Unexpected TRX-4M build

[tigris99]

So I pre-ordered a grey Defender version from LHS that's up the street. Very small place but been selling Traxxas since 1986. Traxxas messed up, someone took their order and added it to a bigger shops order.

But I had to have a TRX4M. Been holding onto my scrap money from work (owner and I split money from scrap/core buyers) to buy one.

Another lbs about 30 minutes away had Broncos in stock still. Grabbed a black one. I'll still get my grey Defender whenever it finally shows up. Going to be a badass scale project.

This one I wasn't planning on doing much of anything with atm with this one besides playing with it. Plus not much of a Ford guy unless talking 70s or older. Thought maybe down the road I'd print a body for it. We know how that goes....

This damn Bronco body is growing on me rapidly!!!

I did fix the driveshaft oring stupidity with some heat shrink. Put 50wt oil in the shocks, may have to go thicker.

Friday I ordered some Treal Aluminum wheels that came with brass rings and some injora super swamper looking tires cause stock ones are stiff.

You know how usually unless paying big bucks for wheels, you get them and are like "these are ok, they'll work" but not "DAMN THESE LOOK GOOD" . Treal knocked these wheels not just out of the park, but to the next damn state!!!

Got them put together with the tires and put on the Bronco.

Ya I'm kind of in love now!!! Pic doesn't do the wheels justice. The very outer edge is polished aluminum. Look so damn good on this.

Tires may need their foams, very floppy sidewall but much softer rubber than stock.

Gotta button up the 2 1/10 scale builds for next weekend but after that gonna work on lights and a some scale bits. Thankfully upgrades are basically non-existant right now lol but this will likely get a brushless and the crawler transmission gears. See what things come out for it in coming months.

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[2471:24]

Cool, waiting on the updates. Can you take off the spare wheel? People say it drives well. Might buy one, and taking off the spare whell is gonna make it even better.

 

[DirtMerchant]

It looks like those Treal wheels fit that black body just right. The polished edge on the rim is a sweet detail.

 

[B-MOW71]

You know I'll be following!

Nice idea on putting heat shrink on the driveshaft. I haven't yet looked closely at my driveshafts, but do agree the o-ring is odd! I can see it getting cut and falling off.

Big fan of the mini Treal wheels! Those black wheels look great and fit the look well with the black body! And yeah, I'm loving the black body the more I see it! I may have to pick up a spare Bronco body in black!

 

[tigris99]

For anyone wondering, Traxxas made the spare tire mount SPECIFICALLY TO HOLD A SPARE TIRE!!!

7mm Hex and all. Punch a hole in the center of the sticker, take our the screw, take fake cover off, put on actual wheel/tire, put screw back in.

Ya ya, more weight on the rear we don't need, but it looks so much cooler. Worst case scenario I use some hex weights to get more weight forward for now.

Driveshaft fix done and shock oil changed.

Got the upgraded scx24 servo but going to take a bit of mild trimming to fit and ain't got time for that atm.

Going to add preload shims to the rear and call her good till we figure out more parts that fit, upgrade and so on. Plus things come back in stock lol.

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[tigris99]

Didn't get much for pics today but once my pack on on the hilux ran out, switched to my bronco for the rest of the run back.

This little thing shocked me. Definitely rear heavy right now but it goes. I didn't have any complaints on mine at all today. I can see where there could be binding at full steering lock but for me it was minimal since I silicone lubed the bushings.

I have 0 complaints for an out of the box rig at all. The stock gearing really wasn't bad for what I was doing. Needed it plenty though cause this thing looked like a big cockroach climbing through the leaves and crap, we were all cracking up. But this is seriously fun and I'd be hard pressed to bother with my scx24 outside of playing at home anymore.

Pics are with 2 of my buddies that have ectos, was a small group of us running mostly element gk/ecto based rigs.

Now just to kick back and enjoy as is while waiting for upgrades to come out.

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[2471:24]

For anyone wondering, Traxxas made the spare tire mount SPECIFICALLY TO HOLD A SPARE TIRE!!!

7mm Hex and all. Punch a hole in the center of the sticker, take our the screw, take fake cover off, put on actual wheel/tire, put screw back in.

Ya ya, more weight on the rear we don't need, but it looks so much cooler. Worst case scenario I use some hex weights to get more weight forward for now.

Driveshaft fix done and shock oil changed.

Got the upgraded scx24 servo but going to take a bit of mild trimming to fit and ain't got time for that atm.

Going to add preload shims to the rear and call her good till we figure out more parts that fit, upgrade and so on. Plus things come back in stock lol.

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So if you want it to perform better you can take the fake cover off? What does it look like with that off, just a small hole? Nice that there are so many projects about this rig. I’m not 100% on this, but the bearings fit from the scx24. So if you have extras laying around, you can use those.

 

[tigris99]

So if you want it to perform better you can take the fake cover off? What does it look like with that off, just a small hole? Nice that there are so many projects about this rig. I’m not 100% on this, but the bearings fit from the scx24. So if you have extras laying around, you can use those.

Yes it will perform better, but there is a hex and such in the body so it's not clean once removed.

People worry way too much about performance out of scale based rigs. It's a scaler, want a performance rig, build one out of whatever rig you choose. But understand rigs like this aren't rock crawlers, their scale trail rigs.

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[B-MOW71]

Nice outdoor pics! Glad to hear it did great out in the wild! Nice find on the spare tire cover. I may have to swap mine out for a real tire.

 

[2471:24]

Yes it will perform better, but there is a hex and such in the body so it's not clean once removed.

People worry way too much about performance out of scale based rigs. It's a scaler, want a performance rig, build one out of whatever rig you choose. But understand rigs like this aren't rock crawlers, their scale trail rigs.

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Yes, that’s correct. Was curious. Thanks for the info.

 

[tigris99]

Yes, that’s correct. Was curious. Thanks for the info.

Now that I'm home at some point I'll try to remember to take a pic with spare off.

Personally I'm torn cause I can leave the spare or design print a fuel can/rotopax to fit right there over the hex. I'm gonna poke around and see who has done what with the trx4 1/10 and 1:1 Broncos to see what trips my trigger.

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[tigris99]

Ok now a closer look, the spare tire mount is removeable, get down to 4 holes nothing more.

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[Gramps]

I looked at that from the inside and it looks like those 4 screws hold the inside cage and rear latch.

 

[tigris99]

Was able to mess with this a little tonight finally. Decided I was going to 3d print Lithophanes for both my wife's family and my own, including a couple Christmas ball ones. Parents, siblings etc. So that's had my spare time chewed up the last week or so with 3 printers running almost around the clock since day before Thanksgiving.

That said, gears really started turning on this bronco. Got some parts inbound, some parts on order and waiting to see what else comes out.

Gonna put my CAD and printing skills to the test to get some scale detail and different bumpers. But ya, this ones going more serious "hard core trail" truck. So performance above scale as much as I will allow myself lol

Not sure why people talk like these don't have enough flex though, ffs how much more do you need unless you're building a comp rig lol.

 

[tigris99]

Haven't updated in a while, spent some serious time on CAD though.

Designed new bumpers and bumper mounts that still use the stock body mount design.

Side skid/sliders with scale rock sliders look

Hated the rubber strap battery tray so designed a new one that replaces the stock one. Just going to use stick on velcro on the batteries.

Just finished what came to be the final print for the roll cage. Took a few tries to get just right.

Also have brass diff cover on, have brass knuckles, scx24 driveshafts (have to drill 1 end to fit), emaxx servo for now, metal diff gears arrived, alloy servo mount and last but not least....

NANO BEAST BRUSHLESS WITH LIZARD PRO ESC!!!

Oh and have my grey Defender now too.

Side note, building a small indoor course for the minis (my son's both have element 24s as well). Pic is from early yesturday, much more progress after and a little tonight.

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[B-MOW71]

Damn, you've been busy! Nice looking 3D prints!"thumbsup"

Looks like your building a beast! Nice list of upgrades! If you decided you want to upgrade the emaxx servo in the future, check out NSDRC. I just saw a post from them on FB. They now offer an alum mount and servo horn for their RS100 micro servo. I just bought 2 of these servos for my Phoenix build and will be getting this for my TRX-4m. Just an FYI in case you didn't see the FB post from them.

 

[tigris99]

Damn, you've been busy! Nice looking 3D prints!"thumbsup"



Looks like your building a beast! Nice list of upgrades! If you decided you want to upgrade the emaxx servo in the future, check out NSDRC. I just saw a post from them on FB. They now offer an alum mount and servo horn for their RS100 micro servo. I just bought 2 of these servos for my Phoenix build and will be getting this for my TRX-4m. Just an FYI in case you didn't see the FB post from them.

Edit: thanks brian.... it showed up on my feed when I got on FB, ended up ordering it and the servo!!! Like I needed help emptying my wallet [emoji1787][emoji1787][emoji1787] was trying to not spend money on anything atm cause vs410 kit has a few upgrades I need to order before I start assembling. I'm have to make it "dumbass me" proof lol. Oh well, truth be told probably be a month before I start it anyway.

Thanks for that, ya I didn't see the post! I just ordered the limited edition red rs800 for my vanquish kit. Have the reg rs800 and their servo winch in the hardbody taco build. FREAKING LOVE their servos. And their servo winch is crazy. Plan is to switch the other 2 1/10s to the rs800 as well but not in a huge rush atm.

I haven't played with the emaxx servo, I got a couple in for the fms 1/18s and decided to try one in the Bronco. If it's lacking once the build is done I'll certainly grab the nsdrc set up.

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[Gramps]

Didn't get much for pics today but once my pack on on the hilux ran out, switched to my bronco for the rest of the run back.

This little thing shocked me. Definitely rear heavy right now but it goes. I didn't have any complaints on mine at all today. I can see where there could be binding at full steering lock but for me it was minimal since I silicone lubed the bushings.

I have 0 complaints for an out of the box rig at all. The stock gearing really wasn't bad for what I was doing. Needed it plenty though cause this thing looked like a big cockroach climbing through the leaves and crap, we were all cracking up. But this is seriously fun and I'd be hard pressed to bother with my scx24 outside of playing at home anymore.

Pics are with 2 of my buddies that have ectos, was a small group of us running mostly element gk/ecto based rigs.

Now just to kick back and enjoy as is while waiting for upgrades to come out.

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That looks like an interesting place to crawl. Reminds me of Elephant Rock

 

[tigris99]

That looks like an interesting place to crawl. Reminds me of Elephant Rock

Hmmmm....

[emoji1787][emoji1787][emoji1787]

Does Army Green Tacoma owner in Missouri Scalers ring any bells lol. That's me

Rigs and Coffee back in November at you guessed it, at Elephant Rock!

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[Gramps]

Hmmmm....

[emoji1787][emoji1787][emoji1787]

Does Army Green Tacoma owner in Missouri Scalers ring any bells lol. That's me

Rigs and Coffee back in November at you guessed it, at Elephant Rock!

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It's been several years since I've been to elephant rock. Use to go there with Mo-Il Crawlers and Mid Ozark crawlers.