Panther, the building of a beast

[Antsiranean]

I've started the build, trying to do as much as possible together with my kids. However, the shocks I thought I'd better do on my own. Unfortunately, I've run into trouble with them. Having read that the stock King shocks leak, I am building them with the Traxxas X-rings (shock rebuild kit 2362), and plenty of green slime, but still two of them leak so much I can see silicon oil bubbling out around the shock shaft.

Just to be clear, I am guessing the blue traxxas x-rings are to replace the white axial O-rings (AXA1202), right? Or are they perhaps to replace the blue axial plastic spacer ring?

I think this question has been asked before, but I can't find the thread, so clarification would be much appreciated.

 

[Antsiranean]

So, I rebuilt the two leaking shocks, with both the Traxxas X-rings and the Axial O-rings, but without the blue plastic axial spacer. Leak seems to be fixed, but that remains to be seen once I've gotten this lady going. I might also rebuild the two non-leaking shocks, that have the blue spacer and X-rings. But probably not, instead I'll see how the slightly different shock builds will compare over time.

Strange though, that when built exactly the same, two shocks leaked really badly, while two seemed to be doing fine.

 

[lszomb]

I had good luck with axial o-ring for my build. So far, my bomber kit shocks I built two weeks ago do not leak. I have a 90047 RTR and its shocks leak badly after year and half. But they are working well after re-setup with green grease.

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[Antsiranean]

I've now painted the panels, turned out quite good. I used the same colours I've painted my Yeti in, hence the yellow and blue text on the roof panel. Took a while to cut it out, but worth the effort I think.

The colour fade from blue to yellow was a bit of an experiment and execution isn't perfect, but good enough. There's some blue spillage into the yellow, that I have no idea how it happened. The yellow bit was covered by paper when I sprayed the blue.

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[durok]

GREAT Graphics!

...and the blue swirling into the yellow looks like you meant to do that, really - I wouldn't consider it a flaw.

 

[Antsiranean]

...and the blue swirling into the yellow looks like you meant to do that, really - I wouldn't consider it a flaw.

Thanks Durok, glad you liked it. And I now realize that the blue swirling into the yellow was entirely intentional, albeit on a subconscious level...

 

[lszomb]

Panel looks awesome! Did you design and cut those by hands?... I wish I could do the same...

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[Antsiranean]

Panel looks awesome! Did you design and cut those by hands?... I wish I could do the same...

Thanks! I stole the panther designs for the front and side panels from the internet, but designed the text myself using pen and paper. It wasn't really difficult, but cutting and peeling requires a fair bit of patience.

 

[Antsiranean]

I did a final mock up yesterday and ran into an unforseen problem: the rear upper links (incision) hit the sway bar long (> 1cm) before the rear shocks are fully compressed. Someone must have had this problem before, but I can't find any discussion on the issue. What to do? If I turn the upper links 90 degrees, they will have trouble moving on their front rod end balls. Suggestions or, even better, solutions, would be very appreciated.

Edit: and yes, I will turn the rear NIP driveshaft around. It hits the spur cover.

 

[Antsiranean]

So, I turned the links outward a fair bit, but they still hit the sway bar with more than 1cm of shock movement left to go. But before that happens, the horisontalt sway bar arms hit the rear part of the cage.

And then closer inspection has revealed that my MIP rear drive shaft (now turned the right direction) hits the spur cover. This is odd, since I have copied bilinvic's rear set up (apart from the shocks, I use Axial), and he had shown that the drive shaft is clear of the spur cover at full compression here

 

[JatoTheRipper]

Nice looking build so far.

 

[Antsiranean]

Problem solved. I am embarrassed to report that I finally found that I had used the wrong upper mount for the shocks. :roll:

 

[Antsiranean]

Done! At least as close to done as a rig ever gets. A few bits and pieces remain to be fixed. I have vanquish brass rod end balls on order, to take the slop out. T

The MIP rear shaft kept hitting the spur cover even after I put the shocks in the right place. Both of the MIP hubs are currently 20mm, so I have ordered one 24mm hub, that will go by the transfer case, and one 16mm hub that will go at the axle end. That should move the whole shaft 4mm towards the back, and I think that will be enough to clear the spur cover.

This Bomber is pretty much just buy and build, pretty much nothing new to be seen. However, I did one thing that I haven't seen before. Minor, but still. I wanted to move the spare wheel forward, since a lot of people complains that it causes hang ups when climbing. In addition, it doesn't look very good in the original position. Instead of ordering the DMG relocater thing, which moves it too much forward so that it would hide the fuel tank (that I paid a lot of money for - I want it to be seen!), did I look around at what parts I had left over. The new tire mount was a simple build out of a spare servo mount, and it turned out quite good. Wheel is moved forward, but not up, and the angle is changed somewhat. Cheap as well - glad to have one thing on this build that was cheap...

The Panther goes mainly in dark metal and black, naturally.

The graphic on the roof was painted blue and yellow. I wanted to add some colour and the blue matches the shocks. In addition, it ties it in with my Yeti, Snowman.

And a pictures of both of them, Snowman and Panther. Same colours on both, yet very different.

 

[durok]

Nicely put together, man!

Cool theme you've got going there...

 

[2Flats]

Cool rig! I like the spare tire set up. "thumbsup"

 

[rhuggins215]

I love the truck. Great job on the build. The graphic's really set that thing off. One of my favorites I've seen.

 

[B-MOW71]

Great looking Bomber & Yeti! Love the color schemes on both. Wish I had the patience to paint graphics like that.

 

[Brian5582]

Love the paint! I just did a set of panels for mine in 3 colors with some simple graphics and barely have the patients for that. I can’t imagine the amount of time you have in yours cutting out the design. Great looking truck

 

[Antsiranean]

Almost done! I have spent an hour or two getting the Mamba X aux wire to change both between 1st and 2nd gear, and between the crawler/rock racer modes. It's just about done now, except that I need to change a Y-harness with reverser to one without reverser. Now I have full drag brake and immediate reverse in 2nd gear, and no drag brake and normal reverse in 1st. That should be an easy fix. I made a note about this in the RR10 2-speed thread as well, should someone read that thread researching how to set it up.

More annoying is the fact that the aux wire doesn't work properly. When I turn the rig on it doesn't react to input from channel 3, but if I then (with power on) disconnect and then reconnect ch3 from the receiver, it works but I get an "aux wire radio glitch" audio alert. I just can't figure out how to get this right, any ideas?

Once electronics is working properly, I am going to change some rod end balls to Vanquish brass balls, in order to get rid of some slop. And I have just received the MIP 24mm and 16mm hubs, that will be installed at the rear drive shaft and hopefully will fix the spur cover clearance issue I have.