Another Marui project - Ninja/Shogun

[silvertriple]

As i'm awaiting to start something else, I modeled all the Coors chassis specific parts... That includes the body mounts, the rear support for those, and the suspension limiter settings...


And I was going to start the bodyshell... I have 2 original ones, so I should be able to do good work for this... But after some reflexion, I decided I need to have the chassis in before doing that. So late last night, I started to model the chasis... Here is where I was after one hour work...


Now I have a lot of details to add...

[silvertriple]

That was quick...

A revision of the length for the battery slot, a sketch on top of it...


Then a skecth to define the steering elements... And another one to define the way the battery door is sloting in...


And here we are, a Marui Ninja/Coors/Shogun chassis...

[silvertriple]

After the chassis, I worked out the front gearbox...

I started by the left side, as it is easier. Not much difficulties, here... It went quite fast...


Then I worked out the right side... Slightly more complex as there is the input shaft to deal with (at that point of time, I did not knew yet that I did a mistake)...


Next was the cap for the input shaft (at that point of time, I should have spot the pistake as it is very obvious here, at least now that I know there was a mistake)...


Next I did the arms supports, which are separated pieces from the gearbox (I suspect Kurihara San had some intention with this, but on the three cars, the parts are the same except the color which is different for the Ninja).


When I had those parts in, I had a look at the front underguard and its angles, and the mistake became quite obvious...
A few sketch to correct and the problem is solved (you may note the input shaft angle which is different).


Last two small parts which allow to fix the gearbox to the front underguard...


I may need to take care of the underguard next...

[silvertriple]

I started the underguard right after my previous post... And I did not finished it. I let the rear part for later...


I stopped there for 2 reasons : one it was late. Second, I did ask myself what would be the better approach for this part.

This morning before starting my day of work, I had an attentive look at the part. The holes are perpendicular to the bottom plan (all the holes of this part are actually this way. This makes not much sense in the context of the usage, but I'm doing it to get as close as possible of the original... So basically, I can set it all from the bottom plan, and just do extrusion from there... Which I did after my day of work...


Once there I put it on the chassis, for a check. There was one mistake on the chassis, which I quickly corrected.


I'll need to take care of the top fixation of the front gearbox and the front shock towers next...

[silvertriple]

The top fixation of the front gearbox is likely the most complex part to model on this chassis


There is simply no way to take a single measure easily. Everything has to be derived from what is around and you need what is around to measure it...
Fortunately, I have the Ninja chassis nearby.


Then I put the front gearbox, the chassis and all the parts around and started to deal with the top plane...


Next is about defining the sides... Idea is a loft (but I redid it differently from the picture because of a mistake I did)


I then applied the holes and reinfocement before pulling the axis of the front gearbox input to derive the path for the shaft...


And here we have the gearbox settled on the chassis... This part took me more time than the chassis itself. I believe the rear part is slightly easier to deal with as it is definitely easy to measure...


Next front shock towers before moving to the rear....

[silvertriple]

This morning, before my work day, I had a quick check on the bumper : I corrected a .1 mm issue on it (i'm not even sure it is preventing it to be mounted, but I corrected it for proper clearance - I'll upload the new version on Thingiverse and Cults3D next week-end).


After my day of work, I did focus on the front shock tower. This part is almost easy when you have the right approach and you keep in mind you need to use different bodies to apply the cuts before assembling the bodies together. Compared to the previous part, it is definitely easy... And each time I'm doing a part like that it goes faster...


No need to check it mounts on the chassis as it is built on...


I did the arms very quickly, using the same principles...


I did not put the arms yet, I'll probably do this later on, once the rear structure is there as well... However I added the body mounts on the front side...


Speaking about the rear end of the chassis, I took all the parts out of the box. I will need to raid the shogun box for the gearbox sides as the one on the plate currently have their bearings in. It's a small detail, and I'll do this tomorrow once back from the office...

[silvertriple]

Tonight, I did only one part... Measurement is hard as would say @Dadio

I first made a sketch which holds 90% of the rear gearbox left side. It was hard to measure, and I have to pull a gear calculator and count the gears teeth in order to make sure I have the right measurements...


I did not take a picture, but the profile of the gearbox match 100% of the gearbox profile and holes using the right zoom level on the screen : thta's always a good sign

And here is the rear gearbox left side completed.



Next is about the right side, but it will take very much less time than for the left side...

[silvertriple]

After the left side of the rear gearbox, I did work out the right side...

Not difficult when starting from a projection of the left side...


I even detail down the lock for the cap to make sure the pinion cap is not going to do 360° rotation...


After this I took car of the output cap. With a two bodies approach it is quite easy to build...


Once this was done, I dealt with the arms supports, which are taking the gearbox in sawdwich...


Next will be about shock tower and underguard...

[Dadio]

I'd have cheated with the front gearbox top fixing , I'd have got it pretty close then printed a test piece to see how badly off it was then corrected the model and gone again lol

[silvertriple]

I'd have cheated with the front gearbox top fixing , I'd have got it pretty close then printed a test piece to see how badly off it was then corrected the model and gone again lol

Well, I thought about that... And then looked on the right and "hey, but I have the Ninja"... It's sort of cheating also, my friend

[silvertriple]

A part which you have a single plan to define the main measurement is definitely easy... That is the case of the rear shock tower (which is different from the Shogun one, as this one is having shock fixation lower than on Ninja and Coors). To be noted as well than the Coors introduced additional holes for the body moun fixations under the Shocks fixation tool (and some of the Ninja black shock towers have the same additional holes but it doesn't appear on the first ones).


Next is about the rear underguad... It's an easy part, and there is not much questions to deal with when you have other parts around in already...


And here is the rear gearbox ready to be added to the chassis...


The top fixation is easy compared to the front one, as both top and bottom are relying on parallel plans, which makes the things realy easier than for the front one. I won't detail the process for this (and yeah, I had to pull the bathtub in to get it done)


Once this was done, I did got back to the chassis file, and added the rear gearbox components, and the rear Coors body mounts.



Now that we have the rear gearbox it's easy to understand the impact of the V2 battery door versus the V1 version :



Next will be about suspension, transmission, steering...

[silvertriple]

After my last post, I did focus on all parts attached to suspension arms...

I started by the rear carrier, and front C-hub...


There was two version of the front C-Hub, as mentioned earlier in the thread, the first one, which was delivered until the Shogun release, and the second one which allowed a different placement of the shock on the Shogun...



I did joint those with the arms


I then worked out the tie rods for the upper arms, with their pivot balls... Sometimes Fusion is messy when you do joints on unattached parts...


Once this was done, I added this to the chassis... and it is now time to add those suspension limiter which are very specific to the Thnderbird Coors and allow for both on road and off road use...


And here we are... And it's not really working in Fuison360 as it requires first a pivot ball on the bottom, and it's not really a cylindrical on top side...



This mean it may be a bit difficult to show the car in both configuration without making different files with a different fix setting for each... Need to think about this

[silvertriple]

Sometimes things doesn't work, and you may spend a lot of time to do a joint... That was the case to include the steering rods... I finally succeed to get it done, but that took a bit of time to find out how to solve the issue for the right steering rod while the left worked like a charm..
The full steering is now in, with the servo and all joints are working properly...


Then I made the shocks, and added them to the chassis... I included a pivot ball in the top shock cap as it is better for joining them to the assembly...



I will need to focus next on the gear set...

[silvertriple]

After the shocks, time to deal with the internals...

I started by the "simple things"


Then I took care of the differential bevel gears...


Next the output/inputs bevel gears... And I need to find the motor pinions, I should have some somewhere in one of the boxes...

[silvertriple]

I did not post yesterday, but that was intense work...

I started to deal with the bevel gears for the central joints. I started to check the position of the cone inside the gearbox.


The way those bevel gears 18T mod 1 are built is basically variant of the same bevel gear. I designed a base bevel gear from a 18T mod 1 spur gear projection at 45°, and I then copy paste as new to work out the 3 variants I needed for the full gear set...


Once that was done, I decided to add those elements in the chassis... I followed the manual and applied all the joints one by one




At the end my rear gearbox is quite crowded...

Then I did the same at the front


After that I pull a motor and mounted it in the rear gearbox with the 18T pinion (I need to model the 16T pinion as well - there was two in the box of Marui Thunderbird Coors).


And finally, I added the center shaft...


I could have stopped there, but I did not. I have somewhere a Coors driver STL (which I'm not allowed to share), and put it on the chassis... Bill Elliot is gigantic...


Finally, I put some colors on the parts (not sure of the yellow and the grey, but the general idea is there)...


Today, after my day of work, I added the wheels in, and tried to do some parametric stuff. I have joint the wheels to the driver using a parametric distance, based on a fonction using a sign(value) with value being 1 or -1. I tried to apply the same principle to the suspension rest angle but it's a mixed result at this stage. I will also need to apply a ball and slider to the top of the suspension limiters so I have this coherent, and as well for the shafts... But for the time being, I have whatever I need to deal with the bodyshell...



I may not give up yet on the chassis, but I already spend about one hour and it still doesn't work the way I want, and I may want to be able to display both version next one to each over, which means it may not work (let's think about this for later )