The "Little Green Defender" Story.

[JimK]

Been loving mine, your whitespoke wheels and roof painted white is how I like it, looking great! Agreed on a real spare tire looks nice.



Running mine all stock, the gearing is little too high for real crawling. Swapped for the crawl gears, now it crawls great but really needs more top end wheel speed for dirt, sand and when a little rock ledge needs a bump to climb up! Hoping the CrawlMaster 66T motor with the crawl gears is the ticket!


Traxxas should have made it 2-3S compatible ESC from the factory like they almost every other RC they make. I don't want to swap everything or go brushless on this little guy, so I'm making do with stock electronics and the crawl gear set. I'll try this motor next, maybe Traxxas or Hobbywing will make an esc that retains all the stock stuff like light ports and nice bolt in between the frame rails. Furitek BL setup is nice, but then again I'm not going swap crazy on this little guy.

Thanks man! I'm having a lot of fun with these little trucks. I have the 66T HH motor and low range gears in all three of my TRX4M's and I'm happy with that. Great slow crawl and drag brake and decent top end. There is the odd time that a bit more wheel speed would be nice but all in all I'm pretty satisfied. Injora just came out with a 55T and a 48T motor that provides a bit more wheel speed if one wanted that. Saw that on Youtube.

 

[JimK]

I made a few changes to the Defender over the last little while. I decided it was time to paint the roof white.

Got the roof off without any issues and washed it with soap and water then dried it really good.

I gave it a light scuff with a green scothbrite pad. Just gently so I didn't sand the rivets off.

Ready for paint in the boothless spray booth.

I gave it four or five light coats of Rustoleum satin white....didn't want a glossy finish.

All back together and I really like it a lot. The white rims and roof really make the little green Defender look good.

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[JimK]

There's a set of larger tires on the way so I did a little fender trimming. This will provide better tire clearance and I like the aggressive look too.

I've also decided that I don't care for the led light bar that I installed. It's very bright but it just looks out of place up there to me....sort of big and toyish. The new Injora light bar arrived today so I'll try to get it installed in the next day or two. It's a little longer and sits much lower and blends in much better with the scale look of the truck.

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[OSRC]

Looks 100% better with the white roof!

I just ordered RC4WD scrambler tires and they were way too tall for the wheel openings. Nice tires, just too big. The stock tires are nice, but the beads didn't fit my Treal wheels. How were the Prolines to mount? Any issues?

 

[JimK]

Looks 100% better with the white roof!

I just ordered RC4WD scrambler tires and they were way too tall for the wheel openings. Nice tires, just too big. The stock tires are nice, but the beads didn't fit my Treal wheels. How were the Prolines to mount? Any issues?

Thanks, I really like how the white roof looks too!! As for the wheels, the rims and tires are both Injora and they mounted up without any issues.

 

[JimK]

Well, I didn't get the light bar installed but I did throw on the new set of wheels that showed up.

The wheels are DJ Crawler Classic Vintage bead locks and the tires are Injora 61mm soft Crawler Master All Terrain M/T with foams. The wheels came with a set of metal hexes and the case turns into a roof top luggage case with mounting rack included. Pretty good value for sure. I don't need the hexes so I'll toss them into the parts bin for now and I don't think I'll use the roof top luggage case either but I'll hang onto it....you never know?

Getting ready to start mounting.

Mounted and ready to go on the Defender. The wheels and tires mated nicely and I think they look pretty good!

Goodbye for now white spoked wheels. I do have another set of larger tires on the way which I'll put on the white wheels when they arrive. Always nice to have lots of tire options.

Here they are installed on the Defender. I really like the size of the tires. They fill up the wheel wells nicely but they're not gigantic. They don't stand out like the white wheels but I think they suit the look of the Defender.

I like the exposed look of the tires with the fenders trimmed.

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[Natedog]

Saw the Injora 48 and 55T motors the other day, trying HH for now.

Looking good, love the satin white roof just right and not all glossy! Both wheels look good to me, new setup is looking ready to crawl!
Got my Holmes Hobbies 66T motor today for my Bronco!

Agreed on your lightbar, new one looks better. I've not needed a bar due to using Traxxas light kit, got my rocklights plan for next mod.

 

[JimK]

Saw the Injora 48 and 55T motors the other day, trying HH for now.

Looking good, love the satin white roof just right and not all glossy! Both wheels look good to me, new setup is looking ready to crawl!
Got my Holmes Hobbies 66T motor today for my Bronco!

Agreed on your lightbar, new one looks better. I've not needed a bar due to using Traxxas light kit, got my rocklights plan for next mod.

Thanks...I really like how this rig is looking now too. I'm curious about the Injora motors but not enough to get one right now. I'm very happy with the HH 66T/low gear combo. As for the light bar, I could probably get by with just the Traxxas light kit but it is pitch black where I night crawl and the light bar provides quite a bit more light. I usually have a Petzl headlamp on for night crawling too.

 

[JimK]

Re: The "Little Green Defender" Story.

I managed to get the new light bar installed today on my lunch break. It's a nice quality part and installation was pretty straight forward.

The old light bar went away.

Here's the new light bar with one of the brackets installed. The screw slot for the mounting screws is right under the roof cage so using it that way wasn't going to work.

I decided to bend the mounting brackets into a J shape to hook them underneath the roof cage. They fit snuggly like that between the cage bar and the roof. I used a dab of black silicone adhesive inside the J bend to help keep it in place.

I took the plug off the end of the light bar wires and passed it through the hole I drilled for the first light bar. The J hooks are in place with a dab of black adhesive ready to accept the light bar.

One screw in each end of the light bar holds it in place nicely. This light bar looks SO MUCH better than the first one. Much more scale looking and it blends in nicely instead of sticking out like a sore thumb!! I like this one a lot better for sure.

Seems to be nice and bright. Should light up the night trails quite nicely.

I do have a few mounting holes in the roof to fill now but that's a project for another day. I may reroute the wire through one of the smaller holes too so that less of the wire is showing?

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[Natedog]

Much better looking and nice mounting solution. Yes, route the wire through the smaller hole that's kinda under the bar. It's pitch dark here too, headlamp for in case of repairs and hiking as needed, but off during most night crawling. You need some red rocklights now.

 

[JimK]

Much better looking and nice mounting solution. Yes, route the wire through the smaller hole that's kinda under the bar. It's pitch dark here too, headlamp for in case of repairs and hiking as needed, but off during most night crawling. You need some red rocklights now.

Thanks!! I really like the look of this light bar much better too. "thumbsup" Move that wire and patch a couple holes in the roof and we'll be good to go.

This little rig is really starting to grow on me now. To be honest I loved how it looked but didn't like how it performed at all. It is so much better now and so much more fun to drive. All of the mods helped but the biggest game changer so far is the low range gears and the HH 66T motor. It is way more controllable and drivable now. Lovin' it!!

It does push a fair bit when cornering so I'm going to play with the shock settings and I have over drive gears coming for the front diff too. That should help quite a bit.

 

[JimK]

A new set of shocks showed up today for the Defender. I left it at work this weekend so I'll have to wait till tomorrow to get these on. The stock shocks work just fine but I think the threaded preload collars will offer a lot better tuning than the stock plastic spacers. There's four shocks in the bag and two sets of springs.

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[B-MOW71]

Little Green Defender is looking good!"thumbsup"

Nice job on painting the top white. I think it looks much better with it being white.

I'll be interested in hearing how the Injora shocks do for you.

 

[JimK]

Little Green Defender is looking good!"thumbsup"

Nice job on painting the top white. I think it looks much better with it being white.

I'll be interested in hearing how the Injora shocks do for you.

Thanks Brian. I'm really pleased with how it's turned out so far. It looks and performs much better than when it was stock. A few more mechanical changes I want to make and I may put some stock accessories up on the roof rack to. After that I will just have fun with it out on the trails.

I'll be sure to post up my impressions of the Injora shocks.

 

[JimK]

I decided to assemble the shocks tonight so I can install them on the Defender tomorrow at work and be able to run the truck at lunch break if it's not raining.

The shock bodies came assembled with no oil in them and the softer springs installed. I liked that there was no oil in them as it gave me a choice of oil weight without having to empty and clean them first. I also had to install the ball studs in the shock ends.

I swapped out to the heavier springs, installed the ball studs and went with 40 weight in all four shocks. Once fully assembled the shocks moved smoothly through their entire travel. The shock fit and finish is very nice and they went together with no issues. The aluminum shock caps have bleeder holes and threaded onto the bodies very smoothly. The threaded preload collars also moved very smoothly on the shock bodies and the springs are seated on aluminum spring perches. And as usual Injora provided plenty of spare hardware and o-rings with the shocks. On the bench these shocks are pretty impressive. Hopefully they will be just as impressive when in use on the Defender.....I'll be sure to let you know.

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[JimK]

I got the shocks installed yesterday at work. Installation was fast and pretty straight forward. They look d@mn good and feel real nice when I cycle the suspension.

Adjusted the preload collars a bit to get it sitting level with the body on.

Looks a little low in the rear here but I think that's just the angle the picture was taken at.

I had the truck out today on the Aalbers course and have a few observations to share. The shocks are nice and smooth for sure but the springs are too light for the Defender and the body tilts to the passenger side when the throttle is applied. I could not stop that from happening even with drastic adjustments to the preload collars. The springs are the same size as the stock Traxxas springs so I installed the stiffest Traxxas springs on all four shocks. Feels better on the bench but I haven't driven it yet to see if it improves while driving. I also noticed that two of the shocks had oil gathering on the shock perches when I changed the springs. I didn't have time when I noticed this to fiddle around with them to see if something was loose or if I could otherwise stop the leakage. I'll post an update on that when I look into it. It should also be noted that all four of the stock shocks had a small amount of oil on the spring perches too when I took the springs off them.

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[JimK]

New tires showed up yesterday. These are 62mm DJ Crawler M/T tires and man are they soft and sticky with nice soft foams too. I was going to mount these on my white spoke wheels but they would not match up at all and I couldn't get them on. I ended up putting them on the DJ Crawler Vintage Classic wheels and they mounted up quickly and easily...not surprising as one would hope products from the same brand would work together...lol. I will see if the tires I took off these rims will mount up on the white spokes.

These tires have a more square edge profile compared to the ones I had on there and I think they look pretty good.

They worked pretty good on the course. Being as soft as they are they conformed nicely to the rocks and obstacles but were not so soft that they rolled under when turning or side hilling. Not much time on them yet but so far I am pleased with them.

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[JimK]

Well the Injora Crawler Master All Terrain M/T tires mounted up just fine on the white spoke wheels. This will give me a spare set that I can use on the Defender or the Bronco if needed. Always good to have a few spare sets of tires around....just in case.

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[Gramps]

Always good to have a few spare sets of tires around....just in case.

Yea cause ya never know when you might have a flat.

 

[B-MOW71]

Interesting find on the Injora shocks. Nice to know that the stock Traxxas springs fit them. The shocks may need to have a little green slime added to the o-rings if they are seeping oil.

I like the looks of them DJ Crawler M/T tires. They may be a good fit for my Defender SVX Spectre build that I just started working on. I'll have to get a set and try them out.