TL01 Dakar race truck

Mad Ax · April 21

On 4/18/2025 at 12:01 PM, Nikko85 said:

@Mad Ax I would be interested to make what your one comes in at?

I weighed it on Saturday morning before I went off to a truck meet. With 3x 3s LiPos installed, it's 5.9Kg.

Also, it's running a cheap 2 speed transmission, noisy-as-badword gear-reduction transfer case, and locked diffs, so there plenty of load in the drivetrain. Despite that, it will run the trails all night in high gear, on 3S, without the ancient Novak Fifty-Five crawler motor even getting warm. Top speed in high gear is faster than a walking pace, so I'm usually at part throttle. Even up hills and over grass it doesn't get warm. I previously had issues with overheating, which I had put down to gearing and weight, but in retrospect I think that's because I was running advanced-timed motors backwards. The old Novak is zero-timed, so it doesn't mind running backwards.

OoALEJOoO · April 21

@Nikko85 Your build is progressing nicely. Very cool how you mounted the cab so that it can swing forward!

A quick heads-up about going with perfectly round wheel arches. I've tried them a bit in the past and unfortunately the small longitudinal play of the suspension means tires tend to rub on the arch front and back. They would rub back on acceleration and front on braking. Shimming the suspension helps a lot. Still, I ended up having to cut a larger diameter arch. Another option would be to cut more of a wider arch, akin to an oval.

The 60:40 weight balance should make it really pivot like a rally car. When I weighed my XV-01, it was 58:42, with a total of 1731g using a 3600 mAh NiMH.

JimBear · April 21

1 hour ago, Mad Ax said:

I weighed it on Saturday morning before I went off to a truck meet. With 3x 3s LiPos installed, it's 5.9Kg.

Now I understand your complaints about having to schlep the Scania truck when it has broken down ... some good excercise in there, though!

Mad Ax · April 21

I've just found a spare moment to catch up on this thread, really loving what's been done so far

Nikko85 · April 22

Many thanks all.

Today has mostly been 3D printing and design. I couldn't find any L brackets I was happy with, so I made my own. These are 3.5mm thick and very solid. My printer does 0.35mm thick layers as an option, so 3.5mm works well in terms of fidelity. Rather than screw and bolt, I will tap these to 2.5mm and use machine hex screws to attach to the panels. I've found the ABS holds a thread quite well, and at 3.5mm thick they should be solid.

I've designed a few different brackets, simple L brackets for the sides, corner brackets and angled brackets. My plan is to get the bolts looking as neat as I can as they will be quite visible. I have gone for black bolts, I might decide to spray paint.

Although the corner brackets are designed to be used in the corners (obviously) they could also be used to hold side panels together, keeping an attachment point for an X-brace. This might work in the middle of the truck, I will see how rigid it feels.

One thing I've not done so far is consider a "floor" to the rear section, this will sit more like a traditional body shell with five sides. I will put some bracing across the bottom, which will also attach to body mount (tbd where) but I want to be able to take off easily.

I use Tinkercad for my designs. It's super basic, but works fine for simple 3D geometry and is very easy to learn. Doubtless there is vastly superior software, but for me this works well. Matches by ppt. aided design..

I will try and attach it all tonight.

Nikko85 · April 22

17 hours ago, OoALEJOoO said:

@Nikko85 Your build is progressing nicely. Very cool how you mounted the cab so that it can swing forward!

A quick heads-up about going with perfectly round wheel arches. I've tried them a bit in the past and unfortunately the small longitudinal play of the suspension means tires tend to rub on the arch front and back. They would rub back on acceleration and front on braking. Shimming the suspension helps a lot. Still, I ended up having to cut a larger diameter arch. Another option would be to cut more of a wider arch, akin to an oval.

The 60:40 weight balance should make it really pivot like a rally car. When I weighed my XV-01, it was 58:42, with a total of 1731g using a 3600 mAh NiMH.

That's a good point, at the moment I've got a a few extra mm to play with and the wheels sit quite comfortably below the arches, and only nest into them on full compression, so there's a possibility I can get away with what I've done so far: to come close to the sides they'd need to be off centre and fully compressed, but yes I might have cut too small.

Not quite sure how I will neatly make larger, I've not much material left at the rear, and I'm not sure the circle cutter score and snap method will work when I am just enlargening by a mm or two. A few passes with a sharp blade might shave some off?

OoALEJOoO · April 22

I've also used Tinkercad, it's sufficient and agile for quick modeling.

5 hours ago, Nikko85 said:

That's a good point, at the moment I've got a a few extra mm to play with and the wheels sit quite comfortably below the arches, and only nest into them on full compression, so there's a possibility I can get away with what I've done so far: to come close to the sides they'd need to be off centre and fully compressed, but yes I might have cut too small.

Not quite sure how I will neatly make larger, I've not much material left at the rear, and I'm not sure the circle cutter score and snap method will work when I am just enlargening by a mm or two. A few passes with a sharp blade might shave some off?

Some trucks, but not all, have a perfect circle with the center of the arch's circle more or less on the same spot as the center of the wheel at rest. Just like the pic of the orange truck you posted. There are other trucks where the arch's center meets the center of the wheel at suspension compression, but these arches tend to be fairly shallow at around 1/4 of the tire diameter.

Looks like your current arch is centered with the wheel on full compression and about 1/2 of the tire diameter, which might be the reason it might end up a bit small. I think you are right that enlarging the arch and snapping might break the rear area. Indeed, perhaps shaving with a blade plus sanding might work. You could also consider doing a cut of the rear fender area by shaving off a bit of its bottom portion, which would end up the thinnest. Many trucks have this section cut, reducing rear overhang.

Just some thoughts, your truck is shaping up great

Nikko85 · April 23

Managed a little more time on this. I printed all the parts, and then I very carefully drilled holes in the side plates to attach the L brackets. Amazingly I didn't mess up a single hole (although I did slightly mess up the two holes for the wheel arch which don't quite look perfect in terms of location along the arch.

Slight issue when adding all the parts, the black screws are really quite visible on the red. I think I am going to have to spray paint them to blend in a little better, as it's quite distracting. This is a 1:16 truck, so the scaled up size of those bolt heads would be 80mm, no wonder they stand out.

It looks like painting them red could be an option. I went for black bolts, but the stainless is much easier to cover, so I think I'm going to swap these out for natural stainless bolts which I will spray paint red. Doubtless some paint will come off with roll overs, but should look better. Bottom left is a red painted black bolt, it does blend in a little better, but getting these red takes so many coats!

Alternatively I might think of a new way of designing it all. 10mm x 10mm hollow square tube section could be placed using super strong double sided tape along the sides, and then the tops and ends placed on this. This would be a little faster, and certainly strong enough, but requite all new side panels and plasticard.

Will give it a think over!

Nikko85 · April 23

So it turned out the paint just came straight off the stainless - which makes sense. However the black bolts have been treated/painted, so the paint adheres much better, so I painted them red.

hand not to scale.

At the moment the bolts still stand out, but then the body is completely plain; with a little paint and decals there will be more going on, so they'll probably look less obvious. The paint will also cover the slightly see through plastic, through which you can see the black ABS brackets I made. The plan is to strip and paint all the panels and cab the same red, so the colours completely match.

I may decide to redo this body. I think if I were to do again I'd reverse the rear arms for another 10mm of wheelbase too as well as think another way to stick it together, but for now I will keep like this, mainly as I've already 3D printed everything, and a new body would involve all new plasticard and costs!

Nikko85 · April 24

It needs paint and details to finish but I've completed the first stage of the body.

At the moment it's just resting on the chassis so not quite aligned, and needs to be moved back and up, but you get the idea. It looks ok, but I think I will try another way too. It's around £13 for the plastic, so I've not invested too much.

Main issues are the bolts really break the profile, and the cutting everything flush is really tricky. Minor discrepancies in 3D print or drill bit wandering really impact the precision.

Still as a first go of making a body from scratch it's not too bad!

Second try will be double sided tape and l or square section.

JimBear · April 25

17 hours ago, Nikko85 said:

Main issues are the bolts really break the profile, and the cutting everything flush is really tricky.

What about flatheaded screws/bolts? Or some miniature bolts (but that would break the budget, I was thinking of something akin to RC4WDs wheel bolts, etc)?

Apart from that, it's coming along really nice and I think the rims/tyres fit really well.

Nikko85 · April 25

On 4/25/2025 at 3:26 PM, JimBear said:

What about flatheaded screws/bolts? Or some miniature bolts (but that would break the budget, I was thinking of something akin to RC4WDs wheel bolts, etc)?

Apart from that, it's coming along really nice and I think the rims/tyres fit really well.

Thanks for the kind words. I am happy with the tires. They are not true scale, but they work well enough for this and will perform well on sand, dust, dirt and gravel (as well as concrete).

In terms of screws, flathead might work well, they would be an option for sure. Very small bolts would stop working effectively I'm afraid.

However, I think I've got a solution which I am happy with. I picked up some 10x10mm square tube, and I'm going to use that with double sided tape to use to stick the sides together. This won't be a frame, but used to stick the relatively rigid panels together at 90 degrees to each other, just like I did before.

The main benefits are that rather than fix the panels together at a few points along the length of the join they'll be fixed down the whole way which will eliminate the slight gaps in the panels. It also means I don't have to drill lots of holes. The weight of the square section is low, so they weigh about as much as the 3D printed parts.

I tried a prototype here, and it's very strong. I think any crash that would pull these apart would cause massive damage to the cab or snap the panels from the holes in the original design.

Having made a full sized prototype, I can also explore if I want to change anything with the sizes.

So a lesson learned. It was cool to try this way - mechanically and design philosophically I prefer a screwed in option to sticky tape, but use the tools you have available and the skills you have!

Nikko85 · April 28

So I tried the new method, and it's much better!

Main thing is that the joints are neater and it doesnt have those bolts everywhere.

I also slightly increased the length of the body and also size of the arches. It's subtle but I think the proportions are nicer.

The new method weighs a little more, but only 20 grams or so.

Going to reinforce a little more then think of how to attach it all to the chassis.

kontemax · May 1

On 4/29/2025 at 12:29 AM, Nikko85 said:

So I tried the new method, and it's much better!

Main thing is that the joints are neater and it doesnt have those bolts everywhere.

I also slightly increased the length of the body and also size of the arches. It's subtle but I think the proportions are nicer.

Too short in my opinion.
The rear cab is 1/3 shorter than the original truck.

Cheers

Max

Nikko85 · May 2

On 5/1/2025 at 11:33 PM, kontemax said:

Too short in my opinion.
The rear cab is 1/3 shorter than the original truck.

Cheers

Max

Thanks,

I've been using this as a rough guide, using the height of the cab as a fixed starting point to determine other sizes. This is a slightly different design from what I am making, but close enough.

From these ratios I get an ideal rear cab length of around 30 cm, mine is 27.6, so I'm around 8% short.

I could (should) have reversed the rear axle to bring the rear cab an extra 12 mm, making 29 cm, which would have looked better.

However I measure I get a rear cab that's approx. 1.8 x longer than the height of the front cab.

Were I to extend to 37 cm (an extra 1/3) it would look very off!

Pylon80 · May 2

Truck looks amazing @Nikko85 and is a very unique and inspiring project.

TurnipJF · May 2

Looking better and better!

For the rear arches, I think the height looks good, but you might want to make them wider like in your reference picture? That would look even better still I think.

chris.alex · May 3

Very nice project. Love it!

Nikko85 · May 4

On 5/2/2025 at 9:30 PM, TurnipJF said:

Looking better and better!

For the rear arches, I think the height looks good, but you might want to make them wider like in your reference picture? That would look even better still I think.

There are a few different designs. The reference picture (with the measurement lines) has wider arches, but the red TGA first pictured seems to have more circular ones.

On 5/3/2025 at 10:40 AM, chris.alex said:

Very nice project. Love it!

Many thanks, it's been by far the longest and most complex build I have started!

Last night and this morning I got a fair chunk more done. It's not finished, but the end is in sight.

I attached the rear cab, mounting using a brace that goes across the bottom into body posts. These are using holes the battery cover would usually use.

I also added body posts in the rear attached with a printed holder into the rear bumper. This can be easily lowered or raised to give more or less height.

I measured and measured and measured again, but when I mounted the rear and front cabs did not align, and so I though the rear must have been on wrong..

After about three hours of head scratching I realised the front was not on straight, so no wonder it was not lining up.

So I carefully redid the front mounts. It all sits slightly lower now, but this will lower the COG.

I also added external arches for the rear wheels. These are made of foam sheet. It is stable enough to stay in shape, but flexible enough to conform to the arches I cut.

Arches also extend to make the mud flaps. You can see where the rear body clips will be.

The inside looks like this.

The same L brackets I was going to use to fix the panels now hold up the brace which acts as the mounting plate and also the arches. The white 10x10 is not stuck together but each section stick to the panels with double sided foam tape. It feels solid.

And this is how it all looks. Overall I am very happy with the proportions and lay out. Tires work, scale is good and not too out from the 1:1 version despite a fixed track width and wheelbase I was largely stuck with. There's lots of parts not very scale, there should be a significant radius between the top and side panels, the wheels stick out too far, and it is slightly short, but with a little imagination it looks close enough to me.

Still lots to do. The front wheels need arches on the rear cab. I need to paint the front cab parts a matching red also paintok the arches black.

I also need to find a way to attach the cab, as at the moment it just pivots on the front hinge. I will add a non scale bumper to keep it safe.

I need to make a battery holder, and add the electronics. Lastly I need to add decals.

But, it is certainly getting there! It a feels pretty solid and it's not too heavy either, so it should run ok, probably a 45 turn motor will give fun scale speed.

Nikko85 · May 9

So close now!

I added the front arches.

I also worked out how integrate the body posts into the battery holder design.

I use 6mm body posts with spacers. These hold the battery door which clips on. On the left side the spacer is also the body posts which holds up the body.

I can then clip on a door. The result is a battery that now neatly tucks into the chassis and can't be seen with the body on.

The only mechanical issue problem to solve is holding down the cab.

As it pivots from the front I think I can use a hair band to clip it down.

Nikko85 · May 14

So close to the end now! This has been my longest build by a mile, in fact I've started and finished multiple builds whilst doing this one, so I'll be happy when it's all wrapped up.

After a lot of head scratching I was able to break down the Bruder cab into smaller parts so I could spray paint.

I mainly took these as a record of how to put it back again!

Most of the parts just got sprayed red to match the rear and wheels although I spray painted the arches black to match the real life trucks.

The colour match is pretty good, and I'm happy with the painting. I just use Hycote acrylic sprays for these platics. They dry in minutes and I've never had runs or big issues. I tend to do very light sprays, which gives quite a matt finish, which is what I want.

After paining I then added some decals. I cut the MAN decals out by hand, using a circle cutter for the arch. Thankfully the MAN logo is pretty geometric so wasn't too tricky once I realised that I could make them on a grid..

I then added some decals I had lying around. I had half an idea of matching the real life trucks, but I'm more taking them as inspiration.

Thoughts?

I'm not sure about the rear top corner, it looks a little too busy for me. I find decals strange, you either seem to want to just add one or two, or really carpet bomb an area until suddenly it makes sense. It's a fine art that I don't quite have down. So it might be it now looks too busy, but then a couple of stickers MORE and then it all just fits into place.

I've only done one side, so I'll start the other side with the MAN decals and then slowly decide if more is better. I've become quite adept at taking this back off with a blade and putting back on the sheet!

SlideWRX · May 15

Race vehicles tend to have a couple spots where they 'carpet bomb' sponsors, so it doesn't look out of place.

JimBear · May 15

The decals look fine to me, but as you write, a couple of more might do it even better.

Thanks for showing a bit of how to take the Bruder cab apart ... I rescued a cab (Mercedes one, less the windshield part) from the recycling sack at home, to squirrel away for better times. We'll see if they come or if it gets re-recycled eventually, for lack of time.

Nikko85 · May 15

1 hour ago, JimBear said:

The decals look fine to me, but as you write, a couple of more might do it even better.

Thanks for showing a bit of how to take the Bruder cab apart ... I rescued a cab (Mercedes one, less the windshield part) from the recycling sack at home, to squirrel away for better times. We'll see if they come or if it gets re-recycled eventually, for lack of time.

I will have a play. I will do the MAN logo on the other side and then add them slowly so I can compare A and B. I used to always do both sides of stickers at the same time, but realised I was doubling up the work if I decided to move or remove something.

Yes, it really took some work to take apart. It's not really designed to be broken up so there we a few times when I thought something might snap, but it ended up fine. If you do have the time I would recommend, it's been a really fun build.

Nikko85 · May 16

Finished!

It may need a few tweaks after some proper running but for now this is done and ready to go.

In the end I pulled back a little on the stickers. I didn't go for a full recreation of the 1:1 truck, mainly as I don't have a way to make decals. I was pretty happy with the DIY Man logo, that circle cutter really made a few hard parts on this build much easier.

All in all a fun build.

Runs super smooth and looks great doing it. I may get a faster motor, but will test with the 35T first. I might have to add a somewhat non scale bumper.