Kyosho Blizzard goes Unitrac

[Stollenritter]

Lots of progress today ;-)
I did a quick upgrade on the drivetrain. The stock drivetrain:



With just one steel bushing on the outer side. Very disappointing :evil:
Even plastic bishings had been a better choice ...



No bearing on the inner side:



Wear marks on the shaft (next to the sprocket) caused by the steel bushing, right out of the box:



And the upgrade: two ball bearings 5/10x4mm



Next will be the gearbox.

 

[Stollenritter]

Time to start with the gear box:



Made some brackets from aluminium - this time using slightly thicker material :ror:



Small flanges will fit to the shafts:



... and can be attached to the wall later on:





I have to drill the wall and to drill and tap the flanges now. Plan is to have the flanges fixed to the wall, supporting the shafts under heavy load. But also to be able to move the flanges into position before bolting them to the wall.

 

[fyrstormer]

Looks like a fun vehicle. It doesn't snow enough where I live to justify buying one of these, though.

 

[Stollenritter]

Looks like a fun vehicle. It doesn't snow enough where I live to justify buying one of these, though.

They are sure a lot of fun to work on, hope they are fun to drive too :ror:

 

[Stollenritter]

The flanges are drilled and tapped and ready for assembly:





Moved in:



And fixed to the floor plate:



Same for the other side:



Mating the gearbox with the chassis:



Moving shafts and gears in:



And just a quick test fit with the drive sprockets:



So I call the gearbox mod done ;-)

 

[Stollenritter]

I made some panels from aluminium to fill the gap in the sidewalls:





I plan on building a cover plate which will cover the full lenghts of the chassis. This plate will be mounted to the chassis by the two existing body posts. This way I will have easy access to the internals for changing batteries and doing repairs and maintenance. The upper side of the plate will hold the Mog body and the other scale stuff. Best thing is, i can build multiple cover plates for different bodies :ror:

 

[TrailDawg362]

Nice work, my friend "thumbsup". Hopefully your gearbox improvements will strengthen it enough to handle the added power. I'm curious to see the cover plate idea you have. The DX body I plan on using leaves alot of gaps open to snow, so I might have to do something similar.

 

[Stollenritter]

Nice work, my friend "thumbsup". Hopefully your gearbox improvements will strengthen it enough to handle the added power. I'm curious to see the cover plate idea you have. The DX body I plan on using leaves alot of gaps open to snow, so I might have to do something similar.

Thank You for your kind words, keeps me motivated!

The cover is a simple aluminium sheet, bent on both long sides and drilled for the body posts.







The details are a little bit nasty. The center gearbox wall is slightly higher than the outer walls of the chassis. So I had to make my gap filler sheets a tad higher than the chassis walls (as you can see in the pics of my previous post). Now the cover will lay down on the chassis walls and the gearbox wall in the rear an cover the small gap up front with the downbent sides of the cover (it`s a hard to explain in english, I hope you can follow my thoughts). :roll:
There are still horizontal gaps up front and in the back. I will glue some foam on the upper surfaces of front and rear pan where the cover will be pressed on ...
All in all it`s heavy patchwork. Maybe I redo the chassis - naa, I will not :lmao:

 

[Stollenritter]

Short mechanical update: drilled and tapped the rear pan for shackles

 

[Stollenritter]

Time to move in the electronics. First I removed the standard electronic tray and moved one of the aluminium rods from the back end to the center of the chassis as a cross brace. The back side will be strong enough without it since I have installed the metal back pan. This gives a lot of room without making the chassis flimsy:



Next, just a rough arrangement of all the required stuff:



Everything wired up:



And re-arranged:





Everything sits deep and low now. Not too good if water goes in, but hey, I don`t plan on submerging it :ror:
I`m not sure where to place the receiver, ceeping in mind that I will have a metal cover on top of the chassis which could give the receiver a hard time getting any signals. We will see.

 

[Stormin2u]

I've always wanted one of these and I'm looking forward to seeing this bad boy run in the snow.

 

[BigBaller]

Really hoping it works out well. Many have tried to mod these and few have gotten it to work. I wonder how much weight you are adding to the overall vehicle. I think you're gonna find more weak links with these sweet mods thus far...

"thumbsup" good luck, I'll be watching.

 

[Stormin2u]

Really hoping it works out well. Many have tried to mod these and few have gotten it to work. I wonder how much weight you are adding to the overall vehicle. I think you're gonna find more weak links with these sweet mods thus far...

"thumbsup" good luck, I'll be watching.

I was wondering how long it would take before you saw this thread Ryan.

 

[Stollenritter]

I've always wanted one of these and I'm looking forward to seeing this bad boy run in the snow.

It will take some time, but yes, finally it has to run in snow - and mud 8)

Really hoping it works out well. Many have tried to mod these and few have gotten it to work. I wonder how much weight you are adding to the overall vehicle. I think you're gonna find more weak links with these sweet mods thus far...

You`re right, this little bastard is already gaining lots of weight ...
But keep in mind, I`m not going for speed, so it should be ok :roll:

"thumbsup" good luck, I'll be watching.

Thank you, I will do my best

 

[TrailDawg362]

Your Blizzard should do quite well with the dual brushless system. I've seen a few others do similar mods to the SR, including beefing up the gearbox supports and upgrading the motors/esc. If your electronics can handle 3S, you could occasionally drop one in for speed runs if you feel the need to rip through the snow! The 2 motor setup was really designed for more realistic scale speed and function like the real thing. I completely gutted mine and built it up for brute speed and snow bashing but gave up the finer manuverability of the stock SR. Either way, they're great fun :mrgreen:.

 

[Stollenritter]

Your Blizzard should do quite well with the dual brushless system. I've seen a few others do similar mods to the SR, including beefing up the gearbox supports and upgrading the motors/esc. If your electronics can handle 3S, you could occasionally drop one in for speed runs if you feel the need to rip through the snow! The 2 motor setup was really designed for more realistic scale speed and function like the real thing. I completely gutted mine and built it up for brute speed and snow bashing but gave up the finer manuverability of the stock SR. Either way, they're great fun :mrgreen:.

The motors can take 2-4s, the escs can take 2-3s. Hmm, I should have kept the plastic tracks for occasional speed runs ... :shock:

 

[Stollenritter]

Starting with taking off the "bling" from the tracks. They`re too shiny :ror:
I started painting the metal bars using a brush and some brown paint. I am aiming for an uneven, rusty look. Uneven in detail but more or less even overall.







I will ad some more shades of brown later on. I am curious how it will turn out. Any suggestions are welcome!

 

[Stollenritter]

So gentlemen, this will slow down a bit now. I scored on a pile of used MRC parts! Checking my parts bin, I have enough parts around for building a complete mini crawler. This fits right in as a christmas gift for a young lady "thumbsup""thumbsup""thumbsup"
But don`t worry, christmas is soon, so there is a time limit and I will shortly be back on this build :mrgreen:
Anyway, you will find me in the MRC section now :ror:

 

[roksloski]

Great Thread...
and Awesome Work...."thumbsup""thumbsup"

Hurry Back...

 

[1BadJeepBruiser]

Love the mods so far! I am still waiting for some snow to get my blizzard out this year

-Mike