Kev’s Bench: 32 Ford And Old School Monster Truck Update

I found a little time to get some work done on a few of my current projects and I wanted to share some of the progress with you guys. Let’s take a quick look at my 32 Ford pickup inspired SCX10 and old school monster truck.

 

32 Ford Pickup

After some recent trail riding with some of my other rigs I decided to shift gears and get back on my 32 Ford pickup inspired build. I had put some of the truck together so that I could use the axles, chassis and suspension to figure out what size I needed to make the body. With the body in motion I decided to pull what I built apart so I could install the final components and add a few more while I was at it.

The axles are now fitted with Axial’s aluminum hubs, hub carriers and rear lockouts along with Axial heavy duty ring and pinion gears and universal drive shafts. Axial’s aluminum steering links help get the torque of the Savox waterproof servo to the wheels with no flex. The stainless steel hardware from RC Screwz really puts them over the top.

The transmission in my SCX10 has been outfitted with Axial’s heavy duty gear set and aluminum motor plate. The metal spur gear and heavy duty slipper pad is from Robinson Racing. Power for this truck is going to come from a Novak Rockstar brushed motor. The input shaft is running very close to the back of the body so I’m going to grind away at the shaft slightly to give me more room and I’ll be designing a compact gear cover and making it on my Zeus 3D printer.

The chassis is back together and looking good. I have to add some stainless screws to the transmission housing to wrap that up and then it’s time for some modifications. The battery will be mounted up front but as low as possible then I’m going to work on a low CG speed control mount for my Novak M2 Dig and figuring out how to install my Traxxas waterproof receiver box. The car stands are from Hot Racing and I love how they add to the scale look of the truck.

My truck is going to have to light up the night so mounted up a LED lightbar from RC4WD. The shape of the bar goes well with the square shape of my custom cab and it’s sure to light up the way.

I also made some progress on the cab. I cut out my side and front windows and have started fitting the cab to the chassis. I need to round the edges of the windows and finish it up by cutting out the rear window. Body mounts need to be figured out before I can finish fitting the body to the chassis. I also need to start cutting the gaps for the doors and hood, designing and making the door handles, cut out and detail the grill and a few other things before I can start filling gaps and getting the cab ready for some paint.

 

Old School Monster Truck

Progress has been slow on my old school monster truck but I have found some time to work on the body a little and up the scale coolness a bit.

The back of the cab received some filler to smooth out the transition between the back of the cab and the pockets that I made. I was going to make a special tool to spread the filler but that didn’t work out so well. My finger ended up being the spreader and I am hoping that some sanding and a few more coats will give the back of the cab the look that I am going for. While I was at it I filled in the sunroof to smooth the roof out a bit.

Now that my 3D printer is up and running I’ve been working on designing and making some cool scale accessories for my truck. The first one was a battery that looks like what the trucks in the 80s would have had and now I am in the process of making an intake, blower and so on for the top section of my RC4WD aluminum engine. The intake is a test print that I did to make sure that the fit was correct on the block. Now I can move forward with a blower, carbs, scoop and the rest of the parts to give my V8 engine that blown look.