1/5 scale monster truck project

[therigliveson]

What is your plan for powering this beast? Keep up the good work!

[Steve71]

Going to be running a Castle 1/5 system which is the Castle XL esc and 800kv brushless motor on 8s. That system really moves this type of truck extremely well. Bari Musawwir (Driver of the real MT Zombie) has that system in his 1/5 truck and it's just insanely powerful. Actually a bit scary to see how fast it pushes the nearly 45lb truck. Defiantly not something you want to hit yourself in the leg with thats for sure

[Steve71]

Well another 2 days worth of work into the 1/5 tube chassis. Gonna have to take a break from it for the next week. Some parts for some customers rods came in early so gotta get on some real work for the next week to pay the bills, lifes so unfair lol. But got a lot of the upper cage done now. Also mocked it up to get an idea of how it's gonna look. Pics do not do justice just how big these 1/5 scale trucks really are, it's kind'a crazy. You run into your leg with this thing like I have done with my 1/10 scale and I'll be in the hospital lol. Next will be making some temporary 4 link bars out of all thread and Revo rod ends just so I can get the axles /wheelbase set and then I can weld in the shock hoops in the right location. Then the permanent 4 link bars I plan to make out of 3/8 steel stock drilled & tapped with some 1/4 Heim joints I ordered.

[coxbros1]

coming along m
nicely.....very very nice!

[Steve71]

More work to the 1/5 scale today. All the 4 link mounts are welded in. Made them "captured" for more strength. Got the center diff mounted, mounted it almost directly center line but off about 1/2" to side so when I make the motor mount for the motor it will sit down a tad lower since it's coming in from a higher level. Also starting making the 4 links. Using 5/16 .065 wall steel tube and then drilling and tapping the ends for 1/4-28 male heim joints. Quite a pain in the butt. I hate tapping to begin with, but each end has to be tapped about 1.5" so that's just a pain. Got about 6 hrs into the first 4 links so half way done and calling it a night. Polished the links up on the wheel as well after I got them done. Hope to be able to get the other 4 done tomorrow so I can start welding in the shock hoops then after that.

[Dadio]

Its hard to keep it in scale in my mind from pictures ! that Dog Bone for the prop shaft is nearly as thick as the suspension links and looking at the picture of the one of the links in your hand ...... its huge ! Are you building a garage for it ?

[Steve71]

Yeah pictures just don't really convey the size of it that's for sure. It's funny when parts come in the mail for it. I see some of the stuff online in pics and think I know how big they are, then they come and it's almost comical how much bigger they are than I expected. I sure wish I had a garage. My RC area is in my basement, so once this is done I'm gonna have to lug it up & down the stairs to run it

[Dadio]

Ha HA ! put a winch on it so it can climb the stairs for itself

[Steve71]

More work on the 1/5 scale. Almost got one corner done with the shock hoops in. Making the mounts "captured" for maximum strength. Still have some bracing & gussets left to weld in, but ran out of rod so have to wait a few days till the order I placed gets here. Made the hoops so the shocks actually tuck up inside them a bit for protection. Last pic gives an idea of the size of these 1/5 scale beasts. Keep in mind I'm 6'5" 240lb too, its gonna be big

[Pyxster]

That's a crazy project.
Can I borrow it when it's done? I have the neighbor's free-range cat that I'd like to, uh, "deal with".

[Steve71]

1/5 scale update. Have got a lot more work done over the past week. No idea how many hours I have into this thing yet but put at least 40hrs into it last week alone. Got the chassis about 80% done now. All attachment points like shock mounts and 4 link mounts I made captured. Center diff is mounted but still has to be swapped out for the Vertigo locker I have for it that just came. Shocks are x-maxx that I stripped the anodizing off off and then polished them and replaced the springs with some blue progressive rate springs. Working on using all stainless nuts/bolt/screws, crazy how costly walking out of a hardware store with a tiny bag full of stainless hardware is lol. Still have a lot more to do but figured I'd share some pics now that I got it up on the tires. I actually had to build a new table for the truck today because after getting the tires on it, it no longer fit on my workbench. After getting the new table built my OCD kicked in and I ended up spending a couple days redoing half the work area I use for building rods into a new RC hobby area. Next few days will be spent turning a 3x3x1/4 piece of aluminum angle I bought into the motor mount for the Castle brushless motor. Will post more pics once I get further along.

[Steve71]

Decided to make my own steel headers for the 1/5 scale build today. Used 5/16 steel brake line worked over with the tubing bender. Heated flattened a piece of round stock to make the strap plate across the tubes. Made a the collector and turn down out of some copper plumbing pieces that I worked over a bit with a Dremel tool. Happy with how it came out. One down, other side left to go. Gonna put that one off till tomorrow.
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[R Cane]

Dayam!


A lot of good work going on there.

[Dadio]

This must be eating time ! its looking monstrous !

[Steve71]

Yeah it definitely chews up a lot of time. I didn't keep track, but if I had to guess, I'd say so far I've got somewhere around 200+ hrs into it to this point. But I think I enjoy the building just as much as I enjoy the running so it's all good