I've finally finished my first custom crawler. It has some problems due to low $$$ like: stock speed control and kind of high center of gravity, but other wise it is all handmade by me. Here's some Pics.

thats pretty cool looking good job

no offense but it looks like crap, sure its cool you made all your parts but you need to do some link configuration and shock mounting, like move the shocks down, shorten the upper links so that the lower links are paralell to the ground... that should help you out

no offense but it looks like crap? lol.i think the truck is cool i mean look at that thing flex... is it called articulation?

sweet truck AWESOME BODY

the thing will do ok on rocks but it just doesnt look scale, i mean its cool but wouldnt lowering it and mount the body to just above the wheels look better and it will have lower cg to so it will be easier to handle.

The reason it doesn't look right is it has a 1/10 scale body when the truck is more likely to be 1/8-1/7 scale so it looks a little odd.

uh so your gonna leave it like that??? but really it needs jsut some help............... the COG is too high,,, but leave it like you will, but it does noty look like a crawler

it needs to be lowered and it has to much articulation

yup arc needs to be somewhere in the 65 degree range, so make some limiting straps....then you can lower the chassis and re position the shocks

With a few adjustments I've made it a lot better! (according to you guys) I lowed it about a 1.5" and put on a bigger body and also limited my ARC. So here's some more Pics.

Very creative - With the changes, is it top heavy?

Not really, it has the weight pretty well balanced between everything.

Definately looking better! you may find that body to be too heavy for a crawler. I like the Clod bodies too for look but they are so heavy!

How does it do actually crawling?

It crawls pretty well for my first crawler. I had some deep ruts in the snow from my 4-wheeler and it crawled over them like a snake. With out the body it can climb stairs. Also, It can climb up very steep inclines. But it's kind of hard to tell because we got about 6" of snow and I don't want to ruin the Electronics.

Looks good. Like your chassis.

Nice... Yeah, I would ditch the body and you've got a great first rig. as you run it you will see things to improve on it but it's a great start. Good job!

looking great! much better than before, yeah same thing with a body, get a lighter one, and mabye move everything a tad lower

I'm go to start another project but it is hard to find bruiser axle that are pretty cheap , so what other solid axles are similar to the bruisers and cheap.

There's nothing cheap in this hobby! Sorry I don't have any other good advice...

I know nothing is cheap but something at least cheaper then bruiser axles.

well the brusiers are really the only ones, so the TLT axles look like some rockwells........

Does anybody know if the rear axle out of the Tamiya Knight Hauler (Semi) would be good for a rear axle, then I just need a bruiser front axle?

haha if you do THAT then jsut keep the both axles, but really if your gonna go that route you should go with jsut two matching axles, since the gearing on both of them is totally diff

Pinkfloydman, if you're such a genious, what can I do to this truck to make it a good crawler?



I mean, you know so much, that I couldn't possibly build my truck the way I want it, so I have to build how you would like it, no? Trial and error will gain far more knowledge than being corrected having never known if it might work. Besides, what fun is building it right the first time?