Nikko85

Silver. Looks like aluminium under a damaged paint job. Throw some decals or vinyl over the top.

Getting closer!

Almost done. Sticking on the doors is proving tricky. There is a lip to the doors I can stick them to, but I stupidly painted first it all first. When I super glued the paint came off so it didn't really work. I also used very small amounts of glue, not wanting the glue to run and ruin the paint job. For now the doors are taped on from the inside, but it won't last, so I need a better solution. Some thin strong double tape on the lip should work. That issue aside it's looking good. I went with 72mm crawler tires, which fit the wheels perfectly. I replaced the plastic spare tire with a real one, printing a little part of the spare wheel to keep them on. Working winch is cool. To have to careful not to wind in too far or the rope snaps. Fake plastic tire now a real one. Unlikely to get a puncture but it's a cool touch. Doors are 1 mm plasticard cut to size. Going to explore a few options for sticking on properly. A tiny hinge and magnet to lock to make working doors considered. Will have to be more careful of raptors if the doors work of course. Overall it is looking good. It's not a great driver, but has a certain charm! Decent ground clearance as the wheels are right at the bottom of the chassis so the 72mm wheels are used well. I still need to Cut indicators and other lights from vinyl Make a driver Sort out the on and off switch Find a proper solution to the doors

13T pinion is possible. I think it's the smallest that can fit. You need a 0.6 module pinion to fit a 3.175mm shaft. Basically the smaller the pinion the higher the torque, lower speeds and better battery life. Small pinion means the motor does less work, like cycling in low gear. In terms of motors - low turns mainly equals more speed and greater power consumption. High turn is less speed and lower power. -For any given electric motor the torque increases as you push the throttle and the rpms increase. -Generally a low and high turn 540 motors have similar-ish amounts of torque available. So why does everyone say high turn means more torque? If you have have a high turn motor (low speed) it allows you to travel slowly whilst pushing the throttle down, which means you can have low speed and high torque, which is what you want. This gives the impression of more torque, but it's more like the same amount of torque at lower speeds. Driving slow with a high turn motor would mean you are barely touching the throttle, which would limit torque. The best way to get torque is to lower the pinion. Then a high turn motor so that torque is available at low speeds. Something like a 35t to 45t motor and 13T pinion is nice compromise, but as others have said the car might roll. If you want to drop weight down an Li Ion battery might help. I use 7.4 volt 2 s18650 battery packs which cut the weight down a lot! Also makes the car look much more sleek. In terms of size of Esc I have two ideas. Place the ESC at the front, over the servo or front diff. The interior will mean it's tight in the middle, but there should be space nearer the front under the hood. Or stick the Esc in the molded box in the back of the body on the underside. For what it's worth my two MF01x cars are now a TL01 armed SCT and a GF02 armed Prerunner. I found if I wanted a scale sized runner for the garden there were better option. The CR12 as mentioned or the my GF01 with crawler wheels are a little easier to run. But if you want to go Tamiya then the Willy MF01x option is awesome too. I used the sand paddle tires in m wheels for mine. I also have a few good hacks to allow better suspension travel without dropping dog bones!

My cars are all either 1/12 or 1/16, so there's very little new that appeals instantly. It's more about working out what we will work with a different body, and then pulling the trigger, which is usually when I find a bargain or had a couple of beers. So for example I've been eyeing up 1/16 bruder dakar truck build. I've been waiting for a few truck bodies to be cheap, but last night after a couple of beers and long successful day at work I picked up a used model for a fiver more than I might have got if I had been patient, but just wanted to crack on. Cost is important to me, all my cars are QDs or MF01x, CW01 or GF01 kinda level, nothing too fancy. Of course it all adds up when you add everything else.

JP jeep got quite a bit closer to the finish line. Still lots to do, but most of the hard bits (or easy to mess up bits) are done. There's a basic build thread but it's an 39 year old toy grade getting new lease of life!

Spray painting went ok. Couple of tiny spots I could redo, but it's going to get chipped anyhow. I painted it all red to get a nice texture before going with the beige. Next step is the doors, spare wheel, jerry can and stickers.

Finally added the GF02 arms on the MF01x FJ45. Seem to work great. More information in the build thread but went with 48mm dogbones front and back.

The longer 48mm dogbones turned up, and are now on front and back. They seem to work great. O-ring on the drive cups, but I might remove from the front and see how it goes. The suspension is really plush and lovely feeling. Will take out sometime and give a verdict! Edit: torn about o-rings. On the front they make the dogbones feel less floaty but the diff gets a little stiff on full steering lock. Don't feel like they will pop put however, but certainly rattling without. Rear is perfect!

Do it! A tiny bit more done today, I added the winch and sorted the bumper. I moved it in and cut a little groove in the bumper so the body can slot in when the winch is attached. It took ages cutting down and trying different solutions. In the end I 3D printed some mounts that slot into the bumper and attach to the chassis. I can print in different sizes if needed and also being the bumper up or down so there is some flexibility. We end up with a smaller bumper that looks a lot more realistic and scale. It's higher and closer in so will get much less caught on things. With 2WD and zero suspension this is not going to be great off road so every little helps. Winch is cool! Looks the part and actually works. Nice to replace the fake on with a real one! One press for out, press again for in. Still got lots to do: Making the doors Painting the car red and wheels red Masking and painting the right parts beige Make a driver Wiring and electronics Sort tires But it's been a fun project so far. Far slower than some builds, mainly as I have to drill 40 year old chassis and don't want to make a mistake, so trying to really think before doing something.

Thanks, it's one of my favourite builds!

Thanks. Not been able to drive yet but does feel quite solid, although I can see one area that needs reinforcement at the back to stick the bed and the tail gate together. I still need to add the jerry can and add details too. I may also try with slightly smaller tires, there is a little rubbing and worried about motor temps, so dropping tires a few mm might help!

Fit quite tight so no need to glue. IIRC I needed to cut the ribs off the Abarth wheels which run transversely across the two ribs, as that's where the tires fit. The beetle wheels were simply pop on. I think it was @OoALEJOoO who first showed me this.

Mixed results today. I added the GF02 arms and it has certainly got me closer to the look I wanted. This is with 10mm hexes which I had before. The arms give an extra 10mm width at the front each side, so I might drop down to 6mm to meet in the middle, I will see what works best. However just on a basic comparison with the first image I posted, this does seem the closest by far, which is great. Not only that but of course wider car is more stable, more suspension travel, and this is going to rip! So, so far so good, but when adding the rears the dogbones suggested just don't work. ordered the 51216 dog bones which are the given ones for the GF02 rears. As these are GF02 arms I assumed that they would work, but zero joy, they just fall out completely. This is going to get a little numbers heavy, I apologise, but maybe this is helpful for someone reading this planning the same thing. As I measure them The TL01 dogbones are 39mm TA05 dogbones are 45mm GF02 front dogbones (9803236) are 48mm. The front GF02 arms are 10mm wider than the TL01 arms (40.5mm vs 30.5mm) measured from pivot points. Although the dogbones are now 1mm relatively shorter, this works fine it would seem, it might need a single o-ring. On the rear the GF02 arms are 7.5mm wider than the TL01 arms (45.5mm vs 38mm) but the TA05 dogones are only 6mm longer. For some reason this just does not work and despite it only being a 1.5mm shortfall. When I say don't work, I don't mean I'm worried about them coming out on hard running, they are too short to stay in when the car is still. As a trial I put the 48mm dogbones on the rear and it is perfect. Zero binding at full compression and works perfectly! So another pair 48 mm ordered, and I think I can use the TA05 dogbones but can anyone shed light on why this might have happened? Does the GF02 have issues with dogbones dropping out? From what I can see the M05RA uprights are the same as the TL01 ones when used it low GC mode, but perhaps the geometry is slightly different? I could use uprights from the TL01, but I like the mild toe-in the M05RA uprights give. On the plus side, the car looks great, and I'm happy to have all-black dogbones too!

Not sure if it helps, but sand scorcher paddle tires will fit m chassis wheels, which might then first the blitzer beetle hex?

Lots to update but long story short, it works! I printed a servo bracket to hold the servo. This was attached to the chassis with two 2.5 mm screws at the bottom. It feels solid. First time ever I got the print bang on first time! A tight fit! I then added a solid rod to attach to the gear selector. Getting the radio settings was tricky, although you can change the EPA it does both ends at once, so it takes a little tweaking to get all three gears aligned. Once set however it works well... Back with the cover on. Now this lever is more of an indicator. Next up was the steering. Thankfully these taiyos had almost full sized servos in the originals so not at all tricky to swap. 5mm ball joint sits on the white plastic channel and moves the steering rack. I cut away a little plastic to increase the steering throw. I quickly soldered on some 4mm bullets to the motor and it all works nicely. It's cool to change gears as you drive, and I am slowly getting used to how they work. Changing seems to be smooth. Next up is the winch, tires and wiring / battery. There's very little space for anything as the interior sits very low so will have to carefully sort out locations. Very happy it's working well. All gears seem to engage nicely, I am a little surprised to be honest.

This is my favourite kind of build here. Completely unique, but looks like something that really should be in Tamiya's line up!

Thanks! I am taking liberties with this with both the model and year but it will still have that JP feel. I realised I needed to create a servo bracket, so have designed something on my free software to print tomorrow. After some deliberation I think a servo horn and push rod seems to make sense. The somewhat annoying thing is that from left to right the gears go: M-L-H So there is no smooth way to cycle through L - M - H. In reality I won't be working up the gears, but choosing the right gear when I change surface. The good news is that the little winch seems to work on channel 3! One press for out, press again for in. Will 3D print tomorrow and then updates for all.

Ask anyone what the best film ever made is, and unless they say Jurassic Park, they are wrong. Sure I watched it when I was an impressionable seven or eight year old, and sure I’ve always loved dinosaurs, and sure I worked for years at the Natural History Museum, but biases aside, it is the best film ever made. The T-rex chase, the raptors in the kitchen, Nedry getting eaten, it’s got everything and film could want. Wait, this is a RC car forum, why are you talking about a film franchise that’s not released a great film for 32 years? Well my friends, welcome to Jurassic Park Jeep build. The car in question is a Taiyo Jeep renegade from 1985, just like me. If anyone wants more information there’s loads here: https://rctoymemories.com/2012/04/15/tandy-radio-shack-jeep-renegade/ The goal here is to make the Jurassic Park Jeep (ignoring the fact I’m going for a 83 Renegade vs a 93 Wrangler) and add lots of extra bits to make it the best toy grade car ever released. I want to keep it all in the spirit of a toy grade from the era, so I’m not going to remodel it all, otherwise I might as well just drop the body on an FTX. This will mean adding an ESC, a working winch, new tires and a way to change gears via the receiver. Hard spare tire will be replaced with working spare too but keeping the bare bones quite stock. The original had fully proportional steering and a three speed gearbox (imagine that on a toy grade now) which you could change via a switch on the car. I want to add a mini servo so you can change gears whilst driving (although perhaps not on-throttle) which will make it a hoot to drive around. I am going to try the Turbo Racing P32 radio – which is a budget radio, but does have four channels. The 3rd channel is an on/off two-way switch (which will operate the winch) whilst the 4th channel is three positions, with adjustable EPAs, so I’m hopeful that will operate the gear select. Hopefully this thread will help anyone with a Tamiya three speed who wants to see if a cheap wheel based radio could work as well. With two wheel drive off road ability will be limited, but there’s no rear diff, and it’s very light, so with good tires it should be able to push up slopes and sticks and stones, if not crawl. I also want to explore a new bumper, which should help the approach angle, as well house the working winch. For this I’m going to need: The car New tires Decals Paint (red and beige) New electronics + micro Servo + winch This is what it looks like stock, next to the Scorpion. I'm not quite sure on the scale, I get roughly 1/11.3 in my calculation, which kind of fits into my fleet. The plastics are in great condtion. Hard to read, but the tires say Goodyear. They look amazing, but have zero grip and the rubber has just gone completely. It's a shame as they are really nice otherwise. Lastly for this evening the gearbox. The little lever sticks out of the bed so you can select gears. A quick way of doing this would be to attach something on the bed that moves this lever, but I think I can do better than that. When I take off the gearbox cover you can see the lever attaches to this large white plate which moves left to right changing gear. There is just enough space between this plate and the rear of the car to place a small servo, which could then do the gears. I'm not quite sure how to do this yet, but a servo arm connected to a rod connected to the plate should give a L-R motion is it goes through the vertical, keeping all the motion in the same plane. Another option would be to run a channel going vertically on the plate in-between which a small nub on the end of the servo arm sits. As the servo moves through the range it forces the the plate in the same direction in the x axis, whilst the nub can move up and down on the y axis without impediment. This has nicer geometry, and only applies a force in one direction on the plate - which does have an appeal. I'm not sure which ones is better? I also need to work out how to stick the servo down. Space is going to be quite tight, but I think it should be possible.

I had an MF01x with a hard body as a land rover. With 75 mm wheels it would roll really easily at speed. To make my MF01x trucks fun I added TL01 and GF02 arms to widen up a lot, however this has made them look very different from what you might be after. This is relatively stable with 10 mm hexes and Tl01 arms and 82 mm wheels. If you want to trail I would suggest: Get a 13T pinion. It will give the most torque but enough speed. Add wheel weights or weights down low. I also added weight at the front to reduce wheelies and give a better front/rear balance. Widen with Tl01 arms if you can, or even just 10 mm hexes with longer axles or more offset/wider wheels Get a Lexan body - the hard body (esp a high body like a D90) really made the COG high.

More work on the TL01 Scorpion. Pretty much done now, just a few tweaks and bracing.

Many thanks. I may try those for the Dakar TL01, for this I went a little more old school! Well, the truck is almost finished. I have only driven it indoors but it seems to run nicely, very very quiet and smooth. It's higher gear than I would like with the larger tires, but I will wait and see in the real world before I decide if I need brushless motor. At the moment it's a 1060, etronix waterproof servo and torque tuned motor. I am just using the cheap friction shocks, but they seem to work pretty well. It's around 1595 grams, and feels light given the size. The springs seem to work well; although it's heavier than a lexan shelled TL01 I am saving a lot of weight with the battery, so it probably evens out. To get ready to drive I added a driver, put black vinyl on the frame and added a few stickers. I also made my own battery doors to house the Li Ion batteries. Overall stance is nice. I find a driver adds gritty realism. Matt black paneling makes the blue tubing pop. High end stickers! Not a fan of painting lights, so it is stickers if I can. Battery door. Clips keep it in place. Other door is bolted. Electronics are a little messy and squeezed into the small space for them. The interior floor touches the chassis so there is little space for electronics or even wires above. Where to now driver? So what's next? I may add a Jerry can and a few little details to add some realism, as well as some extra liver, but I think I am mainly done, so it will be driving time and I will see what breaks!

Very nice! I do like M-chassis cars widened to TL01 sizes. PS: Portal axles? Is that a typo or is this going to get weird!

Glad it all went well. Looks like an epic project in many ways.

Actually run better than hoppers!