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1:20 Scale Toyota

TrikeKid

Junk Hoarder
Joined
May 19, 2020
Member Number
246
Messages
1,768
Loc
Spana-graham, WA
I don't have enough shit going on so I started on this tonight. I've had this Proline Ambush 1/25 since they came out, about 6 months after that Proline completely orphaned them. It's a steel frame (flat rail), worm drive axles with leaf springs... it is/was/should've been the go-to small scaler platform but it was dropped in a hurry. I did some things like a flat belly, weighted the stock wheels, trimmed lots of BS off and it crawled decent but it won't hang with an SCX24 for outright capability.
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Being short and leaf sprung I wanted to build a flat fender on this chassis, but the only "1/25" scale flat fender I could find turned out to not in any way be true to scale, so that was out.
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Found some old forum builds with 1/20 scale plastic model bodies and ended up settling on a third gen Toyota from AMT, width is right but we need some wheelbase
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This thing is leaf sprung and the rear of the chassis is flat so wheelbase adjustment is relatively simple, I poked a couple holes about 3/4" back for a 5 1/4" wheelbase which seems to line up reasonably well for the look I'm after. Need to stretch the rails back so the shackles have somewhere to hang and figure out some cross members then I can get onto building/mounting the body. Test fit shows my existing electronics (Flysky 3 channel receiver and a Furitek Lizard ESC) will fit under the hood, SCX24 sized battery should fit nicely under the bed between the frame rails. These won't be the tires/wheels but they're close enough. It'll be on RC4WD Rock Lox and likely their steel beadlocks.
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A quick comparison with the SCX24 to show how much easier this would be on that chassis
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Got the frame stretched tonight before I got distracted. Just cut the inner rail and slid it back to line up the old spring hanger holes with the new location, got lucky and was able to stick a cross member in without having to drill anything else. Now onto building and mounting the body,


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Got the interior sorted out tonight, I ended up cutting a ton more than I needed to in a few spots to make it fit around the transmission but it's fucking tiny, and it'll be presentable once it's all painted and assembled.

What I saved of the tunnel, shifters and console ended up mounted to the transmission itself. This is one of the areas where I overcut quite a bit.

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The rest of the interior got the hack n' slash treatment with the dremel to get the seats in and the floor opened up so it sits around the chassis and transmission with room for the driveshafts. The flat belly tucks the transmission probably 1/4" higher up in the truck than factory, which is massive at this scale but I'm still pretty happy with how much I was able to fit around it.
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Finished up the interior aside from actually mounting it to the body, not going to go crazy detailing it out since I haven't touched a plastic model in 15-20 years and I just plain don't stock any of that stuff anymore. Ordered wheels too, should be here Tuesday so I can get the tires on and figure out how much/if I'm gonna be trimming the fenders. Debating on bobbing the bed.
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Got it stuck back together and mostly smoothed out. Good enough for spray paint anyhow. Turns out the solvent in spot putty turns styrene into mush, little hard to work with.

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Waiting on a few things before I paint and finish mounting the body, had a set of headlights around so I made those work

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Started test fitting electronics, even with tiny parts it's gonna be 10 pounds of shit in a 5 pound bag.

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Got some paint on the body and the wheels came today so I threw those together with the tires. Interior is glued in so now I can get the front of the body nailed down and figure out what I want to do for the front bumper.

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Got the body bolted down through the floor and some Velcro under the bed. Receiver and ESC are mounted under the hood along with way too much wire. The silver dots are magnets to hold the hood down, I only glued them on the wrong way half a dozen times. Other than that, lots of painting and attaching details like lights, mirrors, wipers, exhaust etc...

Waiting on some SCX24 drive shafts to make a longer rear and material to make a front bumper.
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Got my driveline parts and sorted that out and was able to get this thing out on the rocks for the first time tonight. Deleted the mirrors and knocked the windshield out pretty quickly, it's definitely more trail rig than rock crawler but it still hit some of the tougher lines on my course.

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I plan on making or finding one, I'm sure someone is 3d printing ones for the SCX24s by now.

This is as far as the bumper has gotten so far (yikes that driver's headlight bulb is off-center). I'm waiting on some itty bitty drill bits so I can put a screw through the kickers to that piece between the frame rails, once that's nailed down I'll grind the frame back some. Also need the tiny bits so I can stick some wire or something inside the mirrors to beef them up, the lightest of flops knocks them off the truck.

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I plan on making or finding one, I'm sure someone is 3d printing ones for the SCX24s by now.

This is as far as the bumper has gotten so far (yikes that driver's headlight bulb is off-center). I'm waiting on some itty bitty drill bits so I can put a screw through the kickers to that piece between the frame rails, once that's nailed down I'll grind the frame back some. Also need the tiny bits so I can stick some wire or something inside the mirrors to beef them up, the lightest of flops knocks them off the truck.

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If you don't want to wait, Harbor Freight actually has some teeny tiny drill bits for really cheap. I use... and break... them a lot, so it's nice to be able to run down to the store and buy another set for $8.

 
If you don't want to wait, Harbor Freight actually has some teeny tiny drill bits for really cheap. I use... and break... them a lot, so it's nice to be able to run down to the store and buy another set for $8.

I was just waiting on an Amazon order, I can drill down to .6mm or something tiny like that now.
 
Front bumper bolted to the frame the other day, and I threw on some different wheels tonight. I think they're more suited to a 90's truck, and they're a fuck ton easier to put together than those evil little RC4WD wheels.

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Not much progress on this thing since it's mostly done but I did get out the model paint and some teeny brushes to get paint on the bumper and make an attempt at detailing the grille. Turned out okay, I'm real rusty with the brush painting. Got a couple other things I want to add some color to but I can only hang around in a 100+ degree garage for so long. Sure dries paint quick though!

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You're making me think about my losi micro crawler I never finished
 

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I wish those had stuck around, they were way better for normal model kits. I had a single cab Aoshima Toyota build that I never finished on a set of SuperSlicks monster truck axles before any of the proper micro crawlers came out. Probably stuffed in a box somewhere at my parents' place never to be seen again. If scale4x4 hadn't died I could probably find some pics.
 
To me, the RC crawlers were a gateway drug to 1:1. Once I was hooked on the real deal, I lost interest in my ax10. But, this little gem deserves to get finished. It really is just the model that needs to get finished. If you notice, I separated the transmission into two. With the motor and spur under the hood, and the rest in the middle like a divorced tcase. I was pretty proud of that. It lets me have a complete interior. Esc and bat will go in the box. Will even be able to run the model super swamper wheels lol.
 
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Apparently I posted this thing on rccrawler way back when and the pics were still active. This is as far as I recall ever getting on this one. Transmission was a gutted steering servo from a 1/10 scale truck.
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