I've been waiting on this part:

http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/y..._1540Small.jpg


It's the Hobao Hyper 9e Steel Uni Center Drive Shaft (89339) and its overall length is about 8.5". It should work perfectly for my front center drive shaft, giving me a wheelbase of around 18". I'll get the front bulkheads together and then be able to fit this in and see where I want to cut the front of the chassis.

Edit: Here's how it looks on the chassis with the battery trays:

http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/y..._1543Small.jpg

http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/y..._1545Small.jpg

I wanted a solid stand-up servo mount, so I made this out of 3/16" Al angle:

http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/y..._1676Small.jpg

http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/y..._1677Small.jpg

http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/y..._1673Small.jpg

(and thanks to Jeff A (DwightSchrute) for the good deal on the servo for this build!)

Looking sweet Brian. I really like how much you're making on this instead of buying, like the shock towers and servo mount.

Glad you like the servo. :yes: that's one amazing build. wow! :surprised: The craftsmanship on your work is awsome, man.

Thanks guys - I guess I'm finding out just how many different parts I can make out of Aluminum angle - seems like just about anything! :wink:

Here's how the front of the chassis looks with the Hyper 9e driveshaft on the front diff - it gives me a wheelbase of 18" - just what I wanted:


http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/y..._1679Small.jpg

So, now I can cut the chassis to length and go from there.

I was able to cut the front of the chassis today - I left it long because I have an FG bumper that I need to mount on the front, so I'll cut it to its final length when I see how that's going to fit.

http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/y..._1681Small.jpg

I tried to bend the front to give it some kick-up, but this is some tough metal to bend. I have only been able to bend it a little over 1°, so either I'll leave it like that or take it to where I can use a larger vice and bend it more.

7075 is a very hard aluminium. careful in bending that plate because it might crack.

Yeah 7075 is pretty hard to bend. Try to make a curve rather than a corner- 1/2" diameter is the smallest curve I'd recommend for material that thick, 3/4" to be safe. Otherwise, like MM said, it might crack.

Edit: Actually I just went back through the thread and saw that it is 4mm thick ( I had thought it was 3mm), so definitely >3/4" diameter to avoid cracking. :smile:

Thanks for the advice, guys - I guess if I decide to bend this more I'll be a little more careful than when I've bent 6061 in the past.



:great:

The front shock tower is just about finished - still needs a few more holes, and some filing and polishing:

http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/y..._1703Small.jpg

I think this is the last major piece I'm going to fab myself. I need to figure out how to mount the body - so some work ahead of me, but this thing is coming together. :smile:

I like using Maxx/Revo body posts. They're pretty strong, easy to mount being rectangular, have a ton of holes already drilled in them, and are available in pretty long lengths from Proline and others. Are you going to use body posts on the sides at all? Your body looks like it already has the hole in the front doors for one.

nice project .....:lol:

Good to know - I'll look at those body posts. I'm going to do something on the sides, but haven't decided what. I was thinking of using some nerf bars and velcro for the sides - maybe a cleaner look than a post sticking out of the door :neutral:

I love seeing a custom project come together. keep up the great work!

Lightly scoring the chassis along the bend line will make it much easier on you for adding your desired kickup.

Nice work though, great craftsmanship

Thanks, I haven't updated this thread because this summer became very busy and I haven't made any progress since I last posted. We moved into a new place that has less work space for me - another reason there's been no progress. So I've put this on the shelf and I'll see what this winter brings - I'll do something with it then - either finish, modify, or abandon it.

-Brian

So you're going to start on this again now right?

Looks great!

Thanks - and that's my plan - to restart this and slooooowly work on it - no hurry, but I'd like to see it finished.

I was looking at this tonight and thinking about getting some kick-up in the front. Since I found the 4mm 7075 so hard to bend, I was thinking about angling the front bulks up slightly using some thin spacers between the chassis and bulks. What do you think?

There are 2 main reasons for front kickup. The first and most important is to add caster to the front spindles. A nice by product is the angled front part of the chassis that aids the vehicle in going over large obstacles. Unfortunately the LST/Muggy suspension doesn't allow any caster adjustment, so its all in the kickup of the chassis or the amount of spacers installed. Personally, I'd probably destroy just about every piece of scrap I had doing test bends before feeling comfortable with spacers. But that's just me and my stubborness, I like doing what can't be done.

Yeah, I decided I didn't like the spacer idea with a flat chassis either - so back in the vice it went and I bent it enough for a start - if I decide I want more kickup later, I'll use some thin spacers then or bend it some more. Pics to follow when I get the front bulks mounted (some holes need to be drilled first).

Any updates???

Not really - but I do plan on building this over the winter. When I get some time I'll update what I've done, what I've bought for this, and what I plan to do.

Alrighty cus so far I'm really liking this build!

I am curious as to how the beast will turn out as well.

So, I've been able to make some progress on the truck.

Here's what it currently looks like:

http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/y..._2554Small.jpg

Steering hardware installed:

http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/y..._2552Small.jpg

http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/y..._2550Small.jpg

All shocks mounted with M4 screws and 8mm thick-wall Al tube:

http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/y..._2551Small.jpg

I have a list of things to do over the Christmas holiday :party: when I should have some spare time. I'll post what I get done.

Looks good! Ill be really interested to see this thing finished.

I don't think I mentioned this in this thread, but I built these shocks as I did on my other large scale vehicle (here) and put a thin lexan piece on the shock piston covering 10 of the 24 holes (imitating the traxxas variable damping kit - as originally suggested by mistercrash).


http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/y..._0695Small.jpg

I really like the way this handles on the other truck and am going with 20wt oil all around to start with on this build. I found that this lighter weight oil gives the shocks good rebound with a heavy vehicle, with the lexan covering 10 of the holes allowing the shock to still have good damping when being compressed.

Love the project man, awesome work!

Thank you.

Here's a little progress. I've been mounting battery trays and installing the front FG bumper that goes with the Hummer body - I still have a couple more support bars to install:

http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/y..._2617Small.jpg

The wheels and tires I bought for this are 5b fronts - Black Desperados and Hostile MX hard compound (with taped pro-line foams). The 5b rears are too wide for what I wanted on this build - so I thought the fronts would be best. They recently came out with MX 5b front tires - which are supposedly the toughest tires around - I like how they look - here is a quick mock-up of one wheel/tire with the body in place:

http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/y..._2616Small.jpg

That looks pretty good.
Kind of like the size tires to the body.
Makes it look more scale.
Can't wait to see it further along.

Thanks, I like the look of the tires with the body, too. I mounted and weighed one of the wheel/tire/foams = 450g

Here's the front bumper mount finished. It seems very solid:

http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/y..._2658Small.jpg

http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/y..._2660Small.jpg

I'm going to try the EZRun 150A Pro esc in this build and just wired it up to run two 6s packs in parallel:

http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/y..._2663Small.jpg

I strapped it down with a padded Aluminum strip and Al angles front and back to keep it from moving:

http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/y..._2664Small.jpg

Things planned:
I've been working on cutting down some 23mm hex extenders to give the right width for this build.
I'll add a brace from front to rear bulkheads.
I'll need to make body mounts and then I'm planning to add some lexan undertray pieces to extend out from the chassis and attach to the body.

Great work, as usual! I haven't really heard any bad things about the ezrun escs in fact i really liked my 80A and id still have it if it didn't get fried in the ocean...

Good to know. Memo to self: keep trucks out of ocean. :wink:

Hahaha yeah but the batteries in my tx died and i didn't have the fail safe set so it went full throttle into the ocean after bouncing off a random guy's leg...

That stinks.

Yeah but anyway keep up the good work and it looks like its going to be alot of fun when its done!

Update:

I installed a 1" - 1/16" thick u-channel between the two bulkhead top plates for added rigidity of the truck - the chassis is flat so it would bend by itself. I'll run some of my wires along the u-channel to keep them out of the way.

I've also cut down some pro-line hex extenders to give the truck the width I want. I wrap the 23mm hexes with Al tape to get it to 24mm for the 1/5 wheels.

I've also changed the color of my 1717 :party::party:

Pics:

http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/y..._2687Small.jpg

http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/y..._2683Small.jpg

http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/y..._2684Small.jpg

http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/y..._2685Small.jpg

http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/y..._2688Small.jpg