SpeedyDad
Pebble Pounder
I've been hobbled for a couple months after ankle surgery. During that time, I needed a sanity project to keep me from going nuts. so I picked up a Losi MRC and some Wild Willy 2 parts and merged them. I have an original Wild Willy and a Wild Willy 2 and wanted a crawler version also.
I pretty much kept the electronics and driveline from the MRC and tossed the rest in a box.
Chassis - I used the siderails of a Wild Willy 2 chassis to give it a more scale look and milled everything else from delrin blocks. The entire front including the electronics mount area, front frame, and shock mounts was milled from one single big block. The chassis is narrower than it was on a WW2 though to clear the tires as they flex. I did dump the factory MRC servo and made the front chassis to hold a fullsized Hitec servo. I think the only part of the original chassis I used was part of the upper tray to get the battery mount.
Drivetrain - My goal was to use the complete drivetrain from the MRC with the tranny mounted in the rear where the gastank on the body is. To get the power to the axles and not have to cut the body, I bought and was going to use a RC4WD Killer Tcase to transfer the power. The tcase sure did allow the body to sit low enough but the outputs made it too wide front to back and the driveshaft angles were way too steep. That killed that idea. I ended up recessing the skidplate a bunch to allow the MRC tranny to sit low enough so that minimal body cutting would be necessary. The driveshafts are stock units cut shorter.
Suspension - The suspension is mostly handmade. I reduced the wheelbase of the MRC by about an inch to match the body so none of the stock links would work. The new ones are made from delrin rod. The lower links mount in the custom center skidplate while the upper links are fitted to custom mounts I made to fit in the WW2 chassis rails. The upper link axle mounts are 2mm carbon fiber. I cut down the plate mount stubs on the MRC axle housings to lower the link plate on the housings. For now, I am using the stock shocks but the springs are way too soft for the heavy body. I don't think the stiffer springs will be much better. I want to get some RCBros MRC shocks but they only seem to have one set of the ones I want so I'll have to wait until they get more.
The Body - My goal was to keep most of the stock detail with just a few changes. I took the Wild Willy 2 body and shaved the ugly bumps off the hood and filled the body mount holes. I also comp cut the rear corners. I was going to make a custom comp style roll cage for it but after sitting and looking at it I decided to keep the original look of the factory roll bar. I kept most of the details of the original body but bolted up one of the original MRC tires as a spare instead of the plastic fake one. I was going to get an extra Flatiron to mount back there but it would have been too large. I do plan on getting another Axial beadlock and painting it to match the others. I hate the Wld Willy 2 grill and had a spare original Wild Willy grill laying around so I used that instead. I also have an original Wild Willy windshield frame to give it a more scale look but I don't have the metal side mounts for it. Once I find some, I'll switch to that one. The existing WW2 one just bolts on to the cage and doesn't look quite right just floating there.
Like I said above, I originally was going to use an RC4WD Killer transfer case but the driveshaft angles were way too steep so I had to mod the body to fit over the tranny. It actually came out pretty good I think.
Tires and Wheels - With the stock MRC tires and wheels the axle width was OK. Things rubbed a little but not bad. They really didn't look right though so I got some Axial 1.9 beadlocks and Proline Flatiron tires. I painted the wheels to match the body. The wheel offset was different though and the tires were wider. Now the axles were too narrow and the tires rubbed on everything. I got a set of the Gmade wideners and now it looks perfect. I thought about using 1.55 wheels and tires but couldn't find a beadlock that used a hex pattern. The RC4WD steel ones are real nice and would have looked great but they mount directly to the axle pins without hexes and would have, like the Axial wheels, made the whole thing too narrow with lots of rubbing.
Huge thanks to RPP Hobby and The Crawler Store for getting parts to me so quickly to keep the project going.
The project was a fun challenge for sure. To get that short of a wheelbase to work and flex properly took several tries. That and fitting everything under the mostly stock body tried my patience at times. It was worth it though.
I've driven it a bit around the house (the pics are poser shots) and it drives great and flexes like crazy but, as mentioned above, the shock springs are way too soft so the body wants to lean a lot.
On to the pics....
The three Willys together
I pretty much kept the electronics and driveline from the MRC and tossed the rest in a box.
Chassis - I used the siderails of a Wild Willy 2 chassis to give it a more scale look and milled everything else from delrin blocks. The entire front including the electronics mount area, front frame, and shock mounts was milled from one single big block. The chassis is narrower than it was on a WW2 though to clear the tires as they flex. I did dump the factory MRC servo and made the front chassis to hold a fullsized Hitec servo. I think the only part of the original chassis I used was part of the upper tray to get the battery mount.
Drivetrain - My goal was to use the complete drivetrain from the MRC with the tranny mounted in the rear where the gastank on the body is. To get the power to the axles and not have to cut the body, I bought and was going to use a RC4WD Killer Tcase to transfer the power. The tcase sure did allow the body to sit low enough but the outputs made it too wide front to back and the driveshaft angles were way too steep. That killed that idea. I ended up recessing the skidplate a bunch to allow the MRC tranny to sit low enough so that minimal body cutting would be necessary. The driveshafts are stock units cut shorter.
Suspension - The suspension is mostly handmade. I reduced the wheelbase of the MRC by about an inch to match the body so none of the stock links would work. The new ones are made from delrin rod. The lower links mount in the custom center skidplate while the upper links are fitted to custom mounts I made to fit in the WW2 chassis rails. The upper link axle mounts are 2mm carbon fiber. I cut down the plate mount stubs on the MRC axle housings to lower the link plate on the housings. For now, I am using the stock shocks but the springs are way too soft for the heavy body. I don't think the stiffer springs will be much better. I want to get some RCBros MRC shocks but they only seem to have one set of the ones I want so I'll have to wait until they get more.
The Body - My goal was to keep most of the stock detail with just a few changes. I took the Wild Willy 2 body and shaved the ugly bumps off the hood and filled the body mount holes. I also comp cut the rear corners. I was going to make a custom comp style roll cage for it but after sitting and looking at it I decided to keep the original look of the factory roll bar. I kept most of the details of the original body but bolted up one of the original MRC tires as a spare instead of the plastic fake one. I was going to get an extra Flatiron to mount back there but it would have been too large. I do plan on getting another Axial beadlock and painting it to match the others. I hate the Wld Willy 2 grill and had a spare original Wild Willy grill laying around so I used that instead. I also have an original Wild Willy windshield frame to give it a more scale look but I don't have the metal side mounts for it. Once I find some, I'll switch to that one. The existing WW2 one just bolts on to the cage and doesn't look quite right just floating there.
Like I said above, I originally was going to use an RC4WD Killer transfer case but the driveshaft angles were way too steep so I had to mod the body to fit over the tranny. It actually came out pretty good I think.
Tires and Wheels - With the stock MRC tires and wheels the axle width was OK. Things rubbed a little but not bad. They really didn't look right though so I got some Axial 1.9 beadlocks and Proline Flatiron tires. I painted the wheels to match the body. The wheel offset was different though and the tires were wider. Now the axles were too narrow and the tires rubbed on everything. I got a set of the Gmade wideners and now it looks perfect. I thought about using 1.55 wheels and tires but couldn't find a beadlock that used a hex pattern. The RC4WD steel ones are real nice and would have looked great but they mount directly to the axle pins without hexes and would have, like the Axial wheels, made the whole thing too narrow with lots of rubbing.
Huge thanks to RPP Hobby and The Crawler Store for getting parts to me so quickly to keep the project going.
The project was a fun challenge for sure. To get that short of a wheelbase to work and flex properly took several tries. That and fitting everything under the mostly stock body tried my patience at times. It was worth it though.
I've driven it a bit around the house (the pics are poser shots) and it drives great and flexes like crazy but, as mentioned above, the shock springs are way too soft so the body wants to lean a lot.
On to the pics....
The three Willys together
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