Tide clean!

[RC Addict]

Just tuned into this one. Very impressive work!!!

 

[Skwerly]

Haha, I've always liked the Tide logo, too! That body looks great, man!

 

[Racer 1966]

Great work! The finished rig looks awesome!

 

[JessF]

Thanks Dudes!!

We're heading to conservation areas in Milton, Ontario. Will take plenty of photos.

Nest season we're heading here...

Tobermory, a large section of the Bruce Trail is litered with great area's to crawler.

 

[Skwerly]

Wow, I like that V-Dub one, too. Let us know how the run goes!

 

[JessF]

we had to walk about an hour and as light as this thing seems it gets heavy after time. The prefered method of transport through forest trails became the "perched cat" leaving both hands free.

once we got home I swapped out the bent links for straight ones and installed the original memory fomes in the chisels. They seemed too soft with the modified foams I had in there during the crawl. Dig servo requires some tuning and I need to fab up some kind of linkage, all at had at the time was some bend brass wire and no form of servo saver.

The body posts took a beating, bending over any time the body took a hit, at 1.5mm thick I'm not surprised. I may just leave it that way and bend them back any time it happens, it's better they bend and take the impact...or I just improve my driving skills!!

fun day.

 

[JessF]

I'm revisiting this project with a updated design on the chassis. The original chassis allowed for a lot of adjustments and made use of the Axial chassis plates. I've found the positions I like driving with, so all the variability designed into the chassis is redundant and therefore a waste of material and added weight up high.

With the new design I want to reduce weight and the width a further 1/2", this brings the chassis down to 2" in width. I'll hang the motor off the side and the tranny with VF dig unit will hang slightly off the other side. I also get a chance to position the tranny in a more central position for straighter drive shaft connections and less binding. I've also been looking at some of the high clearance chassis out there for the MOA rigs so I've included a canted motor/tranny mount to follow suit.

I won't be cutting these pieces by hand, not this time. I don't have access to my shop like I once did and I'd rather pay to have them waterjet cut. I will, however, do a mock-up with thick cardboard to check the clearances then adjust the CAD files before having a set cut. I also plan on moving the battery to the front axles, doing a BTA steering setup and moving the ESC to the rear axle. This will help to further lower the CG.

Does anyone run a shafty anymore? With the new XR-10 out there I see fewer and fewer shafty crawlers.

 

[slowngreen]

Some still run shafty's for fun or as sportsmans. I havent for years though. Their not dead yet and probably wont be any time soon.
As long as your high clearance belly doesn't put too much angle on your shafts/yokes then you should be good to go.

 

[JessF]

Some still run shafty's for fun or as sportsmans. I havent for years though. Their not dead yet and probably wont be any time soon.
As long as your high clearance belly doesn't put too much angle on your shafts/yokes then you should be good to go.

I hear ya. I've consider the axle angle and it's one of the things I want to check when i do the cardboard mock-up. I figure if I'm pushing the tranny closer to the centre, any angle I see from the sloped tranny plate will be no different then when the tranny was off centre.

We'll see.

So are there any shafty competitions? I can't seem to find a Losi Comp Crawler, only the night crawler.

 

[slowngreen]

Yeah theres a "shafty pro" class. Competes with the normal Pro class I think though so you compete against all the pros and you also compete to get first out of the shafty pro's. I think thats how it is. Abadk9 was in it before switching to moa.

 

[HPI-Killer]

Damn thats a nice looking rig, hate the Axial chassis but you have made it look much better! Bet she goes good on the rocks too!

 

[abadk9420]

There was talk of having a shafty pro class, but it never really took off, I got tired of having the shafty disadvantage and finally went MOA this year.

Also as far as the drive shafts with your HC Chassis your designing watch the angles sloping up to the tranny, you can relieve some of that by increasing your rear axles pinion angle, but I think your biggest problem will be on the tranny side.

 

[JessF]

the mock up.

and the chassis from the waterjet guy. be using him again.

 

[JessF]

got home and did another quick mockup, this time with the aluminium plates.

This is how it looks with the tranny mounted forward, still plenty of room for the stock 87T spur. I need to see how well my 93T spur fits with the upper braces mounted towards the inside.

I need to countersink the aluminium for the lower link screws, and I need to clean up the rough spots, but otherwise very pleased.

the mighty micro as my dig servo has worked out awesome. With the added leverage of the VF shifter the mighty has plenty of torque. The only complaint would be when the rear wheels are under high loads, the mighty has a tough time popping the dig out of full lock. The plastic gears will strip eventually, then I'll upgrade to another mini with metal gears.

 

[slowngreen]

nice job, looks good bro.

 

[Rolex]

Wow, you did a really serious build and it's first class. A real beauty.

 

[JessF]

Wow, you did a really serious build and it's first class. A real beauty.

cheers.

I really need to wait for my 93T spur to get here befor I can progress any further. In the mean time I can think of a new body mount system. My previous velcro on aluminium tabs worked well in holding the body on, but if you too a hard fall the tabs most often bent, one even broke off. I also like the threaded post and plastic nut idea I've seen on a few rigs.

 

[Rolex]

You can use the standard body mounts. On this chassis it's a direct fit since the chassis is the same width as stock. On yours you can use threaded rod and drill through the side frame, nut and bolt on either side to set the width when the body post is threaded on.

 

[JessF]

You can use the standard body mounts. On this chassis it's a direct fit since the chassis is the same width as stock. On yours you can use threaded rod and drill through the side frame, nut and bolt on either side to set the width when the body post is threaded on.

good idea, but in my case I have the body mounts on the top, but I could reuse them.

in the mean time, I've picked up a 24" section of carbon fibre arrow shaft, some aluminium threaded inserts and some CA glue. Gonna make me some CF upper links and probably chassis posts.

The lower links will be bent aluminium until I decide to get some bent delrin one. I want to see how well the CF upper links hold up to the constant torque and what not. They'll never really get hit or scraped against a rock so they should do fine.

 

[abadk9420]

Looks good! As for your body mounts you can put a cross brace in the front and rear with a hole in the center for a body mount post.

Kinda like this