TOPIC:

Hi

It's definitely time to start a new thread today. Not that the Bearcat SS is finished (it will be soon), but because now I have started some work on the 44Bs and Zerda chassis. I'm very happy as I like to work on car with chassis variants simultaneously... 

let's recap first what we have.

First a Zerda with a broken cage, and some tender loving care needed. It cames with the orignal wheels, the broken elements missing from the roll cage puzzle, a Beetle MRC body shell... There is some work for sure. The rear shocks are rears from a Super Hotshot. I might discover additional details later on...



Second, some 44B chassis unused parts.



And today, I got some cars joining the crew, including two 44B incomplete chassis.


Let's detail the Hirobo 44B. A Hilux - SWB, and a LWB incomplete chassis :


The 44B Hilux chassis is missing the top of the radio box, but beside this looks complete. The bodyshell is in pretty bad shape, but some key accessories are present, and will allow to create STLs.



The LWB chassis is incomplete, but I don't see too much issue there at this stage.

The beetle body is badged for me with the radio. 😜
the hilux body for the hirobo is definitly good to go in the yellow recycling can....RIP.

Now that the elements are introduced, let's kick it.

Threesheds on rc10talk provided me tire dimensions, so I modeled the 44B tire




The tires of the Hilux are original and in pretty bad shape, but they have the elements which should allow me to pull the thickness details...

The Zerda wheel was sitting on my desk the other day, and I decided to put it in Fusion 360



The tire is derived from the depleted tires and the measurements of the Bearcat spikes provided by GoMachV on rc10talk : the spikes are the same as the Bearcat/Tomcat's ones

Yesterday, I started to model the 44B chassis (the two 44B chassis I got today where not yet known facts )

Chassis plate first


Then Belt cover


This morning I decide to do the bathtub





That's where I am currently... a lot more and more and more is to come in terms of CAD models

stingray-63 wrote:

The beetle body is badged for me with the radio. 😜
 

Stop dreaming...
It maybe a good body shell for the 44B Hilux chassis:-)

We have the the bath tub. With a cover, it will be the radio box, so let's cover it

First let's define where we are going to seat this on the mid plan of the Bath tub


Then, next step is to deal with the main profile (which I changed later on as i thought a parallel somewhere that was missing as constraint)


After that, let's do extrusions


Next is to remove unwanted stuff

(nb, not fully happy with this, I need to review some measurements...)

Once there, fillets and shell are applied


And it's almost done. Remain some features and holes to add and work is done...


And the radio box is complete...

Yeah niice

After some RC unrelated stuff that kept me busy, I went back to the laptop at the end of the afternoon...

I still have  a few parts remaining alone from the unused set of parts on my  desk which I will model before I get to tear down a car.

Receiver mount plate (only for LWB chassis, the SWB is having a different radio box). It's pretty easy, and I used it to validate again my bath tub. At its largest point, it measure 58.5mm. The bath tub at that place is sloightly more than this, and my desin at the same place is exactly 58.5 : after further analysis, the bath tub has a variable thickness. In this area it is 1 mm and not 1.5 mm like everywhere else. I decided not to change anything...

In the meantime, I did the receiver mount plate and I removed .1mm on the area where the issue exist. My model is not 100% perfect, but that should be ok, even with a original receiver plate.


Then I reveiewed the radio box cover...
It's much better now and it is in line with the original cover.



Not sure what I'll do next...

Awesome work so far 

First, because Dadio mentioned it on rc10talk, I had to fetch the pdf for the instruction manual of the 44B to check something at my coffe break...


Indeed I will have the possibility to model this. It was an option for the Zerda, but it was standard on the 44B. I said some friends I love the 44B because as per my understanding, this chassis is the first 4WD offroad EP car, and out of the box it had most of the genetics of the modern cars. This possibility of caster adjustment is just one confirmation of it. And while chatting with friends about this (they were discovering this), they were asking why it was not reproduced on many more cars later on to the point to be a standard. My interpretation is the Hirobo plastic were prone to fail, and it did not help, and for that specific feature, my guess is that either it was too tight and who break quickly in a race or not tighten enough, and the C-hub would easily acheive separation... And that is likely why we did not saw more of it.

Lest get back to the model...

First the Radio box hook, which is specific to the LWB chassis


Then another metal part, not presented here.

Last I started the side wall of the front gearbox. THey are symmetric, and I will need a set for one of the 44B chassis, because i have some broken on one of the 44B chassis, and the Zerda has the same weak spot...


Anyway, let's go. A sktech on the mid plane of the fixation point, some extrusions and revolves (for the fixation holes), another midplane, additional revolves, and most of the elements are done


It remains to deal with the suspension arms hooks and the additional features


Last we finish by adding some finitions...


Only one part remain now on my desk before I have to fetch on the Zerda additional part bag or to tear down a car...

Yesterday, at the end of my working day, I started to put all the key dimension of the rear gearbox right side (I had one from the set of unused parts).


Added a few things in the sketch, and then proceeded to extrusions, and revolve, all based on the same single sktech.


Next was to complete this with additional sketch and detalis (the is a setting here, I suspect it is for belt tension, i'll look into this in details later, as I need to tear down one of the complete cars to find out).


A bit more work later, I completed the part with the suspension arms fixations and with the finitions...


At this stage, I do not have anymore separate ports for 44B on the table, and I would need to tear down one of the two 44B chassis to get more. On the other side, I have some Zerda parts in the bag that came with the car : one right front gearbox side,  front suspension arms and the Bumper... I may start by modeling those...