Konghead 6x6 trail style

[RC-Gou 17]

Hi, first post here.
I was out of RC for several years until I got the itch to come back. 
But found out that the local racing program all went extinct, and was a bit bummed out.
I decided to go back to my roots and play with Tamiya cars that I did as a child. 

My first project was the Konghead 6x6.
I've been through several crawlers in the past, but the 6x6 really got to me. 
Thought it might be interesting to see how much I can do with this chassis.

I first locked the diffs and gave it some 1.9s I had from a Twin Hammers. 
Wanted a little more travel, so I added longer arms.
Added a little more options, and ended up with this video. 
Still a work in progress. (need to decide whether to use the kit decals)

Let me know if you have other suggestions for the project.
Thanks!

 

[Only4Fun 169]

Now that's a cool Kong'. I really like what you have done with it, and it seems quite a capable crawler. Personally I think it looks a lot nicer without all of the decals and I love the colour. I'm going to go to YouTube and give you a thumbs up  

[87lc2 2853]

That's the coolest Konghead I've seen yet.  Not really sure what else you could do with it, it looks extremely capable as is.  Have you ran it in mud yet?  Doubt you want to get such a nice looking truck muddy, but looks like it would get through pretty well with the locked axles and tires you put on.

[Juggular 5089]

Very nice project, you've got going there.

Because of taller tires, it does not look like it's got longer arms. I want taller tires, but I had no idea they were so compatible with longer arms.  You are inspiring me to follow the suit.  I've got to test this out myself.  

 

[Mad Ax 10847]

3 hours ago, Juggular said:

Because of taller tires, it does not look like it's got longer arms. I want taller tires, but I had no idea they were so compatible with longer arms.  You are inspiring me to follow the suit

 

Same here - when I read 'long arms' I thought 'oh no, this will look silly' but actually it looks great.  With a custom 1:10 shell it would look awesome.

[novicelad 787]

They seem to make excellent crawlers! 

[Nitomor 2122]

Welcome to the forum, cool first post.

Great truck, video, I love your crawler terrain and the dog too

Your Kong is very similar to the direction I am taking, in particular the colour scheme. I wonder if they are similarly inspired? It's the reason I haven't done my shell yet as it won't be easy, essentially by plan was to emulate the M.A.S.K. Rhino. With the stripes painted on which is where it gets tricky. I have all the paint, just need the time and patience to commence. At least from yours I can see the colour suits. Tyre/wheel combo looks great also.

What method did you use to lock your diffs? 

[markbt73 6003]

Oh no... I shouldn't have watched that... now I want one.

Except that I don't want the body, or the monster truck wheels it comes with... hey big T, I know I've suggested this before, but how about some "builder's platforms"? Core chassis, suspension, and drivetrain parts, but no wheels, tires, body, or electronics. I suggest this, and a CC01, and a modern 3-speed.

[Losi XXT-CR 506]

What was involved in putting longer arms on it? Which parts did you use? Ta

[waterbok 1284]

Easiest longarm conversion would be the TL01b arms as used on the Wild Dagger aswell.

my problem was broken or bend drive shafts when under to much strain, Tobee hat some nice hardened universals that worked great.

[Juggular 5089]

30 minutes ago, waterbok said:

Easiest longarm conversion would be the TL01b arms as used on the Wild Dagger aswell.

Thank you, I did not know that TL01b had same arms.  But aluminum parts for TL01b seems to have different length arms for front and back.  I wonder which is close to the WT-01 arms?  

Arms from WT-01 chassis (Wild Dagger, Twin Detonator, Mud Blaster II, Blackfoot III) would fit, but they are becoming rare. Parts for them are not that easy to find.  

[waterbok 1284]

WT F&R arms are the same as the TL01b. Yes front are shorter but those have to fit the c hubs and steering knuckles. 5688 is still available in shops.

[Kingfisher 1175]

20 minutes ago, waterbok said:

WT F&R arms are the same as the TL01b. Yes front are shorter but those have to fit the c hubs and steering knuckles. 5688 is still available in shops.

Which shops? Only place online that I could find 5688 was eBay. 

[waterbok 1284]

Googled at least 4 in germany. Maybe something for shapeways as you need two sets of 5688

[RC-Gou 17]

Thanks for the input guys.

I got the ideas from other builds I've seen around on the Japanese sites.
Some pointers:

Diffs are locked using another set of bevel gears I had from my minis. Just put one in between the original gears and it'll bind up. 

For the widening, I used the rear arms that were left over. This will cover the front and rear. Since this widened the track by about 10mm per side, I had to look for an arm for the middle. Found others using the rear arm from the DF-03ra for this. It's about 2mm wider than the required 10mm, but it was as close as it gets. The arm also has a 3deg toe-in built in, so I used the rear hub carrier from a M05ra (has toe built in as well), put it on reverse to cancel out the toe.

Now here comes the fun part, the drive shafts. I had a bunch of M05 universal axles, and it was a perfect with one exception(more on that later). 
In order for the dog bone to reach, I needed to use a 48mm swing shaft. I just so happened to have 2 pairs, and put them F/R. 
For the center, I got a pair of axles made by Square (for the GF-01). These axles move the cross pin about 3mm towards the center, so you can get away using a 46mm swing shaft(which is more common). 

My build doesn't look that wide because I had to use the mini axles, which will not accept the 10mm wide wheel hex from the kit. Instead, I used the 6mm(silver) ones. 
To make things more confusing, remember that the DF03ra arms were a tad bit longer than 10mm? I used the standard 5mm hex here to lessen the difference as much as possible. 
So in all, I gained 10mm from the arms per side but lost 4mm from not using the kit hex. 6mm is not much of a "wide" conversion, but I also gained more suspension travel in return. 

As for the other unusual things on this rig, The two savox servos came off my 1/8 nitro buggy, and they are power hungry. So much that the BEC on the tekin could not handle, so I used the RX batt as the power source. I had to mount it somewhere in the front, and by using the frame that came with the kit, I was able to get a flat surface. Thought of cutting the rest off, but it kinda grew on me lol. 

Sorry if the explanation was confusing, but lmk if you have any questions.

 

 

 

 

[Juggular 5089]

Well, M05 Mini arms was a surprising answer. 

Widening 6mm is not much, but they look good (nice bumper too).  WT01 arms would be like 25mm wider.  I wonder if there is something between Mini and WT01, that could lengthen like 15mm.  

I guess stock drive cup does not fit uprights, if you had to stick with Mini drive cups?  

 

[RC-Gou 17]

1 hour ago, Juggular said:

Well, M05 Mini arms was a surprising answer. 

Widening 6mm is not much, but they look good (nice bumper too).  WT01 arms would be like 25mm wider.  I wonder if there is something between Mini and WT01, that could lengthen like 15mm.  

I guess stock drive cup does not fit uprights, if you had to stick with Mini drive cups?  

 

Oh no, I didn't use any mini arms.
It's like Front=kit rear arms, Center=DF03ra rear arms, Rear=kit rear arms.

The rear arms are longer since it doesn't need the c-hub assembly. 

The outer drive cups are interchangable between the TL01(which this kit is based off of) and mini stuff iirc. The difference is that the threaded area is longer to accommodate the wider hex adapter. 

[RC-Gou 17]

I was wondering how I can better the front bumper/skid plate using parts that I had, and ended up with the following.
I used the standard attachment part for the spring bumper, and then added the rear bumper from a mini on top of it.|
For the bottom part of the mini bumper, I overlapped the top screw holes on the original bumper, and used a longer screw.
On the top holes, I drilled through the chassis and nut/bolt using 6mm spacers. 
I like the way it looks now, and also offers some protection for the shocks:)

The other issue is the underside, where the skid plate would get caught when reversing. Thinking of just using strapping tape and changing it every outing for now until I come up with something better. 

[Ronnyhotdog 221]

This is great. The possibilities for this chassis as a crawler is very exciting. If only Tamiya would release it with the necessary parts that you have engineered. A whole host of body shells could be made for a 6WD crawler and they would fly off the shelf.