Mad Ax

I've recently reconditioned my TA-02T for light bashing duties and it sounds like the sort of thing you want. Hard to find them new now but you could make something of your own using a TA-01 or TA-02 chassis (or even TL-01, TT-01, TT-02 etc) and fitting a truck body over it. The TA-01/02 is the best donor as with the right mix of parts you can make a variety of wheelbase options. This post has loads of info if you're interested. Ford F150 as labelled in the photos is a TA-02T: https://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.asp?cid=48983&id=2193 It was also available as a Chevy S10, a Toyota Prerunner, and a Desert Fielder, which is basically a Toyota Prerunner with different decals. I think Team Bluegroove do an F150 body, not sure about the others. Toyota Prerunner body is the same as the Hilux Monster Racer, and Chevy S10 is the same as the Asterion. In a similar vein, the Asterion is also a good shout, again if you can find one. It has the Chevy S10 body fitted over an XV-01T. IIRC the wheelbase is the same as the standard XV-01 - you cut the arches differently on the S10 body to how you would on a TA-02T. Otherwise I think the XV-01T has longer shocks and bigger tyres, possibly other differences to the regular XV-01 as well. It is a blast to drive, the front weight bias means it drifts like a rally car and the enclosed belt drive is silky smooth. As others have mentioned, the Kyosho Outlaw Rampage looks like a superb piece of kit, although I've not driven one. It seems like someone took the design philosophy of the Hornet and actually went all-out to make it good. I'm sure there are other race-inspired pickups out there similar to the Rampage, which don't go down the silly-wheels-stuck-out-the-side E-maxx path, but I don't know what they are off-hand. If you wanted to get creative, you could build your own. A Hornet would be a good starting point (with Brat wheels, perhaps) but any 2wd buggy would work. Something like an SRB would let you adjust the wheelbase to suit your chosen truck shell, by making a new chassis plate. JConcepts have a large range of modern and classic pickup truck bodies. Mostly they are for monster trucks or things like E-maxxes, but as a bonus the JConcepts website lists the wheelbase against each body, so you see if it will fit your chassis before you buy.

After this, I reinstalled the box in the van. There was a slight flaw - the mount is very slightly wider than the box at the very rear, where the hinges are, so it doesn't close properly. I figured that was a problem for another day (all this was done in a 1-hour lunchbreak) so I left it in the van. It's been a very warm day today, and when I came to do a little more work on it this evening, this had happened. I figured this would stretch out nicely when I reinstalled the phone, however it put too much tension on the buttons and caused it to constantly reboot. To get around this problem, I had to cut the slits I made for the buttons completely. It doesn't really affect the operation - I still have to lift the lid out of the locked position to access the buttons. Today a new power adapter arrived, this is all wired in behind the dash so I don't have any trailing cables to worry about. All installed and working and ready for a test drive Also, if I don't fold the mount fully back, it will actually close just fine. Fingers crossed this doesn't put too much tension on the legs and caused them to bend...

Then I glued the whole lot to a plasticard backplate, and glued on some styrene rod to locate the mount in the stowage box. Drilled two locating holes in the box. et voila Perfect!

I found some square section styrene. Cut one side away, the phone fits nicely inside it. Made some rough slits where the power button goes - I need to be able to press it when it's installed to wake the screen or power on if the battery goes flat. I cut another bit of tube for the bottom, and made more slits for the volume controls.

For a few years now, all my satnav and MP3 duties in my van have been performed by a Huawei tablet that I bought new from the local O2 store as part of a monthly contract. The contract costs me a few pennies per month, but the tablet has long since past its best. Actually I had to stop bluetoothing MP3s to the car stereo a while ago because it kept breaking up during playback, and a few months ago it finally ran out of space on the system partition due to constant updates. Even with all the non-essential apps removed, it just doesn't work any more. A "low disk space" warning appears as soon as it boots, sits in the middle of the screen, and won't go away. I considered buying a newer tablet, but my ageing OnePlus 3T mobile phone (which has been in constant use since ~2017) finally packed up on Christmas Day also, so I had to replace it with a used Samsung S22, which I have to say has been a very good purchase. I did manage to fix the OnePlus - a new battery from eBay brought it back to life - and although it's a lot smaller than my tablet, it has more than enough power to run Google Maps, Poweramp, and a custom launcher with a few widgets to improve it for driving and navigation. It may not be a long term solution, but as a medium term one, it's more than adequate. However, there is a drawback. My van has a little box on the dash that is the perfect location for a satnav. I used some silage tape to secure the phone to the lid, so it can be folded away out of sight when parked, but the bottom keeps falling off the perch when I'm driving and it's seriously annoying. Obviously a better solution is some kind of cradle that will secure the phone when in use, fold away out of sight, and allow the phone to be easily removed for security or to update it from the laptop.

And, "finished." But, not completely finished. I'll go back and tidy up the "engine block" part sometime. After this, I was able to give the truck its first proper run since I finished rebuilding it. Every other run has been compromised by unglued tyres, dodgy ESC, unsecure body or tyres rubbing on the sump guard. Finally, finally, I got to drive it the way it was built to be driven. It is an absolute hoot. It really doesn't need any more than the silvercan, there's enough power to make it hop around the garden quite happily. The longer shock towers give it a lovely scale bounce over rough stuff, and it jumps nicely on the little hump between grass and patio. The tyres grip really well on grass, but are hard enough to slide on the patio slabs. It doesn't powerslide as well as the XV-01T, which has brushless power and a front weight bias, but it still drifts nicely and hooks up well. It can be a little understeery but then again it is a scale race truck, it shouldn't be driven like a 4wd buggy because it will never handle like one. A little understeer is much nicer than instant grip roll, which is a problem when these trucks get more power or stickier tyres. I'm really looking forward to showing it off at Club 380 and just maybe having a chance to run it around the track between heats.

And now for the interior / floor / arch liners. This is something I made years ago to try to hide the huge air gap between body and chassis after installing the Manta Ray shock towers. It's neat but caused some problems installing the body posts. The old mount system was getting in the way. I tried to drill through the big block of stacked plastic slices but in the end I had to cut it off. Now installed with a new plastic plate up front.

OK, now we have our body height determined, we can make another bracket. The problem is, the front tower is on an angle, so the 90-degree L-section won't work. It was hard to do a neat job, but I eventually managed to bend it into roughly the right shape. I tidied up as best I could with a toffee hammer on the flat anvil section of the bench vice. I'm not much of a panel beater. Installed.

OK - ready to fabricate a front body mount! The body can now sit slightly lower, and cover a bit of the guard. That's fine, also cool. The body got pulled back very slightly when fitting the rear mounts. This isn't really a problem as it gives plenty of room for the tyre to swing. Full compression. Partial compression. Clearance is just about perfect. I'd be surprised if I don't get the odd rub during a race.

OK - now to tidy up the sump guard before adding the front body mounts. I don't know why. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Cutting aluminium sheet once it's been bent into shape is a nightmare, but I got there in the end. I was also able to tidy up all the rough edges that I never bothered filing down before. As I may have remarked previously, the bulkhead on this chassis is cracked and split in places. It seemed sensible to me to drill right through so I can add nuts, instead of relying on the plastic to hold a self-tapper. Sump guard reinstalled. I used locknuts as this is an area that may get shifted around, and I don't want to lose any screws during a race.

Looking good! I was lucky to get away with this - it almost didn't fit because of the spare wheel moulding. Although ultimately it would be nice to get rid of the moulding, build a custom rear cage and add a proper spare. Yes!

Body roughly plonked on Rear wheel tuck looks good, we need to try to keep this height. I found an offcut of L-section that already had a hole in it. Ignore the filed out bit, I obviously started making a bracket for something else at some point. Body mounts fitted, holes drilled. It fits thus.

First, I turned my attention to the front suspension. I had used these cheapo shocks from nearly 2 decades ago (I think they are from Yeah Racing), but for some reason I had mounted them to the upright lower mount. This made the front end lower than the rear. It was an easy fix to move them to the correct holes. Back-in-the-day I was going for soft suspension for low-speed crawling, and the wider mount offered a softer response, but this is more suitable for racing. Now we have a more neutral resting position, I can re-mount the body. I put the sump guard back on for now as it may dictate where the front of the body must go.

More updates! This truck has been moved around from bench to bench to other overloaded semi-flat surface over the last month, as I work on other stuff and try not to let this one slip out of my mind. At last, I made the time to get on and finish the last few important bits before it can be run in anger. The body mount broke last time I was messing around with it, although I didn't really like the body mount idea anyway, and the sump guard caught on the tyres when turning, so those needed fixing. I'm hoping to take this to the Club 380 meeting on 31st May so I can see how well it runs on the grass track and maybe persuade the organisers to include a heat for these sort of vehicles next year, and that meant I had limited time to get it all working properly. This is what I started with. The whole truck sort of leans forward because the front shocks aren't quite right, and the body isn't really sitting at the right height either. Full compression - there's an embarrassing amount of air under there. That needs to change. Same at the rear. The standard truck had a great stance and an amazing wheel tuck, but the bigger shocks and hook-and-loop body mount pushes it too high.

All fitted and ready to install the lenses and grilles. Working. In this case I don't actually mind that the roof lights are pure white, because it really offsets the period-correct soft white LEDs in the headlamps. Temporarily installed a lens and grille. These need to be glued in place, but I was running out of time so opted to save this for another day. Another day came and went, the lenses and grilles got glued in place but I didn't have time for pictures. I'm also not sure when I'll get a chance to run the truck again - hopefully in June when the crazy settles down a bit?