Upgraded & Brushless MN78 Cherokee

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Sixtysixdeuce

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I was unaware of these until I was searching some parts for my WPL B16. Always had a thing for XJs, and when I saw the level of detail, I had to have it. I knew it would need upgrades, but at only $100 for the RTR and with WPL and MN hop up stuff being pretty cheap, I saw no reason not to go for it.

It actually did pretty decent in stock form, was a little faster than expected, but still lacked the torque and wheel RPM I find necessary in a crawler. And bouncy. Oil shocks were a must.

On day 2, I broke one of the plastic axle ends up front, so off to ebay and Amazon to start getting the upgrades.

Also knew it was gonna need to go brushless. First I stuck a Losi Excelorin 2435 in it, but that bonked the upper suspension link, so I ordered a 2430 size 5300 kv motor and a HW 16BL30 ESC.

All the parts showed up this past week, so I was able to get after it.

The BL motor install is pretty straight forward, just swap gears and hog the holes a bit for the wider hole pattern. I do have metal trans gears inbound, and if they don't release an aluminum housing soon, I'll CAD one up in Fusion 360 and put the Fadal 4020 to work on it.

The metal axles for these MNs are just like the WPLs, which, while decent for the price, you need to shim the pinions and secure everything with oodles of red loctite.

All the aluminum chassis parts are OK, on par with what I expect for these kits at their ridiculously low price points. Yeah, sometimes holes aren't tapped straight or are oversized, some final fitting it required, but I would lose more money just spending the time to CAD even one of these parts than the entire kit cost.

I put MN99 oil shocks on it, which lift the MN78 a bit, so the stock tires that are way too hard anyway don't look good. I snaked the wheels and tires off the MN99, little bigger and way softer.

Stock steering servo is OK and normal 3 wire, so I left it alone.

Last thing to sort out was the lights with a standard receiver replacing the OEM Rx/ESC combo. For 14 bucks, you can score these light modules that'll give all the lighting functions and more:

https://www.amazon.com/Zeee-Battery...ywords=8000+mah+2s+lipo&qid=1684820095&sr=8-3

They do have to shed the housing to fit under the body of the MN78.

Slight clearancing is needed for the 16BL30 ESC to fit where the OEM unit did, but if you're careful, it won't detract from the interior detail.

Anyway, here she be!

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Do you know size or brand of metal portal axel fits the mn78 hopefully not to much altercation to the truck it's self much appreciated.
 
Sick truck. Love the scale xjs.
 
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