Hirobo 44Bs and Zerda :)

[silvertriple]

I did search my Hirobo stuff to understand how many cars I could rebuild. The Hilux 44B came complete except the bumper, so the transmission was complete. So there will be at least one. Looking at my stuff, I'm already sure I'm missing two complete diffs, out drives and dog bones for a lonw wheel base chassis. For the rest, it should be fine at the exception of the screws and other hardware...

While searching the elements, I found the number plate of the Zerda, so it was the perfect moment to put them on (before I forget to do this)...








There is not much room to put stickers on this car, and there is too much conflicting sponsors on the stickers sheet anyway, so I used only few... At the end, the number plate are making the ensemble more balanced, but there is still something disturbing me when I look at this car. May be the rear wheel need to be larger...

[silvertriple]

Some of my topics have no end
I have this body in my radar for quite a long time, and a friend have one, and proposed it to me with a 44B chassis and a Rock'n City box (in which he put the chassis and the Lancia bodyshell). We discussed this few months ago, as he wanted to separate from some of his cars to make room for others... It obviously had a cost, but I really like this bodyshell. And it comes with an original set of stickers...



And the box is a nice addition, although its state show its age...


That said the bodyshell is missing to elements : the search lights ramp at the front, and the wing at the rear. I'll try to do something about this. And I already contacted my friend who reproduced the 44B Hilux bodyshell, and it seems he is interested to reproduce it (By the way, he confirmed me he's doing this in a non destructive manner and should be able to do it for this Lancia, and by the way he needs to send me my Hilux body back)...
(and If ever you have the two missing items unused in your stash, you may contact me)

[silvertriple]

Tomorrow is the first vintage of the season, and I'm late on my plans... Thanks, I'm off today, so that give me some possibility to do something about this...
I could go with the already built 44B Hilux, but it is too nice for this. The plan was always to have a runner based on printed parts for suspension. I have everything to build one, it is just a question a building it. I have a bit of work for this:
- Paint a second bodyshell, in a light color scheme. Which is still to be defined at this stage (will the inspiration come within the day?).
- Build the chassis with the already printed parts. Normally, I have everything for this, except the radiobox lid, for which I just launched a print...

I may also want to print some of the accessories for the bodyshell, but in resin this time...

[silvertriple]

Ok, I must confess something now... I've been totally over optimisitic this time... There was some progress, but it won't be enough to get a 44B Hilux for the week-end, and I don't want to use the other one...

First, I tend more and more to rely on auto oreintation on Bambu Studio, and it seems it works better and better. I printed the radio box lid, and the result is much better than last time I print the same file in a different orientation I set myself... Th eprint is in ABS and it will work perfectly.

I also printed a front belt cover, relying this time again on auto orientation...


The prints were this morning... Although I woke up early, I did some exams in the early morning, and I only really started to work around 11... And I got caught offguard when my wife call me to tell me it was time for lunch (she was working remote today). Not much was done in the morning, except launching few prints, and manage a print failure on resin side...

Early this afternoon, I took care of the second 44B bodyshell I have. I decided I'll go for white... The bodyshell did not have overspray film as it was the first ever made from the mould and my friend remove the overspray film to see what was happening while vacforming the body, to potentially add few air channels here and there... Therefore, I had to find a way... Last time I did with masking tape, and it is far from practical as you don't see what is happening. I did differently this time...


And here is the result of the paint...



I'll have to add the stickers and the accessories (printed in resin, for some of them)...

Then I started the build... The gearboxes are well in place, and the original radiobox fits perfectly in the space (I had absolutely no doubts, but still. Here, it is printed gearboxes).


Unfortunately, I'll have to reopen the gearbox : i bought the ball bearings for the 44Bs and Zerda before this one arrive. I had still ball bearing for the axles, but not for the rollers... I lost a lot of time searching for them, and finally check, and the fact that some of the rollers had bearings and some not did not really help... In short, this car won't be ready for Montluçon, but it should be for Belley or Perrex (two events in june)...

[silvertriple]

While back from Montluçon, I reshuffle some boxes in the work area... And found some ball bearings allowing me to resume work on the 44B Hilux... I reopen the gearbox and replaced the rollers bushings by ball bearings...

Then I started to work out the suspensions... You may note the double bearing adapter. I used all the one I had until now for the Zerda, Hilux and Rock'n City, so I had to reorder some. When I searched, I found some ABEC-5 ball bearings which were not much expensive than the usual version I found... We'll see if it changes something (which is very much possible). The pivot balls are bigger than the original ones and the links will have to be shorten, but I'm not much concerned: I want to test PETG to the limit, so I prefer to break the parts rather than having a pivot ball free...


There was quite an effort to prepare the suspension arms : holes needs to be drilled to the right diameter.


And arms are in place...


And soon I added the dogbones and the upper arms...


I modded the pivot ball support at the rear right to give slightly more space for the link. it was absolutely required. I'll add steering next and as well shocks (Kyosho re-release for this one). But that will be for next step...

[silvertriple]

I did not have time to finish the car before Montluçon last week, but the target is to have the car running next week-end, in Belley...

First, I did some work yesterday on the bodyshell... Resin printed parts look like original ones...


I put the key stickers there... It is difficult to get them right. I'm sure I'll be able to get it even nicer next time I do a 44B bodyshell...


I've fixed all accessories. Mirrors are set to be temporary and removed when running. And I also add one sponsor sticker on the car. It's not properly vintage, but it is all about vintage, so I profit to make a bit of advertisement for the excellent rc-paper.com website (I do not have any compensation of any sort, and I even paid for the stickers)...


I then put the bodyshell on the other chassis to see what it will look like. I'm not sure if I add anything or not... Time will tell.





Back on the chassis. I replaced a few parts as I did a mistake : front gearbox parts were printed to work with 3mm shafts for suspension arms. I reprinted them with the standard 2.5mm shafts. I also rework the c-hubs, as I discover that I made a mistake when modelling them, and it was corrected quickly. The front end as no slop anymore, just like the rear.



As mentioned earlier in the thread, this car will run Kyosho red shocks (optima re-release). Setup I used was quite simple as all needed parts are on the shocks clusters :
- front - 2mm removed to the range by using a a 2mm ring outside the shock chamber
- rear - 6 mm removed to the length by using a 6mm thick ring inside the shock chamber

I just printed some collars with included pivot balls (I did not have metal one anymore so that was probably simpler . I could have gone red, but I decided to go black.


Shocks are now in place. The rear shock tower is positionned like it is on a Zerda to give more rooms around the shocks for the arms.



Here is the current progress


Remains to do before we can call it done :
- put the steering in place, as well as the rx and esc
- add a driver figure (thinking about a Samurai driver as it seems to be the right scale - but I may cut a Super Wheelie driver as well)
- print a bumper and install bumper and winch

[silvertriple]

Electronics is done...


A few settings were required for the direction as the angle is very limited...
I'll probably won't have the time to print tires for this car, but I may used some Scorpion rear with the original rims (I have a set of rims and a friend just tried that as I was mentioning they may work well together with Scorpion re-release tires). I have some on order, and they should arrived within the week.

Beside this I still have to print a Bumper (I have one printed in ABS, but i'm not sure it will work nicely. I may want to try TPU instead. TPU is a nightmare for supports, but printed splitted and glued that should not be an issue. The real question is how to make the bumper rigid enough so it does some work... Anyway, I'll find a solution and this car will run (until a break a PETG printed part) next week

[silvertriple]

I've designed a support for the driver figure. It works with a Samurai driver, but could ultimately work with anything with a bit of modifications...


It's currently printing, and it will require 2 minutes effort to put it in place at the end...

ABS bumper is in place, and I'm thinking than maybe a mixed part with TPU and ABS halves could do the job...

[Goose]

wow your 3d modelling skills are next level. I have problems designing a washer

[silvertriple]

wow your 3d modelling skills are next level. I have problems designing a washer

Let's say that I'm not alone on rc10alk, and there is quite a good number of threads with 3d modeling work from various people, and the level here on this forum is quite high...

[silvertriple]

While I have some Scorpion re-re rear tires on order (they are shipped, but should arrive on Thursday or Friday), I did found a set of two in my stuff...

I put it on the set of rims I have without tires...




The internal ring keeps the tire in place firmly, and since the profile is not exact, it doesn't fit symmetrically on the rim. That said, the front side is a bit rounded, and that will protect the chrome side, while the rear is flat... That should definitely work. I check the dimensions next to original tires, they are slightly larger, but diameter wise this is perfect.
And I also found that there was another easy possible solution which should work easily for any 44B car (it would be the same for Zerda by the way)...


Only waiting for the tires on order to arrive. The ones I have here may be soft while the other ones are medium, but that should not be an issue : I'll probably put the set of soft at the front while the medium will be at the rear...

[silvertriple]

Tires arrived today and they were promptly mounted on the car as the driver was quite impatient... I probably need to add some preload on the front but beside this not much to adjust...





I also took pictures with the one built like the original, this should make easy comparison between the original tires and the Kyosho Scorpion 2014 rear tires...

[silvertriple]

Beside the Bearcat SS you can see the video in the ad'hoc thred, I ran as well the 44B Hilux with its printed parts, kyosho shocks and tires...

And it is great on the track. Although short, which requires to pay a bit of attention when turning, it's great car and easy to handle. I was really surprised how balanced it is during jumps as it stays flat, which means the balance is near perfect...
My son took again a video (which is the assembly of two actually). The noise you can hear is not due to belt skips, but is due to the bodyshell rubbing on the printed bodymounts... I solved this later with some o-joints...