powder4breakfast Hard Body Mojave/SMF cage SCX10 II

[powder4breakfast]

This will be my first hard body build. I am pretty excited to get into this area of the hobby that I have 0 experience with... haha. Fingers crossed. I have another thread with 2 of my SCX10 II builds involved. I would like this build to have it's own thread since most of it will be based on the hard body, metal cage and getting the stance, body trimming and wheel set-up right.

I picked up a D90 not too long ago and turned around and sold it before I built it. Although I love the D90's, I also love the cage back trucks and felt I could build a more functional crawler for a hard body with this set-up. The D90 would likely be built in a fairly stock manner... top heavy with 1.55 wheels. I hope to come back and build a D90 in the future. I would love to have one as a trail rig.

Step 1 - I picked up an RC4WD Mojave hard body kit from DDM Racing davesmotors.com. If you are into 1:5 scale you know them. If you need certain hard to find VP parts, also not a bad place to be familiar with.

Step 2 - I ordered an H056 metal cage from SMF. Past reviews aside, SMF was awesome to deal with. I have read all the reviews past and present. current reviews are great and I agree. SMF only takes on what he can reasonably build and he delivers. SMF would not take my money or quote a time until he finished the current projects he was working on. As soon as he had finished and was ready for my cage, he contacted me and quoted a time frame. The cage was finished and shipped much sooner than anticipated and quoted. SMF took my final payment and sent tracking info when he was done. I had a great transaction with SMF and would absolutely order from them again as well as recommend them to others.

After looking at countless numbers of cage back builds I knew that I wanted an SMF cage. Aside from aesthetics, SMF cages are specifically designed to mount Mojave/Bruiser cabs with them on top of SCX10 and 10 II chassis. This takes the guess work out of figuring out the best way to mount the cab and cage on top of the chassis I want to use.

I am stoked to put this build together!

SMF #H056 Cage arrived and I am happy with how it turned out

Picked up RC4WD Mojave from DDM Racing. First time opening and handling a hard body. I am super stoked for this!

Put them together and I'm jonesin' to get this build going

Other than a bench seat and a ton of questions, that is all I have so far. This will be a relatively slow build as I see it right now.

Initial thoughts:
I want to run 1.9 on this. I'm thinking that 4.75 tires like my other 2 10 II's is just really going to be hard to make work without going full AR60 axles. I'm thinking something around 4.5 in tires. I want to widen the axles and am waiting to see if SSD is going to release some XR or similar width tubes for their Pro44 axles. I put some .600 SLW's on Pro44 axles for my other build; However, I would much rather see the width at the axles instead of the hubs.

Along with width I will need to decide on how much to trim the fenders and if i'll need to pinch the nose. I was hoping to leave the hood unpinned; But, I am getting the feeling that pinching may be a necessity. I imagine I can keep the fenders or the full hood but not both on 1.9. This is where figuring out my axle width would be helpful.

Finally I need to decide on a color scheme. Part of me wants to go flat gray or traditional Toyota tan with some black accents on the corner panels or hood. Part of me wants to do a bright blue or some stand-out color. Guess I'll cross that bridge at some point. Nothing I have seen yet has grabbed me as what I want to do. I do have a ProLine 1985 Hilux body and Ascender Cage truck painted red with black hood already so red is out.

Wish me luck.

Any pointers, advice or criticism is welcome... pointers and advice more so than criticism.

 

[distinctive pd]

I would recommend trimming fenders no matter what axle width you decide especially with that tire size.
There is alot of threads out there with this body with different trimming styles on front fenders checkem out thumbsup"

Cage looks good!

 

[lonleycreeper]

4.75" tires will fit by pushing the front axle forward a bit and trimming just the front lip off seen here...

 

[powder4breakfast]

After shelving this project for almost a year, I am ready to look at it again. Although I have no pictures for today's post, I did order an Axial Raw builders kit to get something under this body.

A) Wanting to get "my idea" of performance out of this hard body build, I want decent sized tires and a sufficiently wide stance - not AR60 wide. This leads to me pinching / pinning the front. I will do some searching but would also love any input on pinching or pinning the front end that anyone would be willing to share here or through DM's ...what to do and what not to do.

B) The one piece housings from the Raw kit are out. I also realize that scale looking XR width Pro44 axles are not coming from SSD like I had hopelessly crossed my fingers for in the beginning. I will likely go SSD Pro44 with brass knuckles and metal diff cover. Is there any market for selling the Axial one piece axles complete, or am I better off just swapping the internals to another housing which is what I have done on other SCX10 II rigs?

Whatever I do as far as pinning the front end and widening the track etc, I want to do in a manner that the truck still looks realistic. I may botch it up, but I am hoping to put in a solid effort on realism since scale realism is kind of the end purpose of hard bodies anyways.

 

[Hal]

You probably wont get much for the one piece housings even loaded. Everybody I know is wondering why on earth Axial put them in a "builders " kit. They are basicly useless. If you break a chub the whole axle is DNF. The only advice I can give on the front end is measure twice cut once. Use a good adhesive to put it back together. If you come up with a good way to OD / UD the diffs we all would like to know. I am building a shafty with the 44 Axles. It is getting harder and harder to get SCX 10 parts. I did a hard body Jeep body on my SCX 10 chassis. They are top heavy compared to lexan. Keep up the posts. Will be interested to see what you do with the front end. I have a Cross demon that has a Toyota body and am interested in what other people are doing with their hardbodies."thumbsup"

 

[lonleycreeper]

Why not just run the ar44 axles till they break?

I have stupid power out of my 3k brushless and 3s power and am breaking suspension componants under my raw builders kit. The axles and tabs are holding up great.

 

[powder4breakfast]

Why not just run the ar44 axles till they break?

I have stupid power out of my 3k brushless and 3s power and am breaking suspension componants under my raw builders kit. The axles and tabs are holding up great.

Great question.

The first couple Axials I got, I ditched the stock axles right away because of weight and or quality issues. On my Bomber, I went with Dlux axles since he bored out and added larger bearings. Then I inserted beef tubes. The set-up is tuff and durable and has added weight down low.

My first SCX10 II, I ditched the stock axles for metal axles simply to put weight down low. I kept the XJ body with accessories on top making it top heavy. Along with knuckly weights and other items, the weight of the housing helped.

My second SCX10 II, I went with SSD Pro 44 axles because I love their products and their use of metal and plastic to get weight, durability and cost balanced. The Pro and Diamond 44 axles are great options.

Being a hard body on this build, I want to get weight down low where I can. Axles are a reasonably priced way to do it. If I run the stock axles, I just sacrifice some amount of possible low slung weight in the housing itself... that is the real reason I guess. Even if I use other means to add weight, which I will, I can still add weight just by changing the axles which aren't too spendy via the SSD route or china metal. My china metal housings on my XJ have been beat on hard and they are solid.

 

[Hal]

After reading what you had to say about SSD axles I checked them out at my LHS. Bought em for my shafty comp rig. They do look beefy and I will be running 2.2 wheels. I know if they hold up to this abuse they will definately hold up to 1.9 scaler stuff. The weight of the metal axles wont hurt either."thumbsup"

 

[Stray]

not sure if this is your thing, but you can buy a portal axle kit from redcat...... might be of interest

 

[powder4breakfast]

not sure if this is your thing, but you can buy a portal axle kit from redcat...... might be of interest

I did look into portals. SSD also has portal axle offerings. However, one of the main portal advantages is ground clearance while a main disadvantage is raising the COG (center of gravity). Based on the terrain and type of crawling that I prefer which includes steep climbs and technical off camber obstacles, Low COG is more valuable to me than increased ground clearance.

 

[hawks]

Have a look at my Hilux bodied SCX10.2 as you may get some ideas / inspiration. I run 4.75's with the front guards chopped.

http://www.rccrawler.com/forum/axial-scx10-ii/602565-my-hilux-truggy.html

 

[powder4breakfast]

Have a look at my Hilux bodied SCX10.2 as you may get some ideas / inspiration. I run 4.75's with the front guards chopped.

http://www.rccrawler.com/forum/axial-scx10-ii/602565-my-hilux-truggy.html

Thank you for the link to your build. Some great help even just visually with the pics.

Obviously your fender flares are trimmed, but I still wonder about that big of a tire on that body. Are you running stops on your shocks to inhibit full compression?

If I can be convinced to run a full 4.75 tire I will run Proline BFG Krawlers and will likely pinch the body. If I need to size down a bit, I'll run 4.19 Proline BFG KM3 mudders. I plan on using the TRX4 take-offs as well... great shock.

 

[hawks]

Thank you for the link to your build. Some great help even just visually with the pics.

Obviously your fender flares are trimmed, but I still wonder about that big of a tire on that body. Are you running stops on your shocks to inhibit full compression?

If I can be convinced to run a full 4.75 tire I will run Proline BFG Krawlers and will likely pinch the body. If I need to size down a bit, I'll run 4.19 Proline BFG KM3 mudders. I plan on using the TRX4 take-offs as well... great shock.

I'm using the stock TRX shocks at the standard length although I have mounted them lower on the axles to get the ride height as low as possible.

I am currently using the 4.75" KM3's as I love the look and size.
Pics are here http://www.rccrawler.com/forum/tires-wheels/598060-proline-bfgoodrich-mud-terrain-t-km3-1-9%94-g8-rock-terrain-truck-tires-3.html#post5890291

It's a bit monster truck-ish with 4.75's but it was the look I was going for.

 

[powder4breakfast]

Kinda boring post since I don't have pics to show yet, but I have been coming up with a list of what I am going to do. Anything not listed will be stock from the kit. So far the build is going to look like this:

- SCX10 II™ Raw Builders Kit
- KNKSCX200 Stainless steel hardware kit. I've replaced certain hardware bits before, but I have never used a full S.S. hardware replace kit. Is KNK the way to go? Other options preferred?
- Mojave II Cab with pinched nose.
- SMF cage H056. Cage, mini-bed and built in rock sliders

- Motor? Not sure on exact model, but 35t and brushed
- Incicion drive lines... assuming I can get the rear to work as I likely will need to shorten the wheel base up. I have not used anything other than the stock plastic drive lines on any rig yet. Weight is not exactly under axles, but it is low and centered.

- SSD Pro44 axles front and rear with SSD aluminum C-hub, knuckles, shock/link mount and HD metal diff covers. I may just sell off the kit axels whole and buy the SSD axles complete. They come with CVD's and I'm currious if they have better parts in general. I wonder if the CVD's have the hop like the Axial Uni's when turned. I'll have to look into this. If not, I will purchase the STRC brass (black) shock/link mounts for weight.
- SSD Brass knuckle weights. I have these on one rig and SSD brass knuckles on the other. for Realism, I think the aluminum knuckle and black weight will look better than the brass knuckle. We'll see what happens.

- TRX4 take off shocks. Great shock.
- Wheels - Likely some VP Method 105's or VP KMC Machette's
- Proline BFG KM3 mudders in 4.19, or the 4.75 Krawler if I think I can get away with that big
- Crawler Innovations Lil' Novas for the KM3's or maybe Proline's dual stage foams if I go 4.75

- Hobbywing 1080 WP ESC
- Savox 1210 WP servo. I've never used anything other than Hitec so far, but I've heard good things about this being a fair priced fully WP servo. Thoughts here are welcome.
- I likely will pick up a cheap stock Axial TX and RX as I have had no problems with the stockers yet and just am having a hard time wrapping my brain around the spendy TX's. I like every vehicle I own to have it's own TX and I don't cross over. This makes it nice to play with others.

I will add a slim bumper with a stinger for sure and lights (head, marker, tail etc). I will also add a light bar. I love the Pro-line 5" curved that I have on my XJ. Maybe another of those. I want the wheels to look scale and will add LURC scalle lugs and SSD scale hubs unless I go with a VP KMC wheel and add the Incision XD hubs.

I will do the interior and will first try my hand with the basics of the bench etc and some styrene work... which I have never done. I also did pick up this guy (Gale from Hunger Games) He'll need to be cut in half and put back together in a sitting position. My only concern is he's heavy so we'll see if we can remove some material from behind

Any thoughts or experience or criticism is welcome. I feel fine with everything with the exception of motor choice, that I have never used the Hobbywing 1080 or any Savox products and pinning the hood - I have never worked with a hard body. If you actually read all this... wow. Thanks for any input / assistance you can provide.

 

[antigacho]

This is very similar to my project, I will follow this thread

For interiors I ordered the Dinky RC "Yota" Interior but now I'm not sure to use it or if it going to fit well,

Instead of that, I will try to replicate in styrene the RC4WD interior package for Mojave body

It is super expensive so I don't want to spend on that, I hope not to miserably fail on my attempt to work with styrene I have never work with that either.

 

[B-MOW71]

Just subscribed! Curious to see the direction you take this.

I highly recommend Team KNK screws. I use them in all of my rigs. Also, they sell more than screws. They have been adding more and more products to their website.

Great choice on shocks. I use the Traxxas GTS shocks on all of my rigs. Super smooth and have never leaked.

Also, good choice on the ESC. The Hobbywing 1080 is a great ESC. For the money it cost you can't go wrong. I have a couple of them and I'm using one of them for a winch controller.

Looking forward to seeing more!