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To see the original style of this truck, please see Shroom
Truck.
Shroom Truck had been sitting around for quit a
while. With nothing
to crawl over, and not handling my driving style, I
decided to give this
bad boy a make over. This was suppose to be
nothing more than a
cheap simple project. This changed quickly.
My style of driving is just back yard bashing and
jumping. I've never
raced or even crawled.
I knew I wanted to do something a little different with this
chassis.
Early on I decided that I would try using Savage shocks on
this
project. I finally found a set of used ones on eBay for a
decent
price. Right away I bolted them on and they seemed to
work just
fine. The suspension geometry seemed very good, and the
look in my
opinion was awesome!
Early on I did notice one problem that concerned me.
With the huge
Savage shocks, the truck's chassis would compress to a
point that
was lower then the tires. And the shocks
would also hit the body
mounts when fully compressed.
I figured there was nothing for me to do, so I just
left it the way it
was.
I even ended up playing around with a sway bar I had left from
an ESP
truck. In this early stage it seemed to fit nicely and I
thought it would
actually work. Since this was a jumper, I wanted the
axles to stay
planted to the ground.
At about this point, the truck sat a while due to lack of
funds, and
being a second project the Zilla
2 took priority.
I saw parts by G-Made and fell in love with them
immediately. They
looked beefy enough for me and I knew they would fit in
on this
project. I also liked the lower shock mount since
it had a sway bar
mount for it. At this point the project
took a turn for the worse!
After assembling it, the lower shock mount moved
the Savage shocks
forward and up. This new angle with the long
shocks proved to be a
bad combination. It virtually had no suspension
at all. It just sank
down.
My solution was to get some G-10 Fiberglass board from Tower
Hobbies. I then tried a few different designs with cardboard
and
finally went with what you see to the right. It was
simple and
effective. I originally planed to have more shock
mounting holes
and two braces on the top of the shock mounts. However
after I
built it, I found out both were not necessary.
Another problem arose due to the G-made lower link
mounts. The
links for this truck were not intended for the lower
mounts to be so
far back. Because of this the Thunder Tech Racing
Servo mounts
looked like they were on an angle, well... they
were. I played
around with this for a while, swapping links, adding
nuts,
removing nuts, adding spacers and eventually found
something
that looked like it would work out.
Also at this time I fount out that the sway bars would
not work.
Somewhere around this time I also had the chassis anodized
black.
From the beginning I knew I wanted this.
I also picked up some Crylon paint and painted the wheels
black to
match the chassis.
Since the truck would be black, I had to make the accessories
on the truck match.
I ordered black shock booties from Badhorsie on eBay.
I also thought about how I could
make the antenna whip match the truck. In its clear
state with the antenna wire showing,
I thought it looked ugly. My solution was simple.
I took an extra shock bootie, turned it
inside out, and sewed one end shut. I cut off the excess
and turned it right side out.
Slipped it over the antenna whip and WOW! It looked
sharp!
The Novak Super Rooster also got some work. I took it
apart, took off the decal, and
boiled it in some water with black Rit Dye. In
just a few minutes it was black!
I bolted in a FMA-Direct High torque servo in front and used a
Trinity Servo Saver.
Didn't have the funds for a rear one at the time, and later on
I came to find out
FMA discontinued the servo line. So I decided to put a
cheap Futaba in the rear.
I had sent out a body to get painted by a guy I met through
the forums. He went off to Japan due to his
military service. It
was over a year he had them and I still got no bodies
from him.
He kept giving me promises of sending them out. A
few more months
passed with no word and then out of the blue, the same
story. To
this day I still have not received my bodies back or
the money I sent
him. So I found an old Pro-Line Chevy Stampede
body and gave it a
quick paint job of solid black. Looked nice and
fit the chassis well.
I finally got the truck finished I thought and it was time to
test it out. Right off the bat, I noticed
that the rear wheels turned slower than the front. This
made it kind of interesting with the four
wheel steering. It also had a bad axle slap when driving
on the gravel at full speed and turning.
Even on the grass it always lifted one wheel off the ground a
little too high. You could see the
chassis twist and then roll over. I figure I just need
to work on the shock set-up a little more.
After this I decided to start jumping it. Right away it jumped
nice. Then problems arose. My
jumps never landed properly. I ended up bending the rear
Thunder Tech Servo mount and
actually broke the servo case. I noticed this when my
rear wheels wouldn't go back to straight.
I even broke a rod end, but thought it was due to the servo
breaking.
I fixed all the broken parts and put in a new servo.
Went back out
for some more runs. The way it jumped looked like the
MT's on TV.
Then I noticed the steering went bad again. My first
sign was the
servo motor running full speed an d not stopping. I
figured I stripped
the gears. After looking at it, I found the case to be
cracked, and
another rod end broke. I now realized the set screws
were too short
due to the spacers, and the rod ends were snapping at the end
of the
set screws. Upon closer look, I saw that the G-made
upper link mount
was broken too. On of the hard landings ripped it off of
the socket
head cap screw. After all, it was basically
plastic. So the beefed up part I got for this truck was
nothing more than a week link. I'm sure it would work
good in crawling, but not the abuse I put my
trucks through.
So as of now, the truck sites broken on my Computer
desk. I've found a new upper axle mount that I
think (hope) will hold up and solve my need for spacers.
I also still need to figure out what to do
about the rear steering.
Parts on this
truck
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- Duratrax Diamond-Spike Tires (Discontinued)
- FMA-Direct PS905MBB Hi-Torque Servo
- FMA-Direct Servo Y-Harness
- Trinity Servo Savers
- Team Orion Method-R 16x2 Motors
- Team Orion 14 gauge wire
- Team-Orion Sludge Shock Oil
- Team Orion Locking Body Clips
- Team Orion V-max 3300 mah cells
- Team Orion Gold Plated Battery Bars
- Team Orion Gold Plated Connectors
- Pro-Line Chevy Stampede body
- BRP Antenna Whip
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