Sooooo I was super busy the passed few weeks leading up to this past weekend, I was working a lot of overtime while trying to get this finished up for the USTE 2018 in Florida. It started off with having to finalize my engine compartment details, there was actually quite a bit left and they were gonna be the harder to do items because the body still has come off. I started with the overflow radiator hose to the newly installed VS_Customs Hilux Coolant/washer jugs by Tim Bloore. I added some small styrene tube to each side of the jug cap and that allows me to pop it out for body removal. I then did heater hose valve and heater hoses and added a spot for it to attach too on the engine, which also had to be quick release. The final engine detail was the coil pack with on the real truck is attached to the fender, my solution to this was to use some small earth magnets, the coil itself was just some styrene I tossed together to look the part.
Lastly, I wanted to do brake and brake line details. For the rear, I used some picture hanging wire for the 3/16 metal line part, and detail master braided line for the flex hose from the chassis to the axle. The brake drum system is the old drink cap trick that I did on my blue lux many years back. The cap is press fit over the hex area in the boom racing wheels and I make the back plate a snug fit over the axle and secure with shoe goo type glue. I then detailed the back plate with hardware from scale off road I’ve had left over for years so it had the bleeder valve and hold down pins showing. A slot in the bottom for the star adjuster. I drilled and tape the axle for the soft line mount from the chassis to the axle. I then tapped the styrene for a longer then normal grub screw and glued the braided line into it followed up with some heat shrink. A detail I feel like is often over looked, even by myself, is the fill and drain plug and vent tube on the Yota axles. On the 1:1 the plugs are large, require a 22mm socket, so the locked up scale 3mm hardware is perfect. Using some scale hardware I robbed from a crappy set of Chinese wheels they serve the purpose for the vent tube.
I then headed out to the USTE 2018, I am extremely proud to have for the second year in a row won the GCM Racing show and shine gallery "Best Detail" award, I also won "Best Engine Bay" to which I am very humbled considering the level of builds that were in attendance. I then got it out on some trails, it was fun but extremely challenging with the trailer. It did also provide for some great photos.
