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OldSchoolRC1

Building the CC02

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Finally got the chance to crack this open and start messing around. I'm a huge Tamiya fan, always have been. Was very much looking forward to this truck as I pretty much look forward to ANY Tamiya build. This one however has me shaking my head. I love the quirky factor of some of the kits, and there's a ton of fun to be had bouncing around the backyard in a DT02 with a bear driving or a 6x6 Konghead but when it comes to the scale trucks, the Tamiya's designers seem to be out to lunch. What do I mean? Read on friends. I do warn that there will be some very critical analysis upcoming.   

But before then, let's get some unboxing shots first. Picked up the kit and a bearing set. I plan to build it mostly stock to begin with, but no way I'm using plastic bushings. In this day and age, no kit should come with these anymore. Frankly, it's embarrassing.  
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A couple of box shots. No cool box art here, just some photos of the kit. I find it amusing that the CC01 Mud Block tires are listed as a hop up - visual upgrade maybe. Tamiya really needs to update the scale truck tire compound. Certified Daimler holographic sticker in the box corner is pretty cool. 
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As usual, the body is an absolute work of art. Perfectly molded, no thin spots, and looks better in person than it does in pics. No one does lexan like Tamiya. Can't wait to get some color on it. Looks like there is molded headlights and taillights as well. This kit does have the optional TLU-01 lighting kit included, though it says "not in kit" on the box. 
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Tires and wheels...Tires are of course absolutely rock hard. I'll use them elsewhere, they really have no place on a trail truck imo. The wheels are brightly plated and look very Mercedes-Benz-ish. Perfect match to the body - very nice. 
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All the parts laid out...Nothing like the smell of a new Tamiya kit! If this could be bottled, I'd buy it as air freshener for the hobby room. :)
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Usual CVA shocks, molded in gray. Not super scale, but great performers. I have some of these that are 25+ years old, still holding oil and working fine.
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Directions and the usual decal set. 3 hours of my life that I'll never get back! :) It's 3 hours very well spent however.  
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First thing I do with any kit is play with the wheels are tires. I'll be using the stock wheels initially since they look great with the body, but I'll be putting on some MST tires that came in my CMX kit. Much more grippy and the perfect size but still have the scale look. 
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No ABS here, parts are molded in a composite for this kit, in a combination of gray and black. Feels very strong compared to the usual ABS parts. Very nice! We start off with the transmission... 
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You can flip 2 of the gears to alter the internal ratio of the transmission. There's a chart in the manual outlining all of the ratios available. Anywhere from 11.09 to 29.28. Personally, I like my trail trucks in the high 30's to low 40's so it's still geared a bit high imo....might be ok with the smaller tires, We'll see. 
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Gears are stacked in the transmission in the low gear setting. Nice wide Tamiya nylon gears with a steel input gear. No durability issues here. 
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Spur is mounted up...note the small set screw that holds the through pin in. Odd setup. Clearly a slipper option is on the way. You are also asked to "rubber cement" 4 3mm nuts into the transmission for mounting later. Very similar to how the CR01 transmssion mounts to the skid plate. I never understood why it was done then, and I still don't understand it now. I used some CA glue to hold the nuts in. (Actually, 2 of them are held in with set screws similar to the spur pin...I thought that was frankly ridiculous overkill and just used a dab of CA)  
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Complete and breaking on on 3v. I used a 35t motor ilo the kit motor for a bit less wheelspeed. 
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Moving onto the chassis...Lots of molded magic going on. More of the composite, this time in black. Very intricate molds, all crisp and clean. Very nice as always. 
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3 molded pieces make up the majority of the chassis. There are several spots where there's more CA/3mm nut drop ins on the chassis. I do not understand the logic of this at all. Why on earth design this way ilo simply threading screws into the plastic? The only thing I can think of is extra strength, but every other crawler kit, not to mention touring car and even monster truck does just fine with threading into plastic. 
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Here's where I'm going to rant a bit. What on earth is Tamiya thinking? There are several of these little inserts (part C3), that get a nut pressed in. Well, some do, some don't. Some get glued to the chassis rails, and some don't. Really? Fiddly is not even the word to describe it. 
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Chassis rails attached. 
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Chassis rails are for some reason a 3 piece affair per side, with the ends being metal parts. The shock towers attach to the metal extensions, with liberal use of the C3 nut insert thingies. 
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A closer look at the instructions - step 11 shows the dreaded C3 parts - 2 glued, 2 not. 
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Front and rear assemblies completed, and ready to mount to the chassis. You have the option of mounted the servo laying down or upright - I chose to mount it upright as it puts the arc of the servo in line with the axle. 
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And mounted up....
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Transmission drops in from the top and is secured via 4 screws from the bottom coming up through the chassis into the glued nuts inside the transmission.  
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A closer look at the overly complicated extensions with all the inserts.... screws, spring washers, nuts, glue and plastic inserts. Oh my!! 
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A few thoughts on the chassis. The same company that gave us the Avante, Bruiser, and other incredible designs somehow dropped this turkey on us. I do not understand why this chassis is so incredibly over-engineered. There's simply no purpose to it at all. It's like they took the things that were annoying about the CR01 (which I like quite a lot,) multiplied them x3, and stuffed them in a smaller frame. I'm assuming that the chassis can be re-configured for various wheelbases, but it seems to have been done in the absolute most complicated way possible....even for Tamiya! The nut inserts are what drive me...well, nuts. Adds a ton of cost and complexity for no reason whatsoever I can fathom. If anyone can shed some light on the reasoning behind the nut-serts, I'd love to know. 

OK, I'm done my rant. Now that I've got that out of my system, moving to the axles..    
 

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Wow, looking back at some of the pics, my camera does not like the black on white shots at all.. I tried to adjust a bit for better shots going forward. 

Just one more chassis addition before moving to the axles - the lower link mounts. Both upper and lower link mount to a single bracket, of which 4 are attached to the chassis. They are offset slightly, and have 2 mounts so they can be mounted 4 ways. Lots of wheelbase options. 
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Time for the axles! Same gears as the rear of a CC01 so the axles are 12/22 geared for a 1.83 ratio. Of course they can be built with the diffs open or locked (locked in the same manner as well as a CC01 with plastic inserts) - since I'm building for the trail, I locked up both front and rear. 
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No bearings needed in the axle housing here for shims, the gears fit nice and snug. I didn't shim a thing. 
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The knuckles are designed different, but use the same axle and bearings as the front knuckle of the CC01. I didn't test fit, but I'd be willing to bet the CC01 knuckle will bolt in here, though the steering geometry might be a bit off. If that bolts in, then Dynahead portals should bolt in as well. Hmm.... 
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Front built and ready to go. About 34 degrees of steering... hopefully some CVD's are in the works. 
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Moving to the lower links. One thing I was absolutely not a fan of is the plastic pivot balls. They are attached to the sprue right smack in the center of the pivot ball. They need to be trimmed very carefully to pivot properly. Eventually, these will get a metal replacement of some kind. 
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Nice to see a proper rear axle. Unlike the TLT, CR01, and F350 there's no steering knuckles out back, and no lockout required. If you like 4 wheel steer, you'll have to purchase a complete front axle. 
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All links made, and both axles complete... something looks off up front... 
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Yup, that can't be right. 
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Turns out I was not paying attention as well as I should have and bolted in the front axle upside-down. I had to remove all the link mounts and steering links, flip the axle and re-mount. Whoops!! After some re-assembly, we're looking much better! 
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Time for some shocking developments... 

Shocks are tried and true CVA's - full size, not even mini CVA's, in gray flavor. I'm a bit disappointed in the fixed pistons, but there should be enough adjustability in oil viscosities to tune the truck as needed. Super soft oil (20wt) is included. And the red tinted oil matches the O-rings and bladders. I got excited over details like that for some reason. :)
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Shocks are built with the small spacer inside, and very quickly we're done. Built out, they are about 86mm from pivot to pivot. 
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Mounted to the chassis...really starting to look like something here!
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Of course, I always do some break-in on the moving parts. About 5 minutes on 3V in both directions to seat the gears, spread the grease and check for any issues. Driveline is smooth and silent, as expected from Tamiya. Couldn't resist bolting the wheels on check it out.  
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Standing on the wheels.... Chassis has a lot of flex, more so than my CMX and CFX twins. Suspension feels great on the bench, oils and spring rates are spot on.  
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If CVD's are eventually an option for more steering, Some narrower shocks will be needed. Everything just clears as-is.  
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(nearly 2 weeks later...) 

Is this thread ever going to get approved? I'm being patient, but it's been nearly 2 weeks. In any case, can someone either approve or delete this thread so I can either post updates or move on? If it's not being approved for a reason, I'd love to know why so I can adjust accordingly. Either way would be much appreciated.   

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Yay! Thank you mods! 

OK, the little guy is now standing on 4 wheels... There's some little bolt on wings to the chassis rails and that's where the electronics get mounted. Fairly clean setup. Tamiya gives a little radio box, though I chose not to use it. 
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I chose to mount the servo upright and had to use the servo spacers to lower it a bit. The steering rod did not have enough vertical reach to reach the servo horn, so I had to add a spacer. Not a Tamiya problem, I used a solid servo horn ilo of the kit servo saver and it's not nearly as tall. On the bench when new, there's already a bit of play on the front axle due to the 4-link... since there's no panhard bar, that play affects the steering. Already, I can see it's going to be a bit vague....definitely belongs in the CC/XC family!  
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Front and rear bumper (more nut-serts!) The front bumper has 3 height and 2 length options.. seems to work well. The kit for some reason has 2 5mm ball ends attached to the rear bumper at the bottom. I have no idea why, I did not install them. 
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Rear bumper installed. I did leave a few parts out in the battery area, I'll be running smaller 2.2 packs, so I don't need all the parts to mount a full size pack. I'll make something custom later. 
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Front bumper installed. Pretty nice to be hiding under the body. 
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Just for giggles, I put an FJ body on... wow, frankly it looks great. 
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Kinda leads me to a dilemma. I was planning to go stock, but boy, the FJ body looks great. And I have a CC01 here whose suspension matches the G500 perfectly.... hmm....what to do??   
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Time to decide on the body. Starting with the G500... This is very un-Tamiya... I'm not sure that if I drill out the body holes at the suggested spots that the wheels are going to be centered in the wheel wells. Hard to take pics of, but here goes. 

First off, the manual shows what holes to drill. Double checked, and made sure the body mounts were in the right spot on the chassis  as well. 
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Body for sure looks like it's going to be sitting too far forward. Look at the wheel nut compared to the fender arch. Same with the rear, it'd kind of hard to get a picture of, but it's very noticeable when you drop the body on. 
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If I line the wheel up, here's where the body mounts sit - slightly forward of the marked dimples.  
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Directions show the front body mounts in the first set of holes, but seem to me they'd be better in the second as it would line up with the dimples.. 
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Same out back... if I line up the body so that the wheels are centered....
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Body posts are off slightly, same as the front. Body posts are mounted as far back as they can be however. 
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Honestly, I have such faith in Tamiya's instructions that I'm convinced I am doing something incorrect or just missing something, but I have no idea what it could be. I solved the problem by punting and mounted the Mercedes body on my CC01 where it looks right at home. :) Can see it in the background below if you look hard enough. More on that later. 

So now I need to figure out a body for the '02. Just messing around, I took a spare Tamiya Jeep, adjusted the WB of the chassis (very easily done BTW) and dropped it on. Not a bad way to go. 
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Front of the jeep keeps the body from dropping low enough imo, it's already shaved quite a bit, but still sits on the bumper support. 
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Think if I remove the bumper, it'll drop down. Not sure what I want to do here yet... 
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I like how YJ grill sits right on the frame, looks realistic. You can just mount that mercedes bumper same level as the frame. Does the body sit too high if you lift back to match the front ?

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To my eyes it does... I think if you remove the front bumper mount, it'll drop down nicely. Not sure, I haven't messed with it much as the holidays are upon us! Be getting back to it shortly. 

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Looking good, I went the hard way and built straight to a 242mm wheelbase, was a bit of a job to make it work, but not too much of a problem. 
 

as for the nuts, I thought it was a very big improvement over screwing into plastic or even threaded metal. With the nut system if you damage either the thread or nut you can just replace it. If you strip out a part then you need to replace the whole thing. 
 

I’m still messing with the steering, almost got the bump steer sorted. Driving wise it runs well, as a crawler it lacks pure weight. All the unsprung components are quite light weight, which makes the suspension superb under faster than crawling driving. However as a trail rig on the rocks and slow stuff it needs more unsprung weight to really shine. (Gpm have just released brass steering knuckles and CV front driveshafts recently).

I too was disappointed with the tires, but really I don’t think it’s a issue because none of the tires included with Traxxas/axial/mst/vaterra etc are as good a quality/grip/softness as aftermarket units so I don’t feel the tires are relevant unless you cannot afford quality tires. 
 

I found my CC02 to get snagged up more often than my heavily modded CC01’s, of course I need more tinkering time on the CC02. I’ve been slowly improving the cc01 for more than 15 years so it’s only fair the CC02 is given some time for tinkering!! 
 

All things aside, I do love the CC02. 
 

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6 hours ago, Juls1 said:

 

Looks awesome! Great combination.

I agree with you with nuts in the axles, I suffered a lot with cc01's stripped threads before, especially around gearbox. How do you find the quality of plastic parts since they're no longer ABS ? They look cheap toy grade to me like other manufacturers models.

 

By the way what happened to your photos OldschoolRC1 ? I could see them before, now they are all just names like 20191211-1040.jpg

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35 minutes ago, Blissard said:

How do you find the quality of plastic parts since they're no longer ABS ? They look cheap toy grade to me like other manufacturers models.


plastic is reinforced just like on a TB05/TA07/M07 concept etc. 

it’s a lot  stiffer than the usual TA01/2, TL01, CC01, WR, GF, G6 etc Tamiya plastic, but it also means they can use less of it. I think the only downside is that it made the CC02 really lightweight. Not that big a deal you can add weight easier than remove it. 

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Photos are all still there? Maybe load time, this forum takes a while with embedded images, and there are a lot of them here. 

Great looking truck Juls! 

Agreed the plastic is far better than the ABS of yore. Definitely a composite of some kind - very stiff and light. 

The "nutserts" have rounded out in a few places on my CR01 chassis - skid plate comes to mind. I've resorted to gluing them in (helps keep them from falling out to boot!) and they still break loose on occasion. We'll have to agree to disagree, I think they are a terrible design personally.  

I've settled on an FJ body for mine, its sitting in the shop awaiting finishing. Agreed as well that the bump steer is a serious issue and will need some tuning. I think overall the steering is going to be as vague as the CC01! 

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Still not visible. They're loading for a while and than turn into names.jpg.

I would love to see more from you. I am also thinking about putting fj40 body when I buy one. Do tires stick out with stock wheels or does it have same track width as cc01 ?

 

 

 

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Thanks! I agree with solid axles, I wish they were ABS so we could bond leaf spring mounts on them and shave stuff.

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On 1/15/2020 at 6:37 AM, OldSchoolRC1 said:

Same track width as the CC01. FJ body looks much better with some solid axles under there. :) 

I agree - looks great with your Toyota body on it!

And like you say, the CC-01 chassis would be perfect for the G-Wagen body too... I think the answer is clear ;o)

Out of interest - regarding the mis-aligned body posts, is it possible the instructions are wrong and the shock towers you've used on the front should be on the back and vice versa? I can't tell from you photos but it looks as if you swapped them front to back (and correspondingly left to right), the body posts would be a little further back in both instances?

Jx

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