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Terz1

Maverick scout to Jeep Rubicon scaler(ish) build

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Hi guys. Ive been wanting to do a scaler project for a while after seeing some amazing builds and vids on youtube of them going over the trails and going over various obstacles such as water, mud, logs, rocks and everything else they throw at these trucks.

The model Ive been looking into using for this build was the axial ax10 or scx10. The price has been putting me off though. I then came across lots of builds and info on the maverick scout. Everyone that has had them seem to love them and as it is basically a copy of an axial ax10 and built by Hpi I thought for £119 rtr delivered I can't go wrong.

Here's the scout when it arrived. Everything laid out and ready for fun.

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My long term plan is to buy the scx10 chassis and transfer all the running gear over to it. Firstly though I need to change that scout body! So I ordered a pro-line jeep rubicon body shell. :)

Someone mentioned the scouts wheelbase as 330mm and I tried to confirm this but went for the jeep rubicon shell anyway as it's listed as 330mm. Unfortunately when the scout arrived it had a wheelbase of about 315mm (I'll update when I measure it). So I cheated the arches on the jeep shell and over trimmed the front of the back of the arch and the back of the the front arch. The wheels now fits nicely in the centre of the arches.

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Here you can see the body mounts pushed out by the white washers we all replace with bearings. They were just to short for the jeep shell. I knew those washers would come in handy sometime! :lol:

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Now I'm happy with how the shell sits on the maverick I masked it all up and decided to do the main body gun metal grey and the roof, front and rear bumper and arches black. Here it is and my favourite part of doing the body work, the removal of be protective film!

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And finally the last bit of the body work for the moment which is stickering it up. I'm used to tamiya cutting out my decals. The pro-line ones need you to be handy with the scissors. I think it looks soo much better than the scout body.

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So that's how it sits at the moment. I have to admit when I used the scout I loved the articulation on it. Nothing seemed to be able to get in its way. I suppose it's a crawler after all. I like it so much in fact I want to hold off on the scx10 chassis for a while and have it as a jeep rubicon 'high lift'. So it will have more articulation than a scaler but less than a crawler. I'm going to do this by fitting some rubber tubing on the shock shafts to reduce the shock travel and prevent the wheels hitting the shell.

I've heard there are lots of free and cheap mods which can be done to the maverick to increase its performance and abilities so as I do them I'll put them in this build thread so others can see how to do them. There are also many compatible axial parts so I'll look into which of these work with the scout.

Body wise I'd love some scale items on there such as a snorkel, wing mirrors, spare petrol tank, roof rack etc to make it more realistic. I'd like to do an interior too with driver. I wonder if pro-line do interiors too?? Seats, dashboard, steering wheel would look so much better than a bunch of wires.

Thanks for looking and I'll update it again soon. :)

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Looking good Terz1. That Scout body is an absolute dog isn't it! But people will buy them so stuck it on eBay and generate some funds 😉

You know the Scout has 3 holes to fix the upper and lower links into. You can move them to the outer holes and get a little extra wheelbase length for free. The drive shafts should be able to handle that ok. Make sure you move both the upper and lower links to the same setting otherwise it'll tilt how it holds the axle compared to the transmission.

I found removing the pointless axle guards and dremelling off their mounting points gave it much better clearance and the axle cases are easily strong enough on their own.

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Thanks mr crispy and mongoose. I do like the new body more than the scouts. :)

I'll do those mods that you mentioned mr crispy. I can't leave these things alone so I can't wait to get modifying everything else. Your scout build was one of the inspirations to do this. Really liked it. Thanks for the heads up on the scout body too. It's going straight on ebay. ;)

I've just added the rubber tubing onto the shock shafts. I put 25mm tubing on the front and 30mm on the rear. The wheels don't make any contact with the arches now and it takes seconds to remove to get the full articulation of a crawler.

I tried to get it as even as possible....

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A pic of the tubing on the shaft

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It still has a nice amount of travel left to get over those bumps and dips :D

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In the second picture which shows the tubing on the shaft can you see one of the springs is black and the other is silver (the front 2 are both silver too). Does anyone that has a scout know why that is? Does it come with different strength springs? I don't know if I imagined it but the black one did seem stiffer when sliding it up to put the tubing on. I may have just imagined this though.

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It is my understanding that the one stiffer spring is there to help prevent the axle twisting relative to the chassis when power is applied.

Proline make a nice plastic moulded roof rack that is a lot lighter than the metal ones from Fastrax and the like, which would give you somewhere to mount a few scale accessories without raising your CoG unduly.

http://www.modelsport.co.uk/pro-line-rectangular-scale-off-road-tubular-roof-rack-for-1-10-crawlers-and-monster-truck/rc-car-products/370001

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Thanks xv. I thought they might have put another front spring on by mistake. Glad they haven't.

I'll check out the roof rack too. The lower the centre of gravity the better. I'll be moving the battery, esc and receiver to help with this too. Love your Pajero by the way. Saw it in another thread.

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Yep the black spring is stiffer as XV Pilot said. I think I also added a few spare shock collars on mine to tune the spring resistance and minimise the torque twisting. As standard when I nailed the throttle the whole body would lean over to one side at first!

Keeping the weight low down is a priority, so relocating the battery is a good start and weighting the wheels helped a lot.

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Yep the black spring is stiffer as XV Pilot said. I think I also added a few spare shock collars on mine to tune the spring resistance and minimise the torque twisting. As standard when I nailed the throttle the whole body would lean over to one side at first!

Keeping the weight low down is a priority, so relocating the battery is a good start and weighting the wheels helped a lot.

:lol: Mine does the body roll. I think I've got some spare shock collars of varying sizes so I'll experiment to see which works best.

I've just took it for a spin in the back garden (well over an hour ago now). Handled the obstacles fantastically even with it's new shock mod which reduced travel. I'll have to make a vid of it in action.

Thanks again for the advice guys. I've got lots of ideas but the more the better. :)

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So after reading about the free mods to do on the scout and other things which could improve its performance I thought I'd tackle the cars COG first. On the maverick scout all the electrics and worst of all the battery are on a plastic tray which sits on top of the the chassis which I think is the worst place for it weight distribution wise for a crawler. It may be the best place to keep it out of the wet stuff but I'm aiming for the lowest COG I can get so the battery, esc and receiver had to be moved.

Here's how the battery and electrics sit originally (I forgot to leave the battery in on this shot :rolleyes: . It goes next to the receiver and esc).

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There are already some pre drilled holes in the chassis so I cut the tray holding the battery and electrics in half and it fit nicely in the middle of the chassis with the lower half resting on the upper drop links.

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Here is the tray with all the electrics fitted. It still has full articulation and the electrics don't come into contact with anything. Which is good! Lol

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I used the other side of the electrics tray and cut the other side off and fit it into the conveniently placed holes in the chassis. It was a much smaller section as it just needed to support the battery. Thanks for this tip mr crispy! ;) This is how the battery position is now. It's placed much lower down in the chassis and is nearer to the front axles which will help with traction too.

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So after all the cutting and moving this is how it all looks with the repositioning of the battery, esc and receiver.

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And finally a comparison shot of the battery, esc and receiver, before and after. In the before shot you can see they are all located in a tray above the top of the shocks. In the after shot all the above are now positioned below the top of the shocks. The battery is also applying more weight to the front axle which in turn should provide more grip as well as lowering the COG.

Before...

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After...

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So I'm really pleased with how that all turned out. Everything was free to do, it just takes a little time and makes it even more capable over obstacles. And we all love tinkering with our rc's so it was time well spent :) .

More updates and mods are on there way.

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Thanks s2-g2. I've just finished some of the latest mods. So far I've lowered the centre of gravity by moving the battery, esc and receiver lower down in the chassis and I thought I'd take this even further by adding some wheel weights. This again can be a free to cheap mod. Some people have used wire and window lead strips etc. This time however I did buy a full set of tyre weights and at the same time while the beadlocks were off i thought I'd include some star cut foam to increase the grip of the tyre and allow it to traverse obstacles even easier than before. Again the standard tyre foam can have wedges cut out so it can be a free mod. There are some good you tubes showing how to do this if you want to do it for free.

This is what recently arrived from RcBitz :)

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I dismantled the beadlocks to put the weights and star cut sponges in. I'm really impressed that they are real beadlocks too, to say the scout cost £119 rtr including delivery.

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Before I fitted the star cut sponges I used one as a template on the original pink sponge so when it eventually wears out I can just cut out the wedges and install these.

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I then added the weights to the front and the back wheel rims. I was careful not to cover the air holes in the rims so they can still deflate and inflate quickly while climbing the terrain. After looking around for info about weighting the wheels it seems that it's best to have around double the weight in the front wheels compared to the back. I'll see how these perform and may add or remove weights to improve the balance if needed. This is just a starting point really.

Rear weights attached - 70g (2.47oz) each wheel

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Front weights attached 155g (5.47oz) each wheel

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So that's the latest update. The COG is much lower and the tyres should get much more grip with the wheels weights and star cut tyre sponges. More to come soon.

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After reading up on the scout I've heard the gear box is bone dry when you receive it and so are the gears in each axle. So I pulled it a part to have a look. Sure enough the gears were bone dry. So I got a tube of grease and went to work. The gears in the axles are metal but the gears in the main gearbox are plastic. They should last longer and run smoother now they are all greased up. I've heard the axial gears are a direct fit so if they need changing ever that's were I'll look.

Bone dry gears out of the box. Don't forget to lube them up! The rear axle was the same but looked identical so didn't take a piccy.

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Main gearbox all greased up. Forgot to take a picture opened up but this has plastic gears.

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More on its way...

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Looking good Terz1. Wish I'd thought to cut the battery tray up like that. I found the standard tyres gave pretty good grip and I didn't even do the star cut foams. I did weight mine and I think I drilled out the vent holes to 3mm. You can always cover the vents with tape if you find its too much.

I had a few people tell me that battery location would hinder the front axle articulation but never noticed any problems with it. I did always use rounded Nimh packs back then and I think that helped. I wonder if a square hardcase lipo would be different?

Either way it puts most of the battery weight into the front axle without that over crowded look you get from saddle packs or strapping it onto the servo. And using black coloured packs helped 😉

Looking forward to your next update.

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Thanks mr crispy. I was pleased with the battery tray mod. It fits all the electrics in perfectly and the tabs fit nicely in the pre drilled chassis holes. A lot of the tray has been discarded to so a tiny bit of weight saving too. Very tiny. :lol:

I'll try making the holes in the wheels bigger, I love these free mods.

I think regarding the battery pack hindering front articulation. Mine seems fine like yours. I have reduced shock travel by 20mm at the front though so the movement is reduced which may help. I did this to prevent he wheels hitting the body arches. I think you're right though the curved edges of the nimh will help and the square lipo hard case may interfere.

I've done a few more mods so will put them on here soon. :)

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So I did another couple of free mods recently. Both really simple to do. Firstly I removed these small black tabs which allow a greater steering angle and will decrease it's quite big turning circle.

Before

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After

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I also removed the axle guard and it's fixing points which will give me some more ground clearance.

Before

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After

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Finally I saw a battery plate from axial which is a piece of plastic and some cable ties. This is to support the battery when it's resting on the upper links. I can't remember how much they cost but it was around £5 or £6. I thought I can make one of those so got some plastic packaging, a blister pack and cut it to shape from a paper template I made. Then using a hole punch I punched some holes for the cable ties and then fitted it to the upper links.

Just like the axial one except totally free. :)

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Here it is fitted waiting for the battery.

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So those are the latest free mods. I've heard you can move the lower links inwards which helps with performance so I'll attempt this in the near future.

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The final free mod I did was probably the easiest of all. I put another collar on the shock with the stiffer black spring. Apparently it's there to prevent torque twist but only works to a point. So to stiffen it up I added another couple of collars and it worked a treat! :) The body stays horizontal now as before it used to flop to one side under acceleration.

Rear shock with stiffer black spring with extra collars added.

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So with all those mods in place here's my first proper run. This is the first time I've done any crawling. The first time I've used a pistol grip transmitter and my first youtube video. A lot if firsts! :lol: I just threw objects down, drove over them, filmed it and then edited it all together. I'll plan things out next time. Hope you enjoy.

Next scale accessories :) .....

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So now another fun bit which I've been looking forward to. Fitting the accessories. Thanks for all the advice from members that gave great advice on where to get them. So first up was the driver. When I went out to the local toy store I had han solo in mind as he seemed the most normal of all the characters. When I got there though they had reduced lots of their star wars stock (how can they phase out star wars! :o ). Fortunately I found a WWE character called Deane Ambrose that fit the bill. That and the fact he was one of only a few that had tops on! :lol:

So here's Deane near his new ride. Scale wise he's nearly spot on.

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I knew he'd have to be a torso up figure so here he is after an encounter with a hacksaw which he totally lost.

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I then had to make him an interior to sit in. After looking around I found a lexan pro-line interior which would fit the pro-line jeep wrangler body but at £25 excluding delivery and factoring in paints etc it would have cost between £30 and £40. So I didn't pull the trigger on it. Instead I found some old blister packs (the transparent plastic sealed packs they use for packaging stuff ) and set about making a paper template so I coukd make my free interior.

When I perfected the paper template I cut up the blister packs and shaped them to the shape of the inside of my jeep interior. Here's the bare interior. Not exactly pretty but it's going to be completely covered.

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I then wanted an interior to put on top of this. So after a few google searches I found this birds eye view of an interior. Which when printed out on photo paper ended up like this...

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I then glued this onto my blister pack interior support panel and after attaching some flaps and adding velcro for quick removal I fitted it into the jeep wrangler shell.

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So that's my guy in the car and his interior. Much more fun doing it my self and so much cheaper. As in free. The best price.

Next. More scale items fitted....

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I'm getting near to finishing off how I'd like the shell to look. I had some nice packages arrive in the post....

Roof rack, light bar, wing mirrors, jerry cans, cooler box, shovel, hoe, axe, snorkel, front and rear light lenses and light control unit.

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Then the fun part of placing them all on the jeep. I did a little test fit on the roof rack.

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So here they are fitted to the jeep. I made paper templates so the when I drilled the hole for the roof rack and light bar it would be straight and true. As well as the purchased accessories you'll notice the home made ones there too. One because it's fun fo make and secondly it'll bring the cost of the build down too. You could easily spend into 3 figures accessorising your scaler.

Home made stuff includes the bundle of wood made from balsa wood packing and tied with some string, silver suit case which was a sweet box with straps added. Plastic handle will be added soon as will some travel stickers. 3x sleeping mats made from old fleeces. And finally the bungie cords holding everything on the roof rack were made from hair elastics with coloured paper clips twisted around each end and then curled into a hook.

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I've got to paint and fit the snorkel and a tyre and cover will be fitted to the rear door. Also foot bars will be fitted to each side.

Next up lighting.....

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That's looks great and very innovative. I like the interior print out, looks a lot like the Axial decals and details the space well. That driver has a certain Russel Crowe look to him as well 😉 Im gonna have to give those bungee cords a try, they look very good!

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Thanks mr crispy :) . There's a great youtube video on how to make the bungee cords. I'll put it on here later. I found some you could buy but they were something like £8 for a pack of three. The hair elastics and coloured paper clips do look like a mini version of the real thing.

I think Russell crowe is quite a big chap now so he might be moonlighting as a WWE wrestler. :lol:

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Lol,

I thought exactly the same about Russell Crowe!

Great work there Terz, really good imagination with printing off that interior, looks really effective. It seems to crawl pretty well too, I know nothing about crawling really but it's done well getting up those massive steps!

Good job on the vid too, the only thing I don't like is the wires all showing on the light bar, maybe put some black heat shrink on them so at least they are all the same colour.

Rgds

Nito

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Thanks nitomor. I thought the exact same thing regarding the wires, they need to be hidden. So did a few people I've shown. I thought with it being Fastrax they would have provided some black heat shrink to make them less noticeable.

I plan to make an enlosure for them. If the enclosure I make isn't up to the job I think like you said heat shrink will make them less obvious and will be easier to do.

I think you'd like crawling nito. It's a totally different pace to the usual buggies and trucks. It's great going on trails and tackling different types of obstacles. If you did want to give it a try the tamiya CR-01 chassis cars look fantastic. Some great threads on some of these at the moment. I went for the scout to get a feel for crawling as it's so cheap, £119 delivered rtr from modelsport. The higher end stuff is crom axial and rc4wd. The scout is a copy of an axial ax10 and made by hpi. Really like it. I've fit all the lighting now so I'll pop that on here shortly.

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Cheers Terz,

It does indeed looks quite therapeutic! It's next on my list. I'm looking at the CR01 Landcruiser primarily, also have a Blackfoot III shell that it seems goes nicely on the CR01 chassis. I'm really looking forward to it. I intend to try the Axial drag brake esc and convert to 4ws as I have a Futaba FF7 radio which should give plenty of functionality. My friend quite fancies a Unimog so hopefully I'll lure him along for the ride!

Nito

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I think I definitely have to steal that hairband trick. Did you just snip them with scissors? I'm concerned they would just fray at the ends?

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Cheers Terz,

It does indeed looks quite therapeutic! It's next on my list. I'm looking at the CR01 Landcruiser primarily, also have a Blackfoot III shell that it seems goes nicely on the CR01 chassis. I'm really looking forward to it. I intend to try the Axial drag brake esc and convert to 4ws as I have a Futaba FF7 radio which should give plenty of functionality. My friend quite fancies a Unimog so hopefully I'll lure him along for the ride!

Nito

I suppose it is therapeutic compared to the fast paced buggies and trucks :) . If you see some of the youtube crawling vids it's a different type of driving skill as to how you tackle the obstacles, particularly the rocks compared to the usual racing or bashing. The CR01 land cruiser looks like a really nice kit. Its one that I looked into. I think someone put the BF3 body on it and it looks awesome. Check out green meenies 'show of your CR01' thread. Some really nice examples.

You've got some good plans there. I'll keep an eye out for your crawler build. ;)

I think I definitely have to steal that hairband trick. Did you just snip them with scissors? I'm concerned they would just fray at the ends?

Hi chris. Yes I just snipped then with scissors. They usually have a metal section holding the hair elastic in a loop. I shipped this out, then to stop any fraying I lit a match and just popped each end into the flame very briefly, just a dab into it. Sealed the ends very well.

Here's the youtube. Enjoy your free scale bungee straps :D

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