Long Travel & Wide body build

[Mike Edwards]

I buttoned up some final fabrication today. I had to make a bracket to extend fuel filler up and out to meet the wider bed side. I also modified my bed cover to work with the bed side mounting hardware.

 

[Mike Edwards]

I’ve had the 1/10 scale version for a while.

 

[GETGONE]

What are you running under that body? I still haven't bought one yet. I did find a new bright brand metal body 1/10th RC. I haven't hacked it up yet to fit my Traxxas Stampede.

 

[WrenchingMafia]

You did a great job. It came out looking very great.

 

[Mike Edwards]

What are you running under that body? I still haven't bought one yet. I did find a new bright brand metal body 1/10th RC. I haven't hacked it up yet to fit my Traxxas Stampede.

It's an old Associated SC-10 that I built maybe 10 years ago. My wife bought that body for me for Christmas after I bought the silverado. It's a proline Z71 Trail Boss body.

 

[Wakinvol]

That’s fantastic work. I’m extremely impressed and also jealous! I’ll keep an eye out next time I head north. Maybe I’ll pass you on the road.

 

[Mike Edwards]

I’m done… for now. I spent 3 days wet sanding and polishing. It’s still not perfect, but I’m probably being more critical than anyone else will be. The paint mismatch is a little more prominent now. I’ll deal with that down the road. For now, time to drive and enjoy it.

 

[GETGONE]

Did you get the paint just based on paint code or did you try to match it based on paint chips? The silver for my 05 Dodge Magnum R/T had 7 different colors for the same name and paint code. We matched it based on the paint chips he had outside in the sun and the one we picked ended up matching perfectly. Most paint shops now can do optical matching if you give them a large enough paint sample they can use the computer to determine what needs to be mixed to match. That way it accounts for factory differences as well as possible fading from being outside.

 

[Mike Edwards]

I tried chips and sprayed samples. I had 2 ounces of omni plus (ppg shop line) that only had one shade and had poor coverage. I sprayed it and it was way too light and the metalic was wrong. The top of the line PPG was $1600 per gallon with multiple shades and that was just more than I wanted to pay. Nason XL would have been $710 per gallon and multiple shades, but no chips and no sample size. Others said it had poor coverage also.

I went with Tamco for $575 for a gallon of base and a gallon of reducer (2 sprayable gallons). It's supposed to be a PPG copy, but only one shade available. I decided to chance it and if It was off, I'll spray the whole truck. Being a novice, there was the opportunity I could have screwed up that $1600 gallon of PPG anyway. I still have 2/3 of the tamco gallon and 2/3 of the reducer. Easily enough to spray the cab and hood, which will probably happen in the spring when I get the motivation back up for all that work and maybe some more practice in between. It's very close. The metallic is almost spot on, but I think the big angles and curves on the new fenders give it opportunity for the pearl to look too purple. The overall shade it just a hair darker than factory.

I could have tried to blend it, but by the time I blend into the front door and back door, I might as well paint the whole truck.

The omni sample.

 

[Mike Edwards]

Notice that spot around the front door handle. It's only visible in really bright sunlight if the truck is clean. As best as I can tell that was a factory repair because the clear is OEM around the inside. I used to work for a company that built conveyor for auto manufacturer paint shops and all of the plants I've been in have a "First aid/Medic" line where they do spot repairs. Their color matching is usually pretty good. I was going to paint that door anyway if I did a blend.

The local PPG supplier said this paint has a lot of pearl and I assume that's a big factor in the match.

 

[GETGONE]

My dad and I both used Omni and it worked well. The problem is the clear fails after 4 ish years. It failed on the fender flares/running boards on his silver Dodge Ram and on my Sonoma that we repainted several years after it was done.

It's crazy how much that door spot stands out. The multiple angles of the truck with the wide fenders now makes for lots of shadow area and it looking darker on the fenders than the main body.

 

[Mike Edwards]

Time for part 2 of this build. I have been using the 5" travel fox OE shocks with their 550lb/in springs. The front is pretty soft like this and actually doesn't have any more travel than stock. The rear is still stiff despite having built longer shackles. The 295's aren't quite big enough to fill out the larger fenders.

So, I want to put the Dirt King long travel fox shocks in, matching Deaver R81 springs and 37's on a 17" wheel. With the 37's I want to switch to 3.73 gears. That get's the effective ratio about the same as the stock 3.23's and 33" tall tires. The shocks won't be ready until late this month, so I can't do any of that yet. The wheels showed up today. I have a set of used 37's from a friend to throw on them until my 18's and 295's sell.

I have the front 3.73 gears and the rear ring and pinion should be here tomorrow.

KMC mesa forged beadlocks 17 x 9 0 offset.