Guess what?
The actual building starts right now!
First thing was the update chassis braces from Vanquish. They made these lovely hunks of aluminum and sent them to me. Vanquish says all VS4-10 owners will get them but I like to think its because they really care about me. I enjoyed the weather and did some wrenching outside for these.
On the front, the threaded holes in the bumper were drilled out with a 3mm bit to allow the screws to pass through and thread into the chassis brace. It makes installation a little easier.
The rear brace installs between the original brace and the transmission to really beef up an area that had no bracing before.
With that squared away, I decided to try something out.
These GCM wheels combined with the Voodoo 4.19 KLR ATs looked awesome so this is now a class 1 build. The commitment has been made.
A few issues required the use of power tools to rectify. First was the axles were too long to allow the SSD scale hubs to tighten all the way down. So a few minutes with the bench grinder and belt sander and we have shorter stub axles.
Even shortening the axles, I noticed the hubs still weren't completely tightening. Upon further examination:
The axle shafts run out of thread before the wheel nut can be tightened against the wheel.
Being curious if this was an issue unique to these GCM wheels, I checked my collection of wheels to see if any others had this problem. The only other one was the RC4WD 1.55 steel wheels but these are still closer than the GCM wheels.
Since I have committed to the GCM wheels, these were going to work by any means necessary. Stacking washers underneath the wheel nut is too hack, it was time to get creative. It turned out that there was a M4 die in my toolbox so I got to work.
A few MM more of threads were added to the axle shafts to allow the wheel nut to tighten fully.
Here is the difference between an untouched axle stub and the modified one.
That was way more work than the average set of wheels requires but extravaganzas don't call for simple.
Yes, that will do nicely.
Obviously you can't tell from the side angle but the GCM wheels pull the tires in far enough they are almost entirely covered by the body. A couple MMs from full tire tuck is much better than half a tire away.
Also installed was one of these Powershift RC low profile servo winches.
This was chosen for reasons that will become very apparent.
Not much to the installation: bolt servo winch into servo winch mount. As a side note, I really need a fairlead. Somebody should fix that.
Right here is why this is the winch of choice for the VS4-10, the low profile size is just enough to clear the panhard bar at full compression.
Also from Powershift RC, is this handy light kit that has been installed.
It is prewired to run straight off 3S and is pretty cheap, what's not to love?
One mod that may or may not have been necessitated by a ham-fisted engineer taking chunks of paint off the body trying to install it over the inner fenders while borrowing the truck was running a layer of aluminum tape along the inside of the body. The tape will prevent any paint from being rubbed or scratched off by the inner fenders or body retaining tabs on the sliders.
Here is my 1 legitimate gripe with the VS4-10:
Do you see those led retainers? How are you supposed to install them? Are you supposed to install them on the wires then solder the leds on? Bad Vanquish!
I gave them a little trim so they could be slid onto the wires, much like the retainers of many other brands.
So there is a servo winch and some lights on this truck, now if only there was some way to control them.
How about this?
Maybe but first you will probably want me to tell you what that is.
Well it is a Wasp robot ESC and a Turnigy receiver controlled switch mashed together to be powered off a single mini Deans plug. That means both the servo winch and the lights will get their full 3S voltage from a single power tap off the main battery lead all controlled by a package barely larger than a Castle BEC. It is almost like I though of this ahead of time.
The new rear chassis brace even serves as the perfect mounting spot. The wiring is surprisingly clean for all the electronics now crammed into this truck.
The plug for the lights also lines up nicely between the body and chassis.
It is really starting to look like somebody competent built this.
The whole truck is powered off a single 3S pack with my choice being the Helios 3000mah variety. The truck clearly has room for whatever battery you like but I didn't need all of that. So I made this:
It holds my smaller packs in place and bolts right to the holes in the existing battery tray. It is like someone designed this battery holder just for this truck. Amazing! As a bonus, batteries can be changed 50% faster since the number of straps has been halved. #complife.
With the push of a button on my M12, we have light.
Is the whole setup blindingly bright? No.
Does it need to be blindingly bright? Also no.
Will it light up the trail well enough for the occasional night run? Absolutely.
Nothing evil going on here, just ignore the ominous red glow.
I guess the next step is to actually drive which severely puts this truck at risk of losing it's coveted shelf queen status. For you, dear readers, I am willing to take such risks.
Action shots to come!
Eventually.