FlyBoyCoe's AX10

[FlyBoyCoe]

Well since I moved to Texas to continue my pilot training, I had to move into an apartment with no garage, and no real way to work on the Explorer. Add the fact that I'm no where near any hills or mountains to go play in, I had to get my crawling fix some other way.

Froader's AX10 adventures inspired me to check out my local hobby shop and they had an AX10 RTC (ready to crawl) on the shelf. I wanted the kit to build myself, but this was by far cheaper since it came with all the electronics sans battery and charger. I can still upgrade a lot of the pieces and probably will here pretty soon. I already had some drive shaft carnage due to a loose set screw.

The future: new paint on this body; new body styles (perhaps modern F-150, or military HMMWV); metal axles, drive shafts, suspension links; rear steer.

What do you guys do about the antenna? Is there a way to route it under the body that allows for good reception?

Enough talking, here are some pics of it veggie crawlin:

[SVO]

Nice crawler Jeff, yeah that area of Texas is a bit flat unless you goto the beach and play but that is a great way to rot the underpinning of your truck out, ask Johnstone.








Jeff -

[FROADER]

Sweet! I just went crawling with some buddies last night.
http://s630.photobucket.com/albums/u.../RC%20Crawler/

Check out www.rccrawler.com/forum (if you haven't already) for any info you need about upgrades or whatever. Just use the search first because it's all Pirate4x4 guys over there and still show no mercy.

The first thing I would do is figure out a way to lower that battery. It will crawl ten times better.

[FlyBoyCoe]

Thanks guys. I've lurked around on rccrawler for a bit, seeing what options were available. I took the truck out to some rocks today to see how it performed on the real stuff and I was pretty happy. I brought along my hex wrenches tho, since the front driveshaft u-joint kept slipping off the t-case shaft. The front shaft fell off twice, but it was after the rear shaft fell off that I decided to call it a day. Just tightening the set screws wasn't enough to hold those things down.

So I took my trusty Dremel to it, and etched out a detent for the set screw to go into and hopefully prevent it from slipping off the shaft. I also drilled some 1/8" air holes in the inner wheels (2 holes 180* apart in each wheel). They should let some air out and increase traction as necessary.









I want to add some weights to the wheels next, and try to find some saddle type batteries to relocate them on the axle. That's what I get listening to the lady at the hobby shop and getting this beefy 7 cell.

[FlyBoyCoe]

The body style on the RTC is the Axial XC-1, and while I like the shape, I'm not, however, a big fan of the flashy green and silver. So with the help of some Krylon Camo Ultra Flat, I went to it.

Masked off the windows:


Sprayed 2 coats of tan, then masked off the fenders and side skirts:


Unmasked the body:


Uncovered the windows, and re-applied the light and grille stickers, and added a chassis:


For my first attempt, I'm pretty satisfied. I might add in some tiger stripe camo later, but I'm happy for now.

[FROADER]

Heck yeah, that looks great!

[section525]

Badass! Already hacked it up! Lookin good.

[FlyBoyCoe]

Originally Posted by section525

Badass! Already hacked it up! Lookin good.

I have been the destroyer of toys since my childhood.

[FlyBoyCoe]

I have since swapped out the huge stick battery for a saddlebag style that sits on the front axle. This gave me some extra clearance under the body, so I dropped it a bit, and hacked off the fenders for some tire clearance.



Then she got a fresh coat of paint. I'm digging the flat black. I want to go with blue links and beadlock rings in the future, should look sick.



(fuzzy photos courtesy of iPhone)