Zax's making of a Beast. MAN KAT1 8x8.

Its been awhile since I've done a build thread. And I have been eyeing on a kit which is slightly of a different maker apart from the usual Tamiya, RC4WD, Kyosho and etc....
Here a package arrives at my door step... Quite a big package I must say

And inside is a Real Beast LOGO...

Nice exterior box illustrations... Doesn't tell much of the content thought.

The inside content accompanied with a chinese manual. The company that made this kit is CROSS-RC. Never heard of them before till now.
Packaging wise is just average unlike the packaging of RC4WD which was superb.

All Items taken and lay out on the floor for a nice view...

Total of 9EA 1.9 wheels. Every item was itemised packaged nicely but minus the foam padding.


Motor and light controllers are included which normally would be a hop up options in any other well established kits.

Here are some videos from the company itself for this particular kit.

 Wow! Easter Day present !

woohoo!!!
can't wait to see it in the trails!!

Been busy for a while and I have also been progressively building the kit. But before I begin I would like to emphasize to those who are interested in this kit that the manuals are in chinese. For those experience builder should be no problem for you.



Tools you need to compete the build


Some electronic items you need to get the thing running.
Such as ESC, BATTERY, RADIO, RECEIVER & SERVOS


Kit comes with its own light controller. Here shown is the lay out.


Start the build with the motor and transfer case. As you see the item is made from plastic and could be an issue in the long run.


Open up to see if its fill with grease...


Connect the half end of the drive shaft to both ends...



Building up the ladder frame assy




The Drag links bracket.



Simple spring dampers came pre-assembled.


The springs are mounted by screws and nuts on to the stays. the dampers goes outside the springs. Not common as some tamiya crawler have the design.
The material use for the spring stays are very flexible. Might require to upgrade in near future...


Attaching all the items to the frame.




You can see the enormous size of the kit.

Nice updates!
    

oceanic wrote:errr..... thats all?

More coming... no time to update all at once...

Thanks for sharing those interesting design details. Looking forward to more updates!

Love the shock setup. Only 2 link setup for each axel?

Cant wait to see the beast in action.

babyboy wrote:Love the shock setup. Only 2 link setup for each axel?

Cant wait to see the beast in action.

The stock spring is very soft... buckles under its own weight.

Next is doing the body and the flat bed area. When I got this kit it came in a box and was very compact. As I open up the box all the plastic parts are in pieces.


To put all this mess together a special glue needs to be used.


Basically the parts are made from high grade ABS plastic and it is very well and precised cut. No issues so far when glueing the pieces together.
But due to the nature of glueing everything together instead of screwing, there is still the question of would the parts stay together when it hits the trail... A question only can be answered once we hit the trail I guess...   






After fixing up and letting the whole body to cure for few days it is time to prep the body for painting. But along the way I still have parts which magically unglued itself.   
A glympse of the Complete kit minus the paint.



I start the painting process by giving the body with a warm soapy bath and full dry it. Do not paint the body when its still wet.
Start painting with white primer.



Then paint the colour of my choice.


To achieve a great finish do not rush through the paint process. I would normally take 2 to 3 days for painting including gloss coats.


The painted cab head.





The looks after the whole painting process.

Awesome!
  

Wow! Nice and awesome build.

The Beast made its first debut yesterday at segar track. Had a few glitches like the truck rolled once on steep hill and one component popped out. There is clicking sound when climbing any form of gradient but I have identified the problem and rectifying it. Other then that the truck itself is rock solid. "cross me fingers"  .


Courtesy of Bro Boo...

Very poisoning truck.....
      

Very nice, thanks for sharing this awesome vehicle build!

Like the chassis, dislike the claking sound it makes under load..
clak clak clak.. What's the weight btw ?

Ezekiel Freshmen wrote:Like the chassis, dislike the claking sound it makes under load..
clak clak clak..

Rectifying the unbearable sound now... Normal for a first run to have this kind of minor set backs...
That's the fun of the whole RC deal, keep on solving and keep on improving. All RC enthusiast know that...  

Ezekiel Freshmen wrote:What's the weight btw ?

Heavy... Im just here to enjoy the hobby... not to weight the damn thing...   

Some new upgrades for the Beast. Due to the shear size and weight of 7kg I keep on breaking the steering axle. No doubt that the axle is made of plastic which was crap in the first place. I decided to get the metal axles ones.



A picture of the whole KAT after the transplant.

Nice.... can see it run again soon!

boolean21 wrote:Nice.... can see it run again soon!

Definately... !