Beach buggy project (on hiatus for now)

[markbt73]

I've been going through my parts bins and trying to see what would make a good beach runner. I have an upcoming beach trip, and I want to set up a car around an old set of sand tires I have.

I came across this old Pro-Line crawler cage I bought ages ago and never used, and set it down next to a hacked-up, swiss-cheesed RC10 tub.



And then I set one on top of the other.



The chassis cuts look like they were made for the cage. I think I've found my project... now, can I build it in 3 weeks? That's the question...

[GoMachV]

Looks like fun! If you need anything give me a shout!

[markbt73]

Will do. I'm doing a parts inventory over the next couple days, and I'll probably end up putting up a wanted post. I know I'm short a few things.

[Typicray@rainmans]

That's freakin cool! I can't believe how well they fit t

[markbt73]

A little mockup to see how things will fit together... I cannibalized a 10T that I got recently for the suspension and gearbox for this project. Almost all the nylon parts are dyed Pepto-Bismol pink. But hey, what can you do?

Wheels and tires definitely look the part:



Cage has a receiver box molded in, but unfortunately it interferes with the rear bulkhead, so it'll have to go. I'm going to try to retain the battery compartment in front of it, however.



Shock tower fits between the rails, but I'm not sure where the shocks can go. I may end up omitting the tower and attaching the shocks directly to the cage. I'll probably have to do that in the rear, anyway.



It's coming together, but either the pink parts need dye, or the gold tub needs paint. The two together make my eyes hurt.

[Typicray@rainmans]

I am definitely interested to see how you will mount the suspension. This is such an awesome project!

[Phin]

...
Shock tower fits between the rails, but I'm not sure where the shocks can go. I may end up omitting the tower and attaching the shocks directly to the cage. I'll probably have to do that in the rear, anyway.

Could do laid down inboard mounted shocks either criss-crossed across the front bulkhead Slam Dunkin' style or straight back, into the car.

[markbt73]

Still playing around with layouts and configurations... regular old RC10 stuff almost works, but not quite...

[jwscab]

can you still get that cage?

[markbt73]

You know, I'm not sure if it's still available or not. I think it's out of production, but there might be some floating around. I got this one 3 or 4 years ago.

[markbt73]

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a roller:





I had to remove a few bits of the cage, but I'll add back on what I can. Front 10T tower clears the cage if I use the inner top holes for the shocks, and I used a buggy rear tower.

Lots to do: cage still needs to be attached, rear shocks need a rebuild, and obviously there's no running gear yet.

[DarthRacer]

Nice job on that. It looks more scale than most of the sand rail type buggies I have seen so far.

[Asso_man!]

Looks good so far, but you'll have to strenghten that tub if you don't want to run a folded pancake after a first miss 'n hit

[markbt73]

Well, after spending all afternoon on this stupid thing, I'm going to have to admit defeat. It's either hack off a bunch more of the cage, or make a bunch of custom parts, and I'd much rather make the custom parts, but I'm out of time for now. There's no way I can do what I want with this in the next week and a half, so it's on hiatus for the time being, and I'll just take my "mongrel" RC10 to the beach and run it as-is with the sand tires. Should still be fun.