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mr crispy

Hammers time

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Finally got my hands on a Vaterra Twin Hammers. Picked it up 2nd hand at a good price and it included everything you get in the RTR package except the radio gear.

How it arrived

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The previous owner had upgraded the steering and gear change servos but it seems the gear servo died as i was setting up the 3rd channel. Not a huge issue as id been fitting this stronger servo horn and realised if i left the "other" side on it I could cut a small opening in the cockpit lexan and use it as a manual lever to change between the slow and fast gears until I get a replacement.

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I toyed with moving the spare wheel forward and cutting off the back end of the tube cage but I found its perfect to stop the car backflipping when climbing.

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Ive since decided to swap to a smaller 96mm spare wheel and ditch the mount. Instead Ive screwed into the tyre with two extra screws in the old spare wheel mount holes. This now holds the new spare wheel inside the rear cage a little, lowering the COG but more importantly allows it to pivot for battery changes. Ive also removed the tyre foam so it flexes easily against the rear cage and holds itself in place helping to hide the battery wires. Ive also removed the rear vertical of the battery plate so i can fit my larger hardcase 5000mah Lipo, and the spare wheel stops it sliding back when you nail the throttle.

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Ive changed the battery connectors for Deans and am slowly swapping them over on all my old batteries. The large Lipo will just squeeze between the rear shock upright posts, so will a standard Nimh 7.2v stick pack. Its not the best location for a battery and does raise the COG but there isnt a lot of room in the chassis to relocate it, well not without major surgery. My TH came with Axial Ripsaw 108mm tyres preglued on 1.9 wheels. They look the part and have good grip but the previous owner looks like hes vented them for crawling and then changed his mind and tried to fill the holes with sealant? End result is they compress a little too easily but then dont reinflate for ages which isnt great especially with a faster car like this. Im going to carefully cut the inner bead off the wheels to clean them up, replace the tyre foams if needed and fit some lead weight to the wheels, then reglue it. Ive learnt from other crawlers that weighted wheels make a lot of difference when youre trying to keep a car rubber side down, and this thing really shifts with the standard 15T motor so its prone to rolling over.

The driver was a bit lacking in detail and mine came with a resin copy of a Bruiser head so it looked a little oversized. Ive replace it with a FAV head, arms and steering wheel and will make a more detailed body from milliput.

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He looks a little cramped to me so Im thinking to remove the moulded chair and remake that further back. I had tried to strip the paint from the lexan bonnet panel but the new brand of cellulose thinners i used melted and ate the plastic, so I replaced the panel with plasticard. Using what was left of the original bonnet I cut a new panel from 1mm plasticard and bent it to shape, then cut a smaller detail piece from 2mm plasticard and glued them together.

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Its now dry but still lifts a little at the front so I'll need to use a couple of screws to hold it in place. Paint wise Im thinking to do the panels in a matt desert tan colour with some low-vis racing decals and numbers. I also intend to drill out the 4 roof lights and fit ultra bright LEDs in place as well as a couple of rear red LEDs.

Ill keep you posted with updates. If it stops raining for long enough I might even get to drive the thing soon :)

Regards

Nic

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I look forward to seeing the lights added. I think will look so much better than just decals as lights. The relocation of the spare is a good idea.

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Nice looking truck. Haven't yet seen anyone do much with one of these so I'll be watching with interest :)

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Finished the bonnet off with a couple more screws holding down the front and I've cut and added a bit more room for the driver.

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I did this by trimming the back of the seat and moving the whole thing back apx 15mm so it's now in line with the " B" post.

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I think that looks a bit less cramped. Now I'll fill in the gaps with plasticard and get modelling a body and arms for him.

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Sweet Work . As said on Bug Hammer - that area in front of the spare is shouting out for a intercooler and fans to hide the wires IMO

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Been thinking again about the rear battery location. Ideally I'd like to use full size lipos or nimhs and I realised with the gear change servo removed there is a pretty good location in the cockpit area.

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It'll fit a nimh pack with just the removal of the front cockpit screw lugs.

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To squeeze a hardcase lipo in there I might also need to remove the 2nd "A" post. So it'll be a pretty irreversible mods once I start. And I'll loose the cockpit driver which is a shame. Just wondering what people's thoughts are regarding the better weight distribution this'll achieve?

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Finally had a proper test dive this morning and came to a few conclusions. First I was driving at a local rec ground on a sandy clay running track and that sort of rubberise tarmac you get at sports areas. So nice, flat surface hardly any bumps, perfect for this sort of running.

With my large hardcase 5000mah 2s lipo in the back it was very prone to rollovers as I suspected. Even in the slower gear it took a lot of effort to corner without rolling, and that's on a flat predictable surface. In high gear it was insane. The torque twist that lifts the front right wheel was quite extreme when you open the throttle. So swapped over to the Vaterra supplied 2000mah soft 2s lipo too see if less weight made a difference and TBH it was still quite a handful!

Here's a few clips with the large lipo fitted.

This one is a little fuzzy but shows how easy it'll roll. It helps to have your own pit crew on hand :)

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So I was going to tweak the suspension settings before heading to the bumpy stuff when another slowish roll onto grass resulted in the front left suspension arm snapping at the knuckle hinge pin!

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I hadn't really looked a them until now but it's obvious that the pins aren't full length so the stresses aren't spread over a larger area. I'm a little disappointed as I hadn't tried any jumps yet, the roll overs were on level ground and relatively low impact, certainly compared to what I see people doing on YouTube. I guess being 2nd hand you can never be sure what sort of stresses it's been subjected to in the past.

So looks like I'll be hunting for a replacement arm and I'm liking the idea of fitting a Turnigy shorty 4200 lipo under the driver area. Bit more fiddling time needed.

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There is an upgrade knocking aroung on another forum where the front shock mounts are moved and upright shocks fitted leading to a lower cg but still with the small batt.

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Yeah, saw them on RCCrawler. I'm thinking to borrow a few ideas from this build

http://www.rccrawler.com/forum/vaterra-twin-hammers/462144-crawl-hammer-my-version-vaterra-th-3.html

I was reluctant to loose the original battery location as I could fit my old nimh packs in there, but having run it today you'd have to hold back on the throttle so much it wouldn't be much fun. Fitting the shorty would lower the COG a lot and you'd also be able to fit the Vaterra 2000 lipo pack too. I'm also hoping I'd be able to keep the driver and just Velcro him on top of the battery.

Edit: is this what you're talking about Madmax? The GCM front tower plate. Looks like the answer to just about everything I mentioned!

http://www.scale4x4rc.org/forums/showthread.php?p=977534

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Yup thats the exact one Mr C, Been thinking of going that route myself!!

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great thread mr crispy , following with interest , i have fitted a radshape ally body , fitted both front and rear swaybars , on medium rods , i removed the standard motor and fitted a 14 x 2 turn trinity motor and the 4200 turnigy shorty pack , in original location front to back , to centralise the weight , also re oiled the shocks with heavier oil and stiffned the springs/ reset suspention , the front wheel lift is hardly present at all now and no noticable roll over, im mainly using it as a flat out blaster basher more than a crawler though so set up more like a high speed buggy racer than a crawler , .... oh ... and its got a willy head now as it fits straight in on the original body !!! cheers shaun

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Been doing some research and moving components around in the chassis. Ordered some new front arms and hinge pins from an eBay seller called: darbroit. He seems a good bloke and very helpful, didn't have all the parts listed but after I contacted him he ordered what I wanted and put up the new bits right away. I've also got a Turnigy 4200 shorty lipo on the way.

Ive decided to relocate the battery to under the driver, it's the cheaper option and doesn't involve a massive front end change. I do like the look of the front shock towers but I just dont have the budget for that right now. Besides I think sitting the shorty batt on top of the steering servo will lower the COG a little more than under the bonnet.

To help me decide I made up a cardboard copy of the shorty battery. Had a good rummage through my spares to help keep it looking more scale too.

Here's the set up so far

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Plasticard battery plate fixed to the top of the steering servo. Velcro strap holds the battery in place. The RX is relocated to the front of the old battery tray with holes cut to allow cabling through it. The ESC is set behind the RX with power cables running either side which hold it nicely in the tray sides and I've used the bottom of an Axial receiver box like a fuel cell to cover it. The ESC switch is also located into this box.

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I needed to extend the power cables to the ESC by only 1inch so simply used some Tamiya motor-like connectors soldiered back to back on a wire. Added a few dress up parts like Willys NOS bottle and an Axial battery.

I'm happy with that now, waiting on parts so I can test drive it.

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looking realy good in there , but wont battery changes be a nightmare with it located inside the cage with all them screws to remove ? it looks like an i.e.d. with tha alarm on it lol

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Worlds smallest car bomb :) I thought the same thing when I saw how the photos turned out with the lipo checker, I felt like James Bond working out which wire to cut :)

That's what the cardboard mockup battery was for, checking I can get it in through the drivers window. If the battery strap is too fiddly I might just use Velcro on the battery plate and the battery itself. I'll make the driver on a removeable plasticard peice that fixed ontop. That's the theory anyway.

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Mr.C... are you a modern day black smith? Will be quite the jack hammer when you are done with it!

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Jack Hammer... I might have to steal that name mate :)

Replacement arms and the shorty battery arrived and fits great, it's a bit of a squeeze getting it in and out through the drivers "window" but it's not like I'll be swapping batteries in a race with this thing.

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Haven't been able it test how it performs with this set up yet as I've removed one side of the tyres from the rims to clean out the crud that built up inside from the previous owner and add some lead weight. I did try swapping on the tyres from my CC01 Dingo but the difference in wheel offset meant they rubbed on the steering arms so I'll just have to wait until the original wheels are sorted, hopefully this weekend.

Also mounted the NOS bottle inline with the fuel cell to look a bit better.

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now that's a neat install . Is anyone doing alloy body panels for these yet ? I'am also wondering how good this would look as more of a scaler with smaller wheels , a roof mounted 50cal and gunner seated just in front of your relocated spare wheel as per a real FAV with a high rise cage . His seat could mount on the fuel cell where you have the NOS bottle maybe .

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Hmmm... I've got some 96mm wheels I can put on and compare. Doesn't sound much from it's current 108mm wheels but usually it makes a surprising difference. I've not thought of the top gunner idea Bromvw, it wouldn't be too hard to knock up a roll cage extension for it but it would be vulnerable in a rollover. There are a few alloy panel kits out there as mentioned earlier, most work out around £30 for a set so not bad. It wouldnt be hard to make up your own using the originals as templates either.

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Hmmm... I've got some 96mm wheels I can put on and compare. Doesn't sound much from it's current 108mm wheels but usually it makes a surprising difference. I've not thought of the top gunner idea Bromvw, it wouldn't be too hard to knock up a roll cage extension for it but it would be vulnerable in a rollover. There are a few alloy panel kits out there as mentioned earlier, most work out around £30 for a set so not bad. It wouldnt be hard to make up your own using the originals as templates either.

To me it looks quite military as standard but the big crawler wheels throw the proportions out so something like CC-01 hummer wheels might work well . I don't think the top cage would be any more vulnerable than the existing one other then it would take the initial impact in a roll . If its well made and cross braced it would more than likely be ok fixed to the original with just some longer screws . Did you sell that 1/6 FAV ? > possible combo maybe ?

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The 1/6 Light Strike is a lot bigger than this, not really compatible besides I dont really fancy hacking up around £200 worth of hard work just for a few inches of roll cage :(

The reason I say it'll be vulnerable is ATM the roof and rear cage make a pretty flat area should the car roll upside down. Fix another 2-3 inches of plastic or metal protruding out and it's a lot of leverage to put on the frame in a high speed spill. That coupled with the expense a decent 50cal will cost these days and it's not worth it in my eyes. I want this car to be tough enough to handle some fun, hard bashing. I don't want to be constantly holding back cos I'm worried this bit might get damaged or that bit is really expensive etc.

I got the wheels sorted. Weighed them before and after. They started out 76gms and ended up 186ish. I've done all 4 the same as it's not specifically a crawler (you normally want twice the weight in the front wheels) but I can change that later if needed. The previous owner had star cut foams in there which were a little soft so I added another layer of foam and vented each wheel with a fresh 3mm hole. They now feel just about right.

Fitted the 4200 shorty lipo and tested it around my garden today.

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One thing that's a pain is where the battery leads fit in to the top surface, they push up too much into the driver compartment so I'll have to resolder them into "L" shape connectors. Weight wise it seemed to perform better and was easier to control in the turns. Still need to try it on a fast level surface for a better comparison but I'm happy with how it's going. I also like the idea of fitting two small "rock lights" down by the front arms.

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Few clips from this morning.

Mild bit if crawling, not too bad for the wet conditions. The motor really needs changing for anything more serious

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