The Other SSD/RC4WD Build. Class 2 Rig

[Timmahh]

On this one, Super scale isn't needed. Close enough for wild women and handgranades is close enough for this class 2 build.

The SSD kit was assembled per the manual so no biggy there. Nothing out of the ordinary as far as setup. However, as we seen in the leafer build, the RC4WD Blazer body is about 11.3/11.5 wb, while the SSD kit is somewhat adjustable down to 12 inches, the set in the manual is for 12.3. I have it in the middle of those 2 at 12.15ish, whatever it would measure out to be. I may move the rear forward the last place to bring in the rear axle a smidge, but its not a big concern as I will either...

1 Dove tail the ass end of the body.
2 remove the rear end, put a cab back on it, and short flat bed that bitch.
3 Or I may just say Truck it.

What do you all think. Or would you go maybe a different route.

Current thought is to put it on, make it work like some redneck (me. lol) put a Blazer Body on a C15 Truck Chassis to make a crazy trail/rock rig.
So the dove tail rear, trimmed wells will be in order as I will center the front well well over the front axle. I did consider lining up the rear wheel well and rear axle, leaving the front a bit long, requiring the front end to be dove tailed instead of the rear. I may do that. But then I would need to lose the F or R metal bummer. The front being the Wertymade for the Axial 69 blazer, and the bad being the RC4WD Rough Stuff to match the sliders. So dove tailing may be the wrong way to go as I do like these bumpers and sliders.

So that leans me towards a cab back, and a flatbed to fit in the RC4WD Tough Amore Roll cage with spare wheel mount I have for it.

That also kind of kills the dove tail idea, which I'm not opposed to killing as this body is pretty nice, and I'm already going to be cutting, modding, denting, rusting, and generally trashing already. lol

So enough of the boring shit. On To some Pics.


SSD 1.9 Steel Trail Beadlock rims wearing Proline Hirax shoes.



SSD Kit built up, minus shocks. Without Shocks, look at the flex in this thing.




Almost makes me want to run with nothing but a set of limiting straps. With the 90mm SSD Shocks, the flex is really limited.

 

[Timmahh]

These pics are of Body Placement. They may look like the same pics, but the body position is captured in a new pic, or has moved and the pics shows the body in a different location.


Front well centered.




I'll have to get some pics of the rear well centered. Thought I took a couple, but must not have.

 

[Timmahh]

Pic of the rear bumper. Nice look with the back side of this Blazer. Partly why I am leaning farther away from Dovetailing, same with the front and the Wertymade bumper.


Body will be set lower on the chassis when done. This is just for line up and placement


Werty Front shot




The Werty will also be mounted outward a bit more if I do end up centering the front axle/wells.

 

[Timmahh]

and a side by side of both builds.

 

[Timmahh]

One thought on centering the rear wheel well and axle. the engine bay may get a little cramped, but it does push the front axle forward, as many modified rock/trail rights are.. Centered front and it leaves the bay in good position, and I can even move the body forward a bit more, giving me a bit more room in front of the engine, for things like waterpump, belts, bullies, radiator, and still have the servo in front of that.
I have the 15mm gap maker for the engine/tranny. But if I do rear centered axle/wells, I could use the 25mm and it would still be a few mm too far back in the engine compartment requiring mods to the firewall.
However, That opens up many possibilities up there for all manner of chicanery in the front of the engine bay as well.
I have ideas.
No, Don't run and hide.
At least not yet. lol

 

[Timmahh]

And last update. Like 2beers. I spend to damn much. lol lost another 500 plus tonight. But the girl will be getting her Guts put in.

HobbyWing AXE ESC with AXE 3300KV 550 and a Reef Triple 5 for dancing. So barring getting the body work done then mounted, she should be trail/rock worthy with in a week to 10 days.

Radio is the Radiolink RC6GS and 6 chnl rx. I got a new 7chnl rx with the radio and picked up 2 more 6chnl rxs. The 7 will end up in this Xray X1 F1 rig I have (Batts will be here in a few days for this and some 3S for the crawlers, that was a 220.00 order) and the spare 6 will go into the next rig, maybe a Rock Rey (1/6) or perhaps a 1/10th rockrey/baja grey, or Capra, or RR Bomber. Unsure on which route to go on the 1/10th. But the 1/6th Super Rock Rey will probably find its way to me by the end of the month. smdh. Unless Axial maybe drops a 1/6th 1/5th scale Yeti. Seeing they discod it, and it seemed to be a very popular platform for them. maybe they'lll surprise me and steal that sale from Losi. lol

Who am I trying to kid. I'd buy both anyways at some point. So here is a Push on Axial to go Big.

 

[MIKO]

I would center the front so you don't up with shock towers inside the firewall. Tap the links furher in and take off and inch or whatever from both the rear uppers and lowers, maybe trim the male driveshaft end it it bottoms out on the compression stroke.

I just built my kit but I didn't think to look how much of the rear links is threaded

 

[Timmahh]

I would center the front so you don't up with shock towers inside the firewall. Tap the links furher in and take off and inch or whatever from both the rear uppers and lowers, maybe trim the male driveshaft end it it bottoms out on the compression stroke.

I just built my kit but I didn't think to look how much of the rear links is threaded

The tower are close to the firewall with the rear well centered. but the motor, even with the 15mm housing piece, is still too far back. the 25mm piece may put it back to close to the correct position, with 1/2 of the Distributor Cap about 1/2 way into the firewall. Nothing a little heat and custom bending of the firewall can't fix, and create a more scale firewall for a Blazer. lol

But Yes, it does introduce some other Quirks along the way. All while retaining the BTA steering.

 

[Timmahh]

grabbed a few pics of the layout with the rear well/wheel centered. This pushes the front axle forward into the front fender. Also require the rear number be moved back abut an inches or so which is fine with me. I like the idea of having the front axle more forward on the body as it will allow for a bit more forward crawl/bite.
I could then remove the 15mm adapter pulling the motor back so the distributor cap is just a bit into the firewall, about 1/3 to 1/2 the depth of the cap. This isn't so unstock in a 70s Chevy as they had an decent sized dent in the fire wall at the distributor cap to allow for clearance as it was pretty tight. Just enough room to loosen and adjust for timing.

By removing the 15mm spacer at the tranny/motor it opens up the front of the motor by a fair amount, leaving room in this build for pulleys, belts, fan radiator and hoses, and still be behind the servo which would be between the Radiator and the Front Grill, all hidden and shit like that.

Plus. The negatives, is more weight towards the back instead of the front. Which can be remedied with some other tweaks, mods, parts. The front will be getting a winch so that will add some weight. Will be very mindful of battery placement. may use some shorty packs in it, forward as possible, low weight by adding weight in the weeks, or brass Cs and or Hubs etc. Or the old down and dirty weights in the wheels to shift the balance to be around 60/40 forward to rear.

I picked up a set of 140mm Amazon shocks to replace the stock SSD 90mm units. These will be run through adding some green slime to required o's, and some 35 to 40w oils in them running in a full droop setup. This will really help with the body weight shift as it crawls and climbs. Combined with the HW AXE 3300kv 550 setup, wheel speed should be good, torque very good, and slow wheel speed for most of the crawling should make a nice combo. With the Trip 5 Reefs, dancing across any surface shouldn't be too tough to do. Got a few 3s packs on the way, so that will add to the fun.

With the Rough Stuff Roll Cage in the rear as well, all the up front weight I can get will be welcomed.
So with that said, the thought of a short bed on a C15 Truck Frame, or a stubby woody come back into mind. Though It would mean losing the rear number and making a skid plate for the setup.


Just like being on the rocks, there are often many lines, some just easier, or harder than the others. Sometimes Easy is the way to go, but going the hard way, usually pays off better, so long as you don't fail on the way. lol


And the needle goes in.

Rear well/wheel centered


Where it puts the front.


Where the engine bay layout ends up with the rear alignment Note the gap between motor and firewall. Removing the 15mm spacer would leave the dist cap about 1/2 into the Firewall. A simple heat and dimple will fix that quirk and be more scale to boot. lol

2nd view of engine bay


last shot of the engine bay with the rear well/wheel aligned



Shot of the rear bumper in this setup. Needs to come back about 1 inch. Can do have the room no problemo.





This shot is of the engine bay with the front well/wheel aligned. This is with the 15mm spacer installed.
Unlike the rear alignment, I can't remove the 15mm tranny/engine spacer, but this leaves a bit less room in front of the engine and leaves the engine in the more scale position of the distributor cap being stuffed up against and into the fire wall. This dimple may need to be a bit deeper though with the front aligned. Means room for fan, belts and radiator (at least in the engine bay for fan and radiator) is tighter behind the servo. but a relocate of the fan and radiator to the rear would suit the build, mostly for scale purposes. Hard to run a big motor without a cooling system. lol


and a 2nd




At the end of looking at these options, they both offer benefits and drawbacks.

with the front aligned, I have to work at the rear end. maybe a truck, tucking the rear fenders, 'rusting them out' is always an option. But I need to do something as I want to slam the body as low as I can to lower CoG increasing capability and stability.
This also shifts wight forward a bit. I could do some simple mods to the back making it work, while using the body in most of its current state as most all work will be behind the rear wheel wells to allow for the further back rear axle.

However, centering the rear for crawling ability, engine bay room, and pushing that front axle out front a bit has many pluses. Room in the engine bay for other goodies like fan, belts, radiator, while leaving room for and helping to hide the trip 5 is a bonus. and it puts the front bumper in an almost perfect spot, not too far out, leaving enough room to mount a winch infront of the grill, and I can get a mm or two more forward if I need for the winch.
The fenders in front of the front wheels will need the majority of 'clearancing' to work this way. So I could leave the rest of the body mostly intact with weathering etc, (have some interesting ideas i want to pull of with weathering etc regardless how it ends up).

I do like the idea of a stubby woody rear end just surrounding the roll cage, but a fully intact rear end for the most part with an extended front axle has me thinking it would be the most performance minded mod, particularly on full droop and 130mm of shock to play with.

So what has you going hmmm?

 

[DukeMinnix]

And last update. Like 2beers. I spend to damn much. lol lost another 500 plus tonight. But the girl will be getting her Guts put in.

Best quote ever

 

[Timmahh]

220 last night. I hope I have pretty much most of the things I need. From here on out I should be able to fab up most the rest of the scale thingamabobs.

Though I may have to drop another 300 and just get a 3D Printer soon. lol

 

[Timmahh]

The new 130mm shocks arrived Friday. Took a bit tonight to fill them with some 37.5 for full droop. In droop setup, have huge travel now. A bit too much which is what I was going for. Now I just need to determine how long a spring I need to use under the piston. I'm thinking maybe 10mm or a little less should be good. But it may need 15mm to not drop out too much as to start being an issue in deeper holes on any one tire getting into so the other 3 can carry the last.

Shocks came of Amazon US seller. 130mm gold/orange in color. Have diaphragm under front cap, dual orings in the bottom cap. Looks to be the same or clone cap of the SSD Bottom caps as they appear to be identical other than color. They did not come with balls for the caps so FYI if you buy a set. all 4 were a bit under 18.00 with free shipping.
They came with what was maybe 30 w oil, but just enough to keep everything inside decently wet. But they were basically empty, though the bag was dry so they didn't leak. took them semi apart and Slimed the o rings and diaphragm, then finished them up with the 37.5.
Slowing down the rate on full droop is a plus, or at least I always found it to perform better. So I'll probably endup in the 60 or 80 area after its said and down. I'll make a few test runs before I add springs under the piston to set max droop limit. AXE 550 3300KV/ESC should be here in the next few days along with the 555 and Reefs USB Programmer.

Few pics of the shocks going together and some installed pics and flex shots. Set the body on for sexy pics. lol

















More is it evolves.

 

[Timmahh]

Oh. Creality Ender 3 Pro should be here in a couple days too.
And the needle goes in.

 

[Timmahh]

Removed the 23mm 3D Printed Trany engine spacer. With this setup, it put the engine too far forward in the engine bay (Rear Wheel/Well aligned).
This puts the motor back in stock position. I'm thinking a small spacer (5mm) that will life the engine about 8-10 mm will put this motor in a more against the firewall position, and raise it up a bit. This will leave lots of room for pully, fan, radiator etc in the engine bay, while hiding the Steering servo between the Radiator and Front Grill. ESC/Motor and 555 arriving by end of the week. Have a servo relocate to the bumper piece coming on the slow boat for both builds. will remove the stops at the front of them, and slide them into the chassis rails a little bit and mount them there for the steering servos, leaving a bit more room in front of each motor build for the other goodies.


Few pics of the new location at the moment. When the ender 3 pro gets here in a few days, I'll work on printing up the new engine/tranny spacer and put the motor for this one together and get it mounted up, once the Axe 3300KV 550 is installed. don't like the spot where the wires for the motor come out the top of the engine by the distributor, so I'll be finding a new wiring route and will mod as required. maybe I'll add a wire hole in the engine/tranny spacer to keep those wires low and better out of site. We'll see what happens once th printer shows up.


You can see the Engine is a bit low and too far back with the stock placement to the tranny. Above with the spacer (23mm) it puts the engine too far forward, and the 8mm less of the 15mm spacer wont be enough. I think there was a 5mm spacer, and I may just d/l that one, and adjust it a bit to raise the motor a bit more than it is moved forward. I want to have to dimple the firewall for the distributor to set in, just as the 1:1s required. That would be easy with a slightly modded spacer.

Shot a bit farther back

 

[Timmahh]

on another note, aligning the rear wells/wheels leaves me with having to mod the front lower fenders.

Looking for suggestions on how to deal with it.

Long term goal is to weather the body, rust, dents, all the white will be painted black. the shine will be removed, some paint gone.

Keeping with the redneck build theme of putting a Blazer and a K15 truck frame works great with the location of the front tires in relation to the Blazer body.

So one idea was to just heat and fold them up and under. Seeing as I will be running full droop, this may act as a 'mud flap' of sorts. Then add rust, and rusted out areas to those spots.
Another option is to cut them out just under the white area and maybe opening up/tear drop cutting the are from the edge of the front wells to just below the running light/headlight bezzle bottoms.


What do you see when you look? Open to suggestions, though I want to keep the rear well/wheel aligned to keep the front axle pushed out front a bit.






The body will be setting a fair bit lower than it is now. I have to either add different rear shock mounts to lower them a bit, or I'll need to cut holes in the bed area of the Blazer. I'd rather not do this if I don't have to, so will be looking for optional rear shock mounts that allow me to lower the body without cutting holes.
My thoughts say to move the rear shock mount forward (leaving the shocks angled like on a TT or Rock Racer etc) but mounted lower and closer to the frame, allowing me to lower the body, yet keep the droop travel and geometry still in a good spot.

Again, suggestions are welcomed.

 

[Timmahh]

Heart and Brains came in today for this one. Went with the AXE 550 3300kv setup. Soldered the motor to the ESC, tested it all out using this amazon 25kg servo until the Reefs 555 arrives in a few days. Will run this on the Radiolink R7FG with batt Telemetry to the TX. Nice to see the Rx battery levels again.

My Nomadio React had this feature built into the systems, without added telemetry stuff. So it's nice to see it again without breaking the bank to get it.

The r7fg rx came with my Radio Link, but they are about 22.00 on the bay.
uploading a short set of vids to my you-boob account and will post that when they're done and ready.

In the meantime. Some Pic Porn.



It's about to get Hot In Here.


The Axe 3300 has a 5mm output shaft and comes with a 12T pinion for it as well! Nice knowing I don't need to find a 5mm pinion for it right out of the gate.




End of last week the motor/esc I bought for the class 1 Leafer Rig (its too big) is here for comparison.
Got this 80a ESC (as big as a Mamba X) and this 3900kv (with a 5mm shaft as well but came with no pinion) So the ESC is bigger than the Axe 60a esc, but the motors are almost the same size. This 80a ESC and motor are too big, so I have a shaughman? (Amazon special for about the same price as the 80a setup) 60a esc and a 3900kv setup on its way for the leafer build.






More later.

 

[HumboldtEF]

I could see cutting loose the front fender flares and scooting them up as far as possible filling in the rest with scrap if you have it (?) Or go full hack and remove the entire/majority of the fender maybe make up an inner fender or whatever is underneath.

 

[Timmahh]

I could see cutting loose the front fender flares and scooting them up as far as possible filling in the rest with scrap if you have it (?) Or go full hack and remove the entire/majority of the fender maybe make up an inner fender or whatever is underneath.

Thought about something along those lines. Maybe loosing the front lower fender areas to a slight taper line to the front end, kind of a minor tear drop like line, and the flare running up to the same location. Keeping a bit of a clean line, yet clearing the way for wheels.

Keep in mind I do plan on rusting, dulling/removing paint, denting this up as I go. So I'd consider what some may call "Radical". lol

Not Left Wing Commie Radical, but not the norm either. lol

 

[Timmahh]

So had to take care of some things today. Got back around 3 and at 4 sat down to get this Axe System Installed.

That whole line above about, Cool, got a pinion.... Pure Poppycock. lol The pinion is the wrong pitch etc to fit the SSD tranny gear.

So, I'll be doing some research for a 5mm shafted Pinion that will mesh with the SSD Tranny gear.

Any tips and pointing in a Direction for said critter is appreciated.

Once i get the right pinion on the 3300kv 5mm shafted motor, I can get that installed and get the Esc a home.

 

[HumboldtEF]

That whole line above about, Cool, got a pinion.... Pure Poppycock. lol The pinion is the wrong pitch etc to fit the SSD tranny gear.

So, I'll be doing some research for a 5mm shafted Pinion that will mesh with the SSD Tranny gear.

Any tips and pointing in a Direction for said critter is appreciated.

The SSD tranny uses a 48P pinion. I think wide pinions are a better fit since its metal on metal gears, a short pinion might not mesh with the entire spur gear. Aslo make sure to get a hardened steel gear, this keeps the metal on metal gears happy, otherwise the softer gear will get chewed up.

Im running 3S and a HH 550 12T, I tried 14t or 15t first and my heavy rig wasnt getting enough gear down to provide a strong drag brake, i swaped that for an 11t which worked better for my setup.

It looks like there are some 48p pinions with 5mm holes though they higher tooth count due to the 5mm bore.