Frankencrawler: Rebooted

As the saying goes, the third time’s the charm. That’s my thinking heading into what is yet-another reimagination of my first crawler ( Redcat Racing RS10 affiliate). "Ol’ Frankie” has been gifted to my oldest son, who now wants to have a vehicle that will match up with my Axial SCX10. After a few rounds of back-and-forth discussion, he’s given me his outline for what he wants it to look like. Putting it mildly, I’m excited.

This hobby is fun by itself, but being able to share it with others is what is truly special about it. To bring the RS10 up to scale, or as close to scale as we can take it at the moment, we're going to make the following changes to it:

• Custom-built frame (to modify the shock placement and allow for vertical body mount posts)
• Front and rear bumpers
• 1.9 tires (exact details being sorted out)
  LED Light Kit(s)
• Scale body - either a Jeep JK or a truck of some kind. My son would like something he can put his action figures and various accessories in.

After a few hours of work, I've made quite a bit of headway with these upgrades. As you can see below, the additional frame has been installed and the cross-braces have been built. Beyond that, the shocks have been repositioned for a closer-to-stock appearance. I also rebuilt them with internal springs to minimize the possibility of the stock, exterior springs catching on wires.

For the time-being, we're sticking with the stock 2.2 tires that came with the RS10. Truth-be-told, I like how it looks with these tires and think it will give my son a little help when driving it around on our adventures. As for the body, I set my Axial Jeep body on the frame to get a feel for how the frame measurements worked out. It's starting to take shape and I can't wait to put more work into it to get it closer to completion.