Is the Clod Buster actually too tall?

[GooneyBird 803]

Yeah, yeah, I know, but hear me out.

As we all know, the Clod Buster is based on mid to late 1980s monster trucks. The true old-school giants, just before Bob Chandler and Bigfoot 8 would change the face of monster trucking forever. 

The Clod, as Tamiya made it, seems to be heavily inspired by Taurus, as pictured below. 

Notice something? Yeah. The Clod sits too high on the chassis. On Taurus the tops of the tires seem to just about hang below the wheel wells, wheras with the Clod they're not even close. 

And the more I look at it, the more I start to wonder. Could you lower the body of a Clod over the chassis? 

The battery holders look like they just about fit inside the body without distorting it, so that should work. Nothing on the top of the chassis seems to foul the chassis either. The front bumper and its brackets would have to go, but that's a minor modification. All one needs are lower body posts.... hmm...

Does anyone know if someone makes/prints Clod-sized body posts, but lower? Has anyone ever done this?

[J@mes 1306]

I was thinking about modifying stock posts for a lower body position on one of these. They look cool when the body rests on the chassis with no posts, possible Velcro situation. I think it also looks cool with the body lifted like it is. Also there was a thread a while back with a MT from BITD that was the spitting image of the Clod, not sure if it was Taurus or another one.

[Saito2 2455]

On 9/17/2020 at 9:07 PM, J@mes said:

Also there was a thread a while back with a MT from BITD that was the spitting image of the Clod, not sure if it was Taurus or another one.

The Crimson Giant and Samson 1 come to mind.

[wolfdogstinkus 890]

@mongoose1983

He normally brings out all the old monster truck pics.

[wolfdogstinkus 890]

The Taurus looks like it's cornering quite hard so there maybe some body roll going on, but even the body on Samson 1 is pretty low compared to the clod..

Maybe Tamiya just wanted to make the biggest RC car available at the time?, Or it had the original MSC and a servo the size of a house under there at the start., Needed the extra space for bulky vintage electronics??

 

[MadInventor 2756]

I think they just wanted the clearance for suspension travel. The general layout and height of the model may have been determined at design time before the steering was finalised. My sons clod has dual steering servos fitted to the axles in the axle guards, and vintage CVA long shocks fitted all round to replace the pogo sticks. it still has the original body and mounts, and with the suspension at full depression the tires miss the shell at the corner of the wheel arches by about 5mm. To me this seems like most likely scenario, that a prototype was built, possibly without 4 wheel steering, or a different system that was no good, and then when the current 4ws was fitted they had to fit the pogo sticks with the travel limiting rubbers.

 

[Saito2 2455]

I just realized that pic of Samson 1 is somewhat reminiscent of the old iconic Clod Buster ad. 

[Ray_ve 391]

The Clod body sits very high indeed, I changed it to a more reasonable height.

Here is a picture of my chassis with lower mounts. I linked it better this way.

Front 25mm high, rear 5mm high (chassis to body, excluding the stud parts that goes through the body).

Edit: I believe the body sits high because of the battery that sits sideways in the chassis.
In my configuration, the battery does not fit anymore (or is harder to swap because you need to remove the body first) so I made a new battery place inside the chassis, lengthwise, suitable for 3S lipo.