A while back while reading the forums here, I came across a post in the For Sale forum. Two old school .15 T-Maxx trucks for $30 each(yes I said old .15 trucks, read the next sentence). Being that I'm a sucker for all things nitro and being that I like cheap stuff, I wanted these trucks. But I had 2 obsticles, 1 my wife and 2 I have project that isn't done yet(ok, that's really only 1 problem!). You married guys will understand this dilemma.
It didn't take long to figure out how to get past this problem though. Since it's near Christmas and knowing my wife, I simply posed the idea to her that I want to build a truck for our son as a present. And it was going to be cheap!
BINGO! My wife is happy I am doing something special for our son, my son will be getting a nice truck and I get to build another r/c. It's like a marrital tri-fecta!
Today while working on the truck I thought to myself, "self, why don't you post a build thread and share this with your RCNT family?" So I grabbed the camera took a few shots to show where I'm at. Now here's the thread!
To get you caught up completely, here's the pics of what they looked like when I got them.
I started with the truck in the second pic. The engine was loose and few things were obviously missing, so a quick hour or so and it's a pile of parts. On to the second truck. It seems mostly complete so it's the one I am going to use for the build. Again, a quick disassembly and then on to a bunch of cleaning.
Keep in mind, I want to stay as cheap as possible so if it's not broke I didn't fix it. I started with the rear diff/suspension assembly. I found one axle carrier broken and the other heavily scratched so I swapped them for ones out of the donor truck that are in a lot nicer condidtion. Just 1 of the lower arms was scratched fairly deep so I replaced it too from the donor pile. Out 4 diffs, 3 were good, 1 stripped. Everything checked/cleaned and now the rear assembly is done.
Next it's on to the front assembly. Everything looks good, diff is good shocks are good and all the parts look to be in nice shape. Assembled and done.
The next thing I looked at were the bumpers. All of them were scratched up but not broken. Since I want to stay on the cheap, I decided to go with the blacked out look and took them to the bead blaster. No more chrome. Here's pic of the assmblies and the bumpers, what do you guys think about the black bumpers?
The next item to be worked on is assembling the parts on the main chassis. I picked up some aluminum braces for a different project but decided to put them on this truck. Of course mounting them requires the trans too so next i checked out the 2 trannys. One still has reverse the other has the FOC. For the coolness factor from my son's view point, I chose to use the one with reverse. He'll probably need it too since his driving isn't too well honed yet. That's where I'm at now, so consider yourselves caught up!
For the next update, tune in tomorrow. Same Maxx time, same Maxx channel!
It didn't take long to figure out how to get past this problem though. Since it's near Christmas and knowing my wife, I simply posed the idea to her that I want to build a truck for our son as a present. And it was going to be cheap!
BINGO! My wife is happy I am doing something special for our son, my son will be getting a nice truck and I get to build another r/c. It's like a marrital tri-fecta!
Today while working on the truck I thought to myself, "self, why don't you post a build thread and share this with your RCNT family?" So I grabbed the camera took a few shots to show where I'm at. Now here's the thread!
To get you caught up completely, here's the pics of what they looked like when I got them.
I started with the truck in the second pic. The engine was loose and few things were obviously missing, so a quick hour or so and it's a pile of parts. On to the second truck. It seems mostly complete so it's the one I am going to use for the build. Again, a quick disassembly and then on to a bunch of cleaning.
Keep in mind, I want to stay as cheap as possible so if it's not broke I didn't fix it. I started with the rear diff/suspension assembly. I found one axle carrier broken and the other heavily scratched so I swapped them for ones out of the donor truck that are in a lot nicer condidtion. Just 1 of the lower arms was scratched fairly deep so I replaced it too from the donor pile. Out 4 diffs, 3 were good, 1 stripped. Everything checked/cleaned and now the rear assembly is done.
Next it's on to the front assembly. Everything looks good, diff is good shocks are good and all the parts look to be in nice shape. Assembled and done.
The next thing I looked at were the bumpers. All of them were scratched up but not broken. Since I want to stay on the cheap, I decided to go with the blacked out look and took them to the bead blaster. No more chrome. Here's pic of the assmblies and the bumpers, what do you guys think about the black bumpers?
The next item to be worked on is assembling the parts on the main chassis. I picked up some aluminum braces for a different project but decided to put them on this truck. Of course mounting them requires the trans too so next i checked out the 2 trannys. One still has reverse the other has the FOC. For the coolness factor from my son's view point, I chose to use the one with reverse. He'll probably need it too since his driving isn't too well honed yet. That's where I'm at now, so consider yourselves caught up!
For the next update, tune in tomorrow. Same Maxx time, same Maxx channel!
