A couple of issues which bugged me about this project have now been addressed.
The first was the fact that the Integy wheel wideners/adaptors made the wheels stick out too far.
I wondered if it was possible to find 14mm hex free machining rod and sure enough there was some on Ebay so after obtaining a half meter length I set out to see if I could make my own 14mm hex hubs. Below is the result. In fact this is a reject where I mistakenly made the slot for the axle pin 1mm too deep.
The slot was done using a 2mm milling cutter held in the mini lathe chuck with the hex gripped in the tool post packed up to the correct center height using a 1.5mm scrap of aluminium sheet. The hex adapter's hole was lined up with the center of the chuck using a lathe center. The cross slide was moved 5.5mm out from center in both directions leaving an 11mm slot 2mm deep.
The rims are then secured using the long barrel nuts from the Integy adapters which previously were too short. I had previously drilled out the rims to fit my wider diameter home made barrel nuts so I had to make 4 brass tube sleeves that fit over the integy barrel nuts to fit the wider diameter holes in the rims. The result is that the rims sit about 12mm closer to the axles and look and perform much better.
The other problem was that the location of the curved shock mounts on the axle that I made interfered with the full turn of the steering. that was fixed by shortening the fuel tubing bushes, swapping the cap screws to a lower profile button head and dremeling out a clearance groove for the shock shaft in the mounts. Now I get full lock without binding the servo travel.
The picture above also shows the newly made hex in position and the new more cosy clearance for the steering arm.
Added to the suspension set up was a front and rear sway bar. This was possible because I swapped out the Venom Creeper transmission (which went into the ToyBash truck project) for an Axial SCX10 transmission which locates the motor along side. You can clearly see the slot which allows the sway bar to slide back and forth as the suspension compresses. The sway bars were made from bent 2mm piano wire.
An electronics tray was made from 2mm styrene, heated and bent in the middle to match the angle of the side frames. A flat raised section is added to support the battery and get over the top of the transmission which protrudes up through a shaped hole in the tray. A start has been made in laying out the electronics. A small clamping antenna tube holder made from some 10mmm pvc has been added on one of the 6mm rod cross members. There is a horizontal saw slot through which the m3 cap screw clamps down and a small vertical slot at the other end which allows for the pre-housed antenna wire to pass through before pushing the tube into the 3mm hole.
A start has been made on skinning the wooden hull frame with 1mm styrene. The wooden frame was sealed with shellac first which helps the thick super glue to go off quickly which is otherwise a problem for porous plywood end grain. I like shellac as it is easy to mix up the flakes with methylated spirits, it dries fast and is easily sandable, plus it is a reasonably natural material without lots of nasty chemicals of which there are more than enough in plastic model making.
The areas of the plastic sheet that were to come into contact with the superglue were marked out and then roughed up with very coarse sandpaper. It took a bit of coaxing with clamps and tie down straps to get it to conform to the radius required. It is impossible to handle trying to do glue it all at once so I glued it in stages with the occasional assistance of that foul smelling Zip Kicker (cyanoacrylate accelerant). When doing this sort of thing it is wise to make the sheet bigger than needed all round and then trim the excess off after the glue has fully set.
The interior of the cockpit has also been skinned. The circular side windows are made from a PVC pipe reducer. It has a small lip on the inside against which an acrylic sheet disk window will sit. A ring of pvc pipe that fits the inner diameter will then slide in from the outside securing the window neatly in place. I plan to put a couple more porthole windows down the side.
The 1mm styrene sheet still has the clear plastic film protective sheet on it which is why it looks bit ragged in places. I will leave that on as long as possible to stop the surface getting unduly scratched while I work on it.
The rear has a cut in half push light housing glued on. There is a rear door structure still to be built and added.
A 1/16 Bruder man squats in the approximate position he will occupy. He originally had a co-driver to keep him company but he was requisitioned for the Toy bash truck. I have a replacement coming and to mix it up a bit and redress the gender bias I am thinking it is going to be a Bruder female figure.
This project shares much in common with the ToyBash project having 4 wheel steering and sharing similar components in the drive train.They are also both in the same scale, the idea is that they would exist in the same world and time-frame.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7,
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