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I don't know how many of you will be interested but since longboardnj was, it swayed me to start this build thread. Besides, this is the first one for a pulling truck here so it will at least be something different for a change.

Anyway, as the story goes I bought this puller off of eBay due to the price being right and the fact that I loved the design. It looked like from the pictures that all it needed was a little help to bring it back to where it should be. At the most I thought that it would only need a new chassis plate made. Well we all know how these eBay stories go. A few days after receiving it I started tearing it down and quickly realized that it needed a lot more work than expected. It appears to have been entirely fabricated using a drill press, band saw, and hand tools. That's really all you need but I wish it was done on a mill as the finished product You can tell the person tried but as a result, nothing is perfect. it has misaligned holes, askew slots, etc... They also riveted some pieces together for absolutely no reason, and the rear body mount is worthless. To add insult to injury, nearly all of the screws were seized due to galling, and someone used an angle grinder with an abrasive disc on most of the surfaces for some unknown reason.

What's cool is that everything is adjustable. The front weight bar, the front axle to adjust the wheelbase, the front body mount, motor plate, hitch, and the jackshaft assembly block to adjust the chain tension. Also the entire rear assembly is modular so it removes as a single unit from the chassis.


One night I spent several hours trying to take apart as much as I could. I managed to get the entire front end disassembled, and some screws removed from the back portion. I then washed the parts I was able to remove and put them in Ziploc bags. I didn't take any pics of that process.

A few nights later I managed to remove the rest of the seized screws. It took me an hour and a half of carefully cutting slots into them with a Dremel, and then using a giant screwdriver to break them free. Being that they were all button head hex screws there was no room for error, and somehow I didn't make one. The impressive part is that I was doing it at 1:00 in the morning while laying on the floor in the garage with minimal lighting in the cold.


What I'd ultimately like to do is to send the chassis plate out to someone who can either machine me an entirely new chassis plate, or fix up the original.

Thanks for sharing this with the rest of us. This will be fun to follow!

Looks like a great platform to improve on. Hopefully you can get some help if you need it.

I have wanted to build one of these for a while now. Keep us posted on your progress.

I haven't found anyone yet who's capable of doing the work but I also haven't made a great effort either. I did email two sites that specialize in making pullers, and also Hesse Machine who does a lot of R/C related work. Only one of the puller places replied and although nice, they seemed to only be interested in selling me one of their products. I did take a bunch of measurements the other night to get an idea of what materials I need to get if it comes to that.

Cool project! Pulling as a sport I find very boring, but I LOVE the way pullers look. Have you tried contacting any local machine shops? They might be able to do something for you very cheaply.

I'm trying to avoid that if I can help it. Any time I've sought out the services of local machine shops, it hasn't been a pleasurable experience. The responses I got ranged from they're too busy, not interested, they only do production or contract work, don't do small jobs, they charge a hundred dollars an hour baseline, can't give you any kind of quote beforehand, etc... etc... It's just a total waste of time. I'd like to find someone online who's familiar with R/C, knows what I'm talking about, will say they will do it for X amount of dollars, I send it off to them, done deal.

What you have there looks like a lot of standard plate, angle and square stock. What are you looking to have done exactly? Shoot me some info, dimensions, drawings, etc... While I don't have a fully capable milling machine, I do have some capabilities to help you out, plus buckets of that type of material.

Thanks for posting. I just saw this today! So sad to hear of the problems. I don't know a lot of rc pullers but I bet if you found some premade parts like the front axle, it may make the build a little more easy.

I like that the sport fosters unique vehicles and creativity (unlike most rc vehicles today). Take a look at the jet turbine powered pullers, scale tractors and multi-engine nitro pullers. Pulling is one of the only rc hobbies where you can entirely engineer your own vehicle, and have a chance of winning a national or world championship. Where else is that done?

Scratch-built pullers like this are a real science, plus I'd rather watch then put the cash into them the way some people do. You can't just put a gear reduction on a Blackfoot and move a full size car. I always liked to get on my skateboard and go for a ride with my pull truck. That was a fun thing that only something like a puller has the capability of doing.

Well it's now 7 years later, and this project is back on the table again. I've spent the last month reverse engineering the design, and collecting parts. Things have unsurprisingly gotten out of control like they usually do as I've already spent way too much time and money, and haven't gotten any actual building accomplished. My problem is when I'm REALLY interested in something, I tend to become a little unhealthily obsessed. I can spend 8 hour stretches of time researching things like it's nothing. It sounds better to refer to it as being passionate.

I chose specific guidelines for the parts that would be used which is/was the biggest hurdle. I wanted good quality high-end components. This meant no off-brand, no name, white label, China boat, indeterminable stuff if I could help it. The problem is, that makes up the majority of what's available at the consumer level. I found that the good stuff was either hard or impossible to obtain as an individual. You either had to be a distributor or buy in bulk. Some of the items such as hardware, may have an unidentifiable source but I had to feel as if it was of proper quality.

Anyway, this was just to say that this project has begun again, and I'll be posting pictures of the progress.

i want to build an unobtainable Drag'n Master so i feel what ur up against! just hope the motors (two or more!) are vintage for your build.... or possibly vintage nitro?

Besides a servo, this build probably won't be getting any electronics as it will be a shelf queen. Unfortunately, I don't know when this puller was originally built. I don't think it's vintage judging by some of the components. If I had to guess, I'd say 10-15 years ago. I suppose this might be more at home in the 21st Century Modern forum. I'll play it safe by moving it there.

It would be run in either Sportsman or Open 1 class by 2020 rules dependent on final weight. This means It's a single motor 2wd electric that has a max weight of either 10 or 15lbs respectively.

What ever happened to the other puller of yours?

Offer still stands if you need parts made. since this thread started, I also picked up a tiny little milling machine with some decent capability.