Making the Blackfoot Xtreme, more Extreme.

[MadAnt]

The Blackfoot, what an iconic Tamiya monster truck it has become. Over the years it has evolved with different suspension setups and two, yes just two different chassis (change in color does not count). I've never owned a Blackfoot, I have cars that are very close in relation, but unless I put in the work to swap some parts, it does not count. If some of yall have read my "Let's Build a Dagger" thread, then some of you may know that I have become a fan of the WR-01 platform. I think you can tell where this is going... Yup! I'm now the owner of a WT-01, but not just any WT-01, a Blackfoot Xtreme WT-01. Unfortunately it does not have a body and has some condition issues, which is not a big issue because I have some plans. The truth about the Blackfoot Xtreme is that there is nothing extreme about it, other than the graphics, I plan on fixing that.

In my opinion, the King Blackfoot the best looking truck out of the entire series, so some of that will be my inspiration for this project. Anyway here is a sneak peek of a repair just to tease all of you.

[MadAnt]

While I'm a bit under the weather right now, I can still plan things out. I want to use the styling of the King Blackfoot for my inspiration and make the Xtreme more extreme. So on the to do list is finding the right parts that will fit the theme.

I aready have a lexan body that should fit the wheelbase and not look short. For the graphics I'll order a decal set or two from those guys in Canada along with other decal sets that I need. I do need shocks, longer than the stock shocks, so I'm thinking of maybe going with some Hotshot II shocks since they are about 87mm eye to eye and are red in color. I will make a set of custom shock towers from 3mm ABS, which should be more than strong enough. The wheels I think need to be red too, I have another set of white GF02 wheels that I can paint and I will probably get another set just to have as spares. Since I want to save the original bumper, I might make a bumper mount that can accept the old blackfoot bumper, which I think might look pretty good and do a good job.

For the performance I've gone ahead and installed a Team Orion Method SV2 17x2 motor. From my testing and experience, this motor should provide plenty of speed and power, plus I'm using a 20 tooth pinion instead of the standard 18 tooth. The speed controller is a recycled Axial AE-1, I don't know who made these for Axial years ago, but it predates the crawler ESC's from Castle Creations. For the steering servo I'm using a Rage RGRS142-16-6VM, which is high torque and has metal gears. I thought about using one of my Tower Pro 996R's, but those things are noisy and slow and yes the spec says it's faster, it looks like a lie to my eyes. Alright, the radio controlling this mess is a good old Airtronics/Sanwa MX-3 FM transmitter paired with a Futaba R133F receiver. Lol, that's right, no 2.4Ghz here, we got 75Mhz FM. Why? Because it saves me money using what I already have and what are the chances someone else is on the same frequency these days. (I do need to get more crystals.)

Anyway, stay tuned, here is a teaser photo.

[MadAnt]

Well... I have a running roller thingy now. I took the Blackfoot Xtreme out for just a quick test and it's awful. I mean it handles great accelerating in a straight line, but that's about it. Cornering and braking is just not great and it's due to the super soft front suspension I have setup as a place holder. The shocks I'm using have internal springs which are not really up to the task. Also the original tires are just stale and have flat spots, which is why I have Traxxas Sledgehammer tires in the rear. Once I have the right shocks and springs, I think there will be a big improvement in handling. 

So, next on the to do list is finding some nice red shocks with good springs. 

[MadAnt]

Bit of an update:

Decals have been ordered.

I still need to find the perfect red shocks, everything is just too shiny, so some traxxas truck shocks will be the place holders for now. 

I might paint the body this weekend and see if I can change any settings with the speed controller. The braking is too strong and punch off the line seems dialed back a bit.

[MadAnt]

No painting this weekend, it rained, but I did get the front shocks fitted for now. I'm using the old shocks from my Hotshot II, I will have to order a couple sets of the re-re parts to achieve my vision. I have another set of white wheels, so when the weather is good and I have some time I can paint those too, but I'll see. The spring time allergies have not been kind to me this year, making me feel sick, like I have the flu. I want to do so much, but I keep feeling exhausted and sucks having a hard time breathing while coughing and hacking. At least I feel better when it rains.

[Grumpy pants]

Nice project, great fun these chassis’ as well.

Tough as old boots and plenty you can do with them.

Hopefully your allergies pass soon along with the right weather to paint 🎉

[TwistedxSlayer]

Looking forward to seeing how this goes!

[MadAnt]

Another update! More rain and not enough time for testing and tuning. Still can't paint yet, because it won't stop raining during my free time. The decals along with other decals for other projects are in shipping limbo. I don't want to start or continue on another project until I get this one to a more functional and at a more finished point. I've had no time to run any of my other cars as well, oh well.

[jonboy1]

Hope you get to make some progress on this soon - being held up by weather and post is deeply frustrating!

Also, hope you feel a bit better soon too bud - keep going!!! 👍

[MadAnt]

Good news! The weather was nice and I has some free time, so I did a little bit of painting. The body is a 90's ford F-series from JConcepts, it's the same style truck as the Blackfoot Xtreme body, but longer and with larger wheel arches. 

I also had time to paint the new wheels, which are now bright red. I'll take pictures of the painted parts and stuff once they are mounted on the truck.

In the meantime while everything was drying I took the WR-01 Bigfoot 8 dagger out for a rip.

[MadAnt]

This truck is starting to look pretty sweet, but I don't want to completely show it off yet until I get the decals. I can still use another body and wheels in the meantime, just to tease everyone. I keep forgetting to order shocks for it, but I do think the traxxas long shocks that I have will work fine in the rear, so those may stay for a long time. Compared to my twin motor trucks, this one is pretty lightweight, so I'm interested in seeing how well I can get it to handle with some tuning.

Stay tuned, I'll give an update after another test drive.

[MadAnt]

Been a little busy, but some things are slowly getting done. I still need to do some testing with the current shock setup, maybe I might try a few different motors as well. Anyway here is a little teaser photo.

[MadAnt]

The Blackfoot Xtreme is fully operational and looking pretty good. I just had a chance to run it and so far so good, except for a loose wheel nut. Traction is not so great on asphalt, but that is expected due to the pin spikes on the tires. Anyway, I have some photos of the setup.

This was the look I was going for and JConcepts had the perfect lexan body for the job. The longer wheelbase, larger wheel arches and that visor and racer back on this Ford F series body seem to be more well suited for the "Xtreme" name while wearing the Blackfoot Xtreme graphics from MCI. The benefits of having a lexan body over a hard plastic ABS or styrene body shell is less weight and flexibility and for the more extreme use case, that makes a difference. 

Now underneath the shell is a truck more capable than what Tamiya was calling "Xtreme". No tiny fiction shocks here. Instead there are larger shocks that actually do some good work. Up front are a pair of red shocks from a vintage Hotshot II/Super Sabre with 30wt oil mounted onto a repaired shock tower with new mounting positions to accommodate the longer shocks.

In the rear are Traxxas long shocks with soft springs that provide long travel and seem to give a stable ride so far.

In my mind, red wheels seem to fit the theme better than yellow, so I painted a set of GF-02 wheels in bright red. The GF-02 wheels are the same style, but in white and can be purchased as a set of four for cheap. To provide the traction is a set of Traxxas chevron style Sledgehammer tires, which look very similar to the chevron pin spike tires from Tamiya. 

So now the tuning and experiments can begin. There are maybe a few motors I would like to try out and find the sweet spot for this truck, so stay tuned.

[jonboy1]

Love it! Looks awesome and a lot of fun!

 

[Grumpy pants]

Looks great, it’ll be a lot of fun 🎉

[MadAnt]

Had a little run with the more extreme Blackfoot Xtreme today, but I do have bad news. The top speed is definitely fast enough for me with the 17 turn Team Orion Method motor and higher gearing, but it does get hot. The grass is a bit much for it, so I might gear it down in the future or maybe try one of those fan cooled 550 size motors. The handling was fine and due to the understeer from most of the weight being in the rear, it was quite hard to traction roll. I did get it to tumble after hitting the grass at high speed and broke the steering knuckle. 

The problem I see is that the ball-stud for the tie rod only threads in halfway through the hole and due to its design, a good amount of leverage can break the plastic. This is something I addressed on the WR-01 Bigfoot Dagger by threading a screw completely through and putting a ball on top, I'll put a photo below.

Anyway that's not really the bad news. When I went to take a photo of the truck, I dropped my phone and broke the screen. If getting that fixed costs too much I'll try to replace it myself.

Anyway, again, I might try aluminum steering knuckles or do the thing I did for the Bigfoot Dagger, I don't know yet. I have spare parts, so I can get this fixed in a jiffy and be back up and running for now.

[MadAnt]

Well, I decided to go with aluminum knuckles, so I bought a set of Hot Racing knuckles for the front and rear. The front knuckles were a direct swap using the old hardware and rear knuckles I did not bother to change because the hardware I have for the stock camber links will not work. The screw pins I have are threaded for plastic and I would need screw pins with machine thread, but if I had longer threaded camber links, I could use the hardware that came with the set. No big deal, even though it's listed for a WR-02, I can use the metal rear knuckles on a few other cars if I want.

Normally I like sticking with plastic components to take the blow for those accidental moments, but I'm still using the plastic C hubs and the super flexible control arms so it should still be ok in my mind. 

Due to the height of the pivot ball and taller tires, the stock steering knuckles do flex a little bit and since this Blackfoot Xtreme is doing extreme speed now, maybe removing some of the steering flex is a good idea. Speaking of speed, I do want to get one of those GPS speed tracker thingys to see how fast some of my cars go with certain changes and upgrades. 

[MadAnt]

I have more breakages, this time it's the rear shock tower ear. It had cracks in it, so it was just a matter of time before it gave up.

I might do a similar repair that I had done in the front or replace the gear box halves since the mounting holes are worn out. If I replace them, then I will reinforce the rear tower, and if not, I'll fill the screw holes with JB weld and drill them out.

Anyway, I did get some top speed recordings done. With a full charge running the team Orion method 17x2 motor and an 20 tooth pinion gear, the top speed was 22MPH, which is more than fast enough for me. With that amount of speed it was hard to stop, causing me to crash into a bush scratching up the front bumper. Since it was running a bit hot, I decided to install an 18 tooth pinion gear, which slowed the top speed down to 20MPH.

I would just like to add that most of the breakages I've had and worn screw holes are from previous condition issues. This was a cheap blackfoot Xtreme and I gave it new life with some improvements. It may be broken for now, but it will come back better than it was before. That's the game here, try things out and hopefully make it better for a reasonable cost.

[MadAnt]

Ok, a bit of an update. I took the gearbox out and discovered almost all of the mounting screw bosses  are cracked. The cracks were a bit hard to see but it dose explain why most of the screws I took out kept spinning and that I did not catch them when I installed the bearings. I was just hoping for stripped screw holes that I can fix with JB weld, but the damage is too much for me to waste any time on. So I ordered two sets of new gearbox housings which I might have some time next week, then I might make some reinforcing rings to put over the screw bosses. 

Also, I think I will go over the technique to installing certain screws in some plastics. I usually just work them back and forth until they get really hot from friction, then drive them in. I don't use the trick of heating screws with fire like some people do. My method seems to work ok and I think I'm not the only one who does it.

Anyway, I'll update this thread when new stuff happens.

[MadAnt]

The Blackfoot Xtreme is back together, I noticed that the dog bone shafts were twisted, but as long as the metal is not yielding and there is no vibrations, I'll keep running them. For the screw holes in the shock tower, I tapped threads for machine screws so that there will be no pressure from the screws expanding the plastic. I do have some plans for making the shock tower stronger, but that will be in the future.

 

[MadAnt]

We have been having some really hot weather, so no running RC's for awhile. For now I'll just take care of some RC projects indoors.

[MadAnt]

Update! The Blackfoot Xtreme got extremely dirty

After work I had a chance to thrash the truck around in some dirt and gravel. The shocks were doing alright soaking up the rough terrain, but the tires were slippery. This thing would skid everywhere, traction would be easily lost when ran hard. However with some fine throttle control, some pretty neat drifts or power slides could be achieved. The low center of gravity with the WT-01 platform really helps the handling, keeping this sliding machine on all fours on the dusty gravel. Although the tires were struggling for traction, they still had enough bite to grab the gravel and throw yards away.

It was just fun, running the truck like an mad man. There are a few things I would like to change, like tires and the weak servo saver, but that can wait for now. It was a good fun run, the only damage to report is the chipped paint on the wheels.