Luckily, I also have an understanding family that knows when I get rolling on a project, I sometimes forget my regular chores and they kicked my butt a few times.

This project to build a crew cab came at a time that required me to be thrifty, spending as little as possible on pre-made components and building from scratch the chassis, links, body, tires, electrical mounts, essentially everything that wasn't an electrical component. Those would have to rely on what I had sitting around in other projects.  I was so focused on building this rig, I tore into a different scaler I was building, coming up with excuses that I would rebuild it later and better, and even snagged the motor out of the comp rig for the first trail test.

The bodywork was done in a two week period, turning out decent with a few minor imperfections to repair at a later date. After a few hard bashing sessions, I realized it will require a lot of repair, just as a full size scale rig would. Future body mods are a separate box with a lowered, more realistic floor, perhaps a couple dents and a different color hood.

The chassis is my own personal work of art, I loved building it, and I love driving this truck. I took a 21" inch long 3/4" square steel tube, heated it with a mini torch, and bent it to an approximate Chev truck scale frame. I enjoyed working with the steel so much, it was a revelation.  When I had the bends just right, I cut it in half, making a c-channel frame just like the real one. Welded cross members in, twisted it straight, drilled holes for links and mounts and built the shock mounts. I welded the spring mounts onto the frame after umpteen fitments with the body to get the wheel locations just right, and an amazing donation of a set of F350 springs from Jowett's Kustom RC made the chassis complete!

The tires started out as double narrowed and reduced Rock Lizards, and glued to Tamiya Hummer wheels with painted lug nuts, but I neglected to put enough foam in the tire, so they were a bit too mushy. Next try is the ones that amaze me the most: I narrowed twice and reduced a set of IMEX Swamp Dawgs to maintain the look of the tread and they are working amazing! They are decent on the rocks, they are good in the mud, and look great.

With the electronics added, I have driven this rig in several environments and it still amazes me every time, although I have changed some things through testing. The rear leafs were changed to a four-link set up and the articulation is now amazing enough to crawl in harder locations and steeper rocks. The overall combination gets better and better, and it is the most fun I have had with a scale rig.