Mad Ax

That scale is about perfect for a Pumpkin body!

I ran mine a lot, many many years ago, before I converted it to 4wd. A really good fun runner, exactly what a Tamiya should be. You don't *need* the taller towers but they do make a difference, the shock length and also angle is a compromise on the stock truck, so the damping is never quite right. Also, IIRC the standard shocks won't allow the chassis to hit the floor, but the taller towers will. That might be a bad thing on a full-size vehicle, but on an RC truck it will transfer and hard landings into the tough part of the chassis, rather than up through the shocks, towers, and arms. That said, I never broke my standard towers or arms when I was running mine with the standard shocks.

Pity. I hope the same doesn't happen with mine, although it is a CC01, so random cracks in the plastic are only to be expected.

So, there you have it, folks! There's still loads more work to do here, from tidying up the sides of the tub to adding a little width so it doesn't look entirely too dinky. Extending the arch liners will be the main plan here. Deciding if I want to stick with body posts or go with a hidden option, and making a new battery tray. Colour scheme needs to be decided, too, but that depends on... Well, that depends. I think I'll need a bearing carrier for the propshaft. I'll get one ordered this week so I don't get stalled too bad. It feels like this might come together pretty quickly now!

This is where I repeat: I didn't measure this beforehand, I just lined up the chassis floor with the wheel arch, then added a bit on for good measure, figuring it would be easier to shorten it later than to longthen it if it was all wrong. And would you believe - it's really not that far at all off being just right! I think the floor is spot on, just the rear axle maybe wants to come forwards by 1 or 2mm. Naturally the CC01 is narrower than what this body is designed for, but I think that's OK. It means I can fit a slightly bigger tyre without catching the arches - one of the big issues with trying to make a scale-ish 4x4 that doesn't ride like a monster truck. I'll possibly fit a slightly deeper wheel, too. The rear looks to be narrower than the front, but that's easily fixed with a deeper offset wheel. I've probably got something in my wheels box that will work.

A single sheet of 2mm FR4 is slightly too flexible, plus the floor is missing some chunks and looks odd, so the next plan was to prep the floor for new rails. I did a similar mod on my Homebrew CC01, for different reasons. New rail covers made from 15x15x1 L-section. These hide the gap in the rails and provide extra rigidity. I was kinda going to call it a day at this point, as I was getting late, but my daughter was staying away and I had no bedtime to come in for, so I stayed out a little longer and decided to throw on the stock links, just to see how close it was to the final length. I used the SWB position, as that looked about right.

Marked, drilled and screwed the front. These screws are temporary, I haven't decided exactly how the final installation will look as I don't know if I'll need to screw anything underneath yet. Rear marked, drilled and screwed. Well, there it is. Unofficially the world's longest CC01. Have you got a longer one? Please share it! For something just eyeballed, this is pretty gosh-darned close to perfect, IMO.

This is very roughly how the finished article can and may look. Well that looks about right. I opted not to measure it precisely and just eyeball it, as I can make custom links later. Trying to cut it specifically to fit the standard links was only going to end in tears. To join the chassis halves together, I used some FR4 sheet left over from a previous build. This stuff is becoming my favourite material to work with, although I do need to wear a proper filtered facemask, especially when filing it down. Here it is cut to the appropriate size, making the edges as square as I can get them when filing by hand. By butting the front edge against the bulkhead and the rear against the point where the floorpan rises, I hope to get the chassis as square as I can. It'll never be 100% perfect but it looks close enough that I doubt anyone would ever notice.

I clambered up into my newly organised storage area, and dug out my NIB CC01 donor box. This once was a Landfreeder kit, but the axle housing got stole ages ago (remember how I said this axle was rebuilt..?) and now it's short a chassis, too. It's a good thing these chassis parts aren't rare. Yet. I cut the new chassis just in front of the bulkhead that defines the battery area, mostly because this was a known straight edge that I could work to. However I didn't want the bulkhead in place, so after filing everything flat, I cut it away. Here we have two chassis halves, both with a battery tray area. Bonus: these areas both have flat, level bases, multiple solid screw points, and square ends.

The first thing I did was pull off the rear axle and links, to make it easier to line everything up. For clarity, here's just how far out the chassis is compared to the body. I knew it was going to be bad, but I have to admit, until I saw it like this, I never realised just how bad it would be. The axle's going to have to be in the next county! Extending a CC01 isn't really that hard, if you discount the propshaft for a moment and don't worry too much about where the shocks are going to go. And have some way of cutting M4 allthread. Well, alright, OK, it is a bit hard, but that's not the point. The point is, when I did this with a Hilux pickup, the floorpan looked OK because it was mostly still under the cab. Here, it's going to look weird. One of the nice things about the CC01 is that lovely scale floorpan. Stick it under a 313mm body and it looks like the rear passengers will have no legroom. So, something had to change. Are you thinking what I'm thinking..? Well... Are you..?

This is a project that went from idea to proof of concept in a fairly short time. There is a purpose behind all this, but I'll keep it to myself for now, as there's a much more involved build that will follow this one. For now, the basis of the project was to get the correct drivetrain under a Hilux Surf body. The genesis of the project was that I had a spare CC01 runner chassis after moving the Toyota FJ40 body onto my FTX Outback 2 chassis. My original plan was to get a Pajero Sport body, and build (as much as I can) a rally-raid capable CC01 out of it. Something that could tackle light trails at scale-realistic speeds (maybe with some ballast weight and those classic non-grippy Tamiya BFG tyres). I could then build a trailer for it and tow it with my CC01 Pajero Sport Lowrider. Alas, the Paj Sport body is long out of production, so I needed another idea. The Hilux Surf (or 4Runner to some of you) was another body I'd seen before, and was kind of fond of, and looked to be roughly the right scale for what I had in mind, so I placed an order and chopped it out of its plastic as soon as it arrived. And there it sat for a few weeks while I was busy with events, holidays, workshop tidying and other projects. But always it was staring at me, urging me to get on and make it a thing before the inspiration slipped away. So, this is how the project begins: a boggo-basic CC01 of the Land Cruiser 40 variety that I got from ebay a few years ago. Battery clip is my own 3D-printed design with an offset clip to keep the battery lead away from the body, but otherwise it's standard. I'm not sure if the axle was ever shimmed - I think I replaced the axle housing, as it was cracked when I got it, so possibly I shimmed it then. I'll do a mechanical renovation later once the bulk of the hard work is done. The chassis is in reasonable condition, apart from these wonky lower links. Since I plan to replace these with my own metal links later, this isn't a problem, but it's worth highlighting here. I'm not sure if this came from displaying the model on my twin-slot rails (which would make sense) or from general use. And, for those of you who have been waiting to see the Surf body, here it is! A full 1:10 (ish) scale 313mm Proline body! uh... Yeah... So, something needs to change. I was well aware of this before I bought the body, and I have extended a CC01 before, fitting a Tamiya Bruiser body by making longer custom links and extending the driveshaft. When I did this before, the chassis had already been well hacked around by the previous owner, so I just extended the chassis using aluminium L-section - that worked fine for a pickup body, and was exactly what I was intending to do here. However, as I progressed through the build, things would change...

Original Vanquish survivor, has been run but appears to be complete. This car is not mine, this is another from a lot that I am helping to sell on behalf of a friend and former TC member. I've given it a once-over without stripping it down and it appears to be complete, I replace one missing screw and swapped an incorrect shock mount bush out for the correct one, otherwise all I know is from the pics. I haven't run it myself or opened the gearboxes. £150 plus postage. Based in West Wilts, UK. Can post overseas at buyer's cost. So, what is it? It's an original Vanquish (not a VQS re-re). It comes with an original box. I don't know the provenance of the body, it is painted non-boxart and has no decals. It's also had plenty of use from the looks of it, this is one of the more-used cars from the collection. Points of note: the box has yellowed (the camera flash makes it look cleaner than it is) and is slightly tatty in places but still a perfectly serviceable box. the manual is there and complete, a little dog-eared where it's been used. paint is flaking from the body in places and the wing has been reinforced Saturn 20 motor and Futaba high-torque servo included tyres look good but it has been sat for a long time so they may have flat spots 23 photos available here: https://tcphotos.net/album/ZNgx

Not at all, let's make it a combined "where I went with my truck" thread

I think this works pretty well! I needed to space out the lower mounts a little. I'm absolutely loving the stance on this truck now! It's been sat on my workbench all week, and every time I walk past I have to stop and just look at it. This thing looks epic. The standard lamp covers for the Super Clod are in white plastic (not chrome), so I need to paint them. I'll also strip back the front spot covers (they are chrome on the landfreeder) and paint them to match. Not sure if I've got enough matching decals to make them all KC Daylighters, but those would be period correct. More to follow on this one tomorrow - got to figure out how to secure the body onto the floor so it won't come off when I'm crawling it around at scale speeds.

The original 4x4x4 grille doesn't make sense on a truck without 4ws, but there's a way to hide that... drill 2 holes... cut the ends back off a bull bar light set from a Landfreeder And you have the chromiest of all chrome monster trucks!

I found a box of random scale body accessories while I was clearing out, so earlier this week I decided to see what else would fit. I'm not usually one for chrome, but I think this truck demands it. This rear bumper came from my other Clod body set. I can't work out what happened to the original one for this body. I'm pretty sure I didn't use it on anything else, but it's not in any of the usual places, so, maybe it got lost? I've had it since around 2007. Originally this body was on a more street-ready truck with little 1.55" wheels, so I used the smaller hood scoop. This, however, is supposed to be a stonking monster truck, so a supercharger makes more sense. Original light bar fitted too.

At this point I thought I was done, and was going to come in for the night, but I knew I had to cover up the spring hangers at the front, so I dug out the original Clod bumper and made a bracket for it. Nice!

After realigning the floor, it was catching on the slipper. Solved I'd gone to the effort already of making a rear battery tray, so I needed to cut more out of my floor to make it usable.

The simplest solution was to re-drill the holes. I took the opportunity to check and correct the centralisation, too. That's better! Lined up perfectly Nice stance. Kinda narrow, but that's how the stage 1 trucks were.

I decided to put a larger drill hole in so I can get to the set button on the ESC without removing the floor pan. And here it is, fitted! oh... Well, that wasn't part of the plan! Despite all my careful measuring, the body has ended up several mm further back than I intended. I don't know where I went wrong - maybe I knocked the floor when I was making the mark? You can see the mark here:

Properly lining up the whole cabundle wasn't an easy task. First I laid on the plate, then put the body on top and shuffled it into what looked like the right position. Then I used a marker to mark where the floor pan came to on the vertical plates. I made these brackets from some alu L-section. Then clamped the floor down to make the first drill hole. All holes driled

The floor pan needs to rest on top of the chassis, but there are wires and things to accommodate, so I had to cut out a hole. Slices cut with the cheap Aldi bandsaw, then drilled out for easy snappage. Cleaned and filed (while wearing appropriate mask, obviously). Here it be. It fits!

Sunday the 3rd of December wasn't quite as cold as it had been for the previous few days, but it was still pretty chilly in the workshop, so I decided to light the burner for the first time this year. I've avoided lighting it that often, as it's a thirsty old beast with a door that doesn't properly seal, and it can eat through a crate of precious firewood in a day. Still, it was useful for heating up my coffee, which had gone cold while I faffed about with the kindling and environmentally-friendly firelighters. I started the day by liberating some lung-damaging chemicals from a flat sheet of FR4 that was delivered earlier in the week. The plan was to make a floor pan that the body would rest on. Notched around the body mouldings. To stop the body falling right over the floor, I glued on these strips of styrene box section. I didn't have enough to do all of both sides (more has been delivered this week) but this was enough to prove the concept.

I put the camera away shortly after, as the sun had set and it soon got too dark to even see clearly. At the end of the night I'd find some more ice. This was quite a big puddle and it was well frozen. Sadly even on 3S the BOM doesn't have the wheelspeed for proper donuts, but I did a few cheeky slides before I headed for home. Only around 4ish miles this week, but with the mist descending it really was too dark to enjoy it, so I headed back early and smashed down a pizza instead.

It was only just strong enough here, and cracked in a few places. I wonder if anyone was confused by these trails? As the light faded and the mist descended, it got harder to take pics that weren't blurred. There's something special about a misty landscape, especially one as empty as a military training ground. Here we're right up against the border. Those little white marks by the trees are the Keep Out signs.