Axial Wraith: Rear Suspension Mod

I found some inspiration from the picture below to modify the suspension on my Axial Wraith. This coil-over suspension kit for a full size Jeep shows the shocks mounted differently then your normal kit.

Traxxas r/c cars have the shocks mounted the same way, and I had parts from a Traxxas Slash chassis lying around. I used two of the mini Traxxas shocks as well as two arms and rods. I removed the "stock" shocks on my Wraith and drilled a couple holes for the new setup. Here's what I came up with:

(This mod did not cause any loss in axle articulation.) Video comming soon!

Toyota Hilux Build- Pt. 14

I have installed the windshield wipers and the door handles. I still need some glue for the side mirrors. My Mom let me show off my truck on one of her shelves, so here is my truck's resting place for now:

"Rattle Trap" Based 4-Door JK Pickup Build- Pt. 4

Surprisingly, I noticed from pictures of the fill size "Rattle Trap" that there were no windshield wipers!

That's wierd, wouldn't you want windshild wipers to wipe off all that mud from the trail! Well, this meant that I had to get rid of the wipers that were on my JK body. I used my Dremel to sand off the windshield wipers and then used putty and styrene to fill in the unnessesary holes in the hood.

I have been working hard filling and sanding the stretch in the body. Here are some pictures of the progress. I also show where the diesel stack will be located (still needs paint) in the pickup bed as well as the spare tire. The wheels in the pictures are what I will use but they will be painted to match the truck. The tires in the picture will be replaced by 1.9 Pitbulls.

"Rattle Trap" Based 4-Door JK Pickup Build- Pt. 3

Quick post. I removed the spare tire mount for New Bright's cheesy spare tire. I sanded off the handle and hinges on the trunk and spread some putty on it so that it will look like the shaved tailgate on the full size. Using styrene, I covered up the tail light holes so that I can make custom tail lights like the 1:1 Jeep. I cut the front fender flares and puttyed the pockets so that they will be flat style flares. These still need to be sanded. The antenna hole on the hood got puttyed as well.

"Rattle Trap" Based 4-Door JK Pickup Build- Pt. 2

I recieved the New Bright JK body yesterday and that was when the body work started! Here are some shots of the body before the body work, it is a really nice body!

I took out the interior, roll cage, mirrors, spare tire, light buckets, and hard top so that I could start the body work. I also took the windows out and removed the "New Bright" logo on the windshield using Goo Gone. Here's how it looked before any cutting.

I cut the body right behind the back door on each side with sewing thread for a nice, small cut.

I used styrene to make a part to fill in the extra stretch. The truck has a 15" wheel base now! (I started cutting off the side steps too, they got in my way.) I still need to putty and sand. 1:1 build pictures below too.

More body work soon, but that's all for now!

"Rattle Trap" Based 4-Door JK Pickup Build- Pt. 1

I have seen alot of people build some nice Jeep JK-8 pickups on different forums. I even began one with a lexan body, but it's just difficult to use a lexan body and mod it so much. I recently purchased a New Bright Jeep 4-door Wrangler body from a member of the Scale Builder's Guild. These New Bright bodies have amazing detail and I'm happy to use one of these bodies for a build. I am going to use this body to build a 4-door Jeep JK pickup truck, which will be based off of the full size "Rattle Trap" Jeep. Here are some reference pictures of the 1:1 Jeep:








 For body work, I will have to stretch the back 1.7" (17" on the 1:1) so that I have more space for the pickup bed, and shorten the hard top so that it stops behind the back doors. I would like to use 1.9" Pitbull tires, Rigid Industries/ Vanquish Products lightbar, and Portal Axles to match the full size.

I began building the chassis. I'm starting with Scx-10 rails and kind of went from there. I moved the Axial transmission to the front of the truck, like my Toyota pickup. I took a Traxxas 1/16 Summit transmission and modified it so that it is now a transfer case. It is tested and this works. I am using RC4WD Tough Armor Comp. Stinger front bumper and rear bumper with spare tire carrier. I will mod the rear bumper so that the spare tire will be angled in the bed of the truck. The shocks shown are just for reference, I will be using coilovers.

Axial Wraith Changes

I've been doing alot of work on my Axial Wraith so I just wanted to go through whats happened to it over the years.
This is a picture of the truck's first run outside:

Then, I thought it would look good with a Ford F650 body:

I began watching Wayalife/ Project JK Jeep videos on Youtube. Those videos influenced me to swap the Ford body with a Jeep body (This picture ended up being used for my LetsGoMuddin logo!):

I saw different ways to mod the cage for a spare tire and liked the idea of having a driver, so...:

I cut up my other Jeep body for a different build, but changed my mind. I cut the Jeep body up even more and came up with a perfect Wraith body! I changed the front bumper and did some more cage mods on the back, so now I have a Jeep tuber buggy thing: