This project started life as an orange Nylint 1/16 Jeep Wrangler. It has had its wheelbase extended, this now gives an extra 30 mm of length at the front and 25mm at the back. This modification was done by the now nearly standard method of using 10mm aluminium tube and new home-made bushes to re-mount the gearboxes to the existing swinging arms. Extra articulation was gained by using much shorter shocks from an 1/20 A-tech Leo-X, these achieve this gain because they are now mounting much further inboard at their lower ends than their predecessors were.
It now has proper hobby-grade (Smartech) radio replacing the original non-proportional all-or-nothing set, and is further equipped with a cheapo Chinese made 200A ESC. The wheels and tyres came from a pair of Newbright Motorsport trucks, this swap was made easy because of the identical hex size on the rear wheels (only) of the Newbrights, although I did have to cut material from the inboard ends of the centres of the wheels to get the overall width right.
The original steering gearbox had managed to break itself internally, so an Acoms AS17 servo now sits inside the original gearcase, connected to the wheelhubs by a fairly complex mechanism employing Clodbuster rods and ballends. An ABS plastic Hummer H2 bodyshell tops the whole thing off, and this contains the plastic-former wrapped aerial.
All in all, this project ended up being well worth the effort involved, if only for the experience of making and trying things out by a process of (mainly) trial and error. Although despite really still being only a toy-grade truck, it has vastly improved climbing and clampering ability when compared to its original self. It is still very slow and somewhat underpowered though, I did at one point try fitting some wheelweights to improve its stability on slopes but this only made things worse in these other two departments.
Overall cost, discounting the Tx which it shares with another truck, was about £60.
