BlackBeard

The last change with roll-bar V2 is stopping the ball joints popping at full compression of the suspension. The issue was the upsidedown drop links being bolted to the bottom arms, so they could only articulate side to side. To follow the ends of the rollbar, they need to articulate forwards and backwards, too...the obvious solution is a balljoint in the lower arm. The upper balljoint sockets were too weak for this job, but I still had the old WR01 steering arms, so I re-used the ends here, as they're a lot stronger. I've only fitted the front anti-roll bar so far, but compressing one side of the suspension definitely slows the return rate of the other side, so it's definitely doing something - I really need to get my act together and try it in anger...having to work for a living is a pain in the @rse; it really eats into my car-building time 😭

...the triangular bracket that holds the bumper and the bottom arm u-pin in place then holds the new anti-roll bar in place, secured by M3 x 6mm button head machine screws.

Next job was to figure out how to fix the roll bar in place better behind the triangular bracket on the front of the chassis. It turned out, there are two little tags on the chassis, which I guess are there to align the bracket. Because the bracket has a wide channel in it, there's then a perfect, approx 2.5mm narrower channel for the roll bar to sit in if you line it up carefully...it's hard to believe Tamiya didn't intend for it to be used for exactly this, really 🤔

Ah, thanks for that. I've seen a few videos of setups that do move the other side, but I see now that they're mostly crawlers with much softer suspension... So, here's anti-roll bar V2...I can't seem to find ball joint ends for 2mm rod, so I had to drill the old ones out to fit. That left the grub screw holes quite shallow and I ended up stripping the thread in one, trying to tighten it. Version 2, then, not only has steel ball joint ends, but I've also filed flats onto the rod to allow the grub screws to go further into their holes. I've still had to drill these out, but everything combined seems to work. I've also fitted airplane undercarriage stoppers to stop the rollbar travelling sideways in use...

..but, here's what I think is a problem (or two). If I fully compress the suspension on one side, it doesn't affect the other side at all. Is it supposed to bring the other side up slightly? I can't see how it reduces body roll, otherwise. Without bushes on it, the bar can move about 1mm behind the mounting blocks, which reduces its torsion-bar effect, so I think that's the main issue. The balljoints have popped a couple of times just being tested, too, so they probably are too light duty...I had to drill them out to take the 2mm piano wire. On the plus side, though, the geometry seems to work...nothing fouls against anything else, anyway. I think the next job is to fix the bar better behind the mounting blocks, then see if the ball joints cope... I still haven't designed/printed an Rx mount...🙄

Here's the rollbar, slotted through the front block, with a sort of upsidedown drop-link from the kit fixing to a handy mounting hole in the WR01 bottom arm. It all went together surprisingly well, although I think the balljoints might be a big light duty...

Thanks 👍 Right, here's my attempt ant and anti-roll bar / sway bar. I bought a kit of bent metal rods and ball-joint ends off eBay and set about trying to make it fit. The first issue was that the supplied rods were too short and too light duty, so I bent a new one from 2mm piano wire. The WR01 has triangular mounting blocks front and back to hold the bumper/skid plates on - they have a gap behind them which the 2mm rod can slot through, so I took everything apart again and tried to fit my new bars. I put rubber tube around the roll bar as sort of bushes, but it didn't work, as it was then impossible to fit the mounting blocks...I need thinner tube, really...

Thanks 👍 Ah yes, the 6x6 WR01...I saw this when I was looking for ideas to steal 😁. I mean, if you want cost effective, indestructible 6x6 action, you'd be hard pressed to beat that! It's very impressive and I'm very tempted...

The way I look at it is, yes, a car might have a few hundred quids worth of parts in it, but I've rarely spent that in one hit. As long as my monthly spending doesn't get too wild, the net cost of the whole car isn't really something I worry about. Besides, a hundred years from now, who's going to care? 😁

Thanks 😁 Yeah, I'm not sure about the tyres...they're meant for crawlers, so probably very very sticky. They're supposed to be inflatable, so maybe making them a bit harder will reduce the grippyness...I'll have to see. The extra 30mm track width might help a bit, too...maybe... I'd be interested to see a picture of your sway bar setup. I reckon I could put together something like this fairly easily: https://www.rcmart.com/xpress-aluminum-anti-roll-bar-kit-1-2mm-1-3mm-1-4mm-xp-11048-00124405 ...did you do it front and back?

Here it is, then, 90% finished. The body was in excellent condition, but the stickers had mostly peeled off over the years, so I took them all off, used a few replacements I had knocking about, and sprayed the windows gloss black. The original blue had been half done in the past, so I put another coat down and then a coat of silver to finish it off...it looks great! Definitely the best paint job I've managed so far! Next jobs are more wire tidying, buy a battery and come up with some way of mounting the Rx... probably another 3d printing job 👍

Reading a bit more about the wayward handling (and after watching a video of some chap having no luck keeping a WR01 in a straight line at all!), I read that the main issue is the lack of castor angle in the steering hub mounts. Apparently, 8 degrees castor hub mounts were available once, but they're a bit hard to find, now. There are 3d printed versions out there, but I wouldn't trust that! Lucky old me (again), I found an aluminium set for sale in the US...this should help fix the problem!

Mounting two ESCs is a bit of a challenge. I decided to draw up a mounting plate and screw-down cage in CAD and then 3d print it. With some 1mm neoprene as padding, the platform seems to work quite well, but I'm not convinced by the strength of the cage parts. I designed it to fit in place of the two little handle things on top of the chassis... There was also a bit of soldering to do to make up control and battery y-leads. I've not bought the right size battery yet, but it'll be a rounded one to fit the chassis hole. wr01_esc-cage_platform.stl wr01_esc-cage_clamp.stl

I saw another Twin Detonator with split rim wheels and thought, "that looks quite good", so stole the idea and bought a set off eBay. Unfortunately, they fouled the skid plate on full lock, so I had to get some 15mm spacers, which gave exactly the right clearance.

I was quite keen for my new gearboxes and motors to have a bit of protection, so I bought a sheet of 1mm stainless steel and cut two skid plates, which I then bent to shape and mounted on 5mm OD aluminium tube spacers. Because the WR01 is symmetrical, the front and back plates can be identical.