Topic: 462 Mini Crawler Builds (AX10, SCX10, LMRC, Wraith)

[pumkin toy]

thats not too bad.  its alot cheaper than building a full size crawler!

[46&2 [OP]]

thats not too bad.  its alot cheaper than building a full size crawler!

Yeah the initial cost is what hurts the most. But they are great for when you are bored or want to go wheeling. Nothing to prep just charge your battery and go wheel

A few of my friends have these so we get together sometimes and drink beer and have little comps, throw a few bucks each into a pot and the winner takes home like 20 bucks, good way to kill a sunday evening

[pumkin toy]

Yeah the initial cost is what hurts the most. But they are great for when you are bored or want to go wheeling. Nothing to prep just charge your battery and go wheel

A few of my friends have these so we get together sometimes and drink beer and have little comps, throw a few bucks each into a pot and the winner takes home like 20 bucks, good way to kill a sunday evening

yeah that does sound like fun! but right now between two jobs, my toyota project, and trying to sell my car and house i dont really have any sunday evenings to kill! lol

[HxCmudBogger]

http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q89/burncanada/boobflex.jpg[/img]
 

butthead, "I have seen the top of the mountain, and it is good."

[46&2 [OP]]

butthead, "I have seen the top of the mountain, and it is good."

[46&2 [OP]]

Only update of late is that I blew up my 55 turn Integy motor last week wheeling at the ocean. Started making a ton of noise then just stopped moving. Borrowed my friends 65 turn for now to see if I want to upgrade to a 65 or keep the 55.

[46&2 [OP]]

Some pictures wheeling at Ryan's house with his new Losi Night Crawler. Also got his unused stock Axial body to replace my tired, haggard stock body. I like the 65 turn.

[46&2 [OP]]

Ryan's little ones. He had em crawling while they were still crawling. 

[axled89]

that's cool as hell for kids man.   keeps them out of what trouble they can get in to at that age. 
i have three boys that need somthing like that.

[Rockcrawlintoy]

how do you like the 65 turn motor i was thinkin of gettin one of those and maybe a 45 for goin a lil faster

[46&2 [OP]]

that's cool as hell for kids man.   keeps them out of what trouble they can get in to at that age. 
i have three boys that need somthing like that.

Haha hell yeah. The youngest one will see us grab our remotes and trucks and comes running over and say "Wets go wak cwal." He hasnt quite gotten the steering down but he loves to watch us and try himself. The older one is actually pretty good, and she really enjoys it. I was never able to have rc cars as a kid so its cool to see how much fun they have with it. Definitely keeps em out of trouble and gets them into offroading at a really young age. 

how do you like the 65 turn motor i was thinkin of gettin one of those and maybe a 45 for goin a lil faster

I like the 65, but I would say I think a 55 is a good medium. Gives you a good slow pace to crawl at but also allows for good wheel spin for when you need to spin the tires. With the 65 turn I find certain situations where I cant get enough wheel speed when I need it, like on steep slick rock. Personally I think a 45 would be too fast. My rig pretty much only sees the rocks so I have no need to go fast. 55 is ideal for me, but 65 works too. After this motor dies I will probably go back to a 55 turn.

[THK Matt]

You see the Xtreme 4x4 Feature on the Mini Losi, 1:10 and Buggy RC feature they did this Saturday (Sept 14th)
It was pretty cool.

[46&2 [OP]]

You see the Xtreme 4x4 Feature on the Mini Losi, 1:10 and Buggy RC feature they did this Saturday (Sept 14th)
It was pretty cool.

No I missed that. We were up at the Casinos all day yesterday. I did however get some Losi rock lights for my rig. Going to put em on and paint my new body shortly. Probably going with the desert tan again. We'll see what I have in the garage.

[THK Matt]

try and get some kind of design goin on man!! make it sick lol

[46&2 [OP]]

try and get some kind of design goin on man!! make it sick lol

Until I get a clear body to paint from the inside, its not worth wasting too much time on the paint job. It will be scraped off in a week

[THK Matt]

yeah thats true.


what body you lookin for?

[46&2 [OP]]

yeah thats true.


what body you lookin for?

I dunno. I've seen a Tacoma looking body, might run that. Actually I'd like to just go down to the RC store with my chassis and test fit to see what bodies would look the best.

[46&2 [OP]]

Got my 4 link parts from TCS today... about time I got rid of the 3 links.  

Great kits for the price, less than 20 bucks for the front and the rear.

[46&2 [OP]]

I set up the rear 4 link in the "over/under" method. Connecting the driver's side upper link bar to the top of the plate and the passenger's side to the bottom of the plate. Seems to eliminate torque twist by about 90% or so on its own. I took out the bigger spring spacers but still ran with two smaller ones for a little extra resistance from the rear DS shock (and kept the 80 wt shock oil). In the front I hooked them both to the top of the link plate.

I took it for a test run and the torque twist is almost gone. No more axle wrap and my pinion and driveshaft angles are MUCH better than before. Glad I finally got around to doing this. My axle wrap/slop was terrible with the 3 link, I was waiting for it to break something. You can also see where I mounted the Losi rock lights at each corner. They are pretty freakin' bright and I am going to wire them to an external battery source so it doesn't suck off my main battery.

Old pinion/driveshaft angle on the left and new angle on the right:



Installed:



F&R:



About 3" of belly clearance.



Trimmed out some more fender front and rear on the "new" body. I am thinking about converting over to an Axial Honcho body/bed, but its pretty expensive to get all the goodies. Until then I will rattle can this one olive drab or something. Gotta go get more paint though. I'll figure something out.

[81yotalove]

so i just read this whole thing and your axial is cool. im so excited to get mine. also seeing how you use yours im going to go with a 55t. but i have a few questions what kind of run time do you get out of that stick pack? cause i have two 3000mah 6s so i was just wondering how long those would last. and what speed control do you use? and would you go with another integy motor? and do you run a bec? thanks for the help man. i really appreciate it cause im on a budget and my toyota isnt in wheeling condition quite yet so i decided to sell my losi buggy to get one of these so i could wheel on a smaller scale.

[46&2 [OP]]

so i just read this whole thing and your axial is cool. im so excited to get mine. also seeing how you use yours im going to go with a 55t. but i have a few questions what kind of run time do you get out of that stick pack? cause i have two 3000mah 6s so i was just wondering how long those would last. and what speed control do you use? and would you go with another integy motor? and do you run a bec? thanks for the help man. i really appreciate it cause im on a budget and my toyota isnt in wheeling condition quite yet so i decided to sell my losi buggy to get one of these so i could wheel on a smaller scale.

Thanks man. Well my stick battery packs are old, I've had em since I was like 11 or 12. On a full charge they last about 15-20 minutes. I plan on upgrading batteries to a smaller one I can run on the front axle. Just haven't made it down to the hobby store in a while. I am pretty tired of these batteries anyway, too big and heavy, it will lower my center of gravity a lot by moving to a front axle battery. 3000 will probably get you like 25-30 minutes of run time per battery if they are newer batteries, maybe more.

I am still rocking my stock Axial RTR ESC, so no BEC. While its not the greatest (no drag brake, throttle response leaves a lot to be desired, but works and is predictable, so I just got used to it) I am amazed it is still ticking almost 2 years later. I would like to replace it with a Mamba Max ESC, but I have kind of just taken the "when it breaks, upgrade it" attitude with this thing now. So when the stocker finally croaks I will upgrade it. My friend has a Mamba Max though and its really nice, definitely what I'd like to go with.

As for the Integy motor, probably not, just because of how much crap I have heard about Integy as a whole over the years. I got over a year of hard use out of mine, and Pacific Ocean water and sand are what finally did it in. I am not sure how many motors could really have gone much longer. I don't even know the brand of the donated 65 turn I am currently running, the sticker is long faded off. I have had great success with their driveshafts however.

These are fun little rigs to play with especially when you can't wheel your real rig. Or when you've had too many  and want to wheel. Any other questions feel free to ask 

[81yotalove]

thanks for all your input. and with your help and rock_krawler's help and reading a lot on rcc, i've decided that im going to go the artr kit,rooster crawler 55t combo i think it will be enough for me and it will have the drag brake and internal bec and i dont need all the adjustability just yet since this will be my first electric rc i have had nitros. im going to reuse my losi 2.4 radio and reciever and hitec 7985 servo for the steering and my 3000mah stick packs so the esc should have no problem and i dont think i'll need an external bec. i think that will be great setup for me and what im going to use it for. now all i need to do is sell my losi eight.

can you think of anything im missing or that you would change about my setup?
and have you used rpphobby? i might buy my stuff from there. they have the rovers buy a pair and get a pair so im thinking of jumping on that as well since everyone raves about them lol.

[46&2 [OP]]

Sounds like a solid set up to me. As for future upgrades, just play with it and see what you feel you'd want to change. I didn't know anything about these when I got mine. I just kind of rebuilt it as I broke stuff, or as I found things to not suit my needs.

As for updates on my Axial, I just painted the body olive drab and have just been wheeling it. I really need a new battery though, tired of these dinosaur batteries..

Really digging the 4link though. Highly recommend it.

[46&2 [OP]]

I could never get a good shot of my rock lights but I got a new camera so here is what they look like how I have them set up currently:



Went to the river Friday to do some night wheeling. Had a good time, busted the gears in my metal gear servo. Had to do a trail fix, now I am running a loaner Titanium gear servo. Seems pretty sweet but I have to run a plastic arm cuz my metal arms have a smaller tooth pattern than the titanium servo has. Still deciding what I want to do to improve my steering radius, compared to my friend's Losi, my axial turns like . Thinking about customizing the knuckles/hubs/axle shafts. Still looking into what the best options are.

Otherwise we had a good time and the rock lights work awesome. Highly recommend the Losi light kit.

The repair:



This is two of the same picture, one with the flash and one without:

[46&2 [OP]]

Just ordered a bunch of stuff for this thing. I will be getting a Mini Losi Crawler soon so this is the last hurrah for the Ol AX10 for a while. RPP was having a sale on a lot of things I needed, so I ordered up the following:


Dynamite Aluminum Steering Knuckles with Ballstud (2) AX10
      
Pro-Line Bolt on Tuber Cage System for AX10
            
Pro-Line Bolt on Tuber Body Panels
   
Axial AX10 Competition Universal Joint Drive Shaft Set (1 Pair)
       
Axial 5 LED Light String (White LED)
            
RPP Hobby Axial Honcho to Tacoma Decal sheet
            
RPM Narrow Roof-Mounted Light Bar Set – Black

Hobby Ge 1/10 Scale Accessories Extinguisher, Hi Lift Jack, and Rifle
            
Rpp Hobby 5x11x4mm Rubber Sealed Bearing (10)
         
Rpp Hobby 10x15x4mm Rubber Sealed Bearing (8)


Going to give the Pro Line Tuber body kit a try. Looks pretty cool and somewhat sturdy, so I will put it to the test. Got a reinforced light bar and some scale accesories to go with the new scaler body. Since I decided to upgrade my front axle shafts and steering knuckles, I got all the bearings to service my front and rear axles. They have not been torn apart and rebuilt since I got this thing 3 years ago. 

Got the stickers so I can hopefully make this look kind of like a Taco buggy.

[46&2 [OP]]

Also here are some pics and a couple videos from when I took the AX10 to Fort Bragg CA and wheeled at the beach.























Ten-lined june beetle. It belongs to the scarab beetle family Scarabaeidae. Almost ran this little guy over.



The videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57m3hkvEEv0

This was pretty much the most vertical hill climb I think I have ever done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRwSOUzfL5s&feature=mfu_channel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFSRsT-laCg&feature=mfu_channel

[46&2 [OP]]

Props to RPP for fast service and shipping. Ordered Sunday night, parts were in my mailbox Tuesday morning. 

Just started tearing the girl apart. Full axle rebuild and knuckle/axle shaft upgrade, new body and more in progress as we speak.

[THK Matt]

SICKKKK!

[46&2 [OP]]

Yeah I wasn't expecting much from the Pro Line tuber kit, but its actually pretty damn stout. Very hard plastic and well reinforced. I think it will take at least a hundred hard rolls... 

[46&2 [OP]]

The Pro Line bolt on tuber kit is pretty sweet. Installs in just a couple minutes. I had to move pretty much all my electronics to get it bolted on, but other than that its not bad. Biggest downfall so far is the holes I used to mount my rock lights were the holes I needed to mount this body. Not sure where I am going to put the rock lights yet, there are holes I can use on the stock frame but it will put them in harms way... up in the air on what to do with them at the moment. Also, the Axial SCX10 light kit I bought has 5mm bulbs, and the RPM light rack housings only have 3mm, holes, gotta drill em out to get them to work.

All the parts were great, but I do have a complaint about the RPM light bar hardware. The screws they include to mount the bar itself to a vehicle are rediculously small, so small in fact I wasn't able to use them, and had to scavange for larger screws in my hardware bin. Other than that, I give the Pro Line tuber kit a 10/10 so far, and the RPM light bar kit a 9/10.

Next is the axle rebuilds.