DavidJ

The bodywork consisted on Tamiya White Putty, Duplicolor Filler Primer and Tamiya Fine Primer. My desire was to ride the body of the sunroof and bed mounted antenna hole. I was able to re-texture the bed cover using the Filler/Primer with no post spray prep. The bed cover and Blackfoot roll bar were painted Tamiya Pure White. I also located a new vintage FORD logo tailgate to assist in the look I am going after. I had a store coupon that was valid for modeling paints, so I am going to try Testors metallic lacquer on the main body panels.

I was going to run a Hobbywing 1060 ESC, but had trouble with it. My ESC had one setting, not three regardless of pin settings/usage and it was recommended that I swap the motor wires. For whatever reason I was not happy with my $13.00 ESC, so I bought a new Tamiya TBLE-02S as well as a GT Tuned motor. Everything works great now!

I began bodywork on the Blackfoot re-release shell. I am attempting to removed the bed mounted antenna hole and to mold the sunroof panel into the roof. Still needs additional work.

I have the AmPro rear mounts. The green AmPro promo truck helped to lead me to this project. When I was cleaning one of the pin holes, I popped the top off the AmPro mount... so then I measured the AmPro mounts and sectioned a pair of stock Blackfoot mounts to a similar height. AmPro mounts are reasonably priced and great for a project like this.

My goal is to have a vintage look, so final color may be Tamiya TS-44 with white trim. I debated whether or not to keep the bed mounted roll bar, I decided to keep it… but paint it white like the cover. Power may come by a vintage Kyosko Mega motor from my original Blackfoot. Body work and electronics are on my list of “things to do.”

To keep costs at bay, I decided to build/rebuild a gear case using my Blackfoot/Monster Beetle/Mud Blaster gears instead of the Frog/Brat version. For reliability I swapped to full ball bearings throughout the build. For suspension, I used the Blackfoot forward rear shock mounts and an aluminum aftermarket front shock mount. Tamiya CVA oil filed units were employed front (mini set) and rear (short set). At the time, I did not know the height or space available for my front body mount to body, so I was conservative with the length of the front shocks. In hindsight, I could have went with taller mounts and shocks. For body mounts I extended the stock Brat unit about 12mm in height and sectioned a pair of stock rear Blackfoot mount about 30mm in the center and jointed the remaining pieces with scrap PVC and the magic liquid stuff.

My first hobby level RC was a Tamiya Blackfoot, this would have been around 1990. Recently I decided to pull the remains of my Blackfoot out of the attic and to see what usable remains could be recycled into a new build. (As it turned out, not much was left.) After cruising the net for a few days, reading about the Sand Scorcher reissue, then seeing VW Beetle bodied ORV chassis conversions, I thought… “…maybe I’ll build one of those.” At some point I stumbled by the SRB F150 and convinced myself to build a tribute truck to blue and white F150, but use the ORV chassis and suspension. I began with a new Frog/Brat chassis tree and a complete hardware baggie set for the Brat. I decided to my tribute from loose parts from re-release kits. These first photos are when I finished the basic chassis, there were no body mount, shocks or functioning gear case.