The Black Cat 'hops up' the Rey, Baja style

[Panther6834]

Have another update...although, truthfully, I didn't intend on doing as much as I ended up doing.

I started by removing the six decorative bolts (power wheel) from the Vitavon Racing machined Method 703 (knockoff, not licenced) wheels, and replacing them with the scale black lugs from LockedUP RC.

Personally, I think they look great...but, they're missing something. That "something" would be the Rear M4 Ultra Hubs, which were out of stock when I ordered the lugs, but have since come back into stock, and have been ordered.

The second intended update was to remove the battery tray "spacer", which will allow me to run larger-capacity 3S packs (honestly, 3300mAh is just too small, and gives you short a runtime...will be ordering 5000mAh (minimum) packs very soon.

That's all I indeed to get done today...but, did I stop there? Noooooooo. Why? Because I'm a gluten for punishment.

Having run my BR in the Vegas desert, I've come to realize that the 15K/15K/80K combo (f/c/r) was just way toooooo low. My other vehicles are off-road racers, a few crawlers, and on on-road USGT car, so all I really know are vehicles that use oil & diff fluid weights in the 'lighter' end of the spectrum. As they say, "live and learn"...well, I'm learning. From those desert runs, I realized I NEEDED much higher-weight diff fluids...but, the highest I had (until a week ago l was 80K.

For the rear, I didn't want to lock it, but I did want to seriously "tighten" it up...sort of an extremely-limited-slip...so, to I ordered 2.5M diff fluid. Talk about some extremely viscous fluid. Initially, I was thinking using the 80K in the front, and going with 125K, or 250K, in the center. However, after some recent input from several others, I decided to go with 100K in the front, and 500K in the center...unfortunately, no one airways to have either in stock - not my LHS, not Amain, not Horizon Hobby, not even eBay. Thankfully, I did find a could sellers having what I needed, so got the 100K & 500K ordered today.

Since I already had the 2.5M, and the BR was partly disassembled, I decided to remove, disassemble, and clean out, the rear axle. Once everything was dry, I reassembled the rear axle, having filled the rear diff with the 2.5M diff fluid. Once the 100K & 500K arrives, looks like I'll REALLY be disassembling/reassembling (again) the great majority of the vehicle.

On a completely unrelated...yet totally related...matter, I've finally made a decision on a 'larger' vehicle - the 'candidates' were the Traxxas UDR, Losi Super Baja (2.0)/Rock Rey, Losi DBXL-E (even though I know it costs a LOT more), and Arrma Mojave 6S.

The winner (will be, once my LHS receives it back in stock): the "Fox" variant of the DBXL-E 2.0. Well, there goes another $1,300+ (once sales tax is added in).


~ More peace, love, laughter, & kindness would make the world a MUCH better place

 

[Panther6834]

Today, I had no intensions of installing any upgrades. However, that's not too say I didn't intend to work on the BR...it's just that my only "intensions" were to determine what length Ti turnbuckles were going to be needed in order to replace the stock (plastic) steering turnbuckles. If course, in order to remove one of the stock "steering arms" (as I'll call them), I also needed to remove the front bumper...and, an 'opportunity' to install a recently-decided-upon/recently-purchased upgrade presented itself. So...install it, I did..........

The "upgrade in question is an Exotek 1842 SS Skidplate. As the plate is 2.5mm thick once needs to replace 7 screws involved with screws that are 2-3mm longer. Thankfully, having already installed a T-Bone Racing front bumper, which required screws that are 4mm longer than stock (the bottom 'plate' is 3.5mm thick), the 4 screws holding the front bullhead & bumper to the chassis were already replaced. As for the 3 screws needed for holding the rear of the skidplate, the 2 rearmost need to be 14mm (replacing the stock 12mm), and the single screw just in front of those needs to be 12mm (replacing the stock 10mm). For the 'single', I used one of the stock screws from the 'rear', and pulled two 14mm flathead screws from my box.

As for the original intent, I'll be using the heavy-duty Traxxas 8647X rod ends, 5mm diameter turnbuckles will be needed...but, I needed to determine the length, this the reason for removing the stock "steering arms". The stock parts are, eye-to-eye, 85mm in length. As the internal depth of the rod ends is 17mm, and the measurement of that point to the center of the eye is 16.5mm, 52mm was determined to be the turnbuckle length needed to perfectly match the length of the stock "steering arms". However, as it's best to have 'adjustability' in not only lengthening, but also shortening, I'm going with 50mm turnbuckles, which would allow the completely parts to be set as short as 83mm per side. This will, ultimately, allow toe-in by up to 4mm where the rod ends connect to the steering spindles...which, I'd estimate translated to a more-accurate estimated toe-in of up to 6mm (more than should be needed).

Until next time ----------


~ More peace, love, laughter, & kindness would make the world a MUCH better place

 

[Panther6834]

Today is more of a "not-no-quick" quickie update...specifically, putting together a completely new cage. I say "not-no-quick" because, as many will understand, putting this thing together is very time-consuming. Honestly, I'm not sure which took longer...putting together the axial Capra cage, or this one...but, I can confirm that both take a considerable amount of time.

For those interested in building, or needing to build, a completely new cage...because you destroyed your current one, you want to put a special Baja Rey body on display (such as I'll be doing with the truck's original Mint 400 Limited Edition body), or for some other reason... I'm including a complete list of Losi/TLR parts you'll need to order:
LOS230013, LOS231005, LOS230011, TLR5913, LOS230068, LOS230012, LOS235006, LOS235005, LOS230010
'Officially', you need two packs of TLR5913...but, due to the screws that come in two of the cage parts bags, you'll end up with the 22 needed TLR5913 screws by ordering only one TLR5913.

More coming soon...including what I'm actually doing with the new cage (it will be the 'old'/original cage that the Mint 400 body goes on).


~ More peace, love, laughter, & kindness would make the world a MUCH better place

 

[Panther6834]

While not completely ready to be put on display, the original Mint 400 body is back on the original cage, and the original wheels/tires have been cleaned.

Right now, with the cage & body just resting on top of the tires, she looks more like a lowrider truck, than a dessert racing Trophy Truck. I've ordered an RC display chassis, which should arrive in about a week...but, before I can put it to it's intended use, I'm have to first sightly customize it, as it's actually intended to put 1/10 drift racing bodies in display.


~ More peace, love, laughter, & kindness would make the world a MUCH better place

 

[Panther6834]

Today, don't have much time for RC stuff, as I've got a lot of non-RC related things to get done (today is my "Sunday"). Anyway, since I had to delay leaving the house until Best Buy was close to opening, I did (finally) get around to building & installing the new steering turnbuckles.

The rod ends are the Traxxas 8647X (designed for the E-Revo...big & beefy), whole the turnbuckles, themselves, are 5mm x 50mm To turnbuckles from Lunsford. I used to use the black grease method of building turnbuckles...but, after numerous suggestions/recommendations from other people, I recently switched to using chapstick. It wasn't any easier, but it also want any more difficult...but, it IS less messy.

As you can see, they look perfectly at home. I do have to admit, getting them both to the 85mm length (exactly the same as the stock plastic steering turnbuckles) was a serious PitA, primarily because of the 90-degree angle of the stock turnbuckles. When rod ends are parallel, measuring is a LOT easier. Thankfully, I was able to accomplish the necessary 85mm length. Yes, I could have gone with smaller diameter turnbuckles & rod ends, but felt that the larger diameter, combined with the longer "seating depth" of the rod ends, would provide greater "grip" between the turnbuckles & rod ends.

Next weekend, the plan (hopefully, the plan "comes together") is to disassemble the front bullhead, and transmission, so as to disassemble both diffs, clean them out, and refill them with 100K (front) & 500K (center) diff fluids. As long as I can find it (another case of "accidentally misplacing" something), I'll also be installing the gyro. Hopefully, the cage will also be ready for pickup (another one of those 'surprises').


~ More peace, love, laughter, & kindness would make the world a MUCH better place

 

[Panther6834]

I know it's been QUITE a while since the last update, and my apologies for that. For one thing, work picked up a bit (although, it's since gotten slower again...that is, until several days ago. Thanks to a daily 2-3 motorcoach job, which we'll be doing for the next 2-4 months (transporting FEMA nurse to/from a mega vaccination site that just opened four days ago), my work hours will Bruce me even less free-time. I've also been busy rebuilding my Traxxas R4sty, and also building a new (XRAY XB2C) 1/10 buggy.

As for the Baja Rey, it's mostly been sitting there, waiting for the cage to be Cerakoted. Unfortunately, to the first attempt didn't turn out well. To be more accurate, the heat from the curing process caused the cage to deform. Thankfully, they noticed it happening before melted. What's "strange" about this is, according to Losi, the plastic should have easily been able to handle several times the temperature. This leaves me to believe that either temp of the curing oven was much higher than it was supposed to be (ie. it needs to be calibrated), or there was a manufacturing air in the composition of the plastic of the cage pieces. After waiting over a month, only to end up having this happen, was extremely upsetting. I brought that cage back home, spray painted it a light blue, and attached the original Mint 400 Limited Edition body to it, for "display".

Thankfully, I had a spare (ie. the original) cage, which I brought back to them for a second attempt. However, I decided to switch colors, so that I could go to an air cured, as opposed to oven cured, Cerakote. It's not exactly the same as the red on the custom painted body, but there is only one 'red' available for air curing. I just picked the cage back up...and this is what I got:

Truthfully, I like it...possibly even moreso definitely original red I had selected.

Now that I finally have the cage back, it's time to prep the body. I don't want to give too much away just yet, so I'm not going to include any exterior photos of the body. However, I am reinforcing the body, following the tips from RC No-prep drag tracing legend Earl Moorhead, albeit with a slight modification.

The reinforcing is a 2-step (3-step in the fenders, just above the tires) process, starting with fiberglass drywall tape. Pieces are cut to length (and, sometimes, different shapes) as needed, and pressed into place. It's ok to have two pieces overlapping, but no more than two. After laying the tape pieces in place, and pressing them into every curve, I let it sit for about 30 minutes, checking out every so often, repressing the tape if/where needed.

Once the drywall tape has had enough time for the light adhesive to (somewhat) 'set', it's time for the second step. For this, you can use ShoeGoo, E6000, or something similar. This is also where I've made a slight modification to Earl's process. Whereas he does one heavy layer, I thought it might be better to do one light-to-medium layer, followed by a second (much lighter) layer. Starting with the first layer, I squeezed a reasonable amount onto the drywall tape, and used my thumb to spread it around, as well as press it in between the square holes of the drywall tape. You want to make sure that you get some of the adhesive past the edges of the drywall tape so that there's no possibility of the tape peeling up. For the second layer, I did the same thing (using less E6000), well also pressing slightly harder, to make sure that I got some adhesive inside of every square hole. As of right now, I've only got one of the rear fender pieces finished. Here's a quick shot of what that looks like:

The 3rd step (only for the fenders, just above the tires) isn't for reinforcing the body, but is to protect the paint job from the tires hitting the body panels. For this, I will be applying foil tape (no photo, yet, as the E6000 on the first piece is still drying).


~ More peace, love, and kindness would make the world a much better place

 

[Panther6834]

I know it's been a long time...in fact, a VERY long time (as in, 8 months)...since I've posted anything on the Baja Rey. The truth is, work has been extremely busy (driving the nurses for vaccination clinics in 4 Bay Area countries, driving for LOTS of weddings, etc), which has taken most of my time. Additionally, I've been been working on several other RCs (including building a new buggy (XRAY XB2C), a Spec Slash (from the Unassembled Kit, and (also a kit) an Avengers-themed Axial Ryft). However (and thankfully), the Baja Rey is finally closer to being finished, as all can see. The first photo was taken before installing the cab, so that the incredible Cerakote job, done by Robert (the owner), at RC finishing in San Jose, CA, can be seen.

The body was painted by Chris, at RC Bombshells (Las Vegas). All machined aluminum parts (except the lower front suspension arms), including the wheels, were done by Arthur at Vitavon Racing. The front lightbar is a5" curved lightbar from Pro-Line we while the custom rear lightbar is front Gear Head RC. Finally, the tires are the BF Goodrich Baja R/A KR2.

The reason I said "closer to being finished" is 1) because I only finished reinforcing one fender...I still have 3 to go, and 2) because I forgot to fully tighten some of the screws on the front lightbar (thus the reason it appears to be hanging a bit low, which it is). Since those last two things are all that's left, this will be my final update on the upgrades. I will be taking the Baja Rey (and some other RCs, including a couple boats) to Vegas for me annual 'Thanksgiving Week' trip...and, if I get any running footage, I'll post the YouTube link.


~ More peace, love, and kindness would make the world a much better place