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jwrAMC

My New F-150 Stadium Truck Begins...

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Today I received my Tamiya F-150 Race Truck from Tower along with the 8mm bearings. The 11mms are en route along with metal dogbones, and other bits.

I figured I'd get past my body dilemma by just doing it. In another thread somewhere I mentioned I have an OOP Andy's Jeep Comanche body that I want to use...but it's about 11/16" too long in the wheelbase. So, after considerable thought, I just went ahead and started cutting (the Horror! The HORROR!!)

jeep00lx1.jpg

I knew I needed a way to rejoin the pieces that would lend enough strength that the F-150 body mounts could still be used without the body folding and flopping around. I settled on cutting it as shown.

jeep02bqb1.jpg

The red areas are overlapping portions of the two pieces. They will be joined with very thin double-sided tape. The yellow circles will be rivet locations. Here's the same shot, without the colors...to see the edges and overlap...

jeep02em9.jpg

Here it is atop the F-150 shell, showing the wells now line up.

jeep01uf6.jpg

Note I cut right at the back edge of the cab to preserve a natural seperation point. This also preserved the fuel door detail. In fact, no detail was lost at all..just a bit of bed length. Sadly, I'll probably have to remove the flares as they will hide the tires far inward. The wells also narrow at the top too much, so I'll have to open them up and round the corners more, as on the F-150 bod.

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looks good. I'm looking forward to watching your progress. :)

btw, to bond the two sections together with the overlap, you cna use a product called polyweld - it used this on my repairs to one of my original 959 bodies.

also, why not use wider hexes and maybe offset wheels to fill in the wheel flares instead going the chopshop route?

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looks good. I'm looking forward to watching your progress. :)

btw, to bond the two sections together with the overlap, you cna use a product called polyweld - it used this on my repairs to one of my original 959 bodies.

also, why not use wider hexes and maybe offset wheels to fill in the wheel flares instead going the chopshop route?

Thanks. Will Polyweld work if the pieces are painted? One side of the bond will be underside, naturally.

The wider hubs sounds like a good option...I'll check that out when I get further along. But I'm partial to the stock wheels, so unlikely I'll let those go. :D

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Thanks. Will Polyweld work if the pieces are painted? One side of the bond will be underside, naturally.

The wider hubs sounds like a good option...I'll check that out when I get further along. But I'm partial to the stock wheels, so unlikely I'll let those go. :D

Always bond clear lexan to lexan. Bonding to a painted surface may discolour and may not provide a proper bond.

Based on your method of putting the two pieces together, you should be using the polyweld on the overlapping section (red area). But first test the polyweld with spare/scrap pieces of lexan that you may have. Allow it to bond (squeeze/clamp the overlapping section and hold) and then paint the test section so that you can see for yourself that the colour blend is ok on the overlapped bonded section.

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Well, I'm stalled awaiting supplies for some of my other projects, so I figured I'd do up the F150's stock body today, just for practice.

Here's how she came out...

body1ft0.jpg

body2hy1.jpg

The directions actually suggested the entire bed area be painted black (except the faux wheel), but that seemed awfully bland, so I did the radiator box and the cage in silver, then the rest in black. As far as the decals, I did it by the directions except for the placement of the tiny Ford ovals on the rear panel, and a pair of Tamiya logos on the fenders.

I also customed an HPI prerunner bumper onto the front gearbox...a little tweaking may be needed when the chassis is finished, but so far, so good.

bumper1gx5.jpg

More soon...

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Since I went with the 'stock' paint scheme and markings on this body (except for my minor decal tweak and bed detailing), I wanted to further add a bit of 'me' to it...because I just can't leave things alone. I tripped across this 'driver' figure from Associated on Tower...

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LX2729

...and figured I might be able to make it work for this truck. Here's what I ended up with-

driver1zh7.jpg

driver2oy1.jpg

...and there you have it. Off to bed...

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bumper1gx5.jpg

whoa! cool bumper? i cant find anything on a hpi prerunner? where did you get it?

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i beleive the bumper is from a hpi savage, they come in packs of 2, one front and one rear bumper

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Looking very nice. Any chassis details is it going on the stock TA02 base or something a little more immaginative. I have an F150 shell nib in the cupboard and am tempted to do a 2wd pro truck style machine using an XC rear axle but thats a long project off.

Best Wishes

Ryck

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Beyond bearings and a 'sport tuned' 540 motor, I have no plan for more in-depth modifications, but my addictive personality rarely leaves well-enough alone, so who knows what'll come up. :D

See my signature for a link to my other RCs, to see the mods they've received.

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I'm stalled on filling the gearboxes as my tube of 5x8mm bearings vanished (I blame the cats) and am awaiting delivery of another set. In the meantime, the body is finished (see above). Tonight the electronics are mounted up, the gearboxes attached to the tub, shock towers and body mounts on. Seems a good time to check my 'eyeball'-mounted HPI front bumper.

Putting the body on showed the bumper was too close to the body (pushing the grille rearward), so I cut another slab of plastic from my MT-10M's chassis and made a longer mounting bracket. Here's the finished look:

bumper2pr1.jpg

I'm going to 'chrome' the bumper lights, just to break up all that matte black.

bumper3le4.jpg

I like that it's further forward and far wider than the stock piece. It should protect the front suspension better by preventing the tires colliding with obstacles so often...as well as helping keep the body pretty, longer. The chassis plastic I used for the mount has some flex to it so that it should slowly absorb impacts rather than letting the rig just 'stop' on impact.

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Finally...my 8mm bearings arrived and I finished this rig. After a few minutes of slow break-in, I took it out front and did a bit of testing yesterday.

Here's a short video. Nothing real exciting...just a lot of crawling and bouncing, with a few high-speed runs and tire spins.

http://img532.imageshack.us/my.php?image=f150yj1.flv

Oh...and my home-made front bumper mount broke on impact with a sewer access pipe on my neighbor's lawn. That pipe didn't budge and my baja bumper went flying. For now, the stock bumper is on 'til I come up with a better mount for the pretty piece. [8D]

I shot more video today...much more violent content (she ain't quite so pretty anymore). I'll post a new video later this evening.

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After today's hard-knocks, the F150 is looking a bit more 'used' than it did this morning. First, a couple of pics:

1stbash3zu7.jpg

1stbash6nl8.jpg

...and now, a lengthy video.

Several shots are in slo-mo to accentuate the 'scale' behavior as it navigates humps and bumps...looks very sweet.

As for stability, this thing is much harder to flip than my BF Xtreme...despite being so narrow.

I like this thing a LOT.

http://img532.imageshack.us/my.php?image=f1502cb6.flv

Side note: I don't know if this is an issue common to the F150, but the body posts seem, to me, too short. I was using the most constrictive disc inside the oil shocks, so that they were stiffer. I was running the shock at stock length with the thinnest coil spacer to absorb bumps better, with more travel. Now, it seems to me LESS travel would be counter to the truck's purpose, so putting tubing in them or thicker spacers or stiffer springs would all ruin the 'mood' of the truck and certainly any of its 'scale' behaviors.

But here's the rub (pun intended). The front tires easily come up and grind against the body...even under braking on a flat surface. The body is even mounted steeply leaning forward. (see my earlier video of it, with the HPI bumper on)

My fix for all this was to use the included longer bottom shock mounts and to drill an extra hole at the top of each body post. Together, these tweaks make it nearly impossible for the tires to hit the wheel wells. The rear needed no such changes. But now, all four tires stop at about the same distance from the body.

Anyway, I mention this in case it *IS* a common issue and others might be looking for a solution.

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What a video! love it!

You got the best playground there....i want one :rolleyes:

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@jwrAMC

Its looking very nice and your video was certainly an entertaining read.

I have had a similar issue with my Touareg lately, with having lowered the body for better scale looks so under full compression my cut Xc tyres where just clipping the inside arches of the shell making some nasty grinding noises when taking jumps and bumps at speed. My solution is going to be to add a simple O-ring like those found inside the shock to the outside of the shock shaft, as thus preventing today compression and also making sure that the shocks cannot bottom out totally with the shock end hitting the shock body potentially causing damage.

Also a note I noticed your machine bucking up a lot on the front, Perhaps you would like to try a softer all round shock setting with regards to your oils in order to make the suspension work harder and pivot around the static tub of the car, I think u will find it much easier and more run to drive as well as avoiding those nasty moments where your car rolls/crashes for no apparent reason as the suspension is unable to absorb the impact.

Best Wishes

Ryck

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I think I'll try out the O-rings, and I'll put the kit-supplied 3-hole discs inside the shocks (instead of the 1-holes) to allow oil to get past quicker, thus quickening the compression. I'll let you know how that works out.

Meanwhile, got bored today and decided to finally get on that Comanche shell. Oh, how it pained me to just chop off the front bumper!

Here's where it's at now. I'll be adding more stickers to 'race' it up, but my sponsor sticker sheet pulled a vanishing act today. Grr.

jeepbody1pg6.jpg

jeepbody2nc3.jpg

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Looking very good, and nice clean paint lines there,

I would look at potentially some wider offset wheels there as to me it looks a little kinda narrow with the arches hardly filled,

Perhaps the +4 mm ones from the Enzo sprayed gun metal with some highlift tyres :mellow:

Cheers

Ryck

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Very nice! The body rubbing issue happens with my Toyota. So, it probably happens on the Chevy too. I like the Jeep body. I would try some longer axles with thicker hexes to try and push the wheels out farther. Or...cut the body in half lengthwise and and make it skinnier. :mellow:;)

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Or...cut the body in half lengthwise and and make it skinnier. ;):lol:

Don't make me come over there! :mellow::lol:

I tossed my Honcho body on the chassis....and instantly realized there was no good reason to have cut up the Comanche, as the Honcho looks SO cool on there, and lines right up. Even the tires fill the wells properly. Darn it!!

honchoug7.jpg

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