Crawling with a Vintage T-Maxx

[OldSchoolRC1 1090]

What? 

Yes, that's correct. I used to buy and restore mostly old Tamiya and Kyosho, however after 2020 parts have really dried up here in the states, and shipping from overseas has become quite salty price-wise, so I've had to adapt. I used to have a T-maxx back in the '99 and it was my go-to nitro for years... I've probably put more miles on that one truck than all the others combined. I recently fired up one of my 2 remaining nitros and it really took me back - it's an entire segment of the hobby I haven't touched in over a decade... so while surfing along in that mindset, I picked up an original Pro .15 model and restored it back to new. In the process I also found that they are cheap and plentiful on Ebay. Of course, now I have 4, all bought for $100 or less. 

So anyway,  I love the challenge of taking something that was designed for one thing and building it to do something else. I found the OG diff lockers for $12 each and that's all it took. I want to build a T-maxx for the woods. Of course, I'd be converting to electric....an Electric T-maxx, such a novel concept.  

I'll spare all the build since it's a non Tamiya and just post a few pics. 

As it arrived. Complete sans radio and utterly and completely filthy. "Nitro grime" is just nasty, this thing was caked so bad, it actually dyed the grey plastics shades of brown. I've never ever let my trucks get this nasty. My wife would never let me bring it into the house! 

 

All the parts were thoroughly cleaned and in great shape. I bent up a steel plate roughly into the same shape as the lower chassis supports. Steels slides well on rocks, and it was way easier to bend than aluminum. 

 

A $20 3 gear trans does the gear reduction and gets me in the crawler ballpark.

 

Fabbed up a new upper chassis out of 2.5mm 6061 with some cutouts...the motor is as low as I can get it and still have the center chassis clearance. 

 

Bulkheads re-assembled and shocks installed. Some old #Racing CR01 shocks were perfect. 

[OldSchoolRC1 1090]

And just like that - servo installed (not the best for sure, but it'll get me rolling) and electronics all mounted. I tucked in the servo 1 inch towards the centerline from factory, and it took a bit of tweaking on the steering linkage to get everything moving smooth... battery is up front giving me a 55/45 weight balance. 

Wheels and tires...believe it or not, I had these PL Mashers new in package, I've had them for a long time. Mounted on some also new stock wheels. Very Maxx looking! Not sure if I want to stay with Maxx sized wheels or maybe look into something narrower. They are decently grippy and do have a contact patch the size of Rhode Island, so I've got that going for me which is nice.  

I wanted to use the Cliffhanger body as it looked very good on the chassis.....but it didn't fit over the rear shock tower. I ended up hacking out the body to clear and since I could not use the body mounts, I had to come up with plan B.... After an hour of futzing around, I came up with this. I took an old skidplate, cut out the top and shaped it to fit the body, then bolted it it to shock tower... it works perfectly. The body slides in and is trapped there, and the front is held on by pins. I tried to keep the TRX logo as I thought it was a nice touch. 

Body mounted, and ready for paint! 

The newly christened Crawler Maxx (C-maxx) got some blue and black treatment, it fits right in with the rest of the fleet. 

This truck stared as a second gen 2.5/wide maxx truck. Great for bashing, not so much for trail duty. I never throw anything away, and sometimes it comes in handy. Digging in my Maxx parts pile, low and behold, the original 1999 suspension! I upgraded mine back in the day to a wide setup and kept the original arms just in case.  first time out of the box in what? 20 years? 

Can see the width difference right away.

A few screws later, and its converted to a narrow Maxx!  I'm sure I'll lose a bit of sidehill, but I like the look much, much better. It did change the shock geometry and it's quite a bit stiffer than before. Not sure if I want to mess with it or not. Think I'll see what it does out on the trail before swapping out springs. It's probably a good thing TBH.  Nevermind the front bumper, I forgot to put the screws in before taking the pic.

 

[OldSchoolRC1 1090]

Finally a trail day! I haven't been out since spring, some woods therapy was just what I needed. 

Packed up some projects I haven't wheeled in a while, all 2.2 or larger. It's leaf season here in the NE and the trails are covered in leaves... the 2.2's have a much better time of it than the 1.9 rigs. Packed up the C-Maxx, my trusty old CR01, and my Crawler Yeti on its final outing. 

The C-Maxx did fantastic. There were some guys leaving the trails when I arrived, and I ran into them as I was heading out. They looked at me like I had 3 heads when I came rumbling in with a Maxx truck, but after watching for a few minutes they were convinced. This beast just owned the woods, I had an absolute ball with this thing. 

I have never get up this ledge with a 1.9, there's a small lip at the top that kicks you every time. The C-Maxx not only clawed it's way up using just grip (well, once, but I consider that a win) but I could hit it at 1/2 throttle, launch off the top, and let off the throttle - the truck evens out and just lands like it's on pillows. The Maxx suspension soaked up everything like marshmallows. It's has a great COG and balance too, so it can easily creep it's way back down. 

Couldn't have picked a better rig to dig through the leaves. These big tires just evacuated everything under the truck. 

I spent quite a while here jumping the truck.. the gearing is a bit tall so it was somewhat speedy. Plenty of oomph to get up some speed and jump off rocks. Watching this sky off the rock, square up and land plush never gets old.  Kudos to Mr. Holmes, even though it was geared a bit tall, it had plenty of low speed resolution for crawling and the single 12t motor on 3S had no trouble launching the truck when needed. These Crawlmaster motors ae fantastic. 

Not even a challenge. 

This is our local "test rock" - I run all my trucks up and down this thing as a benchmark comparison...right side is tough, left side is all but impossible. A stock TRX4 won't make it up either side, it's more challenging than it looks. The easier right side was no problem, and it almost made the harder side... it will tip over backwards, but it's very predictable and gives you plenty of warning. 

Winter screen saver... 

So, the IS wasn't nearly the issue I thought it would be. It's a totally different drive than a solid axle, this truck just floats over the woods. Very cool to watch, and super stable all around. All I had to do was crank down on the slipper and I added a bit more preload to the shocks otherwise it help up great to nearly 2 hours of wheeling. I didn't get pics of the hill climbs per-se, but it did excellent there too. I've got another IS crawler in the works and this was definitely some motivation to keep wrenching in it. 

Steering sucked as expected. Not a problem at all going down the trails, but if you need to make a tight cut while crawling, forget it. Definitely lave to keep it in mind when picking your line.... It's the only thing hindering this truck... not sure if I want to do 4WS or not. I think a touch of toe out in the rear will help as the rear tended to push the front quite a bit.  Later I ran my CR01 which has 4WS (and crappy steering...dogbones FFS!!) and it made all the difference. 

To do list - debating an StealthX swap to give the front a bit of OD. There was a few times when I thought it would come in handy.  OR maybe a 2 speed, not sure, I need to chew on it a bit. I've also been looking for some new tires...I'm torn on that one though, it's not a Maxx truck without those big meats hanging out there, and frankly they had much better grip than I expected. I mean, they are 3+ inches wide! Not quite sure what I want to do there yet. Also the shocks give me too much down travel and the driveshafts are rubbing the arms at full droop - not good. Easy fix though.

Total spent? 

Truck: $100, Transmission, $20, misc. turnbuckles and lockers $32...everything else I had - so $152 out the door for a unique and quite capable trail truck. Nothing scale about it, but I don't care - it looks awesome out in the woods.  

 

[El Gecko 1550]

6 hours ago, OldSchoolRC1 said:

a unique and quite capable trail truck. Nothing scale about it, but I don't care - it looks awesome out in the woods.

Cool what you've done with the chassis conversion. Is that a 550 motor?

Those are my exact sentiments about my old Sledgehammer. It might be 2WD with an open diff, the body is a wreck, and it definitely won't be winning any crawler comps, but it's a trustworthy and surprisingly capable trail truck in any season. Big tires are always fun

[OldSchoolRC1 1090]

Thank you - yes, I ended up with a Holmes Crawlmaster 12t 550. On 3S, it has plenty of power for trail duty. 

 

[Mad Ax 10797]

That's pretty cool!  Certainly not something you'd expect to see on the trails, but then we crawler types like to deliberately handicap ourselves with solid axles and scale dimensions.  On a lot of terrain, IS is as good or better than solid axles.

I love the look of it too - somewhere in between a Maxx basher, a stadium truck and a mega truck.

I got given a (well-used) early brushed E-Maxx a couple of months ago, I didn't want to make another fast basher out of it as I already have a later brushless E-Maxx, but this kind of thing gives me ideas  

[OldSchoolRC1 1090]

Thank you, I think anything can get out there and crawl around for the most part. It's all about COG and grip really. Everything else is a trade off of some kind. 

I'm on a Maxx chassis kick, I've bought 3 lately to go with my OG T-maxx, now totally unrecognizable. Parts and chassis are cheap and plentiful and the platform is very easy to modify. 

Just built this this weekend, a little go fast basher for the backyard. Started as a Pro .15 Maxx and cut a new chassis to put everything on the lower plate. Much lower CG than a standard E-maxx...it's a work in progress, just waiting on a few odds and ends to finish.  

I've restored an original Pro .15 Maxx back to ... well, almost stock. I recreated my 1999 T-maxx as it stood in about 2000/2001 as I still had the hop up parts laying around (20+ years!) Only thing different is the body as I couldn't find the body I used back then. 
 

And my OG Maxx, not much left of the original truck from 1999 but this chassis has well evolved over the years. Now a 1/5 project....locked diffs, 2 speed, dual SCX transmissions, and 8.5" tires It's a work in progress also.  Hard to get a sense of scale, but it is big enough to crawl up my steps. 

On a side note, I've picked up some more crawler worthy tires for the C-Maxx, should have an update shortly. 

 

[87lc2 2853]

Very cool!  These trucks do work great on the trail and can look scale if you want.  I narrowed/stretched a Summit and made a 1/6 scale Hummer H1 with one of those New Bright bodies, looks and works awesome.  Still running the stock 2-speed & diff lockers which is great on the trail.  Running 2.2/3.0 wheels with JConcepts 2.2 Scorpios tires since they are the absolute tallest 2.2 tire I could find.