Mild To Wild – Making the Best of Your RTR or ARTR Scale Truck – Mike Lohman Converts a Couple RC4WD Trucks into Realistic Scale Detail Machines

Scale RC has come a long way from the origins of RC rock crawling. When it first started, we had to literally create our own vehicles from various kits and parts. Fast-forward to current times and we have fantastic kits, parts, and even awesome ready-to-run (RTR) and almost-ready-to-run (ARTR) trucks, tons of options available to us from various manufacturers.

One of those companies, RC4WD, has done a fantastic job with their RTRs and ARTRs. When they released their RTR Trail Finder 2 LWB RTR with 1987 Toyota Xtracab body set, I had to have one. They modeled the truck after the famous “Back To The Future” truck driven by Marty McFly, which became popular among Toyota truck enthusiasts. RC4WD then released another Trail Finder 2 LWB 1987 Toyota Xtracab-bodied truck sold through Tower Hobbies in a ARTR format. Being a diehard Toyota fan, I had to have that one as well, but like anything else I own… I couldn’t leave them stock.

FROM MILD TO WILD
RTRs and ARTRs are an essential and important part of this hobby. Not everyone has the time, patience, skills, etc., to assemble a good-looking scale truck, and the manufacturers who support us give a great-looking and working truck right out of the box. This allows you to get right to driving and figure out what you want to change and upgrade. The thing that sold me most were the beautiful paint jobs these trucks possessed.

Being an enthusiast from a full-size truck background, the first thing I noticed about these trucks was that they sat pretty high, or tall, right out of the box. Granted, leaf-sprung-based trucks tend to need the springs to break in, or settle, and the best thing to do is to actually use the truck and let this occur over time. However, I saw something different. When I was growing up, my stepfather had a 1988 Ford F-350 called “Monster Mash.” It was your stereotypical late ’80s/early ’90s “Jamboree” style show truck. That meant big tires, smaller wheels, bright colors, tilting beds and lots of shock absorbers. Reflecting on this gave me a new direction. Rather than just building another scale RC crawler, I was going to build an old-school show truck.

With any old-school show truck, you’ve got to have a cool name. I started on the black Xtracab truck first, and after installing some RC4WD Super Swamper Thornbirds and a vintage Autographics “heartbeat/wave” decal kit against the glossy black paint, I took to the internet to help me come with a rad name. (The word “rad” is probably one I use way more often than I should, especially when checking out cool old-school trucks from the ’80s and ’90s.) While talking about how rad this build was coming out, the name popped into my head, and, just like that, “Too Rad For You” was born.

THE BODY
In order for this black RTR to have all of the rad show truck vibes, I knew it was going to need more than some hot pink and blue graphics down the side. Out came the chrome vinyl, and I added it to the bottom of the truck to replicate the stainless cladding from that time period. Fortunately for me, the truck came with period-correct Smittybilt-style tube bumpers front and rear and a double roll bar, but that meant it was going to need a bunch of KC-style lights like any good Jamboree show truck. I jumped on eBay and purchased numerous plastic scale off-road lights that looked like the KC 6x9s that were plentiful on trucks of that era. I then scratch-built a styrene “light bar” so I could mount more than the four that the roll bar was designed to hold. I painted the covers pink and used my Cricut machine to add the KC logo to them utilizing black vinyl.

While working on the roll bar in the bed, I recalled bed rugs being popular during this time period, and, using my Cricut machine, I cut out a Toyota logo in the center of some self-sticking felt and carpeted the entire bed. No good showpiece would be complete without an outrageous stereo system, right? Lucky for me, Scale Built RC just so happened to debut a working Kicker box that featured what looked like two 12” subwoofers and even a working equalizer display screen! I took it up a notch further when showing him my project and he custom-made me one with the same heartbeat stripe wave graphics.

While researching accessories of this time period on an Instagram page called “Monster Mini Trucks” I recalled that Deflecta-Shields bug shields and dual wiper blades were all the rage. The bug shield was easy enough—some Lexan cut to shape, come chrome vinyl on the bottom to mimic the aluminum mount, pink paint and some scale hardware affixing it to the hood. This also provided a perfect spot for displaying the truck’s name. The wipers weren’t going to be as easy. Not only did I want the dual-blade look, I wanted color boots on the arms that went along with that style. An online buddy of mine proficient in designing parts for 3D printing, Long Tall Texan RC (aka Harry Hughes), just so happened to be making this style of wiper for a build. He modified his part to better suit the Xtracab body and, just like that, I had proper wipers.

If you’ve been into RC for a long time, and you’re looking at the nerf bars I used and thinking they look familiar, it’s because they are from a Kyosho Big Brute. After getting clever with some M3 spacers, I was able to get them bolted up directly to the frame.
I finished off the remainder of the body with some vinyl work via the Cricut and added appropriate period-correct decals like palm trees, Super Lift suspension decals, a Kicker audio decal, FLY-N-HI (famous West Coast 4×4 shop) decal, and a Bad Boy Club sticker (if you know, you know).

THE TILT BED
I knew when I started this build it had to have certain features to sell it as an old-school show truck. One was a tilting bed. Reflecting upon my all-time favorite RC truck, Primadonna (RCCA January 2023), I knew it needed to be dual-action. This required a custom bed rack, sometimes referred to as a “Z rack” in the mini truck world where “dancing” beds are popular.

No RC manufacturer has ever made something like this, so taking inspiration from Primadonna, full-size trucks, and some other RC enthusiasts who have done the task, I created my own tilting bed rack from plastic styrene, using hinge parts from a Tamiya High-Lift and hinges from the hardware store. I created the system around the idea that I was going to use micro-size servos. I wanted the rack to be positioned toward the back of the frame so I could utilize RC4WD’s billet aluminum “fuel cell” receiver box. I made the frame and got some “cheap” micro servos, thinking that they would work just fine to tilt the bed back and to the one side.

I was wrong. The first time I tilted the bed back it instantly fried the cheap micro servo. The second stage didn’t even work at all. The bed was simply too heavy with the roll bar, scale audio system and rear bumper, which had to be attached to the bed rack frame in order for the bed to tilt properly. I was panicked; I had HOURS into this bed frame and I really didn’t have the room for full-size servos, either. Fortunately, Reefs RC has some absolutely killer micro servos in their arsenal of high-torque servos, and after getting those installed the bed worked perfectly!

Most mini truck dancing beds move zpretty fast, but I wasn’t after that style, so after setting the EPAs I slowed the action of the servos down (in the DX5 Rugged) to mimic the hydraulic actuators used on full-size Jamboree trucks. Lastly, the bed received some AMPro taillight assemblies. These are much more realistic-looking and properly defuse the lighting compared to the kit’s factory lights.

UNDER THE HOOD
If you know anything about Toyotas from this time period, you know that the 22RE four-cylinder, while often indestructible, is rather anemic in the power department. This meant that turning the scale 44s would have been a real struggle. The body set came with a nicely detailed 22RE engine bay kit, so I stuck that aside for the time being and installed an RC4WD R4 scale driveline setup, tossing in some Detroit muscle in the form of a Chevy small block V8 from SSD Racing. I dressed the engine up with a Rogue Elements Edelbrock aluminum valve covers and air cleaner and added some spark plug wires, headers and aluminum pulleys from RC4WD.

I wanted the engine bay to be really detailed, so I used a new RC4WD 22RE engine bay kit but cut the four-cyl engine bay portion out. This allowed me to have all of the bay’s detailed features with the V8. I added brake lines to the master cylinder, scratch-built an accurate Toyota clutch master/reservoir (out of styrene) with line, added the harness to the wiper motor assembly, a coolant and washer fluid reservoir via Knight Customs’ 3D-printed parts, and Falvey Design Worx 3D-printed MSD ignition box, coil and battery terminals. I obtained a 3D-printed scale 4150 Holley carburetor and hooked up fuel lines using Detail Master braided line and a Pro-line Racing scale parts fuel pressure regulator, which is also connected to a line setup and scale fuel pumps off the RC4WD fuel cell.

CHASSIS
Keeping with the Jamboree show truck theme meant that the underside parts needed to be painted to match the pink-and-blue graphics of the truck. The axles received a few coats of “hot blue” while the other suspension components such as U-bolts, shackles, steering links and so on got some hot pink. As I stated earlier, show trucks from this era were known to have a lot of shocks, way more than necessary, so I set out to do the same.

Utilizing the Super Lift dual-shock mount from RC4WD I was able to get three shocks on it per side. In back I was able to get a total of six by utilizing some custom-made brackets on Tamiya Bruiser U-bolts and mounting plates. I then created a double/dual faux steering stabilizer using a custom-made mount and modified RC4WD shocks. I topped all the shock absorbers off with blue boots from RC4WD and added some Super Lift vinyl decals. The driveshafts even received boots, much like the ones that Rancho made back in the day for full-size trucks.

No show truck would be truly complete without a set of ladder bars to control the axle wrap big powerplants inflicted upon leaf spring setups with lift blocks, so I dug out a set of SCX10 custom-machined control arms my friend Pat Constantin (aka 62Pyro) made me many years back. The truck received as much underside detail as possible, including front brake rotors, front brake lines, rear brake lines and rear brake drums with detailed back plates (made from styrene and soda caps).

WHEELS & TIRES
When we talk old-school show trucks, nothing says old-school like some wheels from Weld Racing. There is a gentleman based out of Turkey who makes the most accurate, beautifully detailed scale Weld Racing wheels (in various sizes) that I have ever seen. Although not cheap, the Engin Saracci machined Stone Crushers are second to none in the replica department, and they look amazing with scale hardware on the center caps and wrapped in the some RC4WD Ground Hawgs (later changed to Mickey Thompson Baja Belted).

INTERIOR
The interior on Too Rad had to continue the theme. As it comes from RC4WD it’s already pretty detailed, but there was still room for improvement. For starters I “upholstered” the door panels, seats and floors utilizing self-sticking felt. I then added a Monster Tach from Falvey Design Worx, filled the back seat passenger area with a sub box from CCHand and two small micro speaker assemblies, all wrapped in a self-stick felt to give that authentic speaker box look.

One important detail from this time period was that many trucks would have shock boots on their shifters as well as a Hurt T-handle shift knob. I once again relied on my friend Harry and he designed me accurate shifters with the boots and T handle. These were then printed by Shapeways, painted, detailed and installed.

The end result might fool most people that Too Rad was an RTR to start, but that was always the idea. I’ll often hear people say that RTRs are “a dime a dozen” and “cookie cutter.” Too Rad is anything but. With some creativity you can turn a basic RTR into something really unique and awesome—or should I say rad? So rad that this truck went on to win the 2022 Ultimate Scale Truck Expo (USTE) Best of Show. What started out as a basic RTR became a truly wild build.

Now that we have discussed the wild side of a modified RTR, lets switch gears and go a little milder while still creating something that’s still not cookie cutter.

The RC4WD Trail Finder 2 LWB 1987 Toyota Xtracab truck sold through Tower Hobbies in a ARTR is another fantastic base. This truck also sat high out of the box, and speaking of sitting high, I needed another show truck name. After recalling a late ’70s Ford 4×4 converted van my stepdad had, which he had dubbed “High Risk” (it was on 38.5s, which was big for the ’80s) this little Toyota assumed that name and displays it on its windshield.

THE BODY
Much like the body of the RTR McFly truck, this Xtracab featured a really nice cherry red paint. Both the paint jobs on these bodies I would consider to be automotive grade, and they are both detailed very nicely right out of the box. I decided to keep the graphics tamer on this one and utilized the supplied SR5 decal kit, but this didn’t stop me from adding the chrome/stainless cladding just as Too Rad supports. I then added an RC4WD roll bar and, using more of those off-road lights from eBay, made another light bar and mounted them up to the roll bar and front push-bar bumper. I also opted for the twin tubular rear Smittybilt-style rear bumper. Another set of dual wiper blades was painted and installed.

UNDER THE HOOD
The engine bay on this truck is actually the supplied engine bay kit from the Xtracab McFly truck. These kits are sold separately from RC4WD, and once painted, detailed and installed they look great! Even more so if you take the time to add additional details like spark plug wires, a coil, vacuum lines, and battery terminals and wiring. With 3D printing being so popular, you can add a lot of great details to your truck.

CHASSIS
I left the chassis pretty much as it came out of the box. It, too, sat high (like the McFly version), which made installing bigger tires easier. I did add a second set of rear shocks to the front and back along with red shock boots from RC4WD. For nerf bars I decided on a set from a Tamiya Bruiser. I chassis-mounted these again using some M3 spacers to get things lined up and sitting properly.

WHEELS & TIRES
The natural suspension height these trucks come with allows for some old-school big meats to fill the wheel wells. I once again chose some Weld Racing replica wheels from Engin Saracci, but this time I went with the Typhoon pattern and wrapped them in some RC4WD Interco Thornbirds. I topped them off with 1.6mm scale hardware on the center caps.

THE INTERIOR
Here I opted for a simplicity; I didn’t want to take away from the red paint and polished aluminum wheels that really make this truck stand out. I did add another set of scale shifters from Harry and detailed them with matching red boots. While shopping on Shapeways I also found 1/10-scale replicas of a Spektrum radio, which are printed in a very high-definition clear plastic. Once painted and detailed they look a lot like a DX3R, which I still use to this day. I added the radio to the interior along with a vintage Micro Machine monster truck that just so happens to look like a Clod Buster, especially when you pin-vise a small hole and add a piece of wire to look like an antenna.

FINAL WORD
RTRs and ARTRs serve an essential role in our hobby. They are great for the entry-level enthusiast or for the veteran. With some time, ingenuity, and of course some cash you can transform your out-of-the-box truck into something with great detail and uniqueness. In today’s era we have a lot of detail options to choose from. Whether it’s a simple tire/wheel swap, something off the 3D printer, or an item you scratch-built yourself, it can change a basic truck into something that really stands out in the crowd. Sometimes it’s the smallest details that make the biggest difference—something like a set of mud flaps or a scale license plate can really fool the general public when you’re taking those super-scale photos.