RevoJoe
RCTalk Basher
Idle hands are the Devils Workshop, according to Jesse James. That might explain why I spent my lazy Sunday doing this.
The plan was to drop the body of one of my Diecast shelf queens onto a small electric chassis. I'm not short on shelf queens or small crappy RC's, so it seemed like a good idea.
Here are the donor cars:
The body was taken from this Diecast Boss 302 'Stang. Complete with interior, and opening doors/bonnet. Purchased from a random service station for about $12, about 6 months ago.
That body was then transferred to the underlying chassis of this cheapy H3 Hummer, 2WD - 4way control. This was also purchased from a service station, some 5 years ago.
The first step was to strip both cars down to their undies, and see what I was dealing with.
As you can see from the pic below, the wheelbase of the Stang is longer than the Hummer. I didn't worry about this though, until later in the project.
My first concern was how the body would mount, and where to split the chassis. I decided it would be best to keep the floorpan in the equation, as the body and interior pieces screw to it.
The best place to split the chassis was towards the front, between the battery box and steering box. Out came the Dremel. While I was there, I smoothed of the chassis, so the body had a flat surface to mount to.
The next step was to modify the front and rear motor housings, to accomodate the Stang floorpan. The rear was straightfoward. I just had to cut the top off. I cut in some hooks into the housing, so the floorpan could lock into it.
The front wasn't so simple. I had to Dremel the floorpan in a bit, so it would fit into the housing. As it turned out, the two housings ended up looking
factory. Shaweeeet.
Once that was all tied up, I needed to join the two halves off the chassis together. By accidently stepping on a rogue piece of Lego, I found my solution. I joined some girders to a plate with some uber-glue, smoothed it off, and Dremeled it to shape and length. I then had my adapter plate.
I tested the adapter against the chassis, then, with a copious amount of Araldite, I re-joined the chassis. A lick of black paint, and she was back in once piece again.
The final stage, was to re-electrify it. As the body was is now sitting where the ESC went, I had no choice but to relocate it. The best option was to trade out the 3xAA holder, for a 6V nimh hump-pack, and relocate the ESC to the battery box. The best place I could find for the battery, was the boot. I re-harnessed the board, and created a secondary harness to accommodate the charge plug and switch.
At this point, I realised that the body wasn't really attached to the chassis that well. Easy solution for that:
As the back of the floorpan hooks into the rear motor housing, a single self-tapper though the chassis and into the floorpan, under the ESC, is enough to hold the body in place.
A bit more Dremelling for the switch... hard stuff done.
Here is the final product.
15 hours work, for well.... nothing really. Looks friggin cool but. The Hummer had some screw-on suspension pieces, and side tanks. I'll add those on, at some point through the week. For some mind-numbingly stupid reason, it also had flashing red and blue LEDs, under each side of the body. I'm not sure on those yet. Maybe... if I feel like ruining it.
Thanks for looking
The plan was to drop the body of one of my Diecast shelf queens onto a small electric chassis. I'm not short on shelf queens or small crappy RC's, so it seemed like a good idea.
Here are the donor cars:
The body was taken from this Diecast Boss 302 'Stang. Complete with interior, and opening doors/bonnet. Purchased from a random service station for about $12, about 6 months ago.
That body was then transferred to the underlying chassis of this cheapy H3 Hummer, 2WD - 4way control. This was also purchased from a service station, some 5 years ago.
The first step was to strip both cars down to their undies, and see what I was dealing with.
As you can see from the pic below, the wheelbase of the Stang is longer than the Hummer. I didn't worry about this though, until later in the project.
My first concern was how the body would mount, and where to split the chassis. I decided it would be best to keep the floorpan in the equation, as the body and interior pieces screw to it.
The best place to split the chassis was towards the front, between the battery box and steering box. Out came the Dremel. While I was there, I smoothed of the chassis, so the body had a flat surface to mount to.
The next step was to modify the front and rear motor housings, to accomodate the Stang floorpan. The rear was straightfoward. I just had to cut the top off. I cut in some hooks into the housing, so the floorpan could lock into it.
The front wasn't so simple. I had to Dremel the floorpan in a bit, so it would fit into the housing. As it turned out, the two housings ended up looking
factory. Shaweeeet.
Once that was all tied up, I needed to join the two halves off the chassis together. By accidently stepping on a rogue piece of Lego, I found my solution. I joined some girders to a plate with some uber-glue, smoothed it off, and Dremeled it to shape and length. I then had my adapter plate.
I tested the adapter against the chassis, then, with a copious amount of Araldite, I re-joined the chassis. A lick of black paint, and she was back in once piece again.
The final stage, was to re-electrify it. As the body was is now sitting where the ESC went, I had no choice but to relocate it. The best option was to trade out the 3xAA holder, for a 6V nimh hump-pack, and relocate the ESC to the battery box. The best place I could find for the battery, was the boot. I re-harnessed the board, and created a secondary harness to accommodate the charge plug and switch.
At this point, I realised that the body wasn't really attached to the chassis that well. Easy solution for that:
As the back of the floorpan hooks into the rear motor housing, a single self-tapper though the chassis and into the floorpan, under the ESC, is enough to hold the body in place.
A bit more Dremelling for the switch... hard stuff done.
Here is the final product.
15 hours work, for well.... nothing really. Looks friggin cool but. The Hummer had some screw-on suspension pieces, and side tanks. I'll add those on, at some point through the week. For some mind-numbingly stupid reason, it also had flashing red and blue LEDs, under each side of the body. I'm not sure on those yet. Maybe... if I feel like ruining it.
Thanks for looking
