2021 2 door Bronco Badlands SAS

[Blmpkn]

Whelp, here it is boys. Done enough to show her off I suppose.

Started with a 1/24 scale rock crawler, I forget the model but this ones made by Associated. Came with a 4 runner clone for a body.

Bought a 24th scale die cast model made by our Chinese friends at Maisto and started the cannabilism..

My idea was to build a little rig that was as scale as possible, but the body ended up being a bit too small for super realistic proportions.. should of ordered the 1/18 scale model instead. Oh well.

I also needed to ditch the idea of using the associated crawler, because the steering servo stands upright on the associated truck.. the body would of sat too high off the frame and just looked stupid. I ended up using a very similar ECX micro barrage.

Wheelbase was .6" too long, and with the least offset set of wheels they'll still have bro-poke even after I glue the fender flares back on.

Cutting (now unobtanium) stock links down to length.

Custom links done! 3/16 aluminum tube works perfect as a sleeve.. everything is just C.A glued together.

As of now...

It still needs tinkering.. it was my first time doing any of this so I have ABSOLUTE SHIT pinion angles lol... gotta move the steering servo back on the frame or just mount it to the axle... cut down the driveshafts.. gotta make myself some custom shock towers.. and cut the fender flares off the models chassis and glue them onto the body.

I will be buying .7" wheels and shorter tires to help in the scale department.. these are 1" wheels, and the tires are about 1/2" bigger than the planned set.

Probably the only way I'll get myself a 2 door bronco. It's almost close enough to satiate... but not quite.

 

[RangerNumber3]

NICE!

 

[Uncle Gump]

Well this is a bit of a let down to what I was expecting...

Still pretty cool.

 

[Blmpkn]

Well this is a bit of a let down to what I was expecting...

Still pretty cool.

Aw lol sorry


Let the record show.. my life is not nearly interesting enough to contain people willing to SAS their brand new bronco

They'd just end up with terrible pinion angles anyways

 

[Roert42]

I think the proportions look good with the existing tires. Very monster truck.

 

[Blmpkn]

I think the proportions look good with the existing tires. Very monster truck.

It's not terrible, no. I was just hoping for more of a scaled down factory vehicle stance/appearance and less Florida-truck lol, well get there.

 

[dvdswan]

Well this is a bit of a let down to what I was expecting...

Still pretty cool.

Same here...

 

[Blmpkn]

New wheels and tires showed up today. Tires are officially licensed replicas of what actually comes on whatever package bronco this is.. (badlands?) Bfg a/ts

Wheels are stamped steel beadlocks that ARE A COMPLETE NIGHTMARE TO PUT TOGETHER lol.

Way more scale looking than rhe ones that were on it. Super happy. The body isn't hard mounted yet but I'll be dropping it down a little more. Springs are also not up to the task of supporting a metal body lol so gotta figure out what to do about that..

 

[Blmpkn]

As well as being too much weight for the stock shocks (which were slightly remedied with preload spacers made from bits of a straw) the body is also pretty much too much weight for the stock motor/gearing lol. It'll rip around wide open on flat ground just fine but it seriously lacks any sort of low speed control.

I'll figure out what to do about the lack of low end at some point.. for now I'm happy enough.. because I picked up another micro crawler one that'll actually crawl.

Axial scx24 deadbolt, 125$ ready to run. It's miles better than the ecx barrage I put the Bronco body on.. in just about every way.

All I've done so far is stick 9 gram brass wheel weights in the wheels, way less tippy now.

I have stainless suspension & steering links on the way along with some steel driveshafts and long travel shocks. The metal links/shafts will further lower the COG and with some slight "fab" work on the shocktowers the new shocks are gonna allow 14mm more travel with no additional right height she's gonna twist right up bub.

 

[Blmpkn]

Long travel shocks came in yesterday.. here they are compared to the stockers. Both the regular shaft AND the brass part compress into the black body.."double barrels" They came with 3 different sets of springs.. all of which were way too heavy for the rig and didn't allow any droop. Simple solution was to just switch the stock springs onto the new shocks.. but that in itself is a problem.. as I need 8 springs for the new shocks and only have 4. One of my coworkers has like 10 of these trucks though.. so I'm just gonna bum some from him lol.

Started making some rear shock tower extensions out of styrene, this will put the top of the shock 10mm higher than stock.. 5mm higher to make up for the slightly longer compressed length of the new shocks.. plus another 5mm simply because that's how much room was left between the axle tubes and the frame at full bump on the factory setup.

Once it's all back together, the new setup will be able to utilize the entire range of motion the link geometry allows, shi'chyeah!

Still waiting on my new links&shafts. Once they hit the US from China they kinda stalled out.. been in NJ since Tuesday

The front links I ordered are actually for a different model scx24.. they're 10mm longer than these ones. That should be enough to put the front tires forward of the bumper for the ultimate in approach angle

 

[Blmpkn]

Goodies! Apparently stuff shipped via 4px from China gets delivered on Sundays just like Amazon stuff..

Links are all assembled.. sweet high clearance lowers in the process of Installing everything right now. Need to get some little tiny screws and I'll be able to finish.


Damn RC crawler thing is quickly getting out of hand around here though..

Sniped an auction for big blue here on eBay late Sunday night.. the ol lady loves to go on walks/hikes and I just really hate all that nonsense now in my "old age". I'd rather ride a bike than walk. Either way... the new one is big enough to take on hikes and have my own fun bought it a 4300mah 3s lipo battery, should be enough juice for 4-5 hours apparently. Shakedown run as soon as the damn battery finishes charging lol.

 

[Blmpkn]

Got a few miles on the big deadbolt.. super fun, and plenty capable out of the box.. if not a little over-sprung.

The rtr electronics are nice.. and SUPER quiet. The loudest bit of electrics is the steering servo. No esc noise and barely any noise from the motor.. the loudest part of the whole rig is the trans thanks to metal gears. I might take it apart and smear some grease in there and see what that does. The stock motor is a 35 turn, might bump up to a 30 turn and see what that does.. a little more wheelspeed would be fun but I don't want to lose any low speed control.

No idea on the actual runtime with a full battery yet, but I probably had 3-4 miles on my first charge before I stuck it on the charger and it only took around 2100mah to top it off.