Mad Ax

I had a bit of time yesterday to finish wiring up the fan for this. TBH all the internal wiring really wants sorting out - all these cables could be shortened and made much nicer, but this was really an exercise in making it work, so I could do some testing on the garden. There's a lot going on in that chassis. Assembled The fan wiring worked out just wrong, IMO, but it works The black leads are supposed to look cool, but they're such straggly things they're impossible to tie neatly to anything Ready for a test-drive Rear closing panel. TBH this really wants some paint, but I must just put a decal on it. A 3D-printed louvre would look cool.

Location is about right Now for some body posts! The uprights are so close to the body that it will be hard to get a proper body post on there, but we'll have to try! I found these rattling around in my body posts box. Cut one off under the top had, and drilled a hole. Screwed it into the upright et fin. Now the body is much easier to put on and off, doesn't come loose while driving, and always fits in the same location. It will get a good testing on the trails next week - let's see how it goes!

Cut a piece of GRP to mount the body post on. Added one to each side, and drilled a hole in the top for mounting the body posts on. Yes, I managed to drill one of the parts the wrong way round :faceplam: - extra hole is weight saving Working out where the body posts would touch the body was awkward, but I added a screw, thus: Then fitted the body, pressed it into the screw to deform the plastic, marked it with a pen, and drilled a hole.

Updates! I took this truck on a shakedown at the SST quarry day a few weeks ago. It went well, apart from the wheel nut coming loose again, but I'm still constantly frustrated by the body mount situation. It's been a bugbear of mine since I built it, and I've always wondered if there's a better way. Of course, there is - it just requires a few hours in the workshop with a hacksaw, a file, and a drill. Here's how the back of the cab looks. It's a 2-part body, so theoretically it could have been moulded with a flat rear panel, but it wasn't made that way. I've been using adhesive hook-and-loop strips on the sills, but it's really awkward to get the body on and off, never sits straight, and tends to peel off at the wrong moment. The proper solution will be adding some modern-touring-style rear-facing body posts, for extra rear downforce. I need to add a body mount on the floor panel, but this screw boss is in the way. It mounts the rock sliders. Nothing a pair of snips and a scalpel can't fix. Fitted some L-section. Drilled an extra hole underneath to keep it located.

I put the roof net back on, but the little rubber rings that held it in shape had all perished (after less than a year installed, I think) so I had to make do with cable ties. I haven't got any scale stuff in here yet, but it should look better when I do. And finished - ready for the Scaler Nationals! This time next week I'll be in the restaurant feeding myself up ready for a weekend of slogging around the woods

Inside, it's all heatshrinked up with the existing wires for the rear lights. Snipped everything down And resoldered Done

Keeping all the wires tidy is a challenge, but this time I decided to experiment with heatshrink. The wires need to go inside the cab. I decided it wouldn't look very scale to have them bundled back over the rollcage, so I drilled a hole in the roof. This looks like a big hole, but that's because I installed a grommet to avoid chaffing the wires.

It's been nearly a year since I last worked on this truck. It had a few outings in 2024 in hillwalking duties, although by the end of the year the Scania had taken over in prototype form, and it only had one proper excursion as a crawler when I took it with me to the UK Scaler Nationals in October. That should have been a 2-day event, but unfortunately I was in heaps of pain having got an infection after an operation 10 days earlier, I managed to hobble around the woods on Day 1 but I left early to dose up on weapons-grade codeine at the hotel, and didn't even bother doing day 2. I can't even remember if the CFX-W got a run at the event - I think I only ran 2 trucks all day, Big 6 being one and the BOM being the other. However, the May round of the UK Scaler Nationals is next weekend, so I figured it was time to give this truck a check-over and make sure it's ready for the big day. Here's how it looked when I grabbed it down off the rack last Sunday. Still covered in dirt - that's about 4 years worth of dirt on there. Everything on the truck is good to go - all electrics and mechanicals are OK, no screws need tightening up. The main problem is the roof rack, which has 4 lights installed but no LEDs in them. Ultimately I want to make a switch board for the lights - actually, no, ultimately I want to make an Arduino to control them - but this day I just wanted to get it all hooked up and working. I normally wire all my LEDs in parallel with one resistor per LED, but I decided to try being more economical this time around. With 2 LEDs installed in series, I only need one small resistor to limit the current from the 7.4V BEC on the Hobbywing 1080 ESC. Not only does this mean less resistors, it also means less wires to route. First set installed and tested. All 4 LEDs installed. Working. I used Warm White LEDs from Bright Components - these give a more natural colour on a vintage truck like the FJ45.

I will endeavour to take a few notes during the next round, so I have a more detailed report to give.

Happy Friday, team! What are we all up to? Reasonably quiet one for me, but I'm still on the fence as to what I should fill my days with. Friday - working until 2pm, then probably spend the afternoon in the workshop. Local club racing has resumed, and I promised myself I would get along at the earliest opportunity as my Mi-8 has literally done one heat since I bought it in January, but, well, I guess I'd rather be outside on a nice evening and have a quiet, relaxing one at home. It's also our 10-year anniversary so perhaps we might relax and watch a film together. I might start converting the FJ40 trail truck into a proper hillwalking rig with its own Arduino installation, so I've got something to go walking with when the Scania is out of action. As well as installing a prototype Arduino and reconfiguring the radio to PPM mode, I'll also have to make a towbar and battery extension leads so I can carry a full consignment of batteries in the trailer. Saturday - as yet unplanned. The default option is to have Workshop Saturday and spend all day working on stuff. All the trucks are ready for the Scaler Nationals next weekend, but I still need to finish the sump guard and sort out the body posts on the F150 Baja before my visit to Club 380 at the end of May. But I still have 3 clear weekends between now and then, so... 2nd option is to complete the FJ40 prototype conversion to hillwalking rig, then take it for a test-walk in the local hills. That sounds like fun. 3rd option is to jump on the motorcycle and ride to the coast for the day, as the weather is supposed to be good. Part of me feels like getting away and seeing somewhere different, although I have to balance out the fuel and food cost as I'm trying to save up for stuff this year. Sunday - wife's birthday, although she has declined the offer of spending the day with me and daughter, so she will find her own way to celebrate while we go visit family for a meal. I hope you all have a great weekend!

Connected. Doesn't work. Disconnected. Works. Actually hard to see in this photo, because I couldn't get the phone to focus (I wasn't using my proper camera because I couldn't find it, although narrowing down all possibilities and using clues hidden deep within this very photo, I have now found it). Not only could I not get the phone to focus, I also couldn't bend my finger enough to touch the take-picture-now button, so I had to do it with the end of my nose. I've seen this before with cooling fans. Interference from the motor magnet makes them not work, which sort of defeats the point of having them. Sometimes moving the heatsink to another location helps, but in this case that location was "on the other end of the car" which was not as much help as I really needed. I couldn't remember how I'd fixed it before, but I went to my Random Drawer of Old ESCs That Probably Don't Work Any More and took off a similar-sized fan. Unfortunately it had totally the wrong pluge and was also really slow, but it did work when installed. However it was then that I noticed that rotating the fan body caused it to stop. So I went back to the fan that had come with the heatsink, and sure enough, when I turned it 90 degrees, it worked perfectly. Here it is working perfectly. At this point I had to stop, because I had already used my entire 20 spare minutes and was eating into the time I had allocated for Filing Expenses* And Making Up Timesheets. *The expenses are genuine. Filing non-genuine expenses would be fraud. The timesheets however are made up. I can't post a genuine timesheet, because if anyone ever finds out what it is I actually do all day they would have no choice but to promote me to Commander in Chief of the Entire Universe. I will be back tomorrow lunchtime to add the 2 remaining screws into the heatsink, and also to reduce the entire chassis to its constituent parts in order to connect the pluge to the receiver. I'll probably have to make another Y-cable anyway because I think the receiver only has 3 ports on it and they're all already used.

OK, here's how the wiring comes. You get a splitter cable with 3-pin pluggage on one end to go into the receiver, and 2 2-pin pluges on the other end, presumably because it's cheaper to supply a Y-cable in the single-fan pack and the twin-fan pack than to make a separate single-pluge cable for the single-fan pack. Before stripping down the car, I decided to test it first using the breakout cable I made. This handy little pluge sits outside the chassis box and can be used to bind the transmitter without taking literally everything apart, and also to pluge in a transponder if I'm racing. And of course, the reason we test things is to find out that they inexplicably don't work. Well, this one didn't, anyway. Except when I took it off the car, it did. FYI, it does not sound like a pigeon, it sounds like a banshee being sawn in half.

I wouldn't have time to actually do anything with it until today. I had 20 spare minutes at lunch, so I took the car to the workshop with the aim of stripping down the chassis so I could hook the loom up to the receiver. While I was at it, I took a photo of the wing mount. @rwordenjr you were asking for this I believe?

It's a neat little thing. Nicely machined heat sink in black with silver details (just like my paint scheme) and with a nice carbon fibre fan cover. I immediately ran, excited, to my workshop to force it onto the motor. How cool does that look?

Updates! I was bashing this car around the garden a couple of weeks ago, and I noticed the little 380 got super hot after a short run. Gearing isn't an option and there's no extra weight in this chassis, so there's not much I can do to reduce load on it. OK, I was running on short (freshly-mown) grass, but all the Club 380 rounds will be on grass too, so that doesn't really help. The only solution, then, is active cooling. I placed an order online, and this arrived yesterday. Cooing fan. Perhaps it sounds like a pidgeon?

We finished the race in 7th place, with 665 laps and a total time of 14410.69 seconds, just 8 laps off 6th. The winners took the top spot by 11 laps, with a total of 736, and last place managed 589. The midfield was very close, with 2nd to 5th managing 725, 724, 711 and 685 laps. All in all, it was an absolutely fabulous race, tremendous fun, and we all gave it our best. It's a shame we didn't have more pace in the car, but even Jon couldn't get close to the leaders, so we need to find out what's going on with the car and see if we can get more speed. Jon and Alistair will probably be doing some testing at Aldershot over the summer break. That's a 2 hour drive from our neck of the woods, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to join them, but Jon is very good with car setup so we'll see what he can do with plenty of time and a clear track to really get focussed on what the car can do. There's a big break now until round 2, which is at South Hants in July. It's going to be an interesting race, as South Hants is a very tight and technical circuit and requires razor precision to get the best from it. It's also bumpy, so it needs a soft setup that can make the car feel lazy, plus it's a very abrasive surface, so we could spend a few pennies on tyres. There's no track shop at these rounds, so we'll have to stock up on tyres before we go. I'm kind of wondering if the organisers should impose a tyre limit for the race, as it would be easy for richer teams to change tyres every hour, but as this is the 1st season the rules are constantly being monitored and we've already had a few clarifications on pit rules etc. as we have fallen foul of the one-man-on-a-car rule and others did the drive-the-car-directly-to-the-paddock-without-stopping-in-the-pits-first thing, which will probably get a penalty at the next round. I took a few other photos during the weekend, so I'll share them here before I sign off. Cooking bacon for a pre-race breakfast before practice. Saturday night was heavy. People say we only go racing for an excuse to drink. In my defence, I was on strong antibiotics at the time. Our race shell, before it got a few battle scars in the race. This is based on the 2006 Pescarolo colours. We even have official-looking driver names above the door, just like a real racing car. The official pace car. This leads the cars around on 2 parade laps. Half-way through the second lap, the lead car must back up the field to allow the pace car to get away to the pits. At this point the race director starts the 10 second timer, and it is the responsibility of the lead car to hold up the field and choose when to go, but they must not cross the start line before the 10 second timer otherwise they'll lose the first racing lap. One of our tyres after the race. We used 2 sets of tyres, but we could have used many more.

Alistair went out and got in some good clean laps without much in the way of off-track excursions, and came in after around 25 minutes to swap battery and driver. Matt went out, but immediately reported a problem with the car - very tail happy and hard to drive - so it came in for another quick check-over, but ultimately was sent out again without any changes. At this point everything pretty much became a blur. We had 2 scrubbed sets of 32 tyres for the 4 hour race, but before long we were noticing the rears going off. The rules stated that we need to change driver after every major stop (tyres, battery or other repairs) so we kept Matt out as long as we could before bringing him in for some new rears and a driver swap to Jon. Immediately our laptimes were up into the 19s, and Jon had a good, clean stint. Finally it was my turn, and I took my spot on the rostrum while I waited for the battery to be changed. Then, like the vacant airhead that I am, I found something thoroughly interesting on the far side of the track to look at, and had to be called over the radio to tell me the car was ready and waiting in the pit lane. Feeling a little foolish, I squeezed the throttle and got back on track. Jon came on the radio a moment later to warn me that Bill was closing in behind, and he's a fast driver, so watch out and be ready to give him space. I know Bill from my old days of racing and bashing in Bristol, he's a great guy and good fun to be around but apparently he's not as quick as everyone thinks, because after he closed up, I started pulling away. Finding my stride, I dropped him to almost half a lap. Then, inexplicably, he started catching up again. I find RC racing can be like this - pace comes and goes between drivers during a race, and someone I can keep up with at the start suddenly pulls away from me later on. 25 minutes were over in a heartbeat, or so it seemed, although I'm not sure my legs agreed with that statement. I had a lot of pain in the legs - I have to remember, squeeze and release the leg muscles through the lap, then lift and wiggle each foot on the straight. Not only does it help with pain in the legs and back, it also loosens up the body and prevents me getting too tight a grip on the transmitter and losing what little finesse I have. Nearly 2 hours into the race, I had a chance to sit down on my marshalling chair in the middle of the track for 20 minutes before I was relieved for my turn in the pits. The next 2 hours would play out much the same, with no major repairs needed but a scrape on the body causing the front splitter to rattle on the ground. A new body was fitted in time for my second outing, but by that point I was well into my stride and happy to be on the rostrum again, solidly putting in lap after lap, staying out of the way of the fast cars and battling with some very fast but slightly scruffy juniors who race like juniors always do - like it's the last lap of the last race of the championship! I could hear their team captain shouting "let him go, let him go!" from the other side of the track, but I know what it's like when the red mist descends - all you hear is the whine of the motor and the scrub of the tyres and the pumping of the blood and the taste of metal on the back of the tongue (yes, taste has a sound. It sounds like silver-grey smells). And then my stint was done, and I was in to do my turn on the marshall's chair while Alistair had his final run. This took us almost to the flag, but when the battery alarm sounded, and we had one more driver change to take us to the flag. Alistair got caught up in the pits so I wasn't relieved from my marshalling stint, but that wasn't a big deal since it was comfortable in the chair and nobody was crashing. In fact I went all day without having to pick up a single car, and then 2 broke down right in front of me on the very last lap.

Sunday morning was cold and, if I recall correctly, a little damp, although there would be no proper rain during the day. Jon made a few more last-minute setup changes to the car before we had our 90-minute practice session. I'd got a lot of running on Saturday and was feeling confident, so I let the others get in more track time before going out for a few quick sighting laps to recalibrate my brain. A couple of laps in and I made an error coming into the hairpin at the end of turn 1, the car slowed and tightened more than I expected and I launched it off the inner barrier. I flew neatly and landed on its wheels with no obvious damage, and it still felt OK, but after a couple more laps I decided to bring it in for a courtesy-check and de-tweaking. It was the first big mistake I'd had since joining the team, and I felt that a chance to get off the rostrum, breathe, gather my thoughts, and go up again, was better than persisting with a car that might have been carrying a significant problem. It came off the setup station with no obvious breakages and not too far out of true, so we all had a little more running before we broke for the drivers' briefing. Then it was time for qualifying - 4 x 5 minute rounds, all rounds to count, with all drivers to take a turn in an order presented to the race steward by the team captain prior to quali beginning. We opted to send Alistair out first, followed by Matt, then Jon, and finally me. Although not mandatory, we opted to keep the same order for our race stints just because it makes it easier to remember. Alistair went up first and put in a solid run, although our laptimes were down, and we finished 7th out of 8. Our best time of 21.07 was over 2 seconds slower than the fastest of 18.99, and most of the teams were lapping in the mid-19s. Matt went up for round 2 and got our best time up to 20.81, although the other teams were improving by similar amounts and ultimately we finished last, 2 laps off the lead but just 5 seconds down on 7th place. Jon was supposed to bump us up a few positions by being our star driver, but coming onto the main straight on lap 5, the car suddenly snapped sideways and stopped in the middle of the track. A following car couldn't avoid it and there was a big crunch, and our car limped away with a rear wheel at an unpleasant angle. One of the nuts had come off the rear toe link, causing the car to spin out. Fortunately we didn't sustain any significant damage in the crash, but we lost our chance at getting our best time. One of the other teams would also have a bad run with a car failure, so despite a 20.09 fastest lap, we finished 7th with only 7 laps to our name. Finally, it was my turn to give it some welly. Looking like we were going to be last anyway, there wasn't really that much pressure - but I still didn't want to total the car or ruin anyone else's efforts, so I got my head down and got in some solid laps. It was a clean run with no tangles, and eventually I stepped down from the rostrum, pleased with a job well done. We finished 6th, 1 lap off the lead and less than 2 seconds off 5th, with a best time of 20.30. Good though that was, it wasn't enough to get us off the bottom step, so we would be starting last.

OK - a sort-of update! I was hoping to be able to do a really detailed blow-by-blow account of the racing, but it was nearly 2 weeks ago and I've been too busy to sit down and write down everything I remember, so I've mostly forgotten it now. I also didn't take many photos, because I was too busy doing racing stuff. That's the interesting point about endurance racing - although I'm only racing for 1/4 of the time the car is on track, I'm busy for the remaining 3/4 of the time, either marshalling, pit crewing, or on rest time, which usually means going to the toilet, grabbing a drink and a snack, and stretching my muscles before my next driving stint. Saturday practice began cool but dry. It's a 2.5 hour drive from home, but since the half of the team that have custodianship of the race chassis were busy sorting their 1:1 car out in the morning, I was in no rush to get to the track. Team captain Alistair arrived about 30 minutes before me, and I got there just before lunchtime to find he'd already got a good spot in the new covered pits at Stafford's permanent outdoor circuit, and had taken the "spare" chassis (which he uses for carpet racing during the week) and had put on some tyres ready for some early sighting laps before the main car arrived. We took turns at some medium runs on the track - around 15 minutes each - before Jon and Matt arrived with the race car. We were also fully equipped this time with 4 portable radios and Guenther Steiner headsets and voice-activated transmission, so we can stay in full communication all the time, even when driving. Not every team uses these but they are extremely useful. Jon is our star driver and chief mechanic, and he spent a fair bit of time on track making changes to the car and trying to get us closer to the top spot. I had mostly expected the championship to attract hobby-grade racers like myself who aren't really fast enough for nationals but want something a bit more exciting than racing at the local civic centre. In truth, there are some very fast drivers in the series, and we had our work cut out finding pace both in ourselves and in our car. Try as we might, the TRF-421 would always have just a little too much understeer, and a tendency to want to spin out leaving the corners if we weren't gentle on the throttle. Throttle gentleness seems to be a specialty of mine, so I was able to handle the car even when it was being badly behaved, but speed it not a specialty of mine, and my laptimes were not where they needed to be. Hotels in the area were proving expensive, so 3 of our team had opted to camp at the track. A few other teams also camped, so once the racing was done I went off on an Asda run to buy some beers and supplies, and Alistair went to get the Chinese takeaway, and we had a thoroughly relaxing night out under the stars until it got too cold, and we all went off to bed. I only took one picture on Saturday, and I really like it. Although I take no credit for the composition, I simply pointed my Galaxy S22 at the moon and pressed the "take picture now" button and its clever algorithms did all the rest.

I use a 3-way switch for gear changes on some of my rigs. I prefer it that way. Using the MFC, you can still simulate a gear change by moving the left stick across the gates - the MFC will change the engine sound and even change torque available, however you have the option of choosing your maximum top speed using the 3-way switch. When driving on small club layouts, 1st gear is usually more than fast enough - we usually fit 80 turn motors (the Carson Poison is a popular choice) to bring the speed right down. As for the coupler switch - this is just a microswitch that triggers a clunk sound when the trailer is connected. The remove trailer leg and remote 5th wheel release are performed by the same servo. When you move the stick in one direction it will cause the trailer legs to raise or descend, depending on how far you move it. When you move the stick in the other direction, it unlocks the 5th wheel, allowing you to drive the truck forward and away from the trailer, or back it up under the trailer to high up. Personally I find Tamiya's implementation somewhat clumsy, and needs an ugly black box installing on your trailer. I prefer the Beier solution, but I'm not sure if you can make it work with a Tamiya MFC without a some additional hardware.

I think the main point has already been covered - when the first M-chassis came along, the flat-bottomed touring chassis was still not really a thing. The TA-01/02 was mostly there but it still had some way to evolve. Plus I suspect the smaller size of the chassis made for packaging problems (the original M-01 is a masterpiece in compact packaging) so after the gearbox, motor mount, steering and suspension was handled, there wasn't really much space left for a flat-bottomed tub. Of course as soon as the M-01 was out people started racing it, so it evolved into the M-03, carrying over the same design cues but making for an overall better car. Still, if you look at how an M-03's suspension, gearbox, steering and motor mount is arranged, there's no space left for a chassis tub. By this point the backbone (or brick) chassis was established, and the TL-01 came along. It might not have made for a great competition racer (the flat-bottomed touring car was the way to go) but it's worth noting that a TL-01 has previously won the stock touring class in the Iconic Cup, competing against early TA chassis and the all-conquering (in its class) TT-01. M-chassis racing was also by this time well-established, and because nobody else was making a serious competitor to the Tamiya range, M-chassis racing became almost exclusively Tamiya. In fact until recently I'd never heard of an M-chassis class that allowed anything other than Tamiya. So there really was no reason to evolve away from the brick - it's robust, great fun to drive, works well in stock trim and has plenty of hop-up options. Unlike a proper touring car, it's easy for a novice to drive and set up, it's cheap racing, they look fab (so much better than jellymould touring cars) and is a staple class in pretty much every club I've been to. When it was time for Tamiya to design the M-05, there was still no serious competitor and therefore no reason to change the formula. Only in recent years has the MTC thing happened - and it seems to have exploded. Quite a few clubs are now running an MTC class - but really, it's just miniature touring. That's what MTC means. The cars are built like touring cars, look like touring cars and drive like touring cars, they're just smaller. Tamiya maybe thought they could compete with the M-07 concept, but it doesn't really meet the MTC formula. This leads neatly to @Pylon80's question about chassis longevity: in truth, it's probably too soon to tell how long the non-Tamiya chassis will be around. 3Racing, Xpress, MST and ABC Hobby have all been around for a while (ABC Hobby were making gorgeous M-chassis bodies right back in the early days) but since they're built more for racing, they're likely to get regular updates and go out of spec quickly. That may mean parts become harder to get. Also I'm not sure how many of them are direct competitors to the Tamiya cars - if you want something to race on carpet or a proper tarmac racetrack then check what your local club recommends, but for a basher I'd definitely stick with Tamiya. The M-03 was discontinued a long time ago but only recently have chassis halves become thin on the ground. I think the M-05 is now technically discontinued but I expect it will be a while before chassis parts disappear, and the MB-01 should have parts support for a while yet. That's my take, anyway. My history may be slightly off, I didn't check the exact release dates of what I mentioned above, but I think broadly this explains how the M-chassis cars evolved the way they did.

Great build! Those dampers are a work of art. So too are the little bits of tape, that's a neat idea and I may borrow it for my scale garage!

Are you sure it wasn't the Loch Ness Monster? Because he need about tree fiddy

I'll check in the bottom of my overnight suitcase for you, because that's where I just found my camera. I've been looking for it for 3 days, having not seen it since I went to Stafford 10 days ago for a race meet. I looked in the suitcase 3 days ago and it wasn't there, and it wasn't there yesterday morning either, but it has rematerialized there within the last 24 hours. Your battery retainers aren't in there right now but they might appear later. Maybe the King Blackfoot tailgate that went missing when I moved house 14 years ago will appear there also.

Thank you I was just going to leave a like and move on, but I figured this is actually relevant to the thread: if it wasn't for other people's build threads, I'd never have found the courage to try doing what I do in my builds. If you're building something - especially something with custom parts - posting photos and descriptions of your techniques could be enough to encourage someone to pick up a hacksaw or try drilling an extra hole somewhere, and who knows where that might lead? My main hope with my build threads is that I encourage others to go out to the shed and make something different. I am very fortunate to have a good-sized workshop and a drill press, which does make my drilling easier, but the majority of my builds require a hacksaw, a bench vice, a flat file, and a cordless drill. I'm a clumsy and ham-fisted oaf who can barely be trusted to tie his own shoelaces, but other people's build threads have taught me that even I can build stuff if I put my mind to it.