LOSI LST XXL Conversion ideas

[mistercrash]

JThiessen, thanks, it will help a lot.

brian015, yes what you explained made a lot of sense. This last concept was to try to have simpler chassis rails, they are basically bar stock cut to size and drilled in the right places for screws and bolts. They would be so easy to make and so much cheaper in price for the raw material. A solid one piece lower plate was in my first concept but I thought that having a separate front, middle and rear is also interesting. The front and rear plates usually wear out faster than the middle, when they need to be replaced then you don't have to replace the whole bottom plate. Even though they are separate, they do overlap each other which brings more stiffness and strength to the chassis as a complete unit. Also, I plan to use long M4 screws that go through the bottom plate, the chassis rails and the top plate with a lock nut on top to sandwich everything together and lock every part as strongly as possible. I'm still just playing around with ideas so keep on giving your feedback, it will definitely help me to come up with a final concept.
And please tell me if you see anything that couldn't possibly be done because I still don't have the truck, I'm just figuring out stuff just by looking at pics from other builds and exploded views.

[JThiessen]

Since you and I are doing the same thing right now, some details that I see as tough to overcome:
1) Replacing the rails. The rails taper up and in the back on the bottom (I believe the front is just a taper inboard). This taper interfaces with the bulkhead support/mounting plate. Nailing this part down will be tough via reverse engineering. Not impossible though. This is the only reason I have chosen to keep the stock rails.

2) I also think the three part chassis might prove to have too many joints over time. I really think that having a continuous member from front to back is very critical to the flex and structural rigidity of the chassis.

[pinkpanda3310]

Originally Posted by brian015

Here's my thought: You could make the lower plate a single piece Al plate from front to back, but more narrow than your present center section (just as wide as the widest parts of the top plate. Then you could add CF "wings" in the middle as battery trays. If that makes sense.

Originally Posted by JThiessen

Since you and I are doing the same thing right now, some details that I see as tough to overcome:
1) Replacing the rails. The rails taper up and in the back on the bottom (I believe the front is just a taper inboard). This taper interfaces with the bulkhead support/mounting plate. Nailing this part down will be tough via reverse engineering. Not impossible though. This is the only reason I have chosen to keep the stock rails.

2) I also think the three part chassis might prove to have too many joints over time. I really think that having a continuous member from front to back is very critical to the flex and structural rigidity of the chassis.

If you are going to make a one piece bottom chassis, you could keep it flat to avoid the the taper issue. Or, get a muggy chassis and mod that to your needs.

[JThiessen]

MC - check my thread. I put up some new pdf's of the plates for ya. http://www.rc-monster.com/forum/show...781#post355781

[mistercrash]

Thanks JT that's great.

[mistercrash]

Alright, a front and rear skid plate, overlapping a center bottom plate, with two ''one piece'' chassis rails and a top plate with XXL specs. I can't wait to get the truck to see if this is doable.