The Shop Truck 79 F150

[93 FORD BRONCO]

Looks like you had fun. Except all the wasted gas. I like it better without that front bumper anyways. Looks more like a Baja truck to me. Tube bumper would look good as well.

 

[66sprint6]

I like it without the bumper too, especially when Im crawlin. With the open diffs, havin as much approach as possible helps a ton. Im gonna do a simple, baja style tube bumper with a skid plate and try to keep the approach angle and protect the front and steering the best I can.
Matt

 

[93 FORD BRONCO]

I like it without the bumper too, especially when Im crawlin. With the open diffs, havin as much approach as possible helps a ton. Im gonna do a simple, baja style tube bumper with a skid plate and try to keep the approach angle and protect the front and steering the best I can.
Matt

Hell ya. Can't wait to see what you come up with. To bad you don't live around fl. I'd love to run this with the bronco.

 

[66sprint6]

Ive run the Shop Truck on a muddy hiking trail, on one giant rock and at an 1/8 scale track but never on a true, rocky trail before so I was lookin forward to seein what it would do. Slapped the old Irons on it and went to town!!! Im actually extremely happy with the abilities of this thing. Setting it up to handle well, keeping it light and puttin a ton of power down has made for an interesting ride for sure. She's a hill climbing MOFO, sidehills like a champ and so long as I keep the front wheels down will crawl over just about anything! I set out to put together an all around fun rig, no matter the location or terrain and I think I got what I was lookin for!!!

Flexes out really well considering how low and stiff I tried to make it. Sways bars and messing with shock oil will be happening shortly but at least she trails well!

Bumpers are still on the agenda...at least a front bumper but Im slow lol. I wish I coulda got more pics but light was runnin out and we were in a hurry so these were taken the next morning before I hosed her off.

Matt

 

[mitchr97]

Muddy!

 

[ColquittCustom405]

both Fords are money man!! I love it. Simple and clean...

 

[66sprint6]

I appreciate it! I like the simplicity of the ShopTruck, keeps it light and keeps it durable.
Matt

 

[66sprint6]

Had a chance to beat the SNOT outta the ShopTruck and really put it thru a trail experience with everything from easy, dirt trails to dry rock, slick rock, soupy mud, sticky mud, water and nasty inclines. The diff worked ok but still way too open for me but the shocks did awesome.

Tryin out the shortcourse tires I put together and they did AMAZING until we hit the nasty, muddy uphill when they packed up too much and became slick so I swapped in the good ole HackedIrons and conquered the beast

Little bit of posing on a line we found exposed by the trickle of what was left of the waterfall.

A wet servo (I believe) ended the day and I had to carry her out but I was super impressed. Gonna mess with the diff some, dont quite wanna give up on it cause the open front diff makes it a challenge, but it coulda done a couple spots with ease had it locked up a little more like a Tracloc. Ill get it eventually!

Matt

 

[RcKirb]

yeah i agree gotta a load of mulch in there ...but looks sweet none the less...ive built a dingo with this body as well and loved it ..

 

[66sprint6]

yeah i agree gotta a load of mulch in there ...

huh?!?!?! Not entirely sure what you meant :ror:

Matt

 

[SkR8pN]

Matt

Paint scheme is cool Matt! Gotta get one of these bodies.

How did you get the sidewalls smooth in these pics?

 

[93 FORD BRONCO]

Lookin good. I think you should go with a locked diff. I get how your trying to go for the short course type truck. But if you think about it. Short course trucks all have independent front suspension. Since this truck doesn't have ifs I say go with a locked axle. Maybe in the future if you decide to try and maybe mount a Exo ifs then it would be cool with unlocked diffs. Hey it's your truck man. I'm just throwing out ideas for you to roll around in your head. Either way it is still a sick truck! "thumbsup"

 

[66sprint6]

How did you get the sidewalls smooth in these pics?

I took a dremel tool and a flapper wheel (sanding wheel) and sanded the sidewalls smooth.

Lookin good. I think you should go with a locked diff. I get how your trying to go for the short course type truck. But if you think about it. Short course trucks all have independent front suspension. Since this truck doesn't have ifs I say go with a locked axle. Maybe in the future if you decide to try and maybe mount a Exo ifs then it would be cool with unlocked diffs. Hey it's your truck man. I'm just throwing out ideas for you to roll around in your head. Either way it is still a sick truck! "thumbsup"

What I really wanted was a faster, better handling scaler...not entirely a shortcourse truck, but a quick scaler that I could buzz around a track quick enough to get air on the jumps and not flip over on the turns, and then toss it on a trail and do decently well. Its exceeded my expectations on all fronts and continues to surprise me how well it does out on the trail. If I REALLY wanted to make it handle better I would toss some swaybars in, unlock the rear diff and try to make the front diff stiffer than the rear but Im thinkin this will work for now. Im thinkin itll handle just fine with a locked front diff but Im kinda liking the challenge of crawlin with an open front. Ill keep workin on figuring out a true "limited slip" until I either succeed or fail and lock it entirely.
Matt

 

[93 FORD BRONCO]

I took a dremel tool and a flapper wheel (sanding wheel) and sanded the sidewalls smooth.



What I really wanted was a faster, better handling scaler...not entirely a shortcourse truck, but a quick scaler that I could buzz around a track quick enough to get air on the jumps and not flip over on the turns, and then toss it on a trail and do decently well. Its exceeded my expectations on all fronts and continues to surprise me how well it does out on the trail. If I REALLY wanted to make it handle better I would toss some swaybars in, unlock the rear diff and try to make the front diff stiffer than the rear but Im thinkin this will work for now. Im thinkin itll handle just fine with a locked front diff but Im kinda liking the challenge of crawlin with an open front. Ill keep workin on figuring out a true "limited slip" until I either succeed or fail and lock it entirely.
Matt

Sounds good. I'll be really interested to see if you can make a limited diff. I've been trying to contemplate ideas that would work but I can't think of anything.

 

[66sprint6]

Well, my attempts to make a posi style front diff were lookin awesome on the bench and in tests around the house! I took a set screw and ran it into the diff housing and up against one of the small gears putting pressure on it but not entirely locking it out. I then packed it with bearing grease and put it all back together. For the first time I could then spin the motor over and have both wheels spin together, even with one wheel bein held loosly and the other spinning freely. If I tightened my grip the wheel would stop spinning and the diff would open up. Got the chance to test this out on the trails and rocks at Little Rock City this past weekend and see if it would last. The answer is...not really :lmao:. The diff is still stiffer than ever and I DID have a couple moments where both tires would spin if I feathered the throttle and steering which is MUCH better than before, but if I lifted a tire on the trail it would start spinning freely so I had to go back to tryin to keep both fronts planted at all time. LUCKILY the shop truck is light and has a TON of wheelspeed so, despite the open diff handicap, she conquered EVERY single thing I threw at her and then some!

I started the day runnin the trails with the reduced shortcourse tires just to see what they would do on loose dirt, dry, rocky trails. They did AMAZINGLY well despite not having and weight in them, tho they seems to LOVE wheelspeed. If you tried to finess thru the looser dirt areas it would just spin, blip the throttle and it would walk right thru.

Rear bumper held on by a tiny sliver of ShoeGoo, showin why I love the stuff so much :lmao: I did this as a joke but the sucker stayed on till I eventually grabbed it and pulled it off

After this trail run we hit the grippy rocks and played around with some slower, more technical climbs. Once again, slow crawling took a bit more throttle but it was easy to predict how she was going to react and I had an absolute blast driving it. I then took the shortcourse tires off and tossed the old hacked up Irons back on with some weight in each tire. These tires make this thing hook up like nothin else and itll pull lines I swear the Courier would have issues with. If only the Courier was as light as this sucker...hmmmm, might be time to go on a diet :lmao:.

I was havin so much fun with this sucker that I couldnt wait to hit somethin else and see if she could conquer it as well. Unfortunately, electrical issues ended her day early and it was time to get the Courier out. Luckily, the issue was traced back to a faulty sensor wire (thanks Twisted!) and she will be back in no time! Not the most scale rig out there, but I MORE than acheived what I was lookin for when I put it together and cant wait to get back out again soon!

Matt

 

[66sprint6]

After gettin the motor back from Wayne, some SDI Wagon Wheels from overseas and some bearings from Jmel, the ShopTruck is finally back together and ready to go again!!! Swapped on some aluminum knuckles and C's and found out that I had stripped the axial servo so I swapped another in that i had as a spare.

I put about 2oz of weight in the fronts and 1oz in the rears, added some firm non memory foams and glued on my set of 3.8" G8 Irons. I love the way these tires look on the Wagons and the offset tucks them in nicely. Hopefully this setup will work well for bashing, goofing off around the track and still hook up on the Trails/Rocks. These tires worked like a CHARM on the Bronco so I have high hopes! If not, the oldshool hackedirons are still mounted on heavy wheels and ready to go!

Matt

 

[93 FORD BRONCO]

Nice update! Sounds like a good time. Love the look of those tires on there! Can't wait to see some more shots of this thing.

 

[66sprint6]

Havnt updated the ShopTruck thread in a bit, figured Ide let yall know whats been goin on. I stripped the pin mounts out of the new wheels blasting up a nasty incline first day I had em out. She sat for a while and I got it out a little bit ago on a friends backyard track and bashed it around. Ended up cracking the roof but some ShoeGoo and a well placed Ford logo later and you would never know LOL. Ive built a BroncoBuggy out of a WORE out Tamiya Bronco body and an even more wore out RC10 Goldpan I had layin around and I have WAY more fun with it than I do with the ShopTruck so Im thinkin its gonna get scrapped and either sold off or rebuilt into another, far more scale F150. For now its sittin back waitin for whatevers next!

Matt