion 1800kv motor for this thing. That stuff should arrive sometime next week.

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[JimK]

My steering servo and a set of 10mm wide wheel hexes showed up today. Going to fiddle around with installing them while I watch the football game.

A very nice servo with the usual assortment of fasteners and servo horns.

I'll be setting it up with this nice machined aluminum servo horn that came with it.

I'm installing these wider hexes because the front wheels hit the shocks when fully cranked. No beuno.

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[JimK]

I popped the wider hexes on first all quick and easy like. You can see how much wider the new hexes are.

Here's a couple pics with the narrow hexes.

Here's a couple with the wider hexes. Hopefully the camera angle catches the difference.

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[JimK]

The wheels made contact with the shock springs at about 70% travel. That's a lot of steering travel lost.

Almost at full lock with the new hexes before the wheels contact the springs. I don't mind trimming that out a little bit with the steering trim.

New wider hex on the right....old narrow hex on the left.

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[JimK]

I started to install the steering servo but ended up having to abort the mission for now.

I needed slightly longer screws to accommodate the thick mounting flange on the servo.

Once I started screwing the servo in place I noticed right away that the bottom of the servo was hitting the upper suspension links. It won't be a big deal to reconfigure the links but that's more involved than I want to get right now so we'll save it for another time. I also need to look through my stuff and find the aluminum plate that mounts to the chassis cross brace. That's where I mount my rx and power switch.

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[OSRC]

Nice build! The X-trail chassis was ahead of its time imo.

 

[JimK]

Nice build! The X-trail chassis was ahead of its time imo.

Thanks!! I think so too. I'm glad I kept it around and didn't sell or trade it off. This should be a fun little trail truck when it's all done.

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[JimK]

Well, my motor came in and I picked up a radio for this rig too. I'm going to take a few minutes to get some cheese into my smoker and then sit down and get some of this stuff installed before I have to head off to work this afternoon.

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[JimK]

The first order of business was to change the plug on the motor. The motor came with an XT60 plug so I needed to replace it with an IC3 plug to match all my batteries. I didn't have the right plug on hand so I sacrificed a spare charge lead to get the job done.

All swapped out and ready to go.

I installed the steering servo while the new plug cooled down. I removed the battery tray for better access to the servo mount.

In place nicely with no interference when flexed. I'll put the servo horn on later once all the electronics are hooked up and I can center the servo.

I flipped the upper suspension links and that solved the problem of the servo hitting them. Good to go now.

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[JimK]

Next it was on the installing the motor. As you can see the chassis brace was in the way so it had to be removed. There's a plate that mounts to the top of that chassis brace that I had planned to mount the receiver and power switch on. I'll have to figure out a different location for them??

Even with the chassis brace gone I had to temporarily disconnect one of the links to get the motor into position. I just snugged the motor screws for now. I'll install the pinion and set the gear mesh once I have the motor and the tx/rx calibrated.

Plenty of clearance once the motor was fastened in place and I put the link back on. "thumbsup"

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[JimK]

Once I got the tx/rx and motor calibration done I set the gear mesh and snuggled up all the screws with a dab of blue loctite. I installed the pinion gear that came with the transmission for now. It has no markings on it but I think I counted 20 teeth? We'll see how that gear works and switch it up later if need be.

The only other pinion I have on hand in that gear pitch is a 14 tooth. That seems a bit drastic to me?? :shock:

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[JimK]

Next it was on to hooking up the steering linkage and trimming out the steering. The truck has great steering angle but the steering link was a bit too short and I had to turn the trim dial way too much to center the steering. Me no likey!!

I ended up switching to a stainless steel link that I had and was able to lengthen it just slightly so the steering was on center without having to use the steering trim dial....perfect!! I will set up the steering end points later as I'm almost out of time for today.

I set up the motor with the set up card and made a couple setting changes. Most importantly I had to change the motor direction. I also bumped up the bec to 7.4 volts and played with the drag brake settings. I'll play with the brake settings a bit more once I actually get the truck outside on the trails. I tossed it on the floor and did a couple laps around the man cave. Low speed is great and if I punch it the front wheels come off the ground....pretty cool! Perhaps this pinion will work just fine, time will tell.

I got a lot done today. Need to tidy up the wires and mount the rx and power switch and figure out the body mounting but for now I have to shut down and get ready for work.

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[JimK]

I ordered me some Injora goodies for the X-Trail Cherokee.

These rock sliders are nice and sturdy. They'll protect the body and provide a place to mount the electronics.

These brass wheel hexes are 12mm wide. A little weight down low never hurts but I ordered them most for the wheel nuts.

This is a set of 2 white and 2 red LEDs. They're only 3mm but I think I can get creative and get them to work? I'll sort that out once I get the body mounted permanently.

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[JimK]

It only took a few minutes to pop the new wheel hexes on.

Not much thread engagement after I put the 10mm wheel hexes on.

Ooooh....shiny!

Even less threads exposed withered the 12mm wide hexes.

I really like these wheel nuts. They are so big and beefy and look so good. I wish I could find them separately to use on my other rigs.

I also found these Falken Wildpeak A/T tires laying around. I think I'll order up a set of aluminum wheels and see how they look on the Cherokee.

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[JimK]

Next I turned my attention to mounting the rock sliders. The holes lined up perfectly with the existing skid plate holes but I had to open the holes in the rock slider trays just a bit using a 0.125" drill bit.

I swapped out the flat head screws with slightly longer stainless button head screws.

Side trays mounted up after opening up the holes.

Rock sliders mounted to the side trays. I'm sure I'll need to tweak their location once I get the body mounted.

Gonna look something like this when I'm finished.

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[JimK]

Time to tidy up the wiring now.

I had a new Axial receiver box in my parts bin.

I also had an RPM receiver box kicking around.

I ended up mounting the RPM box as it had a bit more room inside for all the extra wire. It's a bit bulkier but still fits just fine under the body.

I mounted the power switch to the opposite side with double sided tape.

Here it is all tidied up and ready to go.

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