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davidwj95

Wild dagger conversion to 2wd fun basher

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I bought my wild dagger off Ebay in 2004 as I was returning to the hobby.  I wanted a monster truck to use care free in the garden to recreate the fun of my monster beetle which I had just rebuilt.

Fairly soon after I got it I made an aluminium chassis and shock mounts but otherwise it was fairly standard. 

Between then and now I drive it every so often but its never quite seemed as fun as the monster beetle was.  Maybe it's the nostalgia and fun memories of the beetle but with lockdown giving me spare time I thought it would make a good project. 

My aim is to make a fun garden bashee, these are the things I'm want to change:

Performance

I find it a bit to slow and predictable so the plan is to go 2wd and brushless.

 

Appearance

The looks of a model are really important to me, the beetle and blackfoot have perfect proportions but the dagger chassis is too wide and long for my taste.  I dont want to re make the chassis so the wheelbase wont change but I'm going to narrow the track a little bit.

I have a lexan body from my brat that I have painted like a mud blaster.  I'll either fit that or look for a blackfoot body.  I tried on the beetle body but it looked to short for the wheelbase.

20200629_080833.jpg

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Stripdown begins.  I don't like the shock towers that I made back then so they will be the first thing to replace.

20200629_080627.jpg

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I converted mine to a 2WD runner also, one of the most fun cars I have (better ground clearance than the DT02 & DF02)

Another option for the body is the Amarok? The wheelbase is near-enough correct (267mm)

I'm now building a second one, this time going back to having 2 gearboxes / 4WD, but combining it with the narrow track (TL01 arms) and 4-wheel steering and the aforementioned Amarok body. With modern electronics, 3S LiPo should make it more fun than it used to be (the twin motor setup used to be great for traction, but low top-end and drastically short run-times on NiMh!)

Following with interest. Nice work on the metal chassis.

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Interesting. I'm actually working on the same project at the moment with a similar story. I bought a Twin Detonator just after you got your Dagger for similar reasons. I also had similar criticisms. I'm also going 2wd and narrowing the truck with WR02CB arms. It will be interesting to see where you go with this.

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33 minutes ago, ChrisRx718 said:

I converted mine to a 2WD runner also, one of the most fun cars I have (better ground clearance than the DT02 & DF02)

Another option for the body is the Amarok? The wheelbase is near-enough correct (267mm)

I'm now building a second one, this time going back to having 2 gearboxes / 4WD, but combining it with the narrow track (TL01 arms) and 4-wheel steering and the aforementioned Amarok body. With modern electronics, 3S LiPo should make it more fun than it used to be (the twin motor setup used to be great for traction, but low top-end and drastically short run-times on NiMh!)

Following with interest. Nice work on the metal chassis.

Good point about the Amarok body, I hadn't thought of that.  I wish Tamiya had made more bodies with the correct wheelbase.  

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2 minutes ago, Saito2 said:

Interesting. I'm actually working on the same project at the moment with a similar story. I bought a Twin Detonator just after you got your Dagger for similar reasons. I also had similar criticisms. I'm also going 2wd and narrowing the truck with WR02CB arms. It will be interesting to see where you go with this.

I'm keeping the arms standard but I have some HPI rims with less offset that I'm hoping will reduce track width by about 20mm. I'll get some photos up soon.

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I bought these HPI rims a few weeks ago, they have a lot less offset than the originals so will make the car a bit narrower.  I made the mistake of assuming they'd fit straight onto the Tamiya hubs. They don't.   I spent some time looking into it and found that I'd need some long axles and HPI drive hexes.  So much for keeping this a cheap build.  Don't  want to bodge it though as the aim is to have a tough reliable runner.

Tonight's job is to clean the chassis ready for paint.

 

20200701_155438.jpg

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I forgot to mention in my previous post about the diff - originally I locked mine and whilst it made it predictable, it also made it very much want to spin out all the time even under modest acceleration. 

I changed it to a bit of diff putty (basically expensive blu-tac) so it worked as it should but is a bit stickier than just having grease in there. I can drive the truck much faster now and I get wheelies instead of wheelspin.

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6 hours ago, ChrisRx718 said:

I forgot to mention in my previous post about the diff - originally I locked mine and whilst it made it predictable, it also made it very much want to spin out all the time even under modest acceleration. 

I changed it to a bit of diff putty (basically expensive blu-tac) so it worked as it should but is a bit stickier than just having grease in there. I can drive the truck much faster now and I get wheelies instead of wheelspin.

I rebuilt the gearbox tonight and was wondering what to do about the diff.  I packed it with anti wear grease which I'm hoping will make it tighter.  It certainly feels so when turned by hand.  If not I'll look into using the diff putty.

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My WT-01n Amarok got caught up in the early shipping delays from Covid. Finally arrived just this week after getting shipped by boat from HK to the US. Looking forward to everybody's builds.

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Chassis parts painted, gearbox stripped cleaned and reasssembled and battery retainer spacers made.  Tomorrow's job is to make radio/esc mount. 

20200703_215915.jpg

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The parts you made look really good. It'd be cool to see how you sketch and fabricate them if time permits.

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26 minutes ago, isomer1 said:

The parts you made look really good. It'd be cool to see how you sketch and fabricate them if time permits.

The chassis side plates I made years ago when I had access to CAD at work.  I plotted the hole centres then printed them out at 1:1 scale.  I double sided taped two pieces of 3mm aluminium together then stuck the hole plan on top.  This meant that when I drilled the holes I went through both pieces of aluminium  to get them exactly the same.  The out line and battery cut out were based on the original plastic chassis.  All cutting was done with the chassis halves stuck together to keep them identical.   Only tools used were hacksaw, files, piller drill and wer and dry sand paper.

I made the shock towers last week using the same methods but had to draw out the holes by hand using scriber, square and vernier caliper. I found a drawing online with the hole positions. These new ones are slightly different to the original set I made.

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Started to reassemble, I should have back end complete and electronics in by tomorrow but then I can't do anything until the non gearbox front end and TL01b steering knuckles arrive at the end of the month.

I dont like using self tappers where I can get away without them.  I drilled out the gearbox mounting holes to 3mm and put threaded rod all the way through secured with nyloc nuts.

20200708_220431.jpg

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I'm waiting for parts so cant do much at the moment.  When I stripped the car down I noticed there was a bit if movement in the plastic servo mounts.  I bought to aluminium servo mount blocks and made a larger spacer block also from aluminium.  Combined with the metal gear servo and hi torque servo saver there is now no play at all.

I ordered some new tyres and some mci decals but most of the parts I need to complete this wont be in until early August so will be on hold for a few weeks.20200714_212118.thumb.jpg.a36a300c1814ee76703f99df0f566769.jpg

20200714_224639.jpg

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I managed to get the body finished tonight.  The shell is the lexan one that came with my brat with decals from MCI.  I got one side finished then realised I'd put the main side sticker on the wrong way round :(. I'm happy with the results but those backwards stickers will annoy me forever more.

20200726_200849.jpg

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After months of waiting the parts finally arrived to finish this project. I just need to adjust the steering arm lengths and then it's ready to go. The offset wheels have worked really well making the overall width 290mm which I think is the same as a standard mud blaster.  The wheelbase is still longer but I can live with that. 

20200929_193005.jpg

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