08.06.2005

No build up pics here. The truck was built in record time and everything came together in about a week. Here are some pics of the truck with a basher shell. I will probably put a nice JEEP shell on this truck but for now this old shell from my tuber Jug gets its fenders hacked off to give the necessary tire clearance on HOOF2. It ain't the most pretty shell, but it'll do the job!

Let's take a look under the shell shall we?

HOOF2 sports an entirely new chassis that was designed to be very adjustable and yet very compact compared to the original HOOF chassis... more on that chassis later. We'll start off with the axles. In each axle is a aluminum machined diff locker from inetrc. The metal-epoxy lock on the stock diff worked great in HOOF but after a while, the plastic hex portion in the diff gear would wear out and I'd have to replace the gears. This machined piece is a beautiful piece of work that looks like it should last a lot longer.

I don't like upper link mounts that thread through the original steering servo saver hole on the gearbox - primarily because it's very prone to rotating - leading to misalignment of the axles. The 3-point upper link mount is carried over from the original HOOF project but the upper mount has been machined out of aluminum now with several mounting positions to adjust castor as well as suspension geometry. In the pictures you can also see that HOOF2 now boasts aluminum knuckles from GPM as well as a custom skidplate made out of 6061 aluminum. This will protect the bottom of the gearboxes from abuse and hopefully allow the axles to glide over obstacles instead of getting hung up.

In the first pic you can catch a glimpse of the 9 tooth hardened pinions that are hooked on to the original 17x2 Speedgem2 Sapphire motors. These motors have served duty on several trucks but still run great. Some crawlers use extremely torquey motors that are also very slow - I find the 17x2 configuration a nice mix of speed and torque... kinda boring taking forever to reach the obstacles the truck is supposed to crawl. lol!

The second pic shows the new design lower link with an integrated shock mount. The original HOOF design sported solid rods and a sliding clamp which the shock mounted to. It was a nice design that worked flawlessly but I thought I'd try something new with HOOF2. This setup actually uses far less parts and the unique design means the rod-end is actually protected as well. The lower link has far less chance of getting hooked up on anything because the bottom surface is entirely flat. The other advantage of this design is that there are several suspension tuning options. It's easy to also accomodate a wide variety of shocks of varying lengths to HOOF2. Using the current 4" shock setup, the shocks are a lot more "laid down" than on HOOF, resulting in a softer suspension that makes HOOF2 conform better to the rough terrain it was built to traverse.

And finally to the chassis. On the left pic you can see the electronics stay made out of acrylic. Electronics-wise, HOOF2 sports the SuperRooster ESC just like its predecessor. Unlike its predecessor though is the fact that HOOF2 uses a smaller hitec micro receiver and this gets its signal from a Futaba 9CHP radio instead of the 3PK. The reason I decided to use a multi-channel stick radio is because HOOF2 now sports 4-wheel steering and the front and rear wheels are hooked to different channels. With a 9 channel stick radio, I can control the front and rear steer independently so HOOF2 has greater control of its direction on the rocks.

On the right pic you can see how compace the new chassis design is. Although compact, the chassis is designed to provide several setup options. The battery is currently mounted longtitudenaly, but it can also be mounted through the 2 chassis plates. Suspension links (both upper and lower) may be mounted in one of several mounting positions to alter the performance of the truck.

One thing you might also notice is that the suspension mounts and chassis are not a 1-piece design. I designed the suspension mount to be a separate piece so that it could actually be easily adjusted to alter truck ride-height or suspension performance. The screws that hold the mounts to the chassis can be loosened and slid in neatly milled slots to give an increase/decrease in ride height almost instantly! This coupled with the multiple setup options on the lower link and on the chassis makes HOOF2 an extremely adjustable truck. Another small upgrade from HOOF that the pics don't show clearly is that the bottom of the chassis is now protected (HOOF's center chassis design was open).

More info now on page two!

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