WILDFIRE ClodBuster project

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Jam Racing 1

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Hi all i thought I would finally post up some pix of my ClodBuster me and my son modded after I got this one back from my youngest son, it was completely abused and had many broken parts on it so we decided to build our own chassis and all to make it another MTRA Monster to go in our group. this one makes 9 we have to play with between the three of us who own them....

Started with just the 2 gearboxes and also took them down to replace a bent axle and check all the gears for wear.....
Here is what I took away from my son when I found it laying in a corner abused and broken





We started the build with a few pieces of 1/8 plate and some channel and some angle for pieces to make parts out of notice they are about twice as thick as the ESP parts that we had





First off we built the stirrup and notice it is all 6/32 hardware used on this, the crossbraces were built by us also using some knitting needles and some threaded rod all capped off with acorn nuts to be good looking.... also notice the channel used on the rails







Link bars also custom made by me and my son, how they are made is a secret so I cannot share how we did em ,but lets just say these are not going to bend ever....they are 9mm round and stuffed with carbon rod is about all i can say...



these became the steering servo plates with the servo mounted to a couple pieces of angle to bolt on the plates. these mount to the stock axle stiffeners and through the original bellcrank mounts, very stiff and strong.... the steering is direct out to the axles now and this thing will steer all 4 tires with the same setup on the rear end





these pieces became the upper and lower shock mounts, my son spent alot of time giving them some shape to look nice..... and the upper link mounts are also here we made them out of 3/4 inch channel





Lower shock mounts



Electronics plate







the batteries mount down on the lower plate we made out of some blue acrylic material i found at
Tap Plastics, also the body mounts are made out of strips of 1/8 kydex from the same place....
The shocks are off a savage truck and have 30 wt oil inside....





Here you can see the battery mount plate down low, they are held in with a couple reusable zip ties....
i started off with an evx esc, but soon changed to an evx 2 caz the first one gave it all up in testing..... I run 2 six cell 3000 mah batteries and this thing has some power to spare.....



Course I had to paint up a body for it so i used the proline F650 shell all painted up as WILDFIRE, my son did all the masking and I slung the paint on it.... a few decals and she was ready to roll. I got a set of V Spike tires for christmas and painted the wheels blue to match the paint job....















Hope ya all like this truck we built, it took about a year of part time work , but the end result is just stunning and she works well in every place I have run it so far, it climbs like crazy and actually handles pretty well considering its size....
Thanks for looking.....
 
Great custom build there Jam! Thanks for sharing it. Question, how is the steering? It looks from the pictures as if there isn't alot of room to turn the wheels. To make that worse, I think it would look alot better with larger wheels/ tires to match the scale of the rest of the truck.

Love the super secret 4 link bars!
 
the steering is good on in fact I have the dual rate turned down so the tires don't hit the steering plate, remember this is a 4ws rig so it steers great..... in fact it will roll over if i steer it too much caz them tires bite so hard on dirt or pavement..... As for larger tires on it, I am afraid I will snap axle housings with bigger tires on it, I think the 6.6 will have to do for now :)
 
Great Jam, now you've resparked my desire to build a Clodbuster myself. Good looking build. I'm sure it was a lot of fun building it with your son!
 
We really enjoy our ClodBusters, we do like the real trucks do and have freestyles and side by side drags over old bodies and even run a roundy round course we call Chicago style racing... all in all they have to be my favorite trucks to run for just plain fun......

between 3 of us we have total nine monsters to run with, we always laugh so much havin fun , makes for some fun relaxing r/c fun......
 
I haven't seen a Clod build in years, it looks great! Those tires are rare and were being bought by collectors for a pretty penny back in the day.
 
Thank You for the comments, the truck runs 2 21 turn 550 Traxxas motors with one wound in reverse, I got them on e bay, I got those tires for a Christmas present from my wife, my son got them from someone on e bay who was reproducing them is limited quantities and has since run out of his stock..... all in all I am satisfied in the truck it always draws stares from people who see it......:)
 
Today I got the axle tubes for my truck, they are alloy from Hot Racing and will add a lot of strength to the truck as well as look so SWEET...







I will install them after my Birthday because I have to wait till then for the wife to let me have them :D
 
After using WILDFIRE for awhile it became obvious that the stock 5 pin drive just wasn't gonna work anymore, so the search has been on to find alternative wheels that would support the existing 6.6 tires I already have....
Traxxas came out with the Monsterjam series of trucks and they are using a short course style wheel that is 2" on the outside and 3 inches on the inside with a 12mm hex that the ClodBuster uses to run the pin drive hubs, so we used the existing hex and cut the original ClodBuster wheels off right at the beginning of the wheels face inside, thus removing that part of the wheel that fits exactly into the 2" part of the traxxas wheels....

So I gritted my teeth and commited 4 wheels with broken pins to the dremels cutoff wheel and soon had 4 half wheels, after a bit of sanding to make them square I painted the half wheels I had to a nice blue to match the ClodBuster, the traxxas wheels already have a silver center so the blue with silver looks like it was planned that way and the back half of the traxxas wheels are black so it looks almost factory done.....

ClodBuster wheel as it comes.....

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it was cut off just before the center section of the wheel..

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these are the sections I painted blue, but decided afterward to paint them a darker blue using Ford Blue engine paint....

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so after paint I have to epoxy them together with gorilla glue 5 min epoxy...

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so that has been one of the things I have been working on with this ClodBuster, it has been down awhile with steering mods and other upgrades so these wheels were necessary to get it back on its wheels...

Best thing is the offset changes also and will widen the truck by about an inch giving my ladder links a break by not hitting them at full lock which I have had turned down so they did not hit before...
I will get pics of the tires mounted after the wheels have a chance to cure the epoxy a few days....
 
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Looking great so far Jam. Looking forward to seeing the finished product!
 
Glued the wheels today, used epoxy and made up a batch of epoxy putty to smooth out the transition between the 2 halves to make a smooth job and add some strength to them....

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They are a bit narrower than a stock Clod wheel is, but the tires will pooch out a bit to protect the wheel bead from impacts......
 
I mounted the tires on the wheels today, they turned out NICE if I do say so myself....

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Now i have to work on the new steering setup and I will be able to run this Big Bad Boy again......
 
Got the steering servo mounts today, took a lil modding, cut one corner off to clearance the axle tube but now they are mounted and waiting on my servos to arrive, had to modify the lower shock mount also by cutting down one corner so the servo did not interfere with that, all in all I am happy with how this seems like it is gonna work...

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Now on to fab up the steering linkages, getting close to being a running truck now.....
 
Servos arrived yesterday, got those mounted now..... still gotta fab up a bracket for the upper link mount to keep it from turning but that's an easy mod to do, closer to mounting the gearcases to the chassis to make it mostly done.....

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Had some spare time so I built the drag links and steering for WildFire, so now all I need to do is center the steering servos and finish it all up.....

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front and rear being identical it seems to have plenty of steering throw so nothing hits at full travel.....

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Going to put some batteries in it tomorrow and center things up and maybe even take a test drive to see how it all works.....
Another one done so now I have bench space to work on my other projects a bit.....
 
Well I had another idea, Got 4 new shocks and filled with some 30 wt oil, had to move the upper shock mounts to the bottom of the frame rail, but it lowered the height of the truck an inch or so and with the shocks canted inward it softens up the suspension quite a bit, also going to install the FlySky RX into it and bind to my TX so I get rid of one more old school radio and move into the 2.4 game with the Monsters I have....

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Almost finished with this one, got the body mounts lowered down to where I think they look good, all that's left is charging a couple batteries and setting the steering to center and a bit of test running....
I am satisfied with how much lower the body is compared to where it was before...









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Well I have spent some time getting this Old Dawg out of mothballs and making some final mods and getting it ready for this winter, we will be running a MUD & MONSTER series that my eldest son puts on here at a local park, we will have Mud Trucks, Monster Trucks, and truck pulling events, I may even be able to post some vids, as for WildFire I finished putting on the bumper and servo mounts to the gearcases and a new upper link mount that will not move, Jason found and 3d printed these for our trucks, we do have 6 of them to do but this is what we have been needing for a long time for the ClodBusters...

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