My Savage 5B conversion by Alza Racing.

[pietrvds]

moulding time is finished! i hope i did everything ok...fingers crossed but it looks quite good for a first time :)

coated the arms with a film to make sure the rubber doesnt stick.



my mold recipients also coated ;)



the arms in the rubber, had to put some pieces on them to make sure they stay under....





and now it's 24hours of waiting and hoping it didnt fail! :)

[pietrvds]

i finished some resin casts and they ended up better than i expected especially because i never did this before. Made some mistakes but that's the way you learn things like i made the molds on a surface wich wasn't 100% level so afterwards i needed to level the molds to cast the resin... :) That wasnt that bad since i still have to shape the arms and the rough cuts need alot of shaping so no biggie!

The arms still have to cure for a day and then the resin is 100% hardened so then i'll shape them and i'll make some new molds :)

here are some pics:

the moulds



the arms in resin







1 arm had som big airbubbles but now i know how to get rid of them :)



that's all for now and i hope i dont get sicker pffffff stupid flu....

[Knez]

Dang the dang, you really done a lot !! Looking good and i see you are learning a lot, lol. Really nice man !!!

When will you test these...you also need dogbones as i remember.
Where will you get those, 4cm wider is a lot.


Your towers and arms look massive !!! I hope they will be as strong as they look. What do you plan to do with upper arms, make them same way or ?

I wouldnT mind new upper amrs

[pietrvds]

another update :)
I have been working on 1 arm but got some doubts about the finish...

some pics:

had to mill out some material to let the shock move freely and allow 100% movement.



milled a bit inside the arm also to lose some weight but don't know if i'll keep it that way because of the loss of strength...?



this shows better i had to remove some material for the shock to move freely





Then i was bored and really wanted to test if this stuff was tough so i took a hammer, clamped it and started hammering it hard (per swing it had +/- 30mm of flex) and after 73 of those swings it broke.... This was the version without the milled down parts so i don't know if this is tough....????



It took 73 swings and i had the feeling i was abusing it lol but on the other hand i tested a stock HPI arm exactly the same and it didnt even bend! So the stock plastic is WAAAY stronger(alot more flexible)....

so this leaves me to this HMMMmMMMMmmmZZZzzZZZz !?!(§!è§è§ ??!! conclusion....

Don't know what to do.... the finished arms would have been reinforced with fibreglass and/or carbonfibre but still i'm confused...

some thoughts plz, is this material to weak or is it sufficient???

[coolhandcountry]

Is the material to brittle to take the hammer blows verse the stock?

[pietrvds]

well the material takes the blows very well until the 73th blow lol, it flexes allmost 30mm in each direction wich is actually very good. The standard arms flex almost double so they just kinda euhm FLEX alot.
But like someone said i pounded it with a hammer, this isnt a field test so I don't think it's going to be as hard on the arms as this test. Shocks will soak up a lot of the impact as well as the chassis bottoming out so he said say roll with it and see.

will adjust the arms a bit, make some new molds and test again on the track!

[pietrvds]

update! :)

After a few months of waiting i got a phonecall my dogbones were ready so WOOOOOOP!!!!
Psyched to say the least and when i got them i was like WOW!
they really look damned sexy!

here some pics!



compared to a stock flux bone





little gimmick ;)
you can easely change size of the pins or a broken pin with loosening the grubscrew and just pulling it out and insert a new one. This is something i thought was never done before so... Now it is ! :)



All this couldn't be done without the help of Rhys Garven (FLUXNZ on Savage central forum) so i wanna thank him again this way for the good work he did on designing the dogbone in a cad program for me!

THANX RHYS! :D

since all fairytales have to end sooner or later i discovered they made a mistake....
the file name must've caused the mistake i guess... the file name was Dogbone 10mm longer because i wanted it to be longer so when Rhys did that the filename became dogbone 10mm longer so they must've thought it should be 10mm longer again LOLz
It's an honest mistake so no probz for them but for me....

I have to remake ALL my moulds again ..... DAAAMNNNN !!!

this is how the dogbone compares to the arm



normally it should be +/- the same length as the arm...

well i know what to do again hehehe

the upside is the truck will be even wider now :) 50mm each side so a 100mm increase in overall width :)))

new arm is being moulded as we speak but hell it will take a couple of weeks extra to get it running...

[Knez]

Love the idea with changing pins on Dogbones, that is GREAT!
Wish i had those suckers...FLM dogbones need longer pin on the side where you put them to wide axle cups.
From 1mm up to aprox. 2mm. :/


So your project became +10mm wider.

[pietrvds]

yep it did and i'm still busy with making the new extended extended arms lol :)

glad you like the idea with the dogbone, i also thought the pins where to short and they pop out and damage the cup so this will be much better and if the pin breaks just push in a new one and secure it :)

will post progress shortly, think next week coz i'm kinda fed up with it for the moment, all that sanding and cutting and molding.... :)))

[Knez]

Yes pins...my friend had to chage those a few times, i had 2 broken pins but all good now.

.. just take a little break, project will wait you anyway :)

I ordered my self a V911 rtf to jerk around a little, as weather is not best here.

[pietrvds]

another update:
Finally finished the lower arms....took me a few days of grinding, milling, and getting totally crazy in my hobbyroom but they're ready....
These should be the final versions of the arms and are being moulded while i'm typing hehehe!
They will be cast again and tested soon i hope coz i still need to finish the upper arms, the shocktowers too and then the diffs and the motor, esc wiring,....lol

This chunky beast sure takes alot of time and sometimes it drove me crazy but in the end it will be original ;)
While i was getting crazy i gave it a name also: Chunky Donkey will be his/her name :)

some pics of the arms ready for moulding!



naming the little buggers :)





tomorrow a day off probably and just waiting for the moulds to cure.
Maybe finishing the upper arms if i find the courage hehehe

that's all for now!

[pietrvds]

ok been a while but i had to take a bit of time off and AWAY from this project...
It's all fun when you're having progress and things are going the way you want but i had a few major setbacks and it started getting pretty frustrating but i found some solutions after taking a break and looking at it freshly again so here we go again :)

So i made the arms, dyed them and they looked pink, lets start with that! :)



i guess you must add more colouring to the resin but they state it also affects the properties so don't know what to do... anyway i like the white effect so i'll keep them white for the moment.


I also thought of reinforcing the arms and i bought some kevlar tape to do that.
All stress points are now reinforced with the kevlar so they should be pretty breakproof but time will tell...
Some pics

[pietrvds]

ok now i had some time to work on my diffs...always a pleasure humhum...

I changed all the cups to vorza cups, used the HD spider gears from hot bodies and changed all the bearings with boca bearings, the yellow ones who should be pretty dirt proof.

encountered a problem with the bulkheads... it seems you have to use a thinner inner bearing otherwise the pinion doenst fit...
anywayz don't know if the problem is with the bulkheads but i ordered thinner bearings from boca.

pics:





painted the carriers in metallic black and changed all the bearings with yellow boca ones also

[pietrvds]

then finally mounting the arms! YAY!





Since i wont use the standard shocktowers and bumpers/skidplates anymore the upper hingepins can fly away so i came up with this kinda euhm protective cover. Threaded the holes in the bulkheads first. You can flip it up and down when you want to remove the pins or when you want to remove the shocktower.





then i changed the pins for the drive cups into longer ones, the ones in the diff output cups remain the same.

here's what i did, just hammered a hardened steel nail through it and cut it off to the length i wanted.

[pietrvds]

After that it was time to put the entire thing together!



when i did i encountered a problem and a big one.... the dogbones just didnt fit well they did but they where like jammed like he ll :p in the cups...
First i thought the holes were the reason and i measured everything wrong but thank god i didnt change the holes...

The reason was this, the pins in the ballends where not completely centered and straight so a bit out of center and maybe 1 degree skewed... F U CkkKkkk!!!!! CENSOR this i thought i was going to throw it throught the window but when i found my calm again i thinked about what could be done now and since ordering new bones was completely out of the question i started grinding the cups.... after grinding the cups both in the diff and drive cups everything ran smoothly...

pfjjjiiiioew.....

didnt know what i would have done if it didnt hehehehe

anyway the pics are here, i just finished the front section and added the skidplate, the shocktowers and the shocks but still have to make steerings links but after typing this i'll get on with it! ;)





compared to a baja 5b front end 8)


hope you enjoy it, it gave me headaches but hopefully it will give me some pleasure lol

cheerz!