Ray_ve

Ordered a shorty lipo for the Jugger, that should still fit despite the many changes. And some aluminium tube for a roll cage. It's a big project but it does seem to come together.

Past month was more expensive with a lot of stuff for the juggernaut, about 100 euro. But typically I'll try to limit to 50 a month max, most months is zero as I don't always work on te cars. Some use more budget:

More fun with the Jugger.. Normally I don't bother with driver figures, but for this car I'm making an exception. So making a place to sit him down, and trying to make a moving steering wheel too.

Today is all about resisting temptation as I saw a Marui Ninja for sale. Also, found out that the increased wheelbase of the juggernaut has a fitting problem with regard to the position in which I want to mount the body (much lower on the chassis). So I need to do some adjustments. Edit: Ok, looks like this is tight but will work. Body is lowered by 3cm, shocks were moved 24mm to the front/back but need to be moved back closer to original, 10mm to the front/back. To get them sitting more or less vertical again, I'll need to shorten the suspension tie-rods. 10mm shorter should be enough, the wheel base will still be larger than stock by 30mm. There is a height difference, the suspension is 15mm higher front to rear. This gives it a nice race-like slope that I want.

3D printed two front suspension parts for the Juggernaut, but forgot that left and right parts should be a mirror image.....

Looking at the great looking handcrafted scale items you make, you really don't need one. The printer saves me the trouble of making stuff by hand, I do not have the skills for that kind of work.

Need to print more parts for the Juggernaut, but the 3D printer had issues printing ABS parts. The temperature is higher compared to PLA parts, and the heated printbed could not cope too well with this. Ordered a magnetic base with metal printing sheet to put on the heated printbed, this works so much better! If only we had this kind of stuff as kids.

Made 145mm long tie-rods for the Juggernaut's suspension. In total, the wheelbase is 50mm/2inch longer than stock, and with the wide spacer kit approx 25mm/1inch wider. Biggest car on my shelf. Going for a bit of a 'racing' look with a lower mounted body, love this car already.

After spending 2 weekends in vacation parks, wife decided that 'we' needed another break and be in another park for the week between Xmas and new year so no Juggernaut work time this week . Luck would have it that I had to be close to home today, so I grabbed basher Big Bear and some tools so I can do some driving these days.

If the esc and steering servo work OK from ch3 and 4, I would suspect a problem with the switches. They don't work in ch1 and 2 either? If not return them to Amazon, or claim warranty?

Worked on the Juggernaut's shocks, as I want a dual-shock setup with a lower ride height. 3D printed adapter blocks to attach the new shocks closest to the axle. And as I want to increase the wheelbase, I need to make an adapter that moves the forward upper mounting hole to the front, that is next on the list to print.

Maybe a HPI nitro RS4 mini?

Did more mock-up on the Juggernauts suspension geometry and body position. What I need is more space in the front ladder chassis for some specific custom parts, but the 540 motors are in the way. The solution proved to be dead simple, just use the chassis in reverse and remove the battery tray. Without the battery tray, the 'new' front has plenty of space as the motors are in the back under the bed. Not sure on how to create a different position for the battery, preferably somewhere in the front for the correct weight distribution, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

More Juggernaut stuff. A box of servo's. And shocks. For some reason, a free servo horn was included.

The past 2 weeks were Juggernaut only. Thankfully this car is a cheap used car that is far from original to begin with, so modding it to my personal plan is no problem. Converted the axels and center gearbox to ball bearings, always the recommended upgrade. Mounted the axels to the chassis to get some idea on the dimensions for the axels/wheels. This Juggernaut came with a widening kit, which offsets the wheels bij about 12mm/0.5 inch. With the look I'm going for on this car that is perfect, but I also want a larger wheelbase. So I experimented with shifting the axels further apart. The front axle came with 10mm longer suspension arms, and I put this in the rear position for now. The rear axle is in the front with a temporary spacer, to shift the axle 2cm more forward, increasing total wheelbase by 3cm/1.2 inch. With regard to wheelbase, this looks OK. The body still sits too high for my taste, so shorter (or higher mounted on chassis) shocks are next on the list.

Tamico Order and Aliexpress came in. Some nice metallic orange for the Juggernaut, new steel pinions, servo savers (servos will be on the axles) and a dual-motor ESC. Also a center gearbox and motor mount for my old Mugen Seiki Prime 12 Nitro car, which I'm converting to LIPO/Brushless.

Came across this funny car.

More work on the extended cabin Juggernaut. The pinions I ordered came in, but I think they are not quite the correct size to fit into the Jugg's gearbox. The neck with the screw is too long. So ordered different ones at Tamico, as well as paint and custom licence plates to keep the shipping costs reasonable. So I should have enough stuff now to get me through this winter.

Ordered servo saver horns for the juggernaut, and a 4WD middle gearbox for a nitro to electric conversation that I want to do on a HPI Prime 12 chassis. With brushless and Lipo, nitro is no longer necessary and much quieter and less messy. Still waiting on a package from the UK, but it's sitting at customs for 3 weeks now. Brexit issues I guess.

Working on the extended cabine - short bed Juggernaut. The bed is almost finished, the cabin is coming along nicely. Love this new saw, it makes quick and straight cuts. Much better then a jigsaw.

Sold a HSP buggy I wasn't using, so I have more room for the Juggernaut once it is complete. More work on paint stripping the Juggernaut's bed, but it proves to be a pain in the .... The paint is simply not coming off! The cabin was ok but this seems to be very stuck, it is probably related to a somewhat rougher texture on the bed's plastics. Only scraping with a knife blade has some effect. Stopped for now, will proceed an other time when my fingers are no longer blue.

Got the Juggernaut's cabin paint-free, as well as the bumper and tail-gate. That's half way finished at least...

Delivery from the LHS Plastic board, glue and putty to start lengthening the Juggernaut's cabin. And a nice thin saw to make the cuts. Grease for the axles rebuild. Enough work for a few weeks.

Looks like the seller stopped the ad and is trying to get more, I see the car on eBay now.

Saw a Marui Samurai for sale on a local ad site. But the price went up too high for my taste. Got the Juggernaut cabine stripped from all blue paint. Some little detailing left but happy with the result. LHS has all the stuff I wanted on stock, so a trip is definitely coming up.