Ah, I hoped you had a adress of someone that has a lot of rare parts, maybe he had something for a Muggy to, but that is not the case :)
I know the feeling of being isolated a bit, all the great RC stuff is in the USA, and shipping costs has seem to go upwards?
Or it is just the dollar getting higher.

Thanks for the tips on polishing, maybe I will get a look getting into it!

@ Tinuss, Thanks, But I was searching for Losi LST2/Muggy parts :)
How is the Pletti doing?

I am very much a Maxx man ruudxd, so do not know much about the muggy other than it is tough as nails...

Shipping kills me too, I bought a CowRC Pit Mat, and it cost me over $100 in shipping alone. Basically cost me as much in shipping as it did the Mat itself, BUT it was worth it. CowRC Mats are pure amazing, megnetic so your screws & hardware do no get lost. I love working on mine...

It isn't you, ruudxd - shipping costs have gone up every year as the USPS struggles to stop the bleeding losses. International rates in particular, have risen very significantly.

Very cool trucks.

The scary thing about USPS, is that it is cheaper than Australian shipping. Costs at least 25-30% more for me to ship to the states than it costs my friends to ship from the states to me...

Same here in The Netherlands, but the USPS processes much more packages/mail than our post service does, so they need less profit per package I think?

But still, shipping is pretty expensive now, a 5 dollar part costs me 20 dollars to ship it.
But that is on Ebay to, I am suspecting some people there make their parts less expensive, and then get that money back by improving shipping costs, but that just might be me?

A couple updates to this build this week which is exciting. First one is only small but I removed the purple battery straps, as I have never really liked them.

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...113_164518.jpg

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...113_165418.jpg

I will keep an eye out for some Black Gorillamaxx straps to add to it if any ever become available. Still need to find a front Gorillamaxx skid as well.

Then I removed the Gorillamaxx motor mount as well to make room for the Slipperential V1. So very happy with the outcome. Spent a week polishing the RC Monster proprietary parts and then assembled it this weekend.

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...113_165829.jpg

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...113_170351.jpg

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...113_170908.jpg

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...113_185029.jpg

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...113_185041.jpg

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...114_111310.jpg

Because of the G1 rails being slightly wider than the G2/3 rails, I needed to grind less than 1mm to get a nice flush fit. Less than 1 minute with the dremel and she was perfect. Love my dremel, one of the best hobby investments I have made to date.

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...114_112458.jpg

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...114_114159.jpg

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...114_114231.jpg

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...114_114236.jpg

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...114_114253.jpg

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...114_115522.jpg

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...114_115539.jpg

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...114_120606.jpg

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...114_120616.jpg

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...114_120650.jpg

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...114_120721.jpg

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...114_120729.jpg

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...114_120743.jpg

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...114_120751.jpg

Now I am really only waiting for my 7075 Great Assembly bulks to be drilled & tapped for ejector pins. They are currently over at a buddies in the states. Good to see this starting to come to life slowly though.

U need some straps ?

Yeah if you have some mate, shoot me a facebook message if you like.

Only small steps, but still a couple steps closer to this truck being complete. A buddy messaged me recently to say he had drilled & tapped my GARC 7075 bulks & made me Ejector Pins as well. Just need to wait for them to ship home and I will be able to get the suspension setup.

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...41713137_n.jpg

I also plan to run Sweet Strobes with the Gorillamaxx suspension, but this caused an issue. The Sweet Strobes are designed for the thicker Unlimited Engineering Knucklehead Towers, and the Gorillamaxx Towers are thinner. So I needed to get a pair of spacers made for them to fit:

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...45643375_n.jpg

You can see in the pics below the difference between the Gorillamaxx towers and the UE Towers:

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...617_190709.jpg
http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...617_190719.jpg

I'd say go with Rc-Monster straps if you can't find gorillamaxx straps.

Do not worry ...

Gorilla straps are currently traveling :)

Thanks Ralf!

Well look what was delivered today!

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...207_193725.jpg

Thanks Ralf!

no problem ... :)

Had a play with mocking up the Gorillamaxx straps today

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...212_153919.jpg
http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...212_153912.jpg

While I much prefer the Gorillamaxx straps over the purple ones, I must admit I much prefer the fact that the purple straps have been shortened to a perfect lenth, and have had metal rings incorporated at each end

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...212_160640.jpg

SO, next course of action is to shorten the Gorillamaxx straps and to find somewhere that sells the metal rings to use at each end... I am thinking I will need to go to a sewing/embroidery store and not a hardware store....

I think that if I can get Gorillamaxx the same lenth & setup as the purple straps, it will be looking spot on...

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...113_164518.jpg

Personnaly I think the purple ones don't look bad either?
Maybe a shoomaker can pop those rings in the straps for you?

They look fine but do not say Gorillamaxx 😜😜

The slots in the chassis plate are for threading the straps through, which adds strength as well as holding power to the packs - the ends are also intended to be doubled where they secure to the chassis. You may not need to shorten the straps at all.

Yeah good point Mike. I have already doubled the ends over but did not thread them through the chassis. Will have more of a play later today.

So I have been holding off with this build a little bit. The massive question has always been in my mind, do I keep the purple theme, or anodize blue instead. I have always wanted to try to find Hardcore Racing Titanium Bumpers in either Purple or Blue, and which ever I found first, would make the decision for me... Well, the G1 is staying purple, as a friend contacted me noting he had a new condition set of Purple HCR Bumpers I could have as he did not need them...

So that kick started this build off again. With some time off over the Christmas period, I set about deanodising my Proline Powerstroke shocks, and think they came up looking really good. For anyone contemplating deanodising any aluminium parts, I highly recommend that you look into Caustic Soda as an option over the oven cleaner products. The parts bubbled away and within a minute each part was clean of any blue, and back to their natural silver...

An excellent youtube video of this process was made by a good mate of mine, take a look if you are interested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Hcb2cD-V34

As these shocks were used when I picked them up, I was never really happy with the scratches they had for a build like this. By removing the blue, they are now a lot harder to see. Onto some pics, this is what they started out like:

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...228_163628.jpg

As you can see they were pretty beat up:

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...228_193846.jpg
http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...228_193849.jpg
http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...228_193856.jpg

Then came out looking like this:

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...212521_001.jpg

I have no clue why, but one of the caps did not react as well to the caustic soda as all of the others, and came out looking darker & dull:

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...228_212536.jpg

Nothing that a bit of sanding and polishing with the dremel could not fix tho:

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...228_213835.jpg

looking good !!

You have way more patience than me, my friend! I am getting better, but I have always struggled with this level of showmanship on my RCs(I historically have built for go rather than show). Looking forward to the finished truck pics!

Thanks guys! I know it is stupid, but I have always enjoyed the building aspect of this hobby. A definite majority of my time spent online is researching what others have done with their builds, I really enjoy seeing what others come up with...

Same here, I like the building more to :)
But you have to break them to repair them again :)

Indeed.....

Building is just as fun as driving these things ...

So I pushed ahead with the Powerstrokes and I am pretty happy with the outcome. I must admit I was nervous to start on deanodising as I love blue anodising, but the scratches & scrapes showed far too much with the blue on there, and silver polished covers it up much better.

Anyway, here are some pics of the finished product:

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...104_205928.jpg
http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...104_205932.jpg
http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...104_205940.jpg
http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...104_211147.jpg
http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...104_211151.jpg
http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...104_211155.jpg

Will be using a set of KMaxx Spring Retainers which I think are a cool upgrade for the Powerstrokes. Here is a pic of them compared to the stock black plastic ones:

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...104_211915.jpg

Then a pic of the finished shocks with the KMaxx Spring Retainers:

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...104_213630.jpg
http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...104_213636.jpg
http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...104_213640.jpg

Then a pic with my other set of Powerstrokes:

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...104_213733.jpg

this looks awesome again !!!

Almost ready to pack up a truck and have u work on it !!

Looks great, Sam! I like Blue as well(see my Monster logo!), but silver aluminum is classically sexy in its own right, and goes with everything - never a bad choice!

Small update, as I received an order of 8x16x5mm bearings from Avid RC. Here is a quick look at what they look like installed. I went with rubber on both sides and feel they are a solid product:

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...206_193946.jpg

I am very close to having my 12.9 grade metallic blue hardware shipped over from the states. The friend of mine that bought them all for me has just had a baby, so is understandably busy. I posted earlier in this thread with a pic of the hardware he has ordered for me. Unfortunately I tried to source metallic blue from seemingly all of the distributors locally, but no one in Australia could help me. Everyone has regular 12.9 grade, but no metallic blue, and no one was willing to order it in for me. Oh well, my money does not stay local, I tried.

A bit of background as to why I want to only use metallic blue stems back to when I first got into this hobby. My first hobby grade RC was an OFNA Dominator. It did not take long for the modding bug to hit, and all of a sudden I was learning about great companies like Smash & Bash Racing, and DUH Engineering. Both being backyard startups, SaBR had already closed its doors, but DUH was just getting started. I got to know Eric quite well, and ended sending him quite a lot of my money for various Titanium parts he was manufacturing at the time. Here is a pic of the various parts I purchased from him back in the day:

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...8_170133_1.jpg

Eric was into his Maxx Hybrids, using Proline Bulks to mount Maxx suspension onto a Dominator chassis. And thus the start of my Maxx obsession began haha. Here are some pics of the hybrid build that he did that got me hooked:

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...r/Trucks/5.jpg

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...r/Trucks/4.jpg

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...s/DSC00383.jpg

Anyway, Eric only ever used metric blue hardware on his builds. I have not seen many others use the same, and as he was the builder that got me hooked on building trucks like this, I decided I wanted to continue the tradition. Still with the great strength of 12.9 grade, just that little bit different from everyone else:

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...kforVBS1_1.jpg

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...latHeadPic.jpg

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...CapHeadPic.jpg

cool stuff ....

I Saw Candymann's E-maxx back in the day and thought ....

Some day I will own a sweet ride like that...

Mission achieved and beyond

Yes ralf, you have a problem haha, and so do I. Maybe we should go see the same therapist... Candyman was also a big contributer to the start of my emaxx obsession. I remember watching the youtube vids of his clods & his emaxx & saying, that's it right there. That is where I want to be. Took me the better part of 10 years, but here I am...

It was CandyMan's "MaxxBling" that got me into the brushless side of r/c.

I love these maxx trucks.

Lol....

Funny how we all liked the same stuff ....

I loves the bling look of that truck ... and then I found that there was more in the maxx world as Integy .... :)

Darksammy : no docter can cure me ....

So bit of an update for this truck, as I received a number of parts in this week. The first parts were only small, but it is the small things that always make the difference with trucks like this. I have never been a fan of the very small rod ends on the Proline Powerstroke damper shocks. An comparison shot can be seen below with the larger rod ends:

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...104_212131.jpg

Thanks to a good friend I like to call the Powerstroke King, I now have enough of the larger rod ends to complete 2 whole sets:

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...221_100906.jpg