Fat Freddy

Which brought me to this stage........The odd looking fat grey washers on either end of the light bar are nylon furniture feet. Supposed to make it easy to slide your chest of drawers round the room. I’m hoping they will help protect the light bar from the inevitable roof slides. Also, note where the lights are mounted....

And, as we all know, all brave rebellion pilots have an R2 unit mounted behind the cockpit..... I came up with a few ideas of how to mount R2, and decided it would be better if it was removable so it would get damaged less when crashing. I tried Velcro but changed my mind and buried some magnets in the base I’d made for him....it.

Next came a light bar, not really sure why, just an impulse....

TBC after I’ve had my tea 👍

So the new theme, as inspired by the Mrs passing comment, is Star Wars. Not sure why..... If you are into that sort of thing, you might know that there are NO wheeled vehicles in the Star Wars universe. Except one that appears briefly in “The Mandalorian” TV series, which is a massive 8 wheeled troop carrier thing, so maybe a project for the future, but not this one. So (and this is where things start getting REALLY sad) I thought up a back story. Our rebellion fighter crash lands on a planet with such strange magnetic fields that anti gravity won’t work. So, butchering their space craft and employing crude native technology, our hero(ine) cobbles together a vehicle in the hope of reaching a space port that will get them off planet, and comes up with this.....

Rather frustratingly, the pics of the painting of it won’t download either. Will have to wait for the big reveal.... brownie points to anyone nerdy enough to recognise THX1138... you might have an inkling where this is going.... So had decided on a Soviet, grey with red hammer and sickle style paintjob but changed my mind after a casual comment from my wife. Real shame about the pics as there a comedy element here... Not as easy as you’d think to find grey polycarbonate paint. Eventually settled on a grey from Fastrax but when I started spraying I thought I had a dud can..... before realising I’d bought a bloody window tint. I don’t remember it mentioning window tint on the website!?! It turns out, if you do three coats of window tint, then back it with pale blue, you get a passable, if patchy, grey.... and at least I know it’s definitely unique 😁

Decided yes to the lights... had a set of 4 spots, 2 big, 2 small. Made some little brackets for the front. Tinted the small ones red and mounted them on the wing mount bracket at the rear....

The idea was to allow the shock towers to show through so the body could sit really low. Unfortunately I’m rubbish at this stuff, don’t have the patience, or the steady hand required, but eventually got it roughly how I wanted it. For some reason the pics of this stage won’t upload, so skipping ahead slightly, I also got a set of wheels tyres for it and in this pic, was deciding whether to add lights (more on that later).

Next step, I got a FTX Carnage clear body and, after making a rough template with the Himoto shell and some cardboard, set about it with scissors and cut it to bits..

NOTE: deleted nearly all the pics from this thread on 11/1/23 to make space. Not sure if this is in the right place. (Feel free to move it @Nick if you think it’d be better elsewhere...... deleted altogether?🤣) I guess it’s still a buggy? I thought about putting it in the “FTX Vantage/carnage thread” but decided not to, because it doesn’t seem fair to dominate the thread with lots of posts about me falling down a rabbit hole. So, I have a rather tired and battered car that started life as an FTX Vantage. By the time I embarked on this project, it had a heavily cut down truggy shell from something branded Himoto and a homemade undertray made from a sandwich box. It wasn’t really being used much as I was focussed on crawling at the time, but I’d decided on a bit of a project for my SCA-1E and thought I’d fettle the FTX so I had something to play with while the other was being worked on.......... part 1 of god knows how many 😂

Mines only a year old and already out of date? 🤣 Anyone know if these anti- torque twist parts could be bought as upgrades to update my transmission? Everyone knows about the Toyopet stout, yes? If not, google it. I presume the Coyote name was intended to avoid copyright issues?

Hopefully someone else will prove me wrong, but, hate to say it, I think that’s crocked. Thankfully a new chassis is relatively cheap. Pain in the arse but if you are going to crash, might as well crash properly!

Alloy suspension holders a good upgrade. 👍

You probably could cut it off, but why bother? It’s not in the way, and who knows, one day you might need it.

Trying to remember what what it was like fitting mine..... I THINK I let the screws cut their own thread through the carbon fibre, but I guess it depends how tight a fit you are talking about? I’d get a second opinion before you do this, but if you can get the screw to bite the top of the hole, I’d go for it....... but really, don’t take my word for it.

That’s really bad luck. Have always thought that looked like a weak point but have never broken it like that despite countless crashes. One of the holes has been stretched to an oval though, so I replaced the screws with longer ones and put nyloc nuts on the inside to sort of “clamp” it all together. (Ignore the filth!). Its a bit Heath Robinson but it’s held on for a while now. When it finally gives up I’ll get another stock chassis rather than the (expensive? Bendable?) alloy one.

@Iain .Rthat’s the right way round fella 👍

I’m sure some people would make a joke about women drivers but I’m not that kind of guy so I won’t.

I’ve clearly not been paying attention...another two what?

A pic would be helpful here Iain, but IF I’m thinking of the same bit you are talking about, I THINK the edge with the lip is toward the front of the car 🤣🤣 Sounds like you’ve already figured it anyway. 👍

Looking forward to seeing this develop😊👍

Also agree with @Tony. No idea what servo Traxxas use but might be rebuildable? Quicker and easier to do what I do, replace the servo and put the broken one away for some imaginary future time when you’ll get around to sourcing the parts to do a rebuild........ I’ve never got round to it but have boxes of junk😂

Welcome to the forum 👍

Interesting to know....thanks. looks great btw👍

Haha brilliant! 🤣🤣🤣