ROUGH Trucks and Generis Custom Metalworks co-lab TTC/KOH Build

[ROUGHcrawl]

After a short hiatus from R/C due to steadily changing jobs, I now have full time work and I’m back at the work bench. So I figured since I plan to hold a TTC event in March and to make it to the MSD Scale Nats in May, I better get building.

Normally I build my trucks to a spec I pull out of my head, and run it without tweaking till it breaks or I get bored. But for the TTC and Nats I needed more. I needed something that would be well rounded and that I could tweak to peak performance.

For this I decided to look into factory made scale chassis’. After lots of searching I found nothing that I deemed worthy…. But then I was creeping on gcmachine.ca and saw Chris’s scaler T-case kit, it sparked my interest. So I shot Chris an email about his T-case and next thing I know I’m standing in his shop and chatting about build plans. He told about a chassis that a guy had ordered, it was a cross canyon but in a way beefier ¼” thick 6061 aluminum. This would have gotten stamp of approval, if I had known I could get one. Lucky for me Chris makes 4 chassis plates at a time, and so it began.

After some more discussion and plans being passed back and forth, I ended up getting the 1st GCM Cross Canyon scaler kit, in the super beefy ¼” thick 6061 material. This kit includes a CC chassis, UH (Under Hood) motor/tranny mount, chassis servo mount, 1:1 transfer case, and delrin skid plate.
Then I started mock up. Transfer case first, this thing is sick, it’s super beefy!!

IT’S SO SIMPLE!!!! The only thing that became an apparent problem was the notched shafts were just too short for MIP drive shafts to mount to….

So out came the dremel.

I told GCM about this shaft issue and I believe longer shafts will be available shortly!
Next I greased it up, lightly on one side then some gloops on the other to get sucked into the gears.


Then assembled.

The install is easy. Right now I am only doing mock up and not using the new skid plate. I’m choosing to do mock up with my old axial one because the GCM one features triangulation and requires different hardware. But to install on the stock skid plate is easy, the t-case is designed to mount with one end in the stock tranny holes. All you need to do is drill 2 new ones. You’ll notice the lock nuts holding the t-case down. I believe GCM did this to make the mounting more forgiving for the people that want to mount these to custom rigs. I really like it cause I’d rather use a nylock nut then chance striping the t-case.

Drive line is now perfectly straight, very nice!!

[ROUGHcrawl]

Then it was time for some very quick mock up assembly. I bolted it altogether in a rough assembly based around a 12.5” WB and a centered geo. Please ignore all the mix matched hardware, I was just throwing it together and I’m going to buy all new hardware for final assembly.

You can really see how beefy this thing is.

The motor/ tranny mount is brilliant, both the motor and tranny mount directly to the mount which is a very stiff piece of 6061 aluminum. The mount has 3/8” thick material that you bolt into, creating a very solid assembly. This thing has servo flex which to me means much better power transfer!

Ignore the crazy links they were only for pinion alignment and not permanent nor necessary. Look how low the motor sits in the frame.

Since the tranny’s original mounting holes are no longer needed I decide to file them off. Later on this will get a shot of sliver paint and have a very cool detail or 2 added around it.


Lots of clearance.

[ROUGHcrawl]

The servo mount is equally beefy if not more. The mount is 3/8” thick has lots of contact surface with the frame rails, very stiff. Though it’s 3/8” thick it is light as a feather thanks to some very clean machined hollows. This is very much over kill and I’m sure it will never fail.

The mount has many options for locating your servo just where you want it. Over, under, front, back, left, right, and combinations of the above. The holes that you use to bolt this to the frame are offset which allows for a lot of this free range movement yet retains that GCM standard in strength.
This is my current placement looks just right.

[ROUGHcrawl]

Tomorrow body work

[Headquake]

Wow, cool stuff.

[RockCrawlingKid]

Nice truck man.. your running a 4 linked front end with them snaked upper links right? lol

[ROUGHcrawl]

Actually my front upper links are very different. More on that later.

[ROUGHcrawl]

Well I guess it’s a good time to explain why I’m building this truck, instead of just fabbing up some gnarly beast like every other time. I needed something reliable, adjustable, scale, and easily modifiable. I have always built one off trucks that once broken are hard to fix or find parts for, it has ended a lot of days early for me and is frustrating. So I needed something I could count on and find parts for easily enough. Most of my trucks were also built with one fixed geo that really limited their performance on different terrains, going from dirty trail awesome to steep rock sucky, frustrating. So I needed an adjustable platform, this truck will see a lot of terrain over the summer and I’d like to be ready. As for the scale aspect my usual beasts were scale looking sort of but nowhere near scale in construction. The ¼” thick chassis is very scale in appearance and has some great scale shape, really looks right. Not only is breaking one off trucks sucky but getting bored of them is worse. You spend weeks building it only to find out you’re bored of it on the shake down run…. Having this constant truck base to build off of means I’ll always have a truck running and be able to build multiple cages and bodies. THIS IS THE BEST PART!!!!!

So this rig is being built for our TTC event in March and needs to be able to handle a lot of abuse. Lots of rough terrain and speeds that are a little too fast for full droop, which is how the platform was originally designed. So I had to figure out what shocks to use, I have a set of axial, losi, and traxxas shocks. Axial shocks at full droop were perfect, but no shock absorption. Sprung they were way too tall. The losi shocks are a bit shorter but sprung were too tall as well. The traxxas I could have run sprung but they leak like a shot up PT boat. So it was time for internal springs. Losi crawler shocks have aluminum bodies and are very smooth, so they were picked over the rest. So after some tweaking I found a 70/30 combo 70 droop and 30 up travel was perfect with stiff springs and 50 weight oil. Ride height is bang on.

[ROUGHcrawl]

Well time to start a cage I guess, since I like cages more than bodies. I plan on running a full interior, driver and spotter, tool boxes, fuel cell, a spare, and lights. But it all has to fit in a rock racing style buggy cage. I want to fit all the scale Nat requirements, be tough, look crazy and last but not least be original.

When this build started I didn’t have the budget to go out and buy a body, but I did have one lying around. So it got busted out of its package and I let the tin snips work some magic. After buying a wicked little bender and a length of brake line I did a little mock up.


Well with the body set in place and measurements taken, I sent my chassis, links, spacers, mounts, t-case, and servo horn out for anodizing. Now the fun begins.

[ROUGHcrawl]

Ya I know, a rockstar body, weird right. But you’ll notice that with the Generis Customs servo/tranny mounts I can fit everything under that tiny hood, and it looks cool too. But that’s not where it stops. This truck has some cool lines that I really wanted to work around and show off. I also needed to beef it up to protect all my guts under the hood so out came the bender.

Here you see a nice hood bar that follows the body line on the hood. Also you may notice that my cage is welded to a piece of sheet metal, this just keeps it square and lets me hook up my ground out of my way.

Then I found out that GCM found a sweet deal on winches and well I had to have one. So I needed to make a spot for it that would be solid and well protected. So the cage got a nose job, this will also give me a really good chance to incorporate my front cage mounts. I also added a dash bar to fill the void at the back of the hood.