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The stock Clodbuster is definately one of the most popular electric r/c monster trucks ever made. Initially it's popularity was likely due in part to it's huge tires, four wheel drive, four wheel steering, and it's ability to climb over just about anything. Today however it's continued popularity is propelled by the huge aftermarket support available for it. The problem however is that many new buyers quickly find that the legendary Clodbuster doesn't live up to their expectations. It really can't crawl over anything, not yet anyway.   So what is one to do when they find their Clodbuster won't crawl over that next big hurdle? Well the Clodbuster's first weak point is in it's shock absorbers. In an attempt to keep costs down Tamiya opted to put eight coil over friction shocks on the Clod that do very little hinder the massive amount of bouncing the Clod does after going over even the smallest of bumps. To cure this problem is simple, replace them with oil filled shocks from one of the various aftermarket suppliers. Although oil shocks will aid in making the Clod a better overall handling truck it does little for it's climbing abilities. For that a much larger investment will need to be bestowed upon the Clod, which would basically require you to swap the stock suspension for a four link setup. Depending on how much time and/or money you're willing to commit to the project you have a couple of options. First off you could just order an entire chassis/suspension kit from an aftermarket supplier and put it all together. On the other hand those will more time and ingenuity may opt to go a cheaper route. That of which is to custom fabricate the four link setup themselves, and bolt it to the truck. Of course, sometimes things appear much easier than they really are...  The rest of this article shows the basic steps my brother and I went through to make his Clod more of the beast it was intended to be. Up until this point we've already replaced the Clod's stock body for a lighter lexan version, replaced the stock shocks for oil shocks that were originally intended for the Traxxas T-Maxx, and replaced the stock wheels/tires with white clod wheels dyed black, and Imex Baja tires. 1. The first step in any project like this is the tear down. I won't go into much detail here because it's pretty much self explanatory. During the entire teardown we took each part and cleaned it as best we could.  2. The main goal of this project was to replace the stock suspension with a four link setup. In this regard we opted to go with a set of already fabricated four link bars from Crawford Performance Engineering. The four link bars from CPE are made of high quality 6061 aluminum rod with heavy duty Dubro ball ends. They come nicely package in a plastic bag, and have a protective coating on them that you will need to remove before assembly. Removing the coating is a simple matter of polishing it off with your favorite automotive wheel polish. We used Mother Mag and Wheel polish that resulted in the four link bars having a mirror finish.  3. Wheelbase. We chose to run a stock wheelbase so we could keep the stock steering setup which would keep us from having to fabricate servo mounts, and steering rods. Since the stock steering setup stays in place we were also able to keep the axle bumpers on the truck, something the truck's owner was adamant about. Not only that but keeping the stock bumpers is a good idea considering the age of the truck's owner (more about that later). 4. Chassis. We chose to stick with the stock chassis as well. Anyone running a clod knows the stock chassis is far from desirable when it comes to getting alot of articulation. Combine that with the stock steering setup and you're just asking for limited suspension travel. However I had an idea on how to solve that problem, and it's not for the faint of heart. Upon first mock up of the four link setup we noticed that the axle and steering rods were very close to the underside of the chassis. To deal with this problem we decided to take the dremel to it. That's right we cut most of the underside of the front and rear chassis out. It took some trial and error but after we were done there was very little clearance problems. Now I know what you're thinking, cutting the chassis will make it flex too much. I had thought about that ahead of time and was going to make a couple of braces out of aluminum tubing but found that it wasn't necassary. Turns out that after bolting the radio tray and body mount braces back into place the chassis was just as solid as ever, no further bracing needed.  5. Mounting the four links to the chassis. 5. Mounting the four links to the chassis was straight forward. We used the stock steel chassis braces, and washers to keep things strong. We also used nylon locknuts to keep everything in place so we wouldnt need to replace lost screws every other battery pack.  6. Mounting the four links to the axles wasn't as simple. The upper links mount pretty easily to the axle tube brace mounting points on the upper steering hub. To mount the lower links we needed to drill a small hole in the lower hub, at the same point where the upper hole was located. After bolting everything up we noticed a huge amount of suspension bind that was due to the extreme angles of the suspension links. Going with a longer wheelbase would have allieviated the problem, but that wasnt much help to us so to cure this problem we had to make a few spacers that would mount the links further inward on the axles. For this we used 1/4" aluminum tubing to make four 1/4" spacers for the top mounts, and four 1/2" spacers for the bottom mounts. To allow the ball ends more movement when mounted next to the spacers we filed the one end of each spacer to round it off.   7. Tires and Wheels. As we had mentioned earlier the truck has a set of Imex tires and white wheels that were dyed black. Unfortunately since the stock white wheels aren't nylon the dye job didn't work as we had hoped, resulting in a brownish/gray wheel. This was something we wanted to improve upon so we decided to sand the wheels down, prime them, and spray paint them a mat black. We went with mat black to go along with some type of camoflauged/military body that my brother plans on adding to this truck in the future.  8. The last step in the project was to put it all together. We had already mocked up the suspension to make sure everything fit properly so all we had to do was polish everything up one last time, and bolt it back together. At this point we also bolted up the Tmaxx shocks by using the stock upper mounting points and cable clamps for the lower mounting points. Although this method works quite nicely we may try to improve upon this at some point, mostly to allow height adustments. Well here it is (below) finally done. As you can see in the before and after shots the new suspension give this truck alot more articulation, not to mention a much improved ride. Below are the thoughts (grammatically edited by yours truely) of the truck's owner and how he likes way the new suspension handles. With that thought in mind I think I should give a little insight into how this project got started. I don't want to get into a long story so to make things short my brother, who is only nine years old and already a Clodbuster fanatic, signed up for the RCMT forums. After a short introduction (by myself as I had been a member for years) and quick rundown on his truck and what he wanted to do with it the admin of RCMT, William G, offered to help my brother out. Out of the kindness of his heart he contacted Brett from Crawford Performance Engineering and sealed the deal. The fact that you guys helped this little kid, and accepted him into your forums is greatly appreciated. It shows the true nature of this hobby. Thanks for everything! Brian's thoughts on the project: It's awesome! It used to bounce alot when I jumped it off ramps but now it lands really soft. Now I can jump it off really big ramps and it doesnt flip over. Its just like a real monster truck. It even climbs rocks better. My brother said we are going to go to a race track by a hobby shop and race our trucks. I cant wait! Thanks WilliamG for getting this for me from Crawford Performance Engineering. |
