Even though I have two builds underway, I figure Ahhhh..what's one more. While I have full intentions of building a Ten4 down the road, I wanted to make something different. My first 4wd was a Hotshot, and I have to say, I'm a fan of shaft drive. So that's what I'm going to attempt to integrate into a tub chassis.
Unfortunately, I'm not an engineer or a machinist, so this will be a conglomeration of bits and pieces from the Associated bin.
A Worlds chassis will be used as I had a spare that I had already cut down, so I figure a couple more holes in it won't hurt it. I bought the front and rear diffs from a B44.1 off of eBay for a couple of bucks to see if this was even worth attempting. I tried to find a B44.X roller, but nothing has come up yet for the price I want to pay.
As luck would have it, the rear B44 diff has two mounts that just so happen to align with the Stealth's two forward mounting holes. There is some additional material on the bottom of the tranny case that will be ground down so that it sits level, then some shims applied to the rear mounting points. Haven't decided how I'll finish the rear of the car, but chances are good the motor cover will get trimmed off.
Onto the fun part....the front!
My first impression was wow....this tranny is big, and it sits quite high! How the heck am I going to get this to fit within the confines of the tub? Two things I want to retain, 1) the iconic front nosetubes, and 2) to use original mounting for the front shock tower. To do this the transmission has to be lowered into the tub. Grinding down the rear tranny mounts helped, but it's not even close for the diff outdrives to clear the nose tubes.
WARNING!!!! For those of you who become queazy at the sight of gaping holes in aluminum, stop reading now!!!
To get the diff case low enough, a hole was cut in the front nosepiece, bevelled on the inside the get the case to the desired height. With the reduction in nosepiece material, it's imperative the nosetubes are retained for rigidity. As you can see, the outdrives, now clear the nosetubes. Am I worried about the diff case being exposed, ya, a little. I can foresee an old school JG-like bumper that may be used and extended protect the drivetrain...we'll see.
Mistakes made.....I ground off the front diff mount to get it as far forward as possible. Shouldn't have done that for two reasons. 1) the tranny rocks back and forth when pressure is applied, and 2) the shock towers will now hit the outdrives. The front arm mount will likely need to be trimmed and a 8/32 screw and lock nut will need to be used as the third mounting point, rather than just the screw into the nylon.
So I think this might actually work!
A quick test fit of a body and it will sit low enough! Ya, I'm shocked!
Some parts I'm going to start sourcing are:
- centre diff/motor mount. Any mount from any B44 models should work. A 44.3 would be best, but an earlier one will work too once I grind off the piece which protrudes into the slot of the B44 chassis
- Will likely order some 3D parts from Shapeways for the steering blocks. I looked at the B44 steering and castor blocks and it's just going to be easier to use what has already been designed for the Ten4
- The bellcranks....well, it's looking ugly....so I'm not quite sure what I'll need yet
- Sticking to black theme, I've already sourced black OEM suspension pieces. Initial build will use white parts, but then do the final assembly using black. The Shapeways pieces will get dyed to match
- A sheet of carbon fibre it on the way. I'm going to have to fabricate upper chassis decks. Should be interesting to see if I can accommodate an RC10 rear bulkhead into the design.
Please note, this is the prototype and the craftsmanship isn't to my usual standards, so yes, I will be redoing some pieces (specifically a refined nosepiece) of this build once I produce a functioning runner.
Anyways...stay tuned. This will take a while to complete (this will drive me nuts too!)
Cheers,
Adam
Interesting to see what you do with batt an motor placement 
Stay with it, Id like to see this finished. 
