Structo dumptruck conversion

[frizzen]

Hopefully these help some

[Rvjimd]

Frizz, ya that helps a bit. You probably say in the thread, did you use taymia axels on this?

Today I bought a yeti Jr. 1/18 or maybe it says 1/16 but it turns out to be NOT the perfect donor for a dump truck. The rear axel is solid, but it has open diffs and the front end is independent suspension and not a solid axel.

Jim

[Rvjimd]

Well, what sucks is when you click on edit because you are under 20 min, but by the time you finished typing the new stuff it is past 20 min limit and it screws you...

[frizzen]

No, tamiya axles are way too big, and expensive.

This is a 1/16 scale Redcat Everest / Exceed Maxstone rock crawler. 4wd, Solid axles, spools in both, standard hexes, lots of axle mount options, 3 gear trans, no center diff, 2 ch radio. They go for $100-120 on most hobby shops or amazon. Some better parts are available or adaptable, lots of tweaks to make things work better.

[Rvjimd]

Frizz, did your motor swap take care of the slow speed issue? Or did you also change gears?

Jim

[frizzen]

The motor swap got me up to the speed of semis in the city layout, plus a bit. I'm sure they'll still drop me easily in the open in higher gears, but i'm driving a single speed beater dump truck not a ratrod. The 370 really helped.

http://www.scale4x4rc.org/forums/showthread.php?t=58173
Said that i either needed Losi Mini Crawler or 1/16 Redcat everest axles if i wanted to tuck anything under fender or bed

My new 'steelies' gave me more grip and a touch more speed than my 'whitewalls', and fixed the wobble/shaking. I'll probably try to find some street or rally tread instead of the hard slicks it comes with.

I have not done a regear, and probably won't since it did petty well at lebanon. I might consider it on a nicer looking truck to really dial it in. I can easily haul 5 cans of soda in bed, and another 6 in a trailer, so i've atleast got enough torque i want.

[frizzen]

Took the the Dump and Sandloader trailer to play. I didn't think to get pretty posed pictures.

If you do something like mine, watch out for driveshaft bind on the front. It has a horrible angle, short shaft, and leaf springs are harder to fix yoke angles than linked axles.

[Rvjimd]

Ah, hadn't thought about the steering geometry issues.

I would love to see some good pictures of your rig pulling the sand loader! Do you have the loader powered? I may have seen one of those, but it has been YEARS, probably played with one as a kid in the sand box!

Are there pictures of your dump solution? Did you use an actuator or what?

Jim

[Rvjimd]

Frizz,

You handing out near the keyboard today?

Do you recall any specs on the leaf springs? How long eye to eye, width, shackle length, height unloaded?

I'm gona try 1/4" wide and add a helper under the rear ones for sure. I'm using strapping to start with. They might be a prototype until I get a little further into it.

AND, anyone else following along, if you have done leaf springs and have any tips I'm ALL ears!

Thanks,

Jim

[frizzen]

The tamiya leaf spring i gave p/n for in beginning are 0.260" wide, mains were 4.5" eye to eye, and have several helper springs available. forward got cut down to 2.3" eye to eye, both got a helper spring. I'd like shorter rear springs to push the axle a little further back, it now sits between the original tandems.

On mine rear shackle is .700 eyes, mounted aft side of spring. Front shackle i just used some bike chain outer link plates to get it together for indy, also mounted aft side. The shackles should be close to vertical but pointing toward the axle at rest. Set your fixed eye to center the axle, then shackle length tunes the spring rates. (Ignore the lightning holes in my frame, they were for testing)

For dumping i'm still planning a figreli / actuonics unit. I got confused trying to make sence of what i needed, and instead spent the actuator budget building a VW bus so i could operate 3 machines at the show.

Loader isn't powered other than the hand crank, but maybe somewhere down the road. I'd like to do a belt drive with a generator hiding components.

[Rvjimd]

That loader looks cool behind the truck! Thanks for all the measurements and install tips! I'm headed to the shop now, hope to get the axels mounted today, I'll post some pics, I think I started a build thread for mine, but I have more of my truck in your thread at this point!

Jim

[frizzen]

It's all good, seems like i tried doing a lot of my crane in your thread.
We're having fun and exchanging knowlege.

[frizzen]

I still think I'd like to use a figreli / actuonix actuator for the main lift ram.

Bed is 5.20"w by 7"L by 2.5"h. Hinge is 1.5" fwd of the gate, ram attach 2.25" fwd of gate. Original 'hydraulic' ram is an oil damped spring 100mm open, 80 closed, 20mm travel. (Eww, metric) I'm open to suggestions of better ways to do it.

L12- 30mm ranges mount hole lengths from 82 to 112mm

So i'm thinking i need an L12r-30-210, or L12r-30-100. I think the 210 ratio slow speed would fit this look better?

Or there was talk of an L16-30 becoming available and only 14mm longer than the L12-30-.

[Rvjimd]

Thanks for forging all the measurements! I think they are the same for me. Your truck was originally a tandem axel? I have one of each but I started with the single axel truck.

I did a YouTube video a year ago or so where I made a screw drive linear actuator, I may try to do something like that and see if it works. It uses delrin rod drilled and taped to fit threaded rod. I used one of the micro gear motors.

Jim

[frizzen]

Yep, i thought this beat up tandem axle looked coolest of what that antique shop had, and even if I couldn't stick with tandems, it would give me spare wheels for a trailer, plus the bed was bigger and had a tailgate. It came down to either this or a red/yellow Tonka, and i'm pretty sure everyone has seen *that* conversion already. Didn't want "Hey, why does this build suck more that i remember?"

Then i figured out an axle donor, but couldn't find spare axles seperately and didn't want to buy a whole second truck to scrap just for 1.5 axles. Even if the diff matched up enough that i could figure out a pass-through, the rear axle mounting didn't really look like it would work upside down.

I originally was going to do a servo powered cable bed lift with 2:1 or 3:1 advantage, but chassis space got real tight once i had it driving. Winch drum at back of cab, pulley at rear frame, pulley on the lifting arm, dead end at the bed. But the driveshaft and my leaf mounts were pretty close in that area.

https://youtu.be/2R0stfMjJ7w
I don't know, these are 50 throw instead of 30. 100 ratio looks good and quick, but 200 ratio looks good and more powerful too.

I went beyond Cardboard Aided Design, and made a scrap wood actuator template. Then i remembered the motor housing and remade it to correct dimentions. In the stock holes, it'll lay frame, and can go a little past vertical.

[frizzen]

My first operator didn't like the rig and wanted to run other equipment. Taking night classes and all that.

'I quit, and i'm going that way.'


So we hired this new guy. So far he's really enjoying the old truck and isn't complaining about not having new stuff.

[Rvjimd]

I hadn't recognized that the mirrors were diy, nice, I should do something like to mine. I also need to do a video of it hauling!

[frizzen]

Can't back up accurately without mirrors, and most trucks i saw from this era just have the big single mirror on the bracket. So i just grabbed a little Brass sheet, copper wire, solder, silver sharpie. Didn't feel like making them as nice as what the crane truck has.

I didn't know how big of a hit this would be over at the first meet, so I guess i was thinking 'scale points' like at rock crawling events. I thought they seemed to fit the look. It's not nice or fancy, but Mike isn't making a lot hauling since all the bigger trucks got popular.

[TheBennyB]

Looks good. When you getting some truck nutz on this thing? Talk about going over well at a meet.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/RPM-R-C-Prod...3D122092382079

[frizzen]

Hahaha, wow i didn't know those were an rc thing. Probably not for this one, who wants to dump on their sack, or knock it into stuff offroad.
but if i were doing a 'Brodozer' style truck, i'd have to get those. Then make a scale yeti cooler, find either some Tapout or Monster or DC stickers...

Now that i've got a better looking Mike, I still need to figure out more of his look. What's his hat logo? Does he have a trucker tan, some stubble, stained shirt, overweight? Who is he?