Monster makeover part I

The Nikko Monster has had a bit of a clean-up, and the chassis has now been reassembled. I've given it a good condition RS540SH motor in place of the old rusty one, and performed all the necessary lubing duties.

A little bit of research shows the body to be a fairly good representation of a 1983-and-a-half year model Toyota truck, known as the Hilux in most of the world, but referred to as a Mojave in the USA.

For the time being I'm just going to rebuild it using most of the original parts. I'll leave off the superfluous exhaust pipes and the empty 'spare wheel' cover, and try to give it a military hue. The main jobs to do beyond repainting the body are to fill the hole in the bonnet, make a new headlight grille, and do something with the rather over-sized front bumper.

An interim minor-monster project...

Although work on the new Clod crawler continues at its own pace, I fancied having a go at doing-up another 1/10 truck in the meantime. I watched a fair few go through 't Bay, and even bid on a couple which I thought might go cheaply. In the end I won this one in a one-bidder auction, for the princely sum of 99p.

It's a mostly-intact Nikko 'The Monster', dating back to (I think) the early-mid 1990's. It's fairly complete, missing only its headlight grille and its bonnet 'blower' cover. It didn't come with a controller (which doesn't matter - see below), but it did still have its original instruction manual, which was still tucked away in a little compartment in its original but well-used box.

As trucks like this go, this one wasn't too bad in its day. It had a normal 27Mhz AM radio system with changeable crystals, a circuit board capable of running the RS540 silver can motor that powered it, carried a regular stick pack, and had a pretty good turning circle. A lot of the rest was of plain toy-grade construction, but it did sport a fairly nicely-made plastic hard-body resembling a generic Japanese 2-door pick-up truck.

Being as I have a transmitter that works with it, I was able to test it as soon as it got here. Although it was in a fairly well-used condition as received, I was pleased that it ran properly as soon as I powered it up. A subsequent strip-down soon after this revealed no major damage to anything, and showed all the moving parts to be in pretty good condition.

So - potentially a neat little project - and in a way a small Christmas present to myself - just to do a tidy-up job, really. In their day, these were just cheaper versions of something like a Tamiya Brat. And some Brats ended up looking very (very) nice indeed.

Clod crawler project resurrected!

After quite a considerable delay, box project two is now underway again.

HB Sedonas have replaced the earlier HPI Rock Grabbers, which got fitted to the Axial. The first prototype gearbox mount is in there, as is a stock AX10 frame, although this will get replaced with one of my own design.

Prototype Clod gearbox mount

I got the first Clod gearbox mounting assembly completed today:

This is only the first prototype - it's still not quite right, but it will serve for testing purposes. I've placed a fuller write-up on the build thread about it at ClodTalk.

A Trike for Mark!

This was a very simple construction I put together yesterday combining a toy-grade New Bright truck chassis with some 'Knex'. It does have a serious purpose though, a friend of mine called Mark is in the process of having a full-scale trike, based on a Yamaha XJ900, converted to suit his physical needs. One of his bigger problems is going to be how to safely get on and off the thing, bearing in mind the fact that he is a full-time wheelchair user. The whole idea of building this RC model is to test the idea of creating a combined wheelchair lift and rack on the back of the trike. Call it a bit of 'brains-storming' if you want.

This model isn't exactly a proportional representation of the real thing - it's only intended to be a conceptual test-piece. In particular the top deck of the Yamaha trike is a lot shorter than demonstrated here. The idea of the fold down pillion passenger back rest is important, so that Mark can easily cross from the back of the vehicle to his own seat. The construction and form of the ramp is still being thought about, it could remain flat at all times, could fold up (which would mean the wheelchair would have to be mounted elsewhere), or it could fold at half its length, which would allow for a folded chair to be stowed sideways in the remaining gap. Different mechanisms have been suggested to enable the ramp to be raised and lowered, these include electrical, hydraulic and mechanical, this last one probably by adapting a top-handle sideways-folding car-jack.

Just for comparison, here is a picture of the real-life trike as it stands today:

I've stared a new blog about its construction here, where you will be able to read all about it as progress is made. I now have two winter projects on the go!

ClodTalk

I've now taken up membership at the US ClodTalk forum - mainly to get a better understanding of the various modifications other folk have carries out on their own Clodbuster (and derivative) trucks. In particular I've been looking at the various steering adaptions that have been made, particularly with servo mounting and rod arrangements. My own Clod gearbox mounting 'creation' is underway again, and I intend to continue with this as a winter project.

At the suggestion of one of the administrators there, I've opened a couple of threads documenting the build of the 'Zilla and the Arachnid, which in part duplicate that which has already been posted here. Over there I've referred to them as the Z4 and the A1, and I've also opened another thread to cover the current work on the gearbox mount.

The threads are here:

Andy's Z4 build

Andy's A1 build

Has anyone tried this before?

This last thread brings the construction of the mount up to date, I'll write a longer post about it here as soon as I have a complete assembly assembled!

A year went by...

It's exactly a year since I last posted here. Apart from a few local trips out with one or other of my trucks and crawlers, very little has happened in my RC world. In the real and very much wider world our family life was ripped apart by the loss of my partner Heather, who very sadly and suddenly died of a brain haemorrhage back in February. It has been a truly heartbreaking time for all concerned. She had five children, three older boys from her first marriage, and Sean and Kala from her second. These two have gone to live with their natural father and his own third wife, and have moved away to another town some 40 miles from where I am now writing from. He and I never really got on, and he wants the younger kids to have nothing further to do with me, and strongly exerts his influence to make sure that we have no contact.

Back to RC, I still have my existing projects boxed away. I suppose it is now time to get it all out and work out what I am going to next with it all. I have spare Clodbuster gearboxes, an assortment of various useful bits and pieces, and the old (previously mentioned) 1/6 Hummer body.

The Arachnid now has bigger and better wheels, although it hasn't been out with them fitted as yet. The Axial has gained a bit more weight since the last time I wrote about it, and now has a new 3Racing aluminium upper link bearing mount on its front gearbox, being as the original plastic one wore itself away. The Zilla still runs fine, although it has now consumed yet another MG995 front servo. Cheap and cheerful as they are, and also due to the fact that it is just the upper case that fails making it easy to replace, I suppose I will just have to order another couple of the buggers.