1:10 Land Rover Defender 4x4, mini tow rig
 

Not a big rig, more a small one, but couldn't see a more appropriate sub-forum. Anyway, I needed something civilian to pull the forklift trailer besides the military trucks. See https://rctruckandconstruction.com/s...d.php?p=170566

[Side note: if images don't load, see https://rctruckandconstruction.com/s...7&postcount=16 ]

Had more free time lately, so I figured I'd liven things up a bit here and do up some picture threads of my builds vs actually building. Might give ideas to the next guy, might stimulate discussion for good ideas to change up this build or for the next one.

Bit of background: I've been building things of many sizes for years, ranging from scale models to RC vehicles to a 1.5ton ride-on backhoe with working hydraulics. I hate hydraulic fluid.

This one was done as another sort of quick and fun build while I was avoiding other responsibilities (work, other projects, feeding the cats, the usual), but still snowballed.

Quick beauty shots for reference:

http://www.slosh.com/rc/landy/IMG_2812.JPG

http://www.slosh.com/rc/landy/IMG_2793.JPG

I like to mix up my builds with the amount of 3D printed vs fabricated vs off-the-shelf parts. This one has a 3D printed body shell, because I found some designs on Thingiverse, but you can get predone kits if you that's your bag.

I happen to prefer the older "Series" style Rovers to the newer Defenders, so printing allowed me to mix and match. Started with these two

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2739745

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2395001

and then added some accessories like the roof rack and such from those designs.

As always, start by drawing it up. This time the designs above are imported in, and then other stuff added to make it whole

http://www.slosh.com/rc/landy/cad1.png

http://www.slosh.com/rc/landy/cad2.png

Had to fiddle with the scaling to fit the drivetrain, and the tires aren't quite right, bit small in diameter and oddly too wide for vintage Rover, IMO. But if I go bigger on the tires they scrub up front and then I gotta lift the body off the frame and it snowballs ... so I leave it be.

The frame is just aluminum angle, with printed crossmembers

http://www.slosh.com/rc/landy/IMG_2816.JPG

Drivetrain is Chinesium bits from Aliexpress. The axles and springs are actually metal

http://www.slosh.com/rc/landy/IMG_2817.JPG

though I had to print up longer hangers for the leaf springs. Clearance was surprisingly tight in there. Amazingly, the little motor unit is actually two speed, has a spot for a 9g servo to shift between "fast" and "ohmygoditsgoingtocrash". Guess I'm used to my big military trucks which are geared waaaay down to pull their heavy trailers.

http://www.slosh.com/rc/landy/IMG_2813.JPG

Spare goes on the bonnet as is only right, though the tires are a bit wide and it would likely block all of the driver's view. Again I take some license from the 1:1.

The body is painted an approximation of British Racing Green. With careful planning, the roof and other bits can be printed in other colors, no need to paint.

http://www.slosh.com/rc/landy/IMG_2823.JPG

For instance, the grille is silver (-ish, as finding shiny chrome filament is actually really hard.) Took some doing, but managed to finagle a Land Rover emblem that is almost legible. As appropriate for the era and weird British regulation, the front markers are white (top), with amber turn signals.

http://www.slosh.com/rc/landy/IMG_2821.JPG

In the back, there's turns, brake, and backup lights, plus one for the license plate. Because, you know, LED's =)) The headlights drive straight off the ESC voltage. The little LED's are driven by an Arduino, which allows for things like blink patterns, and also mixing the brake/markers (marker is dim, but brake is bright on the same LED.)

http://www.slosh.com/rc/landy/IMG_2814.JPG

Up top has a light bar, printed from the design of one of the nice folks linked on Thingiverse above, with sockets added for 10mm LED's. I found that even though they're supposed to be directional, they bled a TON of light out the back and sides. Ended up painting them silver from the socket back, which mostly keeps the light to the front.

That's driven off a little MOSFET on an auxiliary channel, glued to the underside of the roof in the pic above, straightforward RC stuff. I *could* have set up a separate MOSFET driven by the Arduino, but KISS applied.

Same for the winch; it's Chinesium, with a little micro-ESC that runs off an aux channel and a three-position switch. Send it 1000, it pulls in; 2000 it pulls out, and at 1500 it stops. Bit noisy, but will actually pull the Rover straight up off the ground, like in "The Gods Must Be Crazy." ("Where's the jeep?" Points up into the tree sheepishly.)

http://www.slosh.com/rc/landy/IMG_2827.JPG

Finally, has a trailer hitch, also off-the-shelf pot metal, and a light plug. I add the springs to the hitches so they can latch either onto a traditional tongue, as used on the utility trailer above, or around a pintle hitch as used on the military trailers. The lighting plug carries power and the iBus off the RX, so it's actually all 14 channels. So far my trailers only do lighting, with the exception of the HETS M1000, which is a whole other thing, but iBus would allow a trailer to have servos or actuators or whatever.

As with most projects, there are things I'd do differently if I had the chance to do over. Scale the dang tires right, make the body easier to get on and off the frame (pix don't show but it's a pain to align now), and do something with the windows. Could just put in black styrene sheet like I did with the HEMTT/PLS to at least hide all the stuff inside. But it was fun, and because it's smaller and lighter, it gets taken down off the shelf far more than the big military trucks.

Re: 1:10 Land Rover Defender 4x4, mini tow rig
 

Very nice looking Series!
It might be worth it to reprint the "bonnet" with a recess to lower the spare?

I dunno about blackout windows, with a little rearranging it looks like you could get an interior fitted.

On that 'beef lo-mein' trailer hitch, i was able to get mine to latch down with some file work. I can't get latching up until i find a hair spring that'll fit. Not worth the work until i get better bumpers for the scx10...

Re: 1:10 Land Rover Defender 4x4, mini tow rig
 

Crap, didn't think of recessing the spare. That woulda worked nicely. Unfortunately the bonnet & wings aren't removable as the whole body is glued/painted as one. (The snorkel glues both top & bottom, and the body mounts are at the ends, which in retrospect might have been shortcuts.)

But I suppose with some careful Dremel and file work I could cut out a cylinder, then either print or fab a bottom... now ya got me thinking.

Good to see I'm not the only one using the generic Axial hopup parts, and not the only one who found the fitment ... eh, leaving something to be desired? For the price though really one can't complain, and as you say they can be tweaked as required for any given purpose.

Re: 1:10 Land Rover Defender 4x4, mini tow rig
 

Sorry, it seemed neater and easier than suggesting a 'cut&shut' tire, or removing bottom sidewall and part of the rim to lower it.

It seems like those wheels might be a bit much mass for that size servo to swing around for long. But if its holding up, nevermind.

What motor / trans are you using? There are probably some different motor or gearing options to help slow it down a little.

I'm NOT trying to pick on your build, it's really cool!

Re: 1:10 Land Rover Defender 4x4, mini tow rig
 

Nice looking truck.... The body came out pretty nice hard to tell it's a 3D print. The tires look like WPL and from the sounds of it your 2 speed trans is WPL also. If so then Frizzen is right there is a single speed transfer case that might work for you ..

Re: 1:10 Land Rover Defender 4x4, mini tow rig
 

Wrt the body, thanks. Did take a bit of sanding, and filler primer and paint hide most of the print artifacts. There's some of the diagonal lines from the slicer being confused, I think, but yeah, overall not bad. And cheaper than buying the pre-made shells which weren't what I wanted anyway.

Ah yeah, "WPL" sounds familiar. I bought a bunch of bits sold as spares on Aliexpress, so I wasn't too caught up in their specific application. The tires cam on a set of plastic axles for a 6x6, green wheels and tiny leaf springs. I think the motor/transfer box was separate, and then the axles were actually all-metal, fairly nice.

As long as I keep it on a 2S LiPo it doesn't run too fast, has enough torque to pull the trailer, I just have to remember not to go full throttle. I'm used to the big trucks, which are way heavier and geared lower. The PLS has a a 4:1 gear reducer on an 80T 540 , and the HETS just has a stupidly big gear motor.

Re: 1:10 Land Rover Defender 4x4, mini tow rig
 

Quickie update: while googlink for parts for other projects, found some new stuff for this one. First was that one can get differentials for the WPL axles, yay. When I tore these down to grease them, I was surprised to find that even the front one was solid, no diff. Had to Aliexpress these, but they fit right in:

http://www.slosh.com/rc/landy/IMG_3125.JPG

Top, axle with new diff and shafts, bottom, straight shaft with no diff. I did both axles as it's not a crawler and the noise of the tires squeaking on the floor was driving me nuts. White lithium and blue loc-tite make the axles pretty good.

Other thing is a set of more appropriately sized tires. They're still intended for the WPL trucks, but are both slightly taller (greater diameter) and narrower, which is exactly what I wanted. Oddly, they're advertised as "crawler" tires for the WPL's, seems silly since for that usually you want wide tires, but no matter to me. Skinny tall tires were the thing Back In The Day of old Rovers. Rear is new tall ones, front is old shorter/fatter tires.

http://www.slosh.com/rc/landy/IMG_3152.JPG

Bigger tires means new tire foams though, gotta dig through my stash of pool noodles. This one was solid-core, no center hole, so it's either just a weird pool noodle or sold for yoga. ..shrug..

It's eleventy-billion degrees in the garage, so I refuse to go out and use the foam cutter. Turns out you can do just as well (or in my case, just as badly) with the serrated fish gutter blade on your Leatherman:

http://www.slosh.com/rc/landy/IMG_3154.JPG

Red on the blade is Sharpie runoff, not blood =))

And net result is just slightly more scale. Still steers okay, and the tread pattern's about the same, so unless you look really close you don't notice the spare doesn't match. (The new ones come in sets of four and I was too cheap to get a second set just for the spare.)

http://www.slosh.com/rc/landy/IMG_3155.JPG

I keep meaning to look into gear reduction options, but get distracted by other shiny things =)) I see at least two such projects in the background of these pix, I gotta get a move on and in one case do a thread, and in the other, actually finish the dang thing!

-- A