Cross MC8 8x8, Now With Yota II's!

[Prop Shaft]

I have decided to split my original thread that was showing both the Capo and Cross 8x8's. The Cross MC8 will now reside here.
I haven't had very much time for toy trucks since my last post on the Capo. My move to Canada, finding new work/house, and a certain video game have been chewing up all my time as of late. The poor Capo hasn't even come out of it's box since my move.... But im finding myself getting back into my RC's now. The MC8 was just sitting on a shelf staring at me so I figured it a good place to start. So here goes.
As we all know the original Cross 6x6 and 8x8 axles are complete crap. Especially on the 8x8 where the added weight really shows their deficiencies. Heres the solution I came up with. It started with making a pile of brackets to mount the yota's in the same fashion as the original axles. You may notice there is 10 brackets, I'm kicking around the idea of going 10x10 in the future so I made 10 now so I'll have them.

In the top of the axles I milled a 6mm flat spot, then drilled and tapped for an m3 screw to mount the ball joint. I haven't gotten to the rear axles yet, but this step will be easier as the hole will be top dead center of the diff case, as opposed to offset like the front.

The Yota 2 axles have much shorter steering arms so it was nessassary to compensate with a new servo horn. Doing some math, I whipped up a new horn.

Heres a few more shots of the process. You'll noticed I'm replacing the spring/shock towers with the metal upgrades, and also replacing the soft springs with the stiff yellow upgrades. I find the yellow springs are really stiff, I wish I could have sourced the red medium rate springs as I think the yellows may be to much. Time will tell.