6 months since building this and I still haven't gotten round to painting the shell but I did cut a custom chassis that I've been thinking of doing for sometime now.
The objective is to return the wheelbase of this truck back to that of the original Blackfoot so it looks better with the shell. The stock wheelbase just doesn't look right as it is too long.
I previously cut new wishbones to achieve this and although they worked well I always thought aesthetically they always looked a tad off.
So a custom chassis was designed and cut... here's the truck with the new chassis and how the wheels fit better under the body. I took almost 40mm off the wheelbase.
One of the challenges in shortening the wheelbase with a new chassis was where to put the battery as it sat snugly between the front and rear gearbox assemblies. I don't know why I didn't see it before but it recently occurred to me that the front "gearbox" (actually it's a 2WD so it's just a casing to hold the front suspension assembly together) had a sloping rear surface... it was perfect to locate a battery there without raising the center of gravity too much.
So off to work on Autocad and the result is the battery neatly placed just above the front "gearbox" casing. While I suspect the slanted-battery-look may not work for everyone, I actually think it's quite unique!
Here's a pic of the suspension towers which allow the mounting of 4" buggy shocks. I run the TRF tamiya dampers. There are multiple upper mount positions for tuning.
Here's a pic of the chassis from the top. The chassis was also designed so the stock body mounts could be used without drilling new holes in the body. So what we have is a shortened chassis that fits snugly under the original shell without hassle.
One more pic of the truck. I'll be doing up the hard shell and also a lexan shell for bashing. It currently sports a 8.5T brushless motor so I suspect it should have some nice power and speed.
I like the idea of having a "modernized" vintage-inspired basher... let me know what you think!