Alexkyriak's WT01 build

[ALEXKYRIAK]

Does the world need another WT01 Build Thread?

 

No.

 

 But am I  going to do one anyway?

 

Yes.

 

It's not complete, and I built most of it ages ago. I've been documenting it but never got round to posting it.  I seem to have no time to run cars much, but can fit in time to do bits of builds here and there between changing nappies and real -life responsibilities. Weekend Dad duties are kind of prohibitive - I still need to run my other builds….. I feel real bad about not running them yet.

 

So anyway, I'd been watching various discussions from the side lines on MudBlasters, Dual Hunters, Blackfoots (Blackfeet?), etc, and @Nitomor  convinced me to get a WT01 (you did, you just didn't realise it  ) So the base kit starts here, a WT01 kit, Bush Devil II. Of course it wouldn't be one of my usual builds without a little bit of HUAD at play, so there's some extras to fit to this along the way, including the Blackfoot 3 body.  This is my first monster truck (although I did have The Animal toy in the 80s..!)...

 

Nice big box.... 

 

As I take time collecting the various additional parts over a period of months (... a good cost spreading technique...at least that's what I tell myself), I store them in the box, so when I open the lid, there's the sight of a new kit with most of the "extras" already in there.... and it makes the box nice and heavy feeling.

 

 

 

There's a bunch of nice and shiny bits and bobs in this box, these are the bit laid out. Most of these I ended up using in the build, some I needed to do some 'strategic thinking' with (ok I got the wrong part....)

 

 

So, the WT01 comes with a prebuilt gearbox, and I decided eventually to run this car as a 4x4, so  I ordered a second prebuilt gearbox from Sir Tony. So therefore there will be two gearboxes in this car, actging as a 'quasi' 4wd - 'quasi' in the sense that whilst there are 4 driven wheels, clearly they're not linked front and rear gearboxes and drives.

 

 

So first step was to open the Tamiya made pre-built gearbox, to reveal the gears and bushings on the inside. This is the view once opened. All of these bushings are replaced with metal ball bearings.

 

 

Gear diff opened and I put some heavy-ish grease in there from HPI racing, Z164 #30000 heavy duty

 

 

 

So now having got the gear boxes modded and out of the way, time to move onto the main build.

 

a pair of Torque Tuned motors are going on for now, a I had a couple of them in the spare parts box.

 

Fitted to the gearboxes...

 

For the damper mounts I decided to go with the GPM Racing black aluminium mounts as these provide the ability to have longer shocks with greater vertical travel. Nice and crisply engineered. Same mounts are used front and rear. Part WD028-BK

 

 

I had some issued when installing the suspension arms, arm links along the way, basically getting it wrong a few times, some of these images may contain the wrong arm here and there ( I got front/rear confused a few times..... d'oh...) and also had to have several goes at the best way of fitting the arm pivots to the damper mounts and gearboxes. I used stainless steel cap headed hex screws for this build, they just seemed nice and chunky and fit the monster truck feel, but I think they look pretty good on this kit.

 

 

 

 

For suspension arms, I went again with GPM aluminium ( I know, I know, aluminium for suspension arms = bad.....). I wanted them in black originally but couldn't source them anywhere, so went with silver which I actually quite liked in the end (blue was definitely not an option on this build) . Parts GR-WD055-S and GR-WD056-S.

 

These fit quite nicely with only minimal shimming required.

 

 

The suspension arm kit comes with pins and e-clips, which is a really nice touch. Clearly there is no plastic for the screw to bite into, hence this solution.

 

 

Fitted to gearbox:

 

 

Gearbox joints fitted. I had tried an upgrade part here, but it was the wrong size to fit properly. Lesson: always double check a hop-up compatibility.....!

 

 

Fitting the front steering knuckle arms and c-hubs, again some GPM products, black aluminium. Whatever the discussions about plastic vs aluminium for these parts, I find the fitting to be tighter than plastic, with minimal shimming required, if any.

 

 

 

 

 

I upgraded the plastic bearings to metal ball bearings, you can see the comparison below, shown fitted to the front C-hub.

 

Here is the completed assembly, fitted arm to c-hub.

 

And fitted to the end of the suspension arm. Again, the GPM kit comes with pins and e-clips to mount the assembly.

 

Required some shimming, and here you can also see the e-clip and pin.

 

 

For those not used to this technique, it's essentially a non-destructive way of fixing a pivoting element. A standard screw on the left, the pin and e-clip on the right. The screw is intended to bit into plastic to hold it into place, whereas the pin can be removed any time, and this can also be used on plastic arms, not just aluminium.

 

 

Steering linked up with brace arm, also utilising the cap head screws detail.

 

 

 

 

I decided to fit universals shafts to this car, both front and rear, these from 3Racing, DT02-03/HD.

 

 

 

So here they are fitted at the front:

 

 

....however these were a really difficult install, primarily due to the fact that the solid shaft head of the main universal shaft is too big to fit through the C-hub. Clearly does not fit....

 

The solution was to disassemble the universal joint, detach the knuckle, mount the axle through the now detached steering knuckle, fit the main shaft through the c-hub, then fit the knuckle to the hub, then tighten the axle to the shaft again with the tiny grub screw and some thread lock..... phew.

 

 

There's just enough room to get the grub screw tightened once fitted...

 

 

Rubber ball bearings fitted on all wheels:

 

 

The completed assembly:

 

 

 

I then realised I needed to fit the aluminium front camber arms I had..... idiot...! So had to undo some of the assembly and install them...  part WD054-BK

 

 

Had to add some spacer elements at the gearbox end of the camber arm, to get the alignments to fit properly, which I wasn't expecting to have to do:

 

 

So now completed assembly.... take 2:

 

 

Rear gearbox now, with aluminium arms and hubs, also by GPM, parts GR-WD056-S and GR-TL1022-BK :

 

 

Fitted:

 

 

Couldn't find aluminium camber arms in black, so keeping stock plastic for now:

 

 

So, now front and rear boxes with mounts, arms, hubs, etc, all fitted:

 

 

Time to fit shocks. I wnet with Team C shocks as recommended on here on another WT01 thread. In the end I didn't use the 2027 as shown here, as these are too short, went with the TG2028 at 98mm length, and another rear shock from Team C range, exact number I forget, but this was about 102mm length.

 

 

Lovely aluminium build quality. I think these will be good when run. Pricey though....

 

 

 

Mounted to front and rear boxes:

 

 

 

Again, using the cap head screws, they look great with the various other component materials:

 

 

 

 

... that's the end of part 1, will post part 2 in the next day or two.

 

[ThunderDragonCy]

Welcome back @ALEXKYRIAK. Lovely build as usual.

[Juls1]

Loving it so far.. I'm not too far behind you doing a WT01 Dual box build myself. 

Do both motors run forwards in that setup or does one have to go backwards? seems in my mind that one would need to go backwards but i could be wrong. 

[TwistedxSlayer]

Looking great as always

[ALEXKYRIAK]

Thanks a lot guys, appreciate it. @Juls1 yes the rear motor needs it wired reversed when connecting to the ESC - both motors get the same signal just one of them has a reversed signal, therefore both drive in the same direction as the rear one is installed as a mirror of the front one.

Ok here's part 2. On to the steering - I got this servo mount from Shapeways, I went crazy and ordered it in red....

 

The servo mount is supposed to be a lot stronger and more resilient than the stock servo mounting method. A nice little piece of 3d printing.

 

So here's the main chassis assembled, into which I will need to fit the servo mount. I loved assembling this chassis, it's so simple, yet so clever, in that it's symmetrical in the front/back direction, and the way it fixes together as two halves, as opposed to being one flat 'tray' like a buggy would be. It screams of 'modify me in a bespoke manner' - maybe I'll get onto something super bespoke with this kit/chassis in the future. Definitely has some uber-modification potential. I've seen one on here in aluminium and it's amazing. For now as a monster truck new kid I'll stick to keeping it mostly stock...

 

So here's the space where the mount needs to go...

 

It needs a little dremmelling (is that a verb?)  to allow the servo mount to fit within the stock chassis frame / moulding. On the right side chassis piece, the moulded mount hole needs to be made flush to allow the servo mount to fit tightly between the two halves, prior to being screwed in. Therefore, the chassis needs to be modified from this....

 

.... to this....

 

Side by side, or before/after....

 

So the completed chassis, connecting the two halves, creates a really nice solid feeling bit of kit....! This is where the cap head screws really sing (imho) -  they're sort of flush to the outer surface of the chassis. Looks nice and solid and purposeful.  

 

So here's the Savox 1251mg servo mounted to the mount, using the Tamiya high torque servo saver kit.

 

Steering arms are by Arrma, as recommended on this site. Nice chunky arms, good weight and feel, these seem indestructible, also are square cross section in the middle to aid length adjustments.  

 

Compared to stock arms:

 

 

 

...and this is why the chassis needs to be dremmelled, to allow the fitment of the servo mount, extremely tight and solid:

 

 

So here is the chassis as it stands at this stage, servo and steering mounted and connected up, fornt and rear gearboxes fitted.

 

 

I can really see why people love this kit so much, it's an awesome bit of 'engineering' and design.

 

 

 

Just on those cap head hex screws (did I mention them yet...? ), my new favourite bit of kit is the hex head screw set with hex fitting for my power drill. Totally worth the cash, made by Hudy.

 

Next up: the wheels, yummy. As seen on TC on another build thread, these HP Racing mud thrasher wheels look awesome and more in keeping with the scale of 'monster truck' (at least imho) than the stock Tamiya wheels, especially when considering the damper mount / shock lengths also.

 

 

 

These will be coupled with CR-01 clamped wheels, part 51323 for front and rear.

 

 

So they took a good bit of time to fit, to ensure all was well fitting and seated, and to tighten up all the screws correctly and evenly. But worth it.... mmm, yummy. And I love the smell of the rubber of new tyres....

 

 

Comparison to stock wheel / tyre (excuse the white bits that came on the stock tyre, part of the rubber preserving process?) . These are 2.2 inch wheels which the HPI tyres fit to easily.

 

 

To fit the bigger tyres such as these required an offset to be installed to avoid the wider-than-stock tyre clashing with the bodywork. I started with 13mm offsets, but realised this wasn't enough (noobo mistake...) so I went to 19mm (I think I'll use the 13mms on a buggy and do an uber @ThunderDragonCy big-wheel DT03 or similar..!). These are made by junfac, part J51033.

 

This is a pic of the 13mm, but the 19mm is exactly the same, just longer obviously.

 

However, I needed the reamer to create wider holes in the plastic of the wheel, to allow the wider thread of the wheel spacer locking bolt to fit through the wheel and screw onto the axle thread:

 

The wideners fit over the axle:

 

 

And then the threaded locking bolt clamps the wheel to the axle:

 

So fitted, the chassis is really taking shape. I am in love with this chassis / kit....

 

 

 

...and a quick test fit with the BF3 body (will take better pics soon...)

 

 

 

 

 

Next step is to fit the ESC / receiver, fit the Sport Tuned motors that I ordered after the build, and obviously finish the body.  So far, I surprised myself,  I loved every aspect of fitting this car together - for a long time I didn't get why people loved these so much, but now I have full respect and kudos. Really enjoyed it up to this point. I can see there is a lot of depth and potential in what can be done with these things in terms of 'standard' parts modifying, but also in proper bespoke modifying. Hope you enjoyed this so far, apologies for pic-heavy thread, but I love the visual aspect of a thread!

Hopefully body to be completed in the next week or so.

 

 

[Juls1]

I figured one motor needed to go backwards has always put me off this design because you either need motors which 0 timing advance or you need motors with positive and  negatively  adjustable timing. Otherwise one end try’s to go faster than the other. 

[Badcrumble]

Wow, I really like what you've done here. Nicely monster-trucky.

Some great tips for when I refresh my son's (and the other two I have salted away) Dual Hunter. Especially those steering arms. And I've found a use for my CR-01 wheels if i ever upgrade!

i was surprised that you went dual-motor as it isn't the favoured option on here but it is reversible so why not?

Looking forward to seeing the completed machine.

 

[mman2005]

9 hours ago, ALEXKYRIAK said:

Thanks a lot guys, appreciate it. @Juls1 yes the rear motor needs it wired reversed when connecting to the ESC - both motors get the same signal just one of them has a reversed signal, therefore both drive in the same direction as the rear one is installed as a mirror of the front one.

Ok here's part 2. On to the steering - I got this servo mount from Shapeways, I went crazy and ordered it in red....

 

The servo mount is supposed to be a lot stronger and more resilient than the stock servo mounting method. A nice little piece of 3d printing.

 

So here's the main chassis assembled, into which I will need to fit the servo mount. I loved assembling this chassis, it's so simple, yet so clever, in that it's symmetrical in the front/back direction, and the way it fixes together as two halves, as opposed to being one flat 'tray' like a buggy would be. It screams of 'modify me in a bespoke manner' - maybe I'll get onto something super bespoke with this kit/chassis in the future. Definitely has some uber-modification potential. I've seen one on here in aluminium and it's amazing. For now as a monster truck new kid I'll stick to keeping it mostly stock...

 

So here's the space where the mount needs to go...

 

It needs a little dremmelling (is that a verb?)  to allow the servo mount to fit within the stock chassis frame / moulding. On the right side chassis piece, the moulded mount hole needs to be made flush to allow the servo mount to fit tightly between the two halves, prior to being screwed in. Therefore, the chassis needs to be modified from this....

 

.... to this....

 

Side by side, or before/after....

 

So the completed chassis, connecting the two halves, creates a really nice solid feeling bit of kit....! This is where the cap head screws really sing (imho) -  they're sort of flush to the outer surface of the chassis. Looks nice and solid and purposeful.  

 

So here's the Savox 1251mg servo mounted to the mount, using the Tamiya high torque servo saver kit.

 

Steering arms are by Arrma, as recommended on this site. Nice chunky arms, good weight and feel, these seem indestructible, also are square cross section in the middle to aid length adjustments.  

 

Compared to stock arms:

 

 

 

...and this is why the chassis needs to be dremmelled, to allow the fitment of the servo mount, extremely tight and solid:

 

 

So here is the chassis as it stands at this stage, servo and steering mounted and connected up, fornt and rear gearboxes fitted.

 

 

I can really see why people love this kit so much, it's an awesome bit of 'engineering' and design.

 

 

 

Just on those cap head hex screws (did I mention them yet...? ), my new favourite bit of kit is the hex head screw set with hex fitting for my power drill. Totally worth the cash, made by Hudy.

 

Next up: the wheels, yummy. As seen on TC on another build thread, these HP Racing mud thrasher wheels look awesome and more in keeping with the scale of 'monster truck' (at least imho) than the stock Tamiya wheels, especially when considering the damper mount / shock lengths also.

 

 

 

These will be coupled with CR-01 clamped wheels, part 51323 for front and rear.

 

 

So they took a good bit of time to fit, to ensure all was well fitting and seated, and to tighten up all the screws correctly and evenly. But worth it.... mmm, yummy. And I love the smell of the rubber of new tyres....

 

 

Comparison to stock wheel / tyre (excuse the white bits that came on the stock tyre, part of the rubber preserving process?) . These are 2.2 inch wheels which the HPI tyres fit to easily.

 

 

To fit the bigger tyres such as these required an offset to be installed to avoid the wider-than-stock tyre clashing with the bodywork. I started with 13mm offsets, but realised this wasn't enough (noobo mistake...) so I went to 19mm (I think I'll use the 13mms on a buggy and do an uber @ThunderDragonCy big-wheel DT03 or similar..!). These are made by junfac, part J51033.

 

This is a pic of the 13mm, but the 19mm is exactly the same.

 

However, I needed the reamer to create wider holes in the plastic of the wheel, to allow the wider thread of the wheel spacer locking bolt to fit through the wheel and screw onto the axle thread:

 

The wideners fit over the axle:

 

 

And then the threaded locking bolt clamps the wheel to the axle:

 

So fitted, the chassis is really taking shape. I am in love with this chassis / kit....

 

 

 

...and a quick test fit with the BF3 body (will take better pics soon...)

 

 

 

 

 

Next step is to fit the ESC / receiver, fit the Sport Tuned motors that I ordered after the build, and obviously finish the body.  So far, I surprised myself,  I loved every aspect of fitting this car together - for a long time I didn't get why people loved these so much, but now I have full respect and kudos. Really enjoyed it up to this point. I can see there is a lot of depth and potential in what can be done with these things in terms of 'standard' parts modifying, but also in proper bespoke modifying. Hope you enjoyed this so far, apologies for pic-heavy thread, but I love the visual aspect of a thread!

Hopefully body to be completed in the next week or so.

 

 

Great info and pics!! Thanks! 

[mman2005]

24 minutes ago, Badcrumble said:

Wow, I really like what you've done here. Nicely monster-trucky.

Some great tips for when I refresh my son's (and the other two I have salted away) Dual Hunter. Especially those steering arms. And I've found a use for my CR-01 wheels if i ever upgrade!

i was surprised that you went dual-motor as it isn't the favoured option on here but it is reversible so why not?

Looking forward to seeing the completed machine.

 

Out of interest what makes the dual-motor the less favourable option (apart from the fact it's harder to wheelie)?

[Badcrumble]

1 hour ago, mman2005 said:

Out of interest what makes the dual-motor the less favourable option (apart from the fact it's harder to wheelie)?

From what I read, the extra motor adds not a lot due to the weight, helps to drain the battery faster and makes it worse at jumping / landing. Doesn't bother me though 

[TwistedxSlayer]

Alex.. You absolute rebel... Ordering a Red steering servo mount.!

[Nitomor]

I LOVE those tyres Alex. Welcome to the mod mad world of the WT01!! Great job!! 

I like all the black metal you've added, except the lower arms, be careful they don't snap the gearbox housing at the mounting point since they will transfer shocks easily to it if you hit anything. The rest of the metal bits are probably welcome to sharpen up the steering. Nice neat job with the servo mount too and I see you're using a decent metal geared servo too which I think is vital on these. Oh and hex bolts look really neat, the stock screws rust badly so another welcome addition.

The overall look with that shell and tyre combo is outstanding. It really looks great, interesting re the blue Junfac hubs, means they are quite a bit wider than the regular spike tyres and they fit the rims well. The CR01 beadlocks are great wheels and always look hard as nails!

Nito

ps. love the pin and e-clip set up too.

[speedy_w_beans]

Hey Alex, you might want to disassemble your CVDs and grind some small flat spots in your cross pins.  I was running my Sakura D4 the other day and lost one of the pins even though the grub screws were tight.  Just break all four CVDs down and use a Dremel to lightly grind some small flat spots in the middle of each pin so the tips of the grub screws engage the pins.  Then put it all back together and use thread locker on the grub screws.  Even if the grub screws loosen slightly, the pins won't slide sideways because of the small notches cut in them.

[ALEXKYRIAK]

Thanks again guys for comments. Great to see so much interest and love for the WT01.

@speedy_w_beans thanks for this tip, I understand what you mean here - very well described for a fairly hard to describe complex modification! -  will get onto it.

10 hours ago, Nitomor said:

I LOVE those tyres Alex. Welcome to the mod mad world of the WT01!! Great job!! 

@NitomorThanks for your comments mate. Specifically on the tyres, I followed @The Knight's WT01 build. He does some amazing stuff with this kit, so a lot of respect and tipping of my hat to him, and a few others, including you Sir and your multiple WT01 fixation . I love that you seemingly have a fleet for your entire family  I learned a lot off you guys. Yeah the CR01 beadlocks look good with that tyre, so pretty happy there.

 

14 hours ago, Badcrumble said:

i was surprised that you went dual-motor as it isn't the favoured option on here but it is reversible so why not?

Ha ha, yes I'm surprised I went dual also. On this project, for a long while when in the 'Mildly Curious Phase', then the 'Considering Phase', and then in the 'Planning Phase' (we all go through these phases, right....?  ) I was going to be RWD only, exactly for the reasons you state re: jumping and smooth driving of the motors. However curiosity and tinkering madness got the better of me, and decided to experiment with the quasi 4WD. It';s not the sort of car I think needs to go that fast, so if going on rougher terrain at a slower pace, it seemed logical to at least try the 4WD. I know from this site that some people run these cars pretty fast. Maybe I'll get there in the future, but for speed and jumping there's buggies. Will see how it goes though.

On a side note, pie in the sky, but am really interested in the idea of templating the chassis and sending it off to fibre-lyte to get a carbon version cut out, or even an aluminium plate version.

[ThunderDragonCy]

11 minutes ago, ALEXKYRIAK said:

On a side note, pie in the sky, but am really interested in the idea of templating the chassis and sending it off to fibre-lyte to get a carbon version cut out, or even an aluminium plate version.

Now you KNOW i like this idea 😁

[Nitomor]

9 hours ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

Now you KNOW i like this idea 😁

Second that

[wolfdogstinkus]

18 hours ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

Now you KNOW i like this idea 😁

And an option for 6wd. I'd buy that.

[Blista]

Another great build!  I'm not sure if it's the detail, the photos, or the end result, but every time you do one of these my list of cars to buy gets another added.

I'd like to see a carbon conversion for the chassis.  Personally, I'd want it reverted to 2WD and shortened a few centimeters by deleting the need for a front gearbox, as the WT01 always looks too long for the Tamiya bodies except for maybe the Amarok.  Of course whatever you end up with will look great I'm sure.

[ThunderDragonCy]

6 hours ago, Blista said:

Another great build!  I'm not sure if it's the detail, the photos, or the end result, but every time you do one of these my list of cars to buy gets another added.

I'd like to see a carbon conversion for the chassis.  Personally, I'd want it reverted to 2WD and shortened a few centimeters by deleting the need for a front gearbox, as the WT01 always looks too long for the Tamiya bodies except for maybe the Amarok.  Of course whatever you end up with will look great I'm sure.

Now this talk of wheelbase has me thinking naughty things about extended wheelbase, wider arms and 1/10th short course truck bodies. Like I need another project......🙄

[Juggular]

Alex presents it so well, it's like looking at a commercial catalog!  

 

 

[_oliK]

This looks menacing! Also, nice pictures and write-up.

 

[ALEXKYRIAK]

On ‎9‎/‎1‎/‎2018 at 1:52 AM, Blista said:

but every time you do one of these my list of cars to buy gets another added.

 

....that makes me feel like I've really achieved something positive in this world!!! I get exactly the same feeling from reading other people's builds and posts.... I end up going in directions I hadn't thought possible and suddenly find I need to buy at least 10 different kits all at one time.  "Tamiya Project Creep" is a real medical condition by the way - it's true, I read it on the internet.

 

Regarding the chassis conversion, I think I'll at least look into the possibility. I reckon I can get the measurements and drawings done ok if I spend some time on it. It's actually quite an interesting proposition if the cost isn't prohibitive, and it leads to the possibility to going for custom chassis lengths and, possibly, customs widths, if a clever spacer / extender design can be implemented.

Gotta finish the electrics and body on this one first though.

[Terz1]

Just found this. Great build thread and really nice detailed photos. I did a monster beetle wt01 a while back and absolutely loved it. This was before the re-re monster beetle came out so I'd like a truck body on it now as I'll probably get a re-re beetle. The wheel base is very long on these and my ears pricked up (well they would have if they could! ) when you mentioned templating the chassis and getting a carbon fibre version or aluminium version made. Plus if it could be produced to fit the majority of tamiya bodies that would be great. Just today I mounted my clod buster shell onto my wt01 and even that is slightly to short for a perfect wheelbase match.

I understand how you were impressed by the the pin and E clip method used to connect the suspension arms. Such a clean way of doing it. I was lucky enough to pick up all the GPM gear you have recently. I fit it to my Baja champ which uses the exact same suspension arm and steering set up as the WT01. Really nice piece of kit.

Nice wheel selection too. Look forward to seeing what you do with the body.

[ALEXKYRIAK]

Thanks @Terz1. Just looking at the Baja champ.... looks a very interesting buggy, like it.

Regarding the templating of the chassis for a carbon version, I've now got a spare chassis to measure and template, I just need some time to complete the job. There are various versions of custom chassis I've seen on the web - including a beautiful aluminium version - however it's a daunting bit of tinkering to do... got to get the measurements right as making mistakes with custom ordered carbon pieces can get expensive....

 

 

[TurnipJF]

If you are templating a custom chassis plate, one thing you might want to consider is altering the position of the front gearbox mount holes to give it a bit of an upwards angle, thus eliminating the "kick down" that it has at the front in stock form and giving it a bit of a kick up which would benefit handling.