Project Mulligan

[suicideneil]

Patience is a virtue

But yeah, I've been looking at some custom PC builds over on the Bit-Tech forums; metal, wood & plastic working skills that would make even the Candyman himself drool no-doubt- makes my efforts and level of concentration look rank-amature at best

Anyway, finally got around to taking some 'completed' photos during daylight hours- still gonna make a few suspension tweaks shortly to improve upwards travel and prevent bodyroll, but this is how she will rock out now shes done & road tested successfully:















Long, low & wide

[JoFreak]

Wow, definately one of the nicest MTs I've ever seen!

How did you get that matte black on the shell?
Special colour and shell treatment or just painted from the outside?

[thzero]

Love it... great stuff!

So what are all the measurements? wheelbase, clearance, track width, etc. :)

[suicideneil]

Painted the shell on the outside- if you skip back a page or two you'll see what happend exactly with my painting attempt

Ah yes, specs:

Weight = 13lb 10oz ( without battery )
Total length = 24"
Wheel base = 18" ( currently, will end up a little bit shorter after I've tweaked it )
Track width = 20" ( outside edge of tires )
Total height = 10"
Groundclearance = 1.5" ( under front and rear axles, center is a tiny bit more )

[lutach]

Neil,

You have created a master piece. I love the stance you gave it. Neil, e-mail me your address so I can send you a gift (brasuca2478@hotmail.com). I've been wanting to do that for a while, specially for mentioning some of the things I've done for the Hobby, but most important what you've done for it.

Regards,

Luciano.

[What's_nitro?]

Neil, that truck is sweet. I am a man of few words, and that's pretty much all I can say...but that's good!

It would seem somebody has a secret crush on you!

[ANGRY-ALIEN]

Wow Neil... that thing looks beastly ... I really, really want to build one now.

[Popoxx]

ooooooooooooh, aaaaaaaaaaaah, ...

Great job, really !

[swiftneed]

I really enjoyed the test drive and would like to see some serious speed but I guess the wheels and weight hold it down, how about some climbin serious rocks nice ride and glad to see it all came together.Always enjoy watching your step to step builds.

[suicideneil]

That may be possible now actually ( rock climbing )...

Trimmed the wheelbase back to 16", as per the original plan- now I have a bit of suspension travel finally







The devil is in the detail:



Those are actually 8mm OD bronze oilite bushings... yeah. Couldnt find any suitable alloy spacers, or plastic spacers either, but these look quite good and finish the truck off nicely. Just waiting for another chance to take the truck out really, put some speed runs on her and some onboard footage perhaps...

[Chadworkz]

Is there any chance you would be willing to part with the stock chassis plates?

[suicideneil]

Already sold them to the Pimp a while back sorry..

[swiftneed]

The sickness of RC LOL awesome work Neil

[Ryu James]

very impressive build! turned out great! cant wait to see the next vid!

[suicideneil]

It's been too long since I last drove the Big T, and boy, did I make up for it...

So, arrive at the bash spot and give the new(ish) 4 wheel steering a thorough bit of testing, works like a charm- regular steering, incredibly tight circles & bizarre crab steering all possible with the flick of a couple switches, that turned a few heads at the park. Then I decided to test the speed out since I had the room- crazy fast but acceleration takes a little while, not that surprizing really all things considered. I drive the truck as far away as I dare and them give it the beans to get the speed up as much as possible ( geared for 45mph ), truck goes sailing past me but I just clipped the tyre of a van which was parked at the side of the park ( some fireservice / coastguard open day thing with all the appliances parked around one end of the field. Truck spins round and then as I try to bring it back to me it becomes apparent the steering is knacked, very knacked.

Turns out I mangled one of the knuckles and snapped the end off one of the steering rods; carp. Luckily as I had rear wheel steering still I was able to zip-tie the front knuckles straight ( lots of toe in but anyway ), swap the motor wires around & put the shell on backwards = good as new, sort of. Went back at it for a few minutes and noticed that the slipper was screaming alot so I tightened that up a good couple turns and then went to blip the throttle to check it; truck flips on it's lid like it weighs nothing

So, I then put on an awesome display of crazy torque for the 'orrid tourists who were watching, just had to blip the throttle as I rolled along gently and the truck would rear up, hit the shell on the ground and then the front wheels would come crashing down- so much power it was just stupid fun, but couldn't really ride a wheelies very well as the balance is totally off. Was doing that for a good 10 minutes or so and then I suddenly couldn't wheelie anymore; rear ( actually front ) diff had gone- not surprising really considering I'm putting about 5-10 times more power to the axles than they were designed to take. I could still drive the truck for a few more minutes but then my transmitter started beeping like crazy at me as the voltage was down to 4.0v ( runs on 4x AA batts ). Couldn't ignore that really so I had to call it a day, but it was loads of fun and nice to drive my trucks again after so long.

At the moment I need to tear the axles down and see what part has stripped & if it;s worth fixing, or going with an after market axle setup of some sort; I will have to do some pricing-up and see if it's viable to buy the RC4WD alloy Madforce axles + internals + rig up some suspension linkage mounts, or if it might just be easier to run some truggy front & rear ends with the arms locked out straight & mounted to the lower axle guards that I would rather keep ( since they are go impossible to get hold of from NewEra ). Project within a project- I'll upload some damage photos later on...