First off, my name is Dennis and I am new to Crawling! :mrgreen:
As with any true fairy tale ... many many years ago my buddy and I had RC cars, we raced, we tinkered and we eventually grew up and other bigger things started to take our money :lmao:
But at around this time last year I met someone that is pretty high up in the RC industry here at home that could hook us up with Tamiya RC's if we so chose... so we decided to both get the new CR01's, figured we could tinker on them together when we had the time.
We waited for months for the Rock Socker to be released and as Canada was only slated for 10 units we got 2 of them!
Well, it took me a couple weeks to finally get mine built, but my buddy decided to not follow the instructions and started opening bags of screws, etc... out of order :roll:... as we all know, HUGE mistake. Needless to say his frustration level grew and the mish mash of parts sat even longer in the box.
He then found Axial and dropped $500 and had it built and running in 10hrs! and sold me CR01 for a song.
I on the other hand was and am still quite happy with my CR01 but quickly realized I wanted a bit more out of it. Trolling around here seeing OSCR's and a few of the other guy's builds did not help matters much!
I managed to score a whole pile of new Integy parts off of Fleabay for $40 so they were installed shortly after the original build.
So, my plans began, I purchased more tools for my workshop (bandsaw) and finally got around to some cutting, bending and finally assembling!
Here are the pic's so far:
As the Rock Socker:
I quickly removed the sway bars out of it, and in these pictures the springs are stock out of the box as per the instructions.
But I really liked the Unimog body and actually had it painted and on the truck before the RS body.
That skid plate came as a set with front and rear I came across those here on the Forum from a guy in Newfoundland or somesuch. He made them a few years ago and as luck would have it still had one set kicking around. They came as flat pieces so it took me a fair bit of time to get the bends and angles right, being creative with my vice.
Next change was the tires, stock was ok, but after reading and more reading I settled on the Flat Irons and even out of the bag they compound is such a difference it is huge. Side by side comparison, neither tire is on a rim.
Did some shaving to the foam that came with the tires and it looked like this before installing:
I weighted the rims, off the top of my head I think they are 2.5oz per wheel. The space in between the weights is equal around the wheel so when rolling the wheel it rolls balanced.
And wheels mounted:
I have since purchased the aluminum beadlocks and the front tamiya Carbon/Steel driveshaft. The rear one (or is it the front??) is on backorder from Tamiya with no expected build/re-stocking date, so if you happen to find one somewhere and want Tamiya I suggest you get it as it does not sound like they are making anymore (again, this is from high up).
I did pick up the Axial driveshafts yesterday, will see how they work out (that is for later).
Anyway... came across a few threads on the Junfac Joker Chassis, which I just love the idea of, but again, rarer than hen's teeth so started eyeing OSCR's chassis build. Lots of questions to him later I decided to do the same, which is where i am now, finally assembling my first attempt.
It was a bit difficult tracing out the old frame rails onto flat aluminum due to the curves of the stock rails. In talking to OSCR his tranny sits 1" higher, but manages it with an Axial Tranny, as I don't have one yet, mine is 3.4"
I went with G-Transitions Shocks set up in Droop fashion, I wanted 100mm shocks but couldn't find them so went with 90mm figuring if I came across some 100mm, I could use these 90mm in the other CR01 (if I ever get around to building it!).
Blank plates for the shock mounts:
And lots of holes:
Kind of a crappy picture, but both rails are done and I'm stripping my built truck to build onto the new chassis.
Again, not a great picture, but using the bent lower arms is a bit tricky. If they are twisted in relation to the ends then they will skew the axle, took me a bit to figure that out
And almost how it sits now, the shock towers have been moved towards the centre of the chassis by one hole front and rear. I'm not sure if it matters if the shocks need to be mounted the other way, I know most pictures I have seen show them the other way, but I have clearance issues and they fit better like this.
Pretty sure I can get more articulation than this, but it was the first thing that I saw to put under the wheel.
Don't know if I will get to it tomorrow or not, with the tranny raised I takes up the space for the battery so I'm chucking the battery tray and may just use velcro to hold it in place, will see. The electronics will sit where they normally do in the back.
More hopefully in the next few days.
As with any true fairy tale ... many many years ago my buddy and I had RC cars, we raced, we tinkered and we eventually grew up and other bigger things started to take our money :lmao:
But at around this time last year I met someone that is pretty high up in the RC industry here at home that could hook us up with Tamiya RC's if we so chose... so we decided to both get the new CR01's, figured we could tinker on them together when we had the time.
We waited for months for the Rock Socker to be released and as Canada was only slated for 10 units we got 2 of them!
Well, it took me a couple weeks to finally get mine built, but my buddy decided to not follow the instructions and started opening bags of screws, etc... out of order :roll:... as we all know, HUGE mistake. Needless to say his frustration level grew and the mish mash of parts sat even longer in the box.
He then found Axial and dropped $500 and had it built and running in 10hrs! and sold me CR01 for a song.
I on the other hand was and am still quite happy with my CR01 but quickly realized I wanted a bit more out of it. Trolling around here seeing OSCR's and a few of the other guy's builds did not help matters much!
I managed to score a whole pile of new Integy parts off of Fleabay for $40 so they were installed shortly after the original build.
So, my plans began, I purchased more tools for my workshop (bandsaw) and finally got around to some cutting, bending and finally assembling!
Here are the pic's so far:
As the Rock Socker:
I quickly removed the sway bars out of it, and in these pictures the springs are stock out of the box as per the instructions.
But I really liked the Unimog body and actually had it painted and on the truck before the RS body.
That skid plate came as a set with front and rear I came across those here on the Forum from a guy in Newfoundland or somesuch. He made them a few years ago and as luck would have it still had one set kicking around. They came as flat pieces so it took me a fair bit of time to get the bends and angles right, being creative with my vice.
Next change was the tires, stock was ok, but after reading and more reading I settled on the Flat Irons and even out of the bag they compound is such a difference it is huge. Side by side comparison, neither tire is on a rim.
Did some shaving to the foam that came with the tires and it looked like this before installing:
I weighted the rims, off the top of my head I think they are 2.5oz per wheel. The space in between the weights is equal around the wheel so when rolling the wheel it rolls balanced.
And wheels mounted:
I have since purchased the aluminum beadlocks and the front tamiya Carbon/Steel driveshaft. The rear one (or is it the front??) is on backorder from Tamiya with no expected build/re-stocking date, so if you happen to find one somewhere and want Tamiya I suggest you get it as it does not sound like they are making anymore (again, this is from high up).
I did pick up the Axial driveshafts yesterday, will see how they work out (that is for later).
Anyway... came across a few threads on the Junfac Joker Chassis, which I just love the idea of, but again, rarer than hen's teeth so started eyeing OSCR's chassis build. Lots of questions to him later I decided to do the same, which is where i am now, finally assembling my first attempt.
It was a bit difficult tracing out the old frame rails onto flat aluminum due to the curves of the stock rails. In talking to OSCR his tranny sits 1" higher, but manages it with an Axial Tranny, as I don't have one yet, mine is 3.4"
I went with G-Transitions Shocks set up in Droop fashion, I wanted 100mm shocks but couldn't find them so went with 90mm figuring if I came across some 100mm, I could use these 90mm in the other CR01 (if I ever get around to building it!).
Blank plates for the shock mounts:
And lots of holes:
Kind of a crappy picture, but both rails are done and I'm stripping my built truck to build onto the new chassis.
Again, not a great picture, but using the bent lower arms is a bit tricky. If they are twisted in relation to the ends then they will skew the axle, took me a bit to figure that out
And almost how it sits now, the shock towers have been moved towards the centre of the chassis by one hole front and rear. I'm not sure if it matters if the shocks need to be mounted the other way, I know most pictures I have seen show them the other way, but I have clearance issues and they fit better like this.
Pretty sure I can get more articulation than this, but it was the first thing that I saw to put under the wheel.
Don't know if I will get to it tomorrow or not, with the tranny raised I takes up the space for the battery so I'm chucking the battery tray and may just use velcro to hold it in place, will see. The electronics will sit where they normally do in the back.
More hopefully in the next few days.
