AlexKyriak’s TT02B MS* (*Monster-y Something...)

[ALEXKYRIAK]

Mmmmm. Nice! Is that Gold or some sort of metallic Yellow? I think I have a gold in the shed....

I agree with you on the lighter colours for this shell. 

[Nitomor]

It’s Auto Air’s Wicked Gold W350 (metallic gold).

I was torn with two colour schemes, so I went with the safe and easier option to begin with and still in keeping with the Vajra theme which is Indian Sanskrit for both Thunderbolt and Diamond, and Vajra was always represented as a gold hand held thing...

 

Also

“Vajira In Sanskrit it means both thunderbolt and diamond and bears their symbolic properties as an unbreakable weapon that slices through any substance”

 

The other scheme was Pink with some diamante vajazzle tatoos on it, putting the Vaj in Vajra! I actually bought a spare shell for that and was watching some vajazzle tattoo diamantes (following the diamond theme too) on ebay! It’s on the to do backburner at some point!

[TurnipJF]

Cheap Vajra? Nah, maybe a modernised Super Levant? Your creation has more in common with the Super Levant, being a truggified version of a shaft drive touring car. Maybe the paint and decal scheme can reflect this somehow?

[Nitomor]

^ How about a “Super Vajra” lol!!

[ALEXKYRIAK]

 

8 hours ago, Nitomor said:

It’s Auto Air’s Wicked Gold W350 (metallic gold).

I was torn with two colour schemes, so I went with the safe and easier option to begin with and still in keeping with the Vajra theme which is Indian Sanskrit for both Thunderbolt and Diamond, and Vajra was always represented as a gold hand held thing...

 

Also

“Vajira In Sanskrit it means both thunderbolt and diamond and bears their symbolic properties as an unbreakable weapon that slices through any substance”

 

The other scheme was Pink with some diamante vajazzle tatoos on it, putting the Vaj in Vajra! I actually bought a spare shell for that and was watching some vajazzle tattoo diamantes (following the diamond theme too) on ebay! It’s on the to do backburner at some point!

And 'Most Cultural Post of the Year' Award goes to Nitomor.... cool, thanks, interesting reading.

Tamiya Super Vajazzle it is, then. With either "Gifts From Nepal" or "Putting the Vaj in Vajra!" decals on the sides...  . Makes taglines like "Being Nuts is Neat" sound so tame...   Tamiya, take note.

 

 

 

 

[TurnipJF]

I suppose that is a lot more interesting and than something based on a historical geographic area encompassing several Middle Eastern war zones...

[ALEXKYRIAK]

No progress today unfortunately on completing the body. I realised I will need to think a bit more carefully about the body mounting - I’ll need some longer body mounts.

I tried to utilise some spare plastic hex hubs to act as risers to the TT02B kit standard body mounts, but I suspect the shell will need four mounting holes, not two as per kit standard, as the shell sits quite high off the chassis and doesn’t touch it at all. One roll and the posts will probably snap off.  

I guess this is fortuitous in some ways as it buys more time to think about body colour, stickers and what do do about increasing the ride height a little bit more. 

[TwistedxSlayer]

Maybe look at TT02T body mounts? The Sandshaker is fitted with 4.

[TurnipJF]

The carbon shock towers appear to have fitments for a pair of TGR style body posts, with a pair of screw holes and a smaller pair of holes below them for the alignment pegs.

[ALEXKYRIAK]

@TurnipJF yes they certainly do, just had a look at these on my other build and you’re right, these may be the way forward (and I was trying to keep this as hop up free as I could...). But getting two rear shocks would mean two kits, with is best part of fifty nicker....!

However clearly cars like Vajra have short towers on front, tall towers on rear so could think about replicating this suspension setup I guess, one to consider.  

@TwistedxSlayer thank mate that looks promising will have to investigate this one further. Will head over to Tamiya Manuals and Setting Sheets. 

[ALEXKYRIAK]

Is this the TGR style mounting you're thinking of, Turnip? The one on the right, part K1?

Source: http://www.tamiya.com/english/rc/rcmanual/tgr.pdf

 

[TurnipJF]

Yes indeed.

[ALEXKYRIAK]

OK so slight issues with the body mounts. I got hold of some 51116 TG10-MK2 G Parts (Body Mount).

 

 The two issues are 1) the stub and the hole are 7mm apart on the body mount component, whereas the two holes in the FRP damper stay are 5mm apart, and 2) the holes on the damper stay are 3mm dia. for the upper hole, and 2mm for the lower hole, whereas the stub is 2.5mm and hole on the body mount post is  2mm dia. Grrr....

 

You can see the two holes per body post on the damper stay in the centre of the stay.

 

Solution is (I guess) clip off the stub and drill out some holes to the correct diameters and positions. Seems a bit fiddly but it's either find new posts and send these ones back, or dive in and get "creative"....

 

 

 

[Man1c M0nk3y]

Could you not get a needle file in the stub hole and relieve the bottom a bit (make the hole pill shaped) to get to the 7mm distance and drill out the top hole to 3mm or use some washers instead of drilling the stay?

Or have I misread/understood. Like you say, depends whether you want to get creative or not and whether to spoil the FRP stay. 

[ALEXKYRIAK]

 

What I'm thinking is to just drill a new hole in the body mount post, having first removed the stub (it's the wrong position to be of use), and widen the existing one if required. This will give me two holes that if done correctly will match up to those in the stay. Then as you say I will just use some nuts/bolts and washers to tighten the post hard onto the stay.

Edit: in the end I found drilling the hole to be a bit too hard to achieve absolutely accurate dimension from the existing hole, and I’d need to order in some slightly longer 2mm screws. So I just screwed an M3 16mm hex through the post hole, which fit nice and tight, and fixed it on with nyloc nuts.

So they’re on:

 

 

 

Edit: Now I've got this in place I can have a crack at the bodies (1x Vajra, 1x Baja Beetle Lexan shell)

Those longer shocks I mentioned earlier still haven't arrived. Maybe the postman is swimming them over from Hong Kong....

[ALEXKYRIAK]

Having tried a few test fits of the bodies,  I have reverted to a single mount on the front end.

I used the stock body mount post and gave it a bit of a hacky riser mod. To rise it,  I used the unused kit plastic hex hubs, and the unused small plastics kit washers, to provide additional vertical lift to the body mount post. This will work better for both bodies:

I fitted this ‘bespoke’ assembly (‘bespoke’ = ‘hope this works...’) into the normal TT02B body mount post screw holes. I used 20mm m3 hex machine screws, these went well into the  gear casing plastic:

 

 

Hope to get working on painting the bodies tomorrow but am concerned about painting in the shed in the cold in winter.

[ALEXKYRIAK]

So did a bit of a test fit with the Vajra shell. Looks ok I guess but I'm unable to decide and look at this objectively.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The three body posts option is clearly better than the four.

There's quite a lot to do still:  firstly with the shocks if and when they arrive, I think they need to be slightly longer on the rear. I am considering reverting the front shock mount to the standard size (currently this car has the rear shock mount on both front and rear), but retaining the slightly longer shock. I think the whole chassis plane needs to lift a bit further away from the floor. @Nitomor, out of interest, what are the shock lengths on the Vajra? There will be quite a degree of testing different permutations here, I'm sure.

I think the springs might need to be a bit stiffer, but there's nice travel distance currently. Once I give it a few test runs I'll then need to decide other things like if this will need universal joints, and a better, more robust steering linkage - I suspect it's a little wobbly and could do with something with less play.

Then there are various other things like correcting the camber, toe-in, etc. I will install the shims as per the test documented earlier in the build thread.

I need to obviously trim up the body a bit better,  paint the shell, fit the rear wing, and select some stickers, and also will need to correct the misplaced holes I first created. I didn't trim the front wheel arches as per the Vajra recommended, as currently I don't think the wheels will hit the body, even at maximum vertical deflection with full lock applied.

 I suspect going to a smaller front shock mount will allow the nose of the body to drop a bit more closely to the chassis plane, and have a slightly meaner look similar to the Vajra, where I suspect the top edge of the bonnet is closer in height to the top of the front wheels. I think currently this body sits a little higher. The bonnet is also hard up against the front damper stays. This all obviously goes back to the "am I just re-creating a Vajra" discussion I'm having a little tussle with myself over...

And lastly, I haven't quite yet given up the notion of trying the Baja bug shell on this, but then it feels like the whole suspension setup needs to drop and make it more like a Blitzer Beetle on steroids....

[Man1c M0nk3y]

I think that looks good. Paint obviously make or break it, but certainly looks promising to me. 

[TurnipJF]

I agree on the lower front tower. Dropping the body front and rear would reduce or even eliminate the gap between body and chassis, and a minimal gap between nose and front bumper would also make it look even better.

[ALEXKYRIAK]

Well in the minuscule amount of time I’ve found to do any RC at all lately, I managed to fit the standard front shock mounts.

Much better fit of the body shell and doesn’t sacrifice much ground clearance / ride height at all. Feels like this is now on the right track.

Have given up waiting for the longer shocks I was supposed to receive from hobbyking in Hong Kong ( they’ve been absolutely shockingly, appallingly bad, worthy of a thread in its own right..... )

So two questions:

1. Does anyone know the Vajra shock lengths front and rear? Just interested to see how thats setup is supposed to be. 

2. Does anyone happen to have a set of Vajra stickers? Ideally I’d like a scan of the window stickers so I can make some masks from them...! Can’t find any on the net  

Thanks all

 

 

[ALEXKYRIAK]

Just out of interest, here are the pics of the "Black Beetle" idea I was toying with - ie a Blitzer Beetle on steroids. I very loosely fitted a Monster Beetle shell (ABS 'hard' plastic) and a polycarbonate Baja bug shell from Kamtec. MB shell is a bit too tight for a proper fit, and is a little too short. Kamtec shell may fair better due to it being slightly bigger than the MB and it's way more flexible, being polycarbonate. Neither shell is shown at the correct height from the chassis, but gave me a rough idea how it would shape up if I used my imagination (ooh, dangerous...). Just though I'd post here out of interest.

 

Polycarbonate Kamtec Baja bug shell

 

 

Tamiya Monster Beetle Shell (minus from headlights/nose piece)

 

 

 

 

[kwkenuf]

I have been thinking of doing a Beetle body on the TT02B I will be doing soon, as you and @Granddad Stinky are doing.  I found Deltaplastik has a Bug body with a w.b. of about 260mm.  Granted it is a wide headlight body, not a narrow as the MB/SS/BB.  

That Kamtec one seems to fit pretty well too.

[ALEXKYRIAK]

Ok so after ages and ages of umming and ahhing over which shell to fit, I decided to go for the Kamtec beetle shell. I cut it out a while back and spent ages doing test fits to get it just right. Luckily my guesstimate for the holes placement was pretty much spot on, sitting the body in the correct position fore / aft.

I also put some shorter shocks to the front, with stiffer springs. I guess this will not be a full all terrain buggy, but more of a street buggy (if such a thing exists)

I went with PS-16 Metallic Blue, backed with Silver. Almost went black, but thought a bit of colour and ‘pop’ might be the right way to go. But this would look awesome in black also. 

Anyway, here is ‘The Blue Beetle’.

Now I just need to sort out some stickers / decals.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Man1c M0nk3y]

Looks fantastic Alex. Nice colour, and build. 

[ALEXKYRIAK]

Thanks @Man1c M0nk3y, it feels great to get the shell done and the chassis stance working with it. 

I was really scared doing the backer colour, thought it might go all wrong. In the end it worked really well and gave the blue a slightly lighter hue and more ‘deep’ appearance (if that makes sense)

It also  made the shell more opaque, as the metallic blue paint was a little transparent, even when using the full can. I sprayed a little bit of blue back onto the silver afterwards so that the shell looks consistently blue both from both sides. Will definitely use this technique again in the future.