JennyMo

Well I got the chance to test-run the 'Big BJ' around JJ Customs indoor rock-crawling course here in San Jose CA earlier this week, and it was a tad humbling... seems while Desmond now looks a whole lot more scale than before, it's been to the detriment of it's overall ability - although I'd suspected as much already of course. The main issue seems to be that the forward weight bias of having the 6-cell stick pack right over the front axle - coupled with the fact this is a short-wheelbase (approx 275mm) pick-up - means that while it would climb impressively in much the same was as my Defender 90 does with similar dimensions, once heading down a really steep decent it's almost inevitable that a forward roll occurs - which in one instance led to some of my carefully superglued-on trim parts pinging off into the rock pile! Another thing I noticed along with the significant weight bias disparity between front and rear (which could be somewhat resolved - see below), is just how top heavy this truck is with the hard-top in place, even though I truck-cabbed it - not helped by the amount of filler required to mate the front and rear profiles together of course - and ultimately there is not much I can do there I suspect, even cutting a sunroof is going to have little overall effect. One other slightly less dynamic issue I found was that a small square of servo tape is not sufficient to secure Dr. Venkman in the driver's seat - although I feared that might be the case and it was only really a temporary measure to be honest... So back home, a few modifications were undertaken: photo. my original floor pan/bulkhead/engine bay assembly constructed from 1.5mm thick styrene I decided I would reposition the battery horizontally across the bulkhead (as had been my original intention), and relocate the ESC and RX to a fabricated 'pocket' between the footwell bulkhead and the now vacant engine bay: Ultimately this makes for a very neat installation wiring wise, and still allows me to access the battery connector from underneath for charging without having to remove the main body-shell. The other thing I did was fit a 4-point harness seat-belt to the driver's seat, together with some additional servo tape, so that Pete is held far more securely in place. I also felt that ultimately one hand on the wheel and the other on the gear lever was less likely to result in scuffed knuckles in the event of a roll-over. Finally, the other issue I found was the tyres rubbing on the arches at full articulation - generally speaking it was acceptable, but in a really severe cross-axle situation, the tyres started to bind - and coupled with my low-end motor and battery combo (which admittedly probably helped save a broken drive shaft or two), I found the tyres would start to bind, halting progress. So currently I'm debating trimming a little of the arches away: photo. this I'd be happy with - it still may not offer 100% clearance, but it would make binding less likely. photo. this however would be a shame, since it's so much a part of the visual appeal of this particular body. Perhaps I'll wait until they get properly damaged, and simply remove them completely? The other option would be to fit the set of 1.9 size rusty white 8-spoke wheels and 120mm diameter BF Goodrich AT tyres that I've got sitting on the shelf here, and go for a much more scale overall look - however, that would also require replacing the current axles with some which are more narrow too (which means a further investment of $100 or thereabouts) - and ultimately is not really in the spirt of the recycled re-body of a previous model perhaps? So in the meantime, now everything is a little more dialled-in now, I'm hoping to get it out on the trail at the weekend and get a photos 'in action' too! Jx

It's an interesting suggestion, and I fear actually says more about society as a whole than an individual - although ultimately it is the individual that is responsible of course... Personally I cannot understand how someone is prepared to do a bad job - and certainly damage someone else's property - just because they are not paid particularly well? You would hope that someone's personal moral compass would not be affected by how much they get paid... but presumably this business is populated primarily by those people who do have a price? Jx

A few more finishing details... photo. instrument panel for the centre of the dash - a thin sheet of styrene covered in self-adhesive aluminium foil (and sanded with 1200 grit wet&dry), with pin heads as screws... and Wild Willy 2 dash decals. photo. Trailfinder II steering wheel with aluminium tube steering column extension... modified Wild Willy 2 levers for gearbox and transfer case. photo. articulated driver can either hold steering wheel and gear lever, or steering wheel in the right hand and a casual hand out of the window. photo. I felt an 8" driver figure was required for correct proportion inside the RC4WD FJ40 cabin. photo. some of the accessories from the original Desmond cage-back crawler, relocated in the new load-bed. photo. experimenting with a few decals and window stickers, plus a pair of short grab rails along each rear wheel-arch... note I also ended up trimming the rear diamond plate corner protectors vertically behind the rear arches. photo. I'm currently still working on a floor-pan for the cabin footwells, which will stay attached to the chassis when the body is removed. More soon... it's almost done! Jenny x

Hee hee: Yes, I know what you mean, it does have a hit of GF-01 about it! And yes - I mentioned in the photo caption that this version of Venkman is from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon series... you can get action figures of the original [movie] line up - I found one for Ray for example which actually has a passing resemblance to Dan Akroyd - but unfortunately those are only 6"-7" high, and wouldn't have been suitable for this size shell. That's not to say Ray won't make an appearance in another [more suitably sized] build at some point mind you ;o) Jx

cont. part 6: Inside job With the driver figure decided, all I had to do now is modify the seat bases slightly so the driver was positioned correctly to hold the steering wheel (and gear lever) in a natural stance, which resulted in removing part of the passenger bench seat to fit around the centre transmission hump - so that both the seat backs lined up. (note. there is actually enough space behind the seats to put a second 6-cell stick pack if I wanted to power a winch separately, or just as a spare for extended trail running). photo. marking the seat bases to bolt through seat-box panel. photo. M3 screws set into (and glued) to the scratch-built seat bases, allowing them to be fitted and removed again if required. With the seats sorted and mounted, I also modified a pair of Wild Willy gear lever assembles to make individual gear and transfer levers for the centre console: I also fabbed up some footwell bulkheads/front inner wheel-arch linings to mount the electronics to (essentially hidden under the dash/scuttle panel): And boxed-in the sides of the 'engine bay' to hide the forward mounted battery pack: photo. cheap and cheerful electronics - these are from the original Mad-Gear Cliff RTR model I used as a donor for Desmond, a Flysky style receiver (I've bought the Flysky branded versions too for other models) and a brushed ESC which I find has surprisingly good low speed throttle control and an excellent drag brake. The motor is also the original 70T one from the Mad-Gear, driving through an Ebay special SCX10 style metal-cased transmission with a slipper clutch. It ain't pretty, but it works! So that is pretty much where I'm up to right now... currently I'm just detailing the gear levers and fitting the steering column, then we'll get Pete behind the wheel and out on the trails! In the meantime, a few photos from yesterday during it's maiden run once the electronics were installed (but before the seats and driver were fitted): photo. still has pretty impressive travel and articulation for such a relatively short wheelbase (approx 280mm). photo. however, the front wheels do start to drag on the wheel-arches (inevitable really, especially when you compare it to my similar [geometry] Defender, which has the whole front wings removed! Ultimately I may have to trim or even remove the front arches on this truck too, although that would be a shame as the cycle-wing style flat fenders are very much part of the overall look of the FJ40 Land Cruiser of course... The other option, which I might temporarily install at least, is to fit some bump-stop spacers to the piston rods on the front shocks, limiting the travel slightly so the wheels don't snag too badly? photo. this is pretty much the limit before things start to snag, and there is still around 5mm more stroke available from the shocks. photo. the rear arches are tight as well - albeit purposely so as I wanted to retain a similar profile to the originals... again, ultimately if this proves to hamper performance, I may have to get the 1/8th scale angle grinder out and go medieval on the rear wings too, as I did with the Defender. Overall I'm pleased with the current combination of scale looks and detailing, coupled with good trail/crawling performance... time will tell if further [body] modifications will need to be made, and I'll also endeavour to detail the load-bay and cabin interior with some accessories, and maybe even a few decals etc. 'More soon' as they say! Jenny x

cont. part 5: Final assembly So with all the spray-painting done, it was time to start the final assembly and glue in those detail parts that I'd wanted to avoid over-spraying and fiddly masking: photo. rear load-bed - the floor had been preassembled on tape so it could be dropped into position and glued in place.The only addition required were two thin slivers of wood to fill the tiny gap between the outside metal runners and the wheel-arch boxes. note. I purposely cut the diamond plate cappings sightly small, so you could see the rust forming in the bodywork creases, as would be typical in a steel-bodied pick up which had been left out in the rain for decades. photo. masking the windscreen rubber surround, to make painting it (with Tamiya XF-85 Rubber Black) easy with a flat bristled brush. It was also straight-forward enough to glue on all the other pieces of diamond plate trim (the benefit of pre-cutting and dry-fitting everything prior to paintwork), and install the window glass, light buckets etc. with a combination of superglue and 2-part epoxy as required. So who is going to be driving? photo. Ozzy jumped out of the ebaYJeep to see how he liked it behind the wheel of a Toyota... Unfortunately, it turns out that while Ozzy's head is probably about the right scale for this 1/8 truck, this figure being only around 6" tall looked far too small for the interior, even though the roof has been lowered and the cabin narrowed... It's a real shame as not only do I have another of these Ozzy Osbourne figures 'new in box' just waiting for the right ride, but as a comic twist, I'd intended to have him also wearing an Australian bush hat, as 'Aussie Osbourne' in this particular bush-truck iteration... oh how we laughed. Still, there was nothing for it but to scour Ebay for a suitable substitute driver - and clearly whoever it would be would have to be around 8" tall to be proportional as someone close to 5'10" to 6' in this scale (1/8th I reckon). Fortunately there are any number of 'action figures' in this size - in fact almost too many to be honest - I spent hours trying to decide, and indeed balked at some of the prices being asked for some 'famous' faces... The other issue I found is that in this size, action figures tend to come in separate clothes (rather than having moulded bodies, which are easier to modify and paint), although at least they tend to be fully articulated which ought to make fitting them in the cabin easier without resorting to surgery and body-filler! Eventually I narrowed it down to either the guys from Anchorman (which I realise have been done before), or a more cartoon style figure of Fred from Scoobydoo, complete with winter jacket and hat which I thought looked pretty cool for a 4x4 driver, if not entirely realistic scale-wise... However, and as the easter egg at the beginning of this thread suggests, ultimately one particular figurine stood out as being the ideal combination of hight/build and semi-scale cartoon face, while also wearing appropriate attire: photo. this is Peter Venkman from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon series. Bill Murray's rendition of Peter Venkman is one of my all-time favourite movie characters, and while the cartoon is not the same, I still think this 'young Venkman' looks pretty cool (and is the least cartoony of the four) and I managed to snaffle this example for a great price in a late-night last-minute bid on Ebay - result! photo. sans proton-pack and armbands... he's still a little short standing next to the truck perhaps? - although don't forget this is essentially a lifted vehicle on 47" tyres of course! Fundamentally though, he fits in the seat/cabin perfectly, and also looks the correct scale through the window when driving which is the key thing of course! Time to get those seats installed Pete! cont.

cont. part 4: Painting I won't catalogue each step by step to the salt/rust weathering techniques I used, as I've already covered that in detail in some of my other build threads - however, in this instance, while I did use the Dremel tip to create a degree of texture to the higher corrosion areas, it was not my intention to try and make this an utter junker (ie. no huge rust holes and dented panels) - rather just have general wear and rust in those places you'd typically find on a 40 year vehicle that has been used off-road, such as the edges of the doors and hood openings, and flaking and peeling paint where panels would be rubbed by hands and say a mechanic's overalls over the years. photo. that said, I was rather pleased with this particular hole (where the top of one of the rear light housing will fit), but unfortunately it's going to be covered up with diamond plate anyway. photo. a base coat of red-oxide primer, together with Iron paint in those areas I want the more intense real rust to develop. photo. fine tip of Dremel tool used to nibble away at the 'metal' edges of the doors and hood, adding to the depth of the effect once the Activator solution is applied and the rust begins to form. I always consider that it is far easier to create a 'scale' appearance if you choose to weather the bodywork, and also use a flatter satin/matt paint to represent age and sun damage; while the older and more scabby you make the vehicle is also a great excuse to not have to do too much initial bodywork prep either of course! That said, I really admire those painters who can paint a showroom style gloss finish on a 1/10 model and still make it look real, it's just I don't have the facilities nor the patience if I'm honest to do that sort of paint-job justice - preferring the rattle-can in a cardboard box in the garage method of painting... So, here we go with another rough old paint job: photo. blowing over the key 'rust' areas with red oxide, then applying salt to those areas where I want the rust to remain visible... I then add an intermediate grey primer coat, and add additional salt where I want that to show through the final top coat - typically on larger panels where the paint might have been rubbed away such as the wing tops and bonnet/hood. photo. top-coat. I chose a colour I've used before (on Hopper's HiLux doors) which is Tamiya AS29 - a flat [Military aircraft] sort of peppermint green, which is like a more faded version of the traditional Toyota FJ40 green. note. I've also added styrene tabs and repurposed some hollow screw fixings (from under the original hood) to the rear of the truck-cab to secure it to the seat bulkhead with self-tapping screws. Similarly, the transmission tunnel and open footwells of the main body allow me to access the two screws in the top of the windscreen surround should I wish to remove and refit the roof at any time. photo. with the salt washed off (under a warm water running tap), the initial weathering is already pretty realistic... adding more of the Activator solution to those areas primed with Iron paint increases the real rust effect, and ultimately brushing the corroded areas with dry power and a mix of dry-brushing black/dark grey and thinned black-wash during the final assembly/finishing will make the weathering really 'pop'. photo. It's getting there! - just the roof top panel to finish now (which was masked off initially while the green was sprayed) - on the roof I elected to use a mix of 'aluminium' silver as a mid-coat (to represent bare metal which had not yet rusted) under a top coat of Tamiya TS-7 Racing White, which is more cream than bright/brillant white, and again more appropriate for an ageing vehicle I feel. cont.

cont. part 3: Detailing details... You'll have noticed in the photo above that I created some radiator grille panels to fill the space in the headlight frame - this was done using some fine mesh - the kind you get to repair panel holes when filling/fibre-glassing (part of my stash from Halfords which I brought over to the US with me last year ;o), carefully pressed into the recess to give it a proper 3D appearance and radius in the recesses - much as I'd first done with the STUMPkamper radiator grille too of course. Once all the mesh pieces were shaped and trimmed, I tacked them in place with superglue before using 2-part epoxy to secure them. photo. I also made two more similar pieces to fill in the grille recesses in the body. Wooden bed In the rear, I wanted to reproduce what I'd done with my ebaYJeep , and incorporate a real wooden bed, complete with aluminium runners. This time I used 1/2" 'planks' (rather than the 1/4" Cherry strips I used in the Jeep) which are around 1.5mm thick (some imperial measurement I'm sure - probably 0.060"), while the metal runners are 0.10 inch (2.54mm) diameter rod, so they sit just proud of the wooden deck. Initially I measured and cut/assembled them loose in the load-bed, before attaching them together on a strip of masking tape to keep them in the correct order/orientation: And which makes it very easy to glue into the load-bed in one piece during final assembly. I also started to go crazy with the scale diamond-plate... This is the slightly larger scale sheets from RC4WD, which are more appropriately sized for 1/9 and 1/8th builds I feel (I like the Yeah Racing four-bar version for 1/10th builds), and is actually a lot more substantial than the Yeah Racing version (which can be easily cut with strong scissors or a Stanley knife for example) - I ended up scoring the aluminium with a Stanley blade, and actually snapping the RC4WD sheets - fortunately all my cuts were straight lines on this build, and any corners filed and sanded round. Eventually, I ended up with this little lot: from top to bottom: seats - RC4WD on custom frames. headlights and grille panels - Proline spot-lamps and frame, with mesh inserts. windscreen & quarter windows - cut from 0.030" (0.75mm) lexan diamond plate inner door trims and sill steps diamond plate transmission tunnel cover (not used) door handles (made from bent aluminium rod) diamond plate rear shock tower cover and wheel arch covers wooden load-bay floor (with aluminium runners) diamond plate tailgate lining panels (pair) diamond plate rear wing quarter panels rear lights - Axial 12mm round spotlights, with red lenses engraved licence plate - from Desmond Time to get some paint on that body, and bolt the whole thing together I think! cont.

cont. part 2: Interior fabrication Ultimately various sheets of styrene were employed to create as much of a full interior as I could, based around the confines of having a centrally mounted 3 gear transmission and motor (as per the original donor): These Chinese/Ebay chassis offers a series of holes for mounting any manner of suspension and transmission options, and are loosely based on an RC4WD Gelande style solid rail chassis, although some of the dimensions are slightly off. It's worth noting that they tend to be listed as an "SCX10" replacement chassis, but again, the width between the rails does not allow a stock SCX10 transmission plate to fit (as those are designed for C channel rails of course), so when I built Desmond initially, I had to narrow the transmission skid (you can see the join repaired with quick-steel) and use longer bolts all the way through both sets of lower link mounts. As part of this re-build, I also changed out the previous internally-sprung 100mm shocks with some two-stage coil overs - these are super soft (they were on the Defender for a while) and provide great action and articulation - however, it does mean they are prone to torque twisting, which was exacerbated on the Defender which also has a chassis mounted steering servo [without a panhard rod], so in this build I've retained the servo-on-axle for the steering, which is generally/visually pretty well hidden anyway. Along with the rear load-bay, I also fabricated a dash and basic transmission tunnel cover for the cabin together with a simple seat-box - in an effort to hid as much of the [centrally mounted] underpinnings as I could... photo. seat bulkhead and additional bracing to support seats/driver figure. ...and fundamentally, have the body completely removable in one piece (using just the four screws, two in each sill) for easy servicing and battery changes etc. I also elected to splurge on the genuine RC4WD FJ40 seat set, taking the gamble that they would still fit in the more narrow interior - and they do, just! All of which will help to hide the transmission lurking beneath - the final seat location to be decided once we find a suitable driver of course! With the styrene work finished, it was time to blow over the body with some primer, and dry-fit a few of the detail parts (headlights/grille and seats) I'd amassed, before planning the rest of the detailing... the idea being that this remains a usable crawler, while incorporating as many scale elements as I can that are simple and strong enough to survive in the event of an inevitable tumble from time to time. photo. you may notice I also fabricated a simple windscreen surround, cut from a sheet of 1.5mm styrene and trimmed with some 2mm half-round styrene strip for the window rubber. cont.

cont. Lowering the side windows/roof line meant the rear of the truck-cab section also had to be shortened, although I was able to retain the complete rear window/tailgate panel which would now become a lift-up 'hatch' in the new iteration, (complete with a spare Trailfinder tailgate handle). photo. roof rejoined, although a lot of sculpting/sanding and filler was required to mate the rear profile section (which is wider) to the main roof above the cab. photo. rather than just glue the new roof on, I would endeavour to retain the facility to have the hard-top removable as required - therefore the original M3 screw holes in the windscreen top rail were retained since they still lined up with the narrowed roof panel. photo. the main body shell mounted to the chassis - this was surprisingly easy at the rear (using the correct length rods), only some creative bracketry was required to position the shorter forward mounts at the correct height/distance. note. there is still enough width to retain a full size 6-cell stick pack across the bulkhead if required. photo. with the hard-top in place, it was time to plan out the rear load-bed - full depth of course! cont.

cont. part 1: Squeeze and Chop First of all, not only was a surprised at the shear size/scale of the RC4WD FJ40 Land Cruiser body in comparison to even my Defender, but also just how ungainly the whole thing was - particularly once you'd mounted the roof section too. Now I'm sure RC4WD got this pretty much scale accurate when they designed it, but from a personal perspective I find the stock FJ40 an "Ugly little spud" to quote Ray Stantz from Ghostbusters (tenuous easter egg for later on in this build) - the rear body particularly seems much too large and top heavy, especially if you wanted a 'performance' based trail/crawler build? Certainly compared to my Defender 90 which is already as bulky as you'd ever want, the FJ40 shell was even more top-heavy, and the overall width would certainly limit the ultimate axle articulation compared to what I was used to (note. the reason the Defender arches are so chopped in my example above is to ensure the 130mm diameter tyres still clear on full articulation with the 100mm shocks, while keeping the [hard] body as low as possible on the chassis for better stability). So there was only one thing for it, some pretty drastic surgery with Doctor Dremel, and a serious nip and tuck: photo. a quick measure (and the fact I already had the perfect headlight frame for this build which would retain the classic FJ face), and ultimately I decided to chop 25mm from the centre of the shell. photo. better, while retaining the iconic FJ profile of course. However, narrowing the shell would proportionally make the ungainly roof seem even higher, so some surgery was needed there too: photo. Truck-cabbing the roof was an easy way to remove a huge amount of weight from high up. However, in turn this then highlighted those horrible slab-sided doors... doctor, you're still required! Ultimately I decided to chop 10mm from the top of the door frames, and reattach the top rail and window frames to the doors. I then cut a similar amount from the original window sill, and also angled the quarter-light windows downwards to meet the new lower level window sill - thus retaining a similar size window aperture, just 10mm lower than before. photo. you can seen the main reason I settled on the 25mm chop from the middle - this ProLine spot lamp frame (the same one which was fitted to Desmond, just with two lamps removed) fits perfectly in the new headlight/grille aperture! The end result is a more shallow windscreen (approx 40mm, so similar to the Defender), and side window lines which lead from the base of the windscreen to the same level as the rear quarter windows in the truck cab. I'm pleased with that. cont.

Seems I can't stop messing with Desmond (the 2.2)... this crawler has been through so many iterations over the years, it really is Trigger's Broom! Still, I thought you might be interested in the latest incarnation - a Retro Desmond if you will... photo. not quite finished - this was the first test on the rockery after the electronics were installed. A quick recap of the story so far: If you've followed my previous Desmond thread (and subsequently my Defender 90 build 'OK TC'), you'll know that the original donor was a budget RTR crawler I bought in the USA a good number of years ago - the kind that uses a box style chassis and 45° canted shocks to give really good articulation, albeit at the expense of scale realism - not least the tiny little lexan Beetle body it came with. Initially I immediately swapped out the body with a seriously chopped Midnight Pumpkin cab, and then a rudimentary cage assembly, before going back to a hybrid of a HiLux cabin with the Pumpkin bonnet, which was how the previous Desmond thread started: here. Ultimately, Desmond ended up with a full size (albeit narrowed) HiLux cab, and a chopped rear cage assembly from a Vaterra Ascender: However, I have to admit that subsequently building the Defender 90 on a similar aluminium ladder chassis using Lisa's Mad-Gear running gear, I much preferred the scale appearance of the Land Rover shell, and even though eventually Desmond had plenty of scale detailing included, it was always very much a 'competition crawler' style build (complete with four-wheel steering). photo. The D90 features the same chassis, wheels and tyres as Desmond, and similar 4-link suspension (and 100mm shocks), other than it uses a forward mounted 27T motor and 5:1 planetary gearbox, driving a 2:1 transfer case. So a plan was hatched to essentially build a twin to the D90, while utilising as many of the existing parts I had incorporated into Desmond (while reverting to a non-steering rear axle), and the choice of body was actually pretty obvious - an RC4WD FJ40 Land Cruiser - since not only did it keep the Toyota theme going (hence 'Retro' Desmond) but it shares a similar wheelbase to my Defender build (275mm wheelbase). More fundamentally perhaps, the Land Cruiser body is also significantly larger than a typical 1/10th scale model (despite being billed as '1/10th' it is actually proportionally larger than the Gelande/Defender 90 body, which I'd say is already 1/9th scale compared to a Tamiya HiLux or YJ Wrangler body for example) - so this SWB Land Cruiser shell is actually more like 1/8th scale when you consider how compact they are in 1:1 size. In that regard, I felt that building this with the 2.2 size wheels and tyres (130mm diameter) would actually look far more in proportion to an actual SWB FJ40, albeit one that had been lifted and had oversize tyres fitted too. So let's crack on shall we? cont.

Thanks Mark! (although I'm not sure why that photo of a FJ Land Cruiser illustrates the thread?!) - if anyone is interested, that build thread has lots of details, but unfortunately the old Photobucket photos are blurred out now... however, there are some more photos of the finished vehicle in my showroom: here. Jx

I'm no expert, but spending time on some of the more crawler specific forums would suggest that if you go brushless [motor], you need a good [high quality/high price] motor & ESC to give it the really low speed control... Conversely it appears you can get more controllable off-idle response from a [higher turn] brushed motor for a cheaper price, you just don't have the ultimate [power] flexibility - ie. good slow speed control at the bottom end and a useful power boost for higher speed running from the same motor/ESC combination. The higher end ESCs can also be programmed to offer different throttle response etc. Ultimately - unless you invest in a 2-speed (ie high/low range) transmission, I think it depends on whether you primarily want to spend time crawling obstacles at scale realistic speed, or if you need a bit more speed for more general 'trail' type running... Fortunately gearing and motor [turns] are easy enough to change depending on the particular driving scenario you envisage - and it's always going to be a compromise to a degree, but the more you spend on the motor/ESC/Battery combo, appears to negate some of the limitations of a more budget approach. Personally speaking, I have a 70T motor and an Axial SCX10 style 3 gear transmission in one crawler which offers good slow speed control, plus a reasonable amount of 'between sections' trail speed. I have another than uses a 27T motor and a 5:1 ratio planetary gearbox, coupled to a 2:1 transfer case, and that is not quite as fast between sections, but crawls very well at almost no throttle speeds: video. this is the 27T motor/5:1/2:1 gearing combo - filmed in real time. As Otis suggests above, this would certainly imply that the gearing [combination] has a more dramatic effect regarding the speed control, as long as your motor is reasonably torquey enough to drive the transmission/wheels and overall weight of the vehicle. As I say, this is only based on my own experiments with the genre, not any hard and fast science. Jenny x

I used the one in the kit, as I only wanted the one wheelbase... you could use an aluminium aftermarket one I'm sure, whether it's cheaper I'm not sure? - and either would be easy enough to cut and drill a hole for the pin. Jx