Axial XR10 custom build...Fathers xmas gift :D

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Ok then thats cool, yeah ya know I never knew a crawler was this expensive to build. I have gone over half the cost it took me to build my baja. I got to looking at things today and this thing will be ready for comps when I am done. I wasn't expecting to build a full comp crawler but heck one parts leads to another and next thing you know you have bought all of them.

 

[Phins Fan]

I know the feeling. I started building a simple Sportsman rig out of my AX10. About $600 later I still dont have the electronics for it (Motor, ESC, or servo) but at the same time I dont think there will be too many rigs that will keep up at the days end. Same for you - If built right its expensive as hell but a very capable and downright mean crawler!!

 

[override]

I'm starting to get parts in from my orders and found this tucked away in my mailbox yesterday!

Vanquish parts and RC4WD parts...I am waiting on one more thing which should be here tomorrow sometime to start building the axles.

Servo tracking shows out for delivery yesterday and then shows "notice left" although I did not receive any kind of notice so I am not sure what that's all about. Guess I will have to talk to the post office monday morning and see whats going on.

I am still waiting on a reply back from a guy who has two tekin fxr's and a castle bec wired up for a crawler. He said he would part out the electrics for a good price but then turned around and said he really didn't wanna part things out. I've got until next time I'm home to get the electrics done up so I'm gonna wait and see if he gets back to me.

 

[wacmartin]

Wait if I'm seeing this correctly you get mail on Saturday in the States? Crazy! I love getting my parts in the mail, I wasn't pleased to come home from work one Tuesday to see the box my motor and ESC just shoved in the mail box. That stuff ain't cheap.

 

[override]

Yes sir, Texas delivers on saturday!

 

[slowngreen]

No mail on Saterday? ha ha ha that sucks!!!


Good luck Override, hopefully that dude will get the fxr's too you....Make sure you use Harley's video on setting up the 4pl for duals, he makes it super easy to follow.

 

[SchrodeMode]

Wait if I'm seeing this correctly you get mail on Saturday in the States? Crazy!

Yea, Sunday and National holidays are the only down days for the USPS.

 

[override]

The build starts!!!!

Alrighty, so I was out and about today running some errands and decided I would swing into Wal-Mart and see what kind of heavy duty tables they have. Found me a nice double fold table, legs fold in and then the table folds in half and has a handle to carry it

I setup the table in the bedroom by the window and laid out everything I have for the build so far. I decided to go ahead and tear into the first bag and start the front axle. I didn't get far cause I forgot I have delrin cases for the motors that will need to go on and I want to make sure everything fits before I build the entire axles.

This is what I have so far:

Picked up servo from post office today

Got everything setup on my new table!

JP Customs body and delrin links, these look like they are gonna be very nice! Kinda wish he would of rounded them out a little on the edges. I might take my dremel to them, seems like it could cause a lot of hanging.

Opened bag A and rc4wd gears and oversized bearing kit! The motor plate from axial looks stamped where you can see the mill marks in RC4WD's motor plates. Otherwise they look and feel about the
The left side is stock, the right is rc4wd.

The bearing kit from RC4WD, in my opinion, could of came with better bearings. Yeah they are over sized but man the bearings still look like cheap pieces of crap. The gears look much nicer and look as if they have a tighter tolerance.

Assembly of Bag A

Was going to put the motor in and realized I haven't gotten the delrin motor gaurds yet. I wanna wait until I get those to go any further with the axle.

Figured why not go ahead and mod the axles while I got things opened up!

More to come

 

[slowngreen]

Nice pics man. Having fun yet? Pretty exciting seeing the kits come together.

 

[BlackedOut08r1]

You make me want to take pics of my build Lol

I am pretty much 100% Similar minus i stayed with stock chassis, and went with chaotic links all the way around

 

[override]

Nice pics man. Having fun yet? Pretty exciting seeing the kits come together.

Thanks! Yeah I'm having a pretty good time, this is the first kit I have ever bought and built. Everything else was bought used or rtr and then rebuild kit style so I could learn the ins and outs.

You make me want to take pics of my build Lol

I am pretty much 100% Similar minus i stayed with stock chassis, and went with chaotic links all the way around

Taking pictures is rewarding cause when your done you can sit there and scroll through the pictures and smile at your work. Also can be helpful cause sometimes you may need to go back and look at a picture to make sure you did something right after you have moved forward a few steps.

I am going to be doing pictures of each step with each bag, I will give my dad this link after he gets his gift so he can see how the crawler came together. Good luck with your build

 

[BlackedOut08r1]

Thanks! Yeah I'm having a pretty good time, this is the first kit I have ever bought and built. Everything else was bought used or rtr and then rebuild kit style so I could learn the ins and outs.



Taking pictures is rewarding cause when your done you can sit there and scroll through the pictures and smile at your work. Also can be helpful cause sometimes you may need to go back and look at a picture to make sure you did something right after you have moved forward a few steps.

I am going to be doing pictures of each step with each bag, I will give my dad this link after he gets his gift so he can see how the crawler came together. Good luck with your build

I'm Lucky with mine, me and Harley have started a business together so i get all of his great knowledge handed down to me!

 

[override]

Got my order in from Crawler Innovations and Habbypartz yesterday! CI sent me spare foams and some extra medium outer foam wraps. The foams in the tires are super nice, a lot firmer than I expected them to be.

Now that I have the motor protectors I can finish the front axle, the protectors are delrin. They are super thin and protrude from the engine some.

Comparison up close of the RC4WD next to Stock gear, you can really see the difference.

Opening Bag B and getting the chubs and knuckles put on.

Built the linkages, they call for 11.5mm between each other (11.5mm converted over to inches then to a fraction is 1/4") but that seems wrong. Screwed all the way up is more than 1/4". I got the steering assembled and have practically no steering the screw heads hit the gearbox and motor. Tried different ways of doing it with no luck, spoke to slowngreen and he shot me a link to Chaotic Crawlers. I picked up one of there straight titanium links and am going to run the chubs clocked back all the way.

You know I have come to determine, I'm not trying to bash Axial, that the XR10 kit is not very well thought out. The instructions seem vague and the quality of plastic is not as good as you would think for such a highly acclaimed kit. Comp worthy out of the box? HAHA I don't think so, to many weak points and poor designs, plastic is too brittle.

 

[slowngreen]

Would they clear without the motor saver? I know their supposed to clear but just not sure why their not, oh well though, the solid tie rod is SO much better, removes any slop you might have....


Guess I did run the stock steering for a while, forgot I did, heres a pic of what mine looked like, plenty of room for clearance.

Also, here is my sold link, just bob the little flap of plastic off the axle that the stock piece slides on. I bent mine in two spots as you can see, the chaotic one should be the same thing although my was home made.

 

[override]

It looks like the balls in your stock linkage are much small in length than the ones on mine. If I put smaller balls on it that would for sure bring the bolt head down enough to clear. No worries though, I picked up the upgraded link and will go that route. Clocked the chubs back and going with the straight titanium link.

Thanks for you help man!

I just finished putting the rear axle together, will post pictures up later when I get a chance.

 

[override]

Cut the piece out for the new steering linkage

Bag C - Rear axle assembly

Front and Rear Axle's Complete (minus steering linkage)

JPCustom's Links - When doing these you have to drill out some of the stock rod ends. He calls for 1/8th sized drill bit to drill them out but I found that to be slightly to small. I bumped up one size on the drill bit and everything went together smoothly! The only thing I am missing is Jato rod ends to be done.

Moved on to the chassis and got really frustrated today. I was under the impression that JPCustoms chassis plates can be used on a bone stock XR10 without having to modify anything. I was apparently wrong, his website doesn't say anything about not being able to use some of the stock chassis parts. A little bit of thinking and looking at things and I think I have it figured out. I'm going to pick up some 50mm internally threaded rods from RC4WD and use those as the spacers. Once I get the spacers, shocks and electronics put on I will figure out the body mounts.

Since the chassis plates are not countersunk I drilled out the holes on the center skid and pressed in some of the 3mm threaded inserts. Used button head screws, came out very nice!

Checked the mailbox tonight and found this stuff tucked away! Tekin esc's, castle bec, 5 foot each of 14awg wire, ball ends from JeepinDoug to fit Traxxas Big Bore shocks!

I might get to wiring the electronics up before I have to go back to work but if not check back for updates in roughly two weeks.

 

[HPI-Killer]

Great rig thus far, suprised you didnt go with an EEM HC chassis though. Anyways it looks awesome

 

[override]

Final steps of the build!

Alright guys this will be the final big update on this build. I finally finished it today, it is boxed back up along with everything else ready for wrapping paper! I left off last time I was home with the electronics and chassis, I had some kinks to figure out and ran out of time. So these days off as soon as I got home I got to work on everything.

Got my chaotic crawler drag link in, this thing is beefy! I believe I got the titanium link but can't remember exactly. I like the sticker they included aswell

Here's my soldering iron, had to order some new tips for it. The last time I had this thing warmed up was a few years ago. It's a Xytronic Supertemp Digital Solder Station, 60 watt iron with temps up to 840 degrees F. It has served it's purpose well over the years

Parts that were waiting in the mail for me when I got home! Beadlocks, traxxas XXL shocks, aluminum threaded rods for chassis, castle bullet connectors, JeepinDougs custom ball ends made for the traxxas shocks, Hot Racing servo clamps and Rowdy Racing battery tray and servo armor. The Rowdy Racing stuff is really nice as well as JeepinDougs ball ends!

The Overdrive 2.2 beadlocks with brass weights and 4 optional offset hubs. Front wheels completely assembled will weight 1 lb 14oz and rear wheels assembled will weight 1 lb 6oz (don't quote me on these weights It's been a few days since I weighted everything). They are nice wheels for sure but could use some more weight options for sure. Supposedly there are supposed to be more weight rings made for them but I have yet to see them in any stores.

Time to start wiring up the ESC's, I am not looking forward to this part but I am going to take my time and solder it up right the first time.

First thing's first, I pulled the read lead from both plugs and folded them back with some heat shrink. Cut the switchs off and soldered the leads together, shrink wrap on top. The rest is pretty straight forward, enjoy the pictures!

Wiring done and set to the side I started getting the links and shocks put onto the axle's. Servo installed, Rowdy Racing armor on and battery mount installed!

Chassis coming together and electronics going in...Pulled things apart a few times trying to figure fitment out. Finished wiring things to the motors and got the bullet connectors put on.

Assembled beadlocks, that was fairly easy, I put the white dots in on the rears so I knew what was what. Remembered afterwords that the foams are specific to inside and out on front and rear so those will need to be flipped around at some point. Also on the rear beadlocks I used some servo tape to install only half of each ring. Wanted to have a little more weight up front than in the rear.

The stock XR10 hex's will not work with these beadlocks so I ran up to the LHS and picked up what I could to keep things going. Also got some steel Revo pushrods to use as some servo linkage. I may try and run the linkage across the axle to see if I get any better torque out of the servo.

Everything together and ready for a test run!!!! Total weight is 5lbs 15.3 oz

After I made sure everything worked good I went ahead started the body, and figured out the body mount situation. The body came out really nice This is the second body I have ever painted.

Here is a short video clip of the crawler running inside All in all this was a fun but frustrating build, it seemed that every part I built I needed to order a new part. Some of the stock items didn't work without some modification with the aftermarket parts I used. I am very happy at the way it turned out though and I am almost tempted to build myself a mantis XR10 to crawl with my dad. I hope it gets a lot of use and he has tons of fun with it! Thanks everyone for the advice and for watching the build, Merry Christmas!

 

[slowngreen]

I'm sure he'll love it man! Built right the first time, well done.

 

[override]

Thanks man! Did the video work for you?