FTX Outback 2.0 Land Cruiser Project

[Mad Ax]

So, what next?

Well, later that evening I pulled off some of the decals that I didn't like so much, and put on some new ones.  No photos yet but I'll grab some later this week when it's light (it's only the start of September and already it's half dark outside at 8pm!) - we've got a little mini-heatwave to round off the summer, so there should be an opportunity for some sunlight pics.

Also the body is sitting very slightly too low - I can probably put some bushes under the posts to lift it a little.

The lights aren't fitted either, and I forgot to refit some of the scale parts after pulling it apart to tape it, so they need to go back in.  Otherwise, it's literally a case of throw it in the van and go trailing on Saturday!

[Badcrumble]

Excellent progress! 

Looking forward to hearing (and seeing) how you get about on the rocks with this and your other rigs. 

That body looks a lot better darkened down!

[Busdriver]

11 hours ago, Mad Ax said:

and just to give you a feel for how messy my workbench has got

Looks pretty tidy to me!!!!

[Mad Ax]

I just popped out at lunch to do a few last-minute jobs on the Land Cruiser before the weekend, and figured I should get some final shots now before I forget all about it and break it on Saturday morning.

Roof rack fitted in new lower position, and new decals added to give it a bit of life.  Not sure about the RaceCraft RC sticker on the door, it might be a bit much.

[Jason1145]

Yep, read the whole thread while researching my future FTX crawler purchase, this sucked 15 minutes of vital price comparisons and upgrade ideas and has left me confident in what an FTX is capable of.

You really can make anything if you put your mind to it and have the knowledge of how tooling and materials work, it’s really great work, when I saw the brass/ copper wiring being bent for the internal shell and the platform being made to rest the shell on… hmm makes me appreciate I can buy extended body posts and think I’ve solved a grand mystery 😂

You still got this truck, is it ready to run and all done now?

[Mad Ax]

On 6/28/2024 at 10:37 AM, Jason1145 said:

You still got this truck, is it ready to run and all done now?

I've still got this one, it was run "lightly" at the Southern Scale Trail in September last year.  I saw lightly, it's an old quarry and there's nothing light about the terrain, but that's probably where I bent another axle, so it has a bad wheel wobble.  As I say, the terrain is punishing, and the truck is heavy with all that ballast weight, but it looks fantastic on the trails - the extra weight makes it bounce around like the real thing.

I'll fix the axle shafts sometime and potentially turn it into a hillwalking rig.

[Mad Ax]

Updates!  I haven't run this truck in ages thanks to it having a bent axle shaft, and me not wanting to spend any money on it.  But I had dragged it off the shelf to measure up for the F150 trailer, and while it was out I thought I'd have a look at the axle.

I spotted the pins were working out of the CV joints, so I put that right.

I then remembered that, having previously replaced both axle shafts, I should have one almost-good one in storage somewhere.  So hunted around until I found it.

When I took off the hub to remove the bent one, this is what I found.  That's the inner race of the inner bearing...  So, this has had more than just a bent axle!

It took a while to drift the outer race out of the plastic hub.

This is how it looked when it came out.  I thought just the axle stub was bent - I did not expect that!

 

 

 

[Mad Ax]

When I was putting it all back together, I noticed where this has previously been glued had started to come away again, so I decided to reinforce it with cable ties.  I put one on each corner - if this is going to be turned into a backup hillwalking truck then it needs to be robust

Reassembled

Made the most of the sunshine and took some outside pics.

[Mad Ax]

Fixing the driveshaft on this truck a few weeks ago has renewed my interest in doing some trails with it, especially as my hillwalking truck is out of action waiting for a new propshaft.  This truck would be the perfect donor for a second hillwalking conversion, except it's already heavy and undersprung, so it couldn't handle the extra battery packs and electronics needed for 8 miles plus.  But that's OK - I have a perfectly good trailer which can handle the extra weight, I just need to make a tow hitch!

I finished work early today, so I got straight into the workshop to look at how this truck could be modified for trailer duties.

Obligatory pre-work shot.

Rear of the chassis has a flat section for a bumper to mount on.

I've long-wondered what to do with the lights.  One option is to cut this entire strip off the body and attach it to my new bumper.

However, I went a different way.  I just cut a section out of the body.

[Mad Ax]

It's never quite sat flush - probably my roll cage isn't perfectly straight - but this should help with that.

Made a bumper from aluminium bar.

Body still doesn't sit straight.  I'll worry about that another time.

[Mad Ax]

The trailer wants to sort of go about here, but the 1.9 wheels on the trailer look way too big.

I borrowed the 1.55s off the Budget Bruiser (which also hasn't been run in ages and would make a great walking truck if I could get this trailer on it) - it now looks way more scale.

Fabricated a tow hitch.

[Mad Ax]

And there you have it.  One vintage FJ with an F150 trailer.

[Mad Ax]

Of course, no truck can go hillwalking without cruise control and all the other neat features on my Arduino controller unit, so my next plan was to rig up a prototype for testing.  I grabbed a spare Arduino Mega, updated it with the latest version, and hooked it up with patch cables.  I had to pull an FS-iA6B out of the MTX-1 because the iA6 in the FJ doesn't support PPM.

It all works as it should.

Next plan was to make a proper loom to plug into the Arduino, and also provide basic lighting.  This truck doesn't have any winches installed, nor does it have a 2-speed transmission or and LEDs at all (yet), so I started with a simple loom just for ESC, steering, and radio, with a 2-pin plug to provide power to the LEDs later.

Loom fabricated and installed.  Arduino held down with a cable tie.

Working on the bench.

[Mad Ax]

Body on ready for a test drive.

Test-drive complete.

It all worked perfectly well, apart from the steering servo needing some adjustment.  I'll do that tomorrow.

I've got a free day tomorrow, so my morning plan will be to charge some batteries, hook up some headlights, plum a reverse light into the trailer, and make an extension cable so I can put 3 batteries in the trailer.

Tomorrow afternoon will involve finding somewhere to go for a walk, and seeing how well the truck manages the terrain.

[Mad Ax]

Saturday was another workshop day, so after a lazy start I got straight back onto converting the FJ into a hillwalking truck.  Since the weather was nice, and I hadn't had a proper walk for a while, the plan was to get as much done on the truck as possible, then take it out for a test drive.

My first (and last) plan was to get the lights working.  The Arduino can't handle the amperage of more than about 4 LEDs at a time, so for a full lighting set I need to trigger all the lights with transistors.  This breakout board connects the Arduino pin for each of the different lights to the base of an NPN transistor, via a 2.7KOhm resistor to prevent over-currenting the Arduino pin.  The collector of the transistor is connected to the negative side of the LED circuit, and the emitter is connected to ground.  When +7.4V is passed through the positive side of the LED circuit, and a current is applied on the Arduino pin, the transistor completes the circuit and the LEDs come on.

I was running low on NPN transistors, I had to desolder these from a prototype of the Scania's breakout board with took extra time.

The back of the breakout board is messy, but it's the only way I could get into all the emitters to connect them to ground.

Looping the resistors over to connect to the base.

Now adding coloured wires the collectors.  Each colour represents a different light circuit.

Now another set of pins to connect to all the LED circuits.

Added some hot glue to seal it all and prevent the bare metal shorting in the event the board gets crushed.

[Mad Ax]

Next, I started making the loom that will hook the breakout to the Arduino.  As you can see, I was extremely cautious when I connected all 8 male pins to the wires.  This is a fiddly operation, so I was somewhat annoyed when I had to give all 8 of them a gender reassignment.

Loom loomed.

At that point, I took a break from LEDs since I really needed to work on a battery hookup.  The plan is to run 3 x 3S batteries in the trailer, like this.

I don't have a lot of battery cable left, but I kept these useful offcuts.  They worked out just the right length.

[Mad Ax]

Once the truck was officially driveable, I could use my limited remaining time to hack in some lights really quickly.  I didn't have time to make a full complete loom, so I just hacked in 2 wires for the headlights and 2 to connect to the red LEDs in the trailer, so at least I have some bear minimum lightage on the trails.

It was 17:20 hundred hours PM in the evening on Saturday afternoon by the time I was ready to set off on my walk.  I was at my usual walking spot where I've run the Scania a lot before, but since it was late, I decided not to do the full 8 mile loop.

Trailer contains 3 batteries, a spare set of handset batteries, a portable toolkit, zipties, spare screws and nuts, and a towstrap made from a bootlace and an Asiatees carabiner just in case the truck needs towing home.

Not my usual route, but lovely short grass for the FJ to bounce along on.  Even with no batteries in the car, the chassis is heavy and the springs are soft, so it pitches and rolls and wallows a lot, which makes it look so scale when it's driving.

There's a lot of weight in the trailer, which lifts the front slightly and takes some authority away from the front axle, so it does have a tendency to wander a little.  I also forgot to adjust the steering rod length before I set off, so I had the trim cranked right over as far as it would go.

[Mad Ax]

Since I wasn't on my usual route, I could take some detours to try to find new trails.  This narrow passage leads into a 1:10 scale forest.

Shot from the other side.

My plan of getting my entire way through the walk without having to carry the truck started to fall apart here.  I drove down a steep ravine, but the truck doesn't have enough traction to get up the other side.  It would probably be fine without the trailer, but there's too much weight hanging out the back.

I couldn't get back the way I came in, either.  This is a job for the winch, but I haven't fitted one yet, so I had to use my tow strap.

[Mad Ax]

We made it back out of the ravine, but after 15 minutes of trailfinding, we had to go back the way we came - there wasn't a way out of the forest that wasn't choked by leaves.

We took a different route onto one of the old access lanes.

From there, we were able to get into a woodland section with a good path.  Normally I do this route in the opposite direction, as part of my favourite Whole 8 route.

Out of the woods and onto what I call The Ridge, we have a fantastic view down into the valley.  It was a hazy night, lots of dust and possibly some fog in the air, which led to a feeling of wistful melancholy.

[Mad Ax]

We join up with another old lane, which I often do as part of the Whole 8.  In fact the rest of tonight's route would make up the final segment of the Whole 8.

[Mad Ax]

At the end of the lane we join an open field, and I was thinking I would have to stop to clear some dry grass from the trailer wheel.  I took my eye off it for a brief moment and it dropped down into a rut and turned over.  This was the first and only proper crass of the night.  If I had a winch I would probably have used it with some posts to right the trailer (although a couple of burly 1:10 scale wrestlers could turn that trailer over by hand) but I have neither, so I invoked the Hand of God.

Disaster averted, we continue on our epic journey as the light begins to fade.

It was around here when I saw my first fellow human being of the evening.  A jogger came the other way.

[Mad Ax]

This lane leading down into a copse is hard work on foot - it's steeper than it looks and very rocky.  All the soil here is clay, and when it's wet it's like walking on soap.  The truck managed it without any problems, though.

At the far side of the copse there is a long gentle climb on a gravel path, and then we reach a long climb to take us back up to the lane on which the van is parked.  It's hidden behind a hill from this angle, but the van is roughly underneath the sun.

It's looking like we might get a good sunset.

The view back down the hill to the old derelict barn reminds me of the game STALKER.  I was taking photos here a couple of years ago when it was misty, and I was expecting to see an anomaly around the next corner.  I made sure to drink some vodka just to be on the safe side.

[Mad Ax]

We're back on the lane at last.  Here I was lucky enough to sight 2 other human beings, making that a grand total of 3, which is pretty good going.  Unfortunately a bank of cloud has rolled in to obscure the sunset.

You see where it says KEEP OUT?  We're not allowed in there.

I diverted off the lane to do the final part of the walk on the fields, and it was at this point that the clouds moved and I could see the sun.  That grey square to the right of the sun is the water tower where the van is parked, and it's the highest point around.  Although it looks like the sun has already set, if I can make it to the van I might get one final glimpse of the sun and some awesome post-walk photos.

So, at this point, we ran.

[Mad Ax]

This truck only has a single speed transmission and a 55 turn motor, so it's not exactly speedy.  But that's OK because neither am I.  I don't think I've run that long or fast since I left school nearly 30 years ago, especially not on top of a 6 mile walk.  But we made it to the highest point just in time to catch the sun melting into the horizon.

Unfortunately I had only brought my phone (I've been using Scaletra recently and I don't think I can add photos later on the web like I can with Strava) and it doesn't have a sunset mode, so I couldn't get the best colours.

So, how was it?

In a word, fab.  The truck drives like a dream considering it's made of leftovers from other builds, it could do with some stiffer rear springs to counter the weight of the trailer but it drives nice enough as it is.  It wanders a little, but it held up to some fairly intense abuse as it was bounced over roots and rocks with a heavy trailer hanging off the back.

I do need to file some chamfers onto the trailer chassis, as it gets hung up over roots.  A few times it got so stuck I had to pull it out.  Some chamfers on the chassis rails should help it to slide up over the roots instead of catching on them.

Lack of traction could be an issue in some places - weight in the trailer is the problem but I don't want to add more weight in the truck to counter it, it's heavy enough and they are only FTX Outback 2.0 axles, so famously not the toughest on the market.

But, seriously, it is a joy to have around me, and the trailer makes everything so much easier.  I'll be making a trailer for the Scania when I have time.

We did 6.2 miles in just under 2.5 hours, we saw 3 other human beings and 2 dogs, we climbed over 400 feet and we had a blast.

More to follow - I've spent every spare minute of the last few days trying to finish the lighting loom so I can demo the Arduino unit to the Scaletra team at the UK Scaler Nationals on Saturday.  I've put nearly 3 hours into it tonight and it's still not done.  I've got a dozen photos still to share but it's past my bedtime, so I'll continue this tomorrow  

[JimBear]

In a word - wonderful!

In more words: it looks very scale and the walk seems to have been a relaxing romp over the hills and so on. Some very nice photos in there - the greenery is very ... uhm... green! I am looking forward to see more of it (the truck I mean). It seems to do quite well.

As for Stalker, I think the landscape has some of the Tarkovsky vibes, indeed (since I haven't played the game, I can only relate to the film).

I've spent a good while over the last few days going through the Big 6 thread - so much in there to ponder.