1970s Dodge Tradesman kustom van

[frizzen]

I really need another unfinished project hanging around until i can figure out some type of parts because i'm too stubborn to just buy a kit...

I seem to like Vans.
Alaintérieur over on Scale4x4 posted up his upcoming next amazing van project, and mentioned some Ampro guy was drawing parts. Then somehow a Tamiya Lunchbox body, with glass and chrome trees showed up in my mail. It wasn't easily adaptable to any donors i have hanging around. Looking into that somehow turned into me getting a set of 1/16 scale AMC Pacers.

A friend of mine was showing me some cad things he was making, and how excited he was to be getting a new tame robot friend. With his newly housebroken robot, it was soon pooping out some scenery for his Dungeons&Dragons adventures. I asked if his magical pooping robot might be able to push out some things for me.

I ordered some electrons to feed it from here:

Chassis
https://www.myminifactory.com/object...wpl-cars-96208
Wheels
https://www.myminifactory.com/object...slot-mag-96209
Grill
https://www.myminifactory.com/object...-bumpers-96206

Then a while later he starts bringing some robot poop to sift through


His robot is small enough it shouldn't be too destructive when google skynet takes over, so i had to splice the chassis halves together.


Wpl trans mount goes into chassis mounts, chassis melts together, chassis goes into body. It all fits like it's supposed to.


So current plan is a Street Van: street ride height, cool rims, fancy paint, and bubble windows. Find something in hobby shop to hopefully Cut&Shut into some maybe 50-70 series looking tires. It involves wpl 1/16 truck axles and trans. I'd like to go just RWD instead of 4wd. Maybe some lights later, probably a bluetooth speaker, maybe even some extra servos to do odd things.

One huge benefit of the Lunchbox is the body has been made since 1987 and you can get it everywhere. Easily swappable bodies pull 4 screws, and change your outlook man. Today i'm going 70s Vanning in the Shaggin Wagon, tomorrow it might be a work van, maybe i can even get a model 'Possum Van' signed if Red Green does another tour...

Keep the positive waves. There's gonna be a bridge.

[frizzen]

When i think 70s there's: long haired women, a lot of questionable fashions, epa choked engines, strange color choices, and the muppets.

Muppets have wiggly eyes, so my van should probably have some wiggly eyes too


Well where else can you find several sizes of bubble windows ready to go, after ya cut out the backing?

[Wombii]

Aww now I want to adopt a happy little poopbot! This looks great!

[frizzen]

Thank you! It's a very impressive poopbot, i'm really glad he's letting me have print time on it.

Playing around with some Molotow paint on the bumper. Mostly cleaned grill, wish my friends robot had printed it pretty side up.


Did a little cut&shut on some Lego 62.4x20 tires trying for a more 'street' look than the rc4wd ones Ampro designed around. Uh, from their specs, looks like i shaved a whole 0.030 tire height from his offroad van. Hmm.



Van-girl said it needed more windows, so we're now at 4 bubble window portholes. Leaving the stock sunroof vent thing, unless she says it needs to have a flat sunroof.

Cut big round holes in a hardbody: Measure location on body for window center, mark, center drill. Measure window diameter with dial caliper, knock a little off that size maybe 0.020", divide by 2, set dial caliper to that, score body kinda deep, drill pilot hole bigger to fit coping saw blade, make radial cuts out to score, break out the pie pieces, knock the edges. Get biggest socket from wrench set that fits in hole, wrap with sticky backed sandpaper, sand, test fit window, add layer, sand, test fit...

This post brought to you by the largest tire manufacturer in the world, Lego.

[frizzen]

Put it together with metal ball end upgrade links on the trimmed & drilled stock Plastic 4-link setup.
The rear shock towers came off, and some stiffened printer support matrix got melted to the chassis intead, and the shock pass-through holes got bigger for some reason...

Front end could still use a bit more chrome, but it's not looking too bad for first coat. My pens weren't playing well that day.



The trans uses the lower mount holes to keep short plastic driveshafts together. Ground clearance is good, and i don't care about Break-over angle.
I cut out the bottom of steering servo mount, clearanced the rear chassis crossmember where the upper links hit. Back tires tuck ok. Front just really doesn't want to drop, so i'm probably going to raise the bottom of that servo mount up.
It's almost like this chassis was desiged as an off-roader instead of street-machine.

[frizzen]

Yo dog, we heard you really like vans...
So we got ya a Van, so you can go Vanning, while you're Vanning, in your Vans.





Zipzap / Bit-Char G clone chassis stretched to a 1970s Tyco slotcar body Ford Econoline with some extra detailing. I built it in 2018 to try to hype up a zombie message board for a 'just build something' contest i ran...that nobody at all entered.

[Wombii]

I don't think I've realised how large your vans are. In my head they were much smaller, but this puts it properly in perspective. Good job on the stretch.

[frizzen]

These are still signifigantly smaller than the semis, but they aren't exactly *tiny*. If i park my real cars next to a semi and step back they look small too.


I'll call that size proportional, VW pretty strict 1/14 of real. Tamiya likes more around a vague 1/13.5 on their trucks, and i think the MAN Kat 7.5 ton i'm next to is more 1/12

This Dodge Tradesman shorty without any bumpers or grill is 12" (305mm) long by 5 5/8" (142mm) wide, 5 3/8" (136mm) tall on those cut lego tires, as fully laid-out as i can manage
The dickie VW bays are 12 3/8" (314mm) long, by 4 7/8" (123mm) wide, 6" (152mm) tall at the racks. On either stock or 1/24 semi tires.

[frizzen]

It's getting all 70s in here.

Closer to a StreetVan ride height. This grille and bumper does it for me more than that tamiya one


Wait, what?

[frizzen]

Had some fun cruising at a meet.







The little van was pretty popular, even more when they noticed the hydro suspension, and 4wd. If there hadn't been model tractor pulling going on, i would have dropped a speaker into it and *really* gone out for a cruise.

You might have noticed I love playing on this bridge.

https://youtu.be/GjQBEN2kKL0

[skeeter]

I love the new van, Frizzy!

[frizzen]

I was watching some videos on the new Redcat 64 Impala, and remembered looking into this thing

A box of magic and 4 servos could get the Super Scale Active Suspension...
https://youtu.be/sKRCJOwClXQ

Also its kinda funny that i wanted to try the solid axle rear 4-link with 'hydros' to attempt to understand how a 'Chain Bridge' affects the chassis and suspension, yet it seems to work well enough with just the 4-link i still haven't built a bridge under it.

[frizzen]

So uh, instead of printing and lowering a 4x4 van chassis, somebody figured out how to do a WPL d12 chassis based streetvan. That looks WAY easier.

https://youtu.be/ki0wM3EhDiQ
https://youtu.be/h3zHLsiPI34

Plus this same guy is printing van back-halfs for converting the Suzuki d12 pickups

[skeeter]

I LOVE that black van, it reminds me of the A-TEAM's van!

Frizzy, if you have the ability to design it, I can 3D print some chassis parts for you. I just DON'T have CAD capabilities...................well I do, but my CAD is Cardboard Assisted Design. That CAD is far different than the other CAD that allows the 3D printer to work.

[frizzen]

Yeah, I really do need to get my computer rolling and start trying to learn CAD. Heck, I'm still trying to learn good physical modeling skills.

Since you mentioned it, back around something like 2008, Aoshima released a really B.A. 1/15 scale RC Chevy Vandura in "A-Team" livery. I've been looking for a while...

[skeeter]

Originally Posted by frizzen

Yeah, I really do need to get my computer rolling and start trying to learn CAD. Heck, I'm still trying to learn good physical modeling skills.

Since you mentioned it, back around something like 2008, Aoshima released a really B.A. 1/15 scale RC Chevy Vandura in "A-Team" livery. I've been looking for a while...

I'd LOVE to get my hands on one of them!

[skeeter]

I got really excited when I found this....................then I realized the scale was too small!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/17461753268...gAAOSwZ1RgFQWG

[frizzen]

After this long in ''black primer'' are you ever going to do something to Bring the Kustom?

Duplicolor stainless


Duplicolor anodized purple


First tapeout and roofs with stiffener ribs don't give a lot of design freedom.

[frizzen]

Second tape-out went about the same, then the rains rolled in.



So while waiting on better weather, i guess i'm making sure the paint has fully cured

[ddmckee54]

Cool lace!

I haven't seen that done since my 59' VW bus back in the mid 70's.

Don