My Mruder (bruder cat320 something look alike)

[Rvjimd]

Wow!

Thanks for all the pictures and commentary. It has to be extremely satisfying seeing it all come together!

Jim

[cdm]

I try. I never liked it when people would who a picture and not say anything...

Got a few things overnight. Slewing ring cover is outside baking, done with the undercarriage cover as well, i need to attach them and paint them as one. I thought about using mini bolts and tap em/glue the heads to the slewing ring for extra detail BUT i need to stop adding things and just get it done. I can always do that later on. Besides unless you stare in there you wont see them. (you can tell im not a modeller. a modeller would never allow himself to not add the boltheads lol)

My oil tank is outside baking to dry as well. It's a double tank actually. The metal inside and the pretty cover outside. Its the cover that is drying. Photos when all the paint is dry/any filler is dry on those parts.

I hope to get started on the chain covers today.

I was able to get the tracks together. Remember, i never made a tensioner (i was calculating that i wont have to). I left space so i could add one through great pain if really had to (aka if i screwed up). Well, after getting the links to count i am extatic to say that fit is perfect as is! Putting the tracks on is a bit tricky as you have to put them on and then join with the pin. The circlip is the most annoying part but i can live with it. So they are going on last, after final paint and what not.


I also noticed that my shop (garage really) camera is worse than my phone (so much for black friday deals).. I took out the big guns for proper cinematics. Just have to be careful not to smear grease or shavings on those.

[cdm]

Its raining cats and racoons so ive been working on other projects mostly.

I managed to destroy one of my turntable motors force spinning the upper half by hand (it was hard, so hard). No gear damage but busted the upper bushing so the shaft now wobbles. I ordered a few more just to have in stock.. Replacement isn't bad at all.

Got my fittings in from beswick.. i will require a new deeper boom manifold block.. stripped the soft alum threads very easy. the beswick theads are longer so they went in deeper as is, leaving little space for fluid; expected. I am not happy with their inflated shipping charges but the brass fittings are cheaper than the german stainless ones and get here in 2 days.. ill use them for the rest of fittings, but ill never spend 30$ on one of their quick disconnects (LOL)

fittings themsselves are nice, no machining errors but a very small buna gasket. your mating surface better be polished or it will leak. the barb is single but very sharp. it bites well into the hose

[RCP57]

Could you post some pictures of the new fittings?

Thanks

[cdm]

when screwed in, they are the exact same height as leim.

im building the next order now. i think i'll get one of each (even the ones i dont need right now) for comparative purposes. should be here next week.

the brass ones are a good deal, but if you select stainless (they usually have different grades of that) price goes through the roof.

yes the ID hole is smaller on these for some reason... i dont have a flow meter to measure if that affects anything. I believe it is because they use imperial and convert to approximate metric. then threads ofc have to be metric precise, but tubing etc is all imperial. you could drill the ID out i suppose. I'll try that. i have like 30 of these to play with

inversely, the leim could be just bigger holes but the inside spacing could be just as constrained, given their aggressive barbs that eat a lot of diameter in the thin areas. i haven't tried the rod through test. i just did a quick leak test the other day and that's it.

[cdm]

Alright i went and measured. Leim straight nipples are 1.5mm ID, these are 1mm. Enough material to drill them out to 1.5 though.



Looking at the beswick drawings, their stainless steel versions are 1.5ID.... Could be a brass thing

but at

M3H-1132-303 $6.25 vs 39684 2.30 EUR or 3.01580 USD they are double..... 316 stainless goes to over 10$ per fitting.

But the 90 degree ones are 1.5ID even in brass which is a good deal. vs having to go to M4 threads to get that ID on leimbach.

[RCP57]

Nice looking fittings. I will have to look into getting some 90 ones in 10-32 thread.

Thanks for posting the pictures.

[cdm]

wrapping up the cab but ran out of orange paint for the touch ups (argh). A trip to ace is needed later today. got done with the cab guard, the mounts, the screw holes.

On a more interesting note, tinted the windows. I use automotive film. so much cleaner and uniform compared to the liquid sludge called transparency paint. if its a flat pane, i tint it. if it's curved, then i spray it.



i went with 35%, i was thinking 16% would be too dark as it is a small cab.

place all your precut windows outside down on a clean flat piece of something, cut and peel your tint, apply your liquid mix (baby shampoo and water is still best) and gently squeege it over the individual pieces. You could cut each tint for each window but with something so small, i just apply it over and cut them out later.

after you squegee it gently cut the pieces apart and get rid of the bulk tint so stuff can dry.






then about an hour when it is drier gently remove the excess around the edges as close as you can without pulling or lifting it. if you dont do that, the excess will wrinkle and pull the edges as it dries.

then when it is fully cured in 2-4 days, do the final trim. i now wait, for 2 days.

[cdm]

thats basically done. needs a coat of paint and thats about it.

built 2 battery trays on the inside as well to secure the lipos properly.. and some more boring stuff.

been working on the upper section and am still changing some things. more on that later. im kicking myself for not making it 2x as big.

[JDH429]

Incredible work CDM! This is what i wanted to do before getting involved in a loader build. Thats ok, you got the build figured out so your next one can be bigger. Looks great.

[cdm]

Thanks. Got the windows in but i am out of detail brushes. Once i buy those i'll paint the styrene retaining strips so they wont stand out like so. I didnt spray prepaint them as i didnt need more paint to solvent through during attachment. Making a full inside frame around the widows was an option but since i am not making a full detailed interior, it was not worth the time to do that. Would have looked pretty but why, there are no side panels on the inside anyway.

[JDH429]

Great build, been following this for a while. Everything looks great and that cab looks perfect. Good tip on the window tint. Great work all around.

[tracksntreadslou]

Great skills..and good ideas..I dont see much of the bruder left now ..lol ..May have to rename your thread now ..Have you checked with clippard for fittings ...i havent bought from them for a bit but they did have some pretty good prices..cheers

[cdm]

The only bruder part is the upper body lower plastic basin that is now enclosed in inches of aluminum and styrene.... it serves no purpose other than i can't remove it at this point. hah

Been working on the cab raiser (to solve my symmetry issue due to the big oil tank), cab walkway and ladder.

Got some more fittings on monday from beswick and argh.. Their 90d ones are so small there isn't enough clearance between the mounting surface and the nipple to even squeeze the hose in! ok you barely can jam the hose in there but impossible to put the retainer. You need to file down the surface right next to the thread so there is enough space, basically like an L bracket; can't be mounted on a flush surface, only on an edge. Alternative you can spend 9.10$ on male to female extender to offset the fitting 5mm and have enough space for your hose and retainer. Photos later. Fittings themselves are tiny though.. good for loaders if you can mount them against an edge or machine an edge like a step or ident (0.5mm of tolerance between edge and seal not sealing from the looks of it). I also got some of their plastic retaining sleeves (35$ for 100 vs 10 for 10$ from leimbach). Again they use bloody imperial and claim this fits 4mm hose.. well not really. you need pliers and vaseline to get the fitting onto the hose and no way in **** to get it around the barb. You could always drill them out though, though they are only 1mm thick so really more fiddly work to do for no real reason.

So i am a bit frustrated, i was hoping to put the hydros in this week, but seems like i may just abandon the leibher design/routing of the hoses and go for a cat.. straight from boom block into valve. no 90d riser block in there. i'll just cut a hose clamp block to wrap around the hoses instead.

weather has been miserable so i have been working in the garage on other things. but now that i know where i stand with the hoses, i should speed this up again.

[cdm]

Now all i have to do is wire a few connectors. The electronics sit on the small plate, mounted on the hydro plate, which is mounted on the main body plate thingie. A few screws takes it all apart and contains any oil leaks to nothing electronic. the bec is mounted beneath the esc. speaking of esc, i decided the fxr was an overkill so i got this one instead and moved the fxr to another project. it produced great smooth curves during testing so im finally happy with it.

the motor is a 65 turn so i can just run it at 100% and not worry about amp draw or rpms. for those keeping track, went from 20 to 45 to 65.

the hose sleeves.. this was a pain. the plastic ones could not be drilled out but i ended up drilling the leimbach ones to 4.5mm ID. in stock form i could NOT get them over the nipples last night.. ended up breaking a swivel joint trying to (fortunately i have a replacement, just 1 spare. ugh) but drilling to 4.5 fixed that. snug as a bug. i drilled out 20, but will need a few more. stock they are like 4.1mm i think.

the tank is all metal encased in plastic for looks as previously mentioned. yes it does have supports on the underside.

ps. i need a 4.5mm box wrench.. so does anyone else working with leimbach 3mm swivels

[doodlebug]

Can you warm the hose up with a hair drier or heat gun first, then shove on?
Cheers, Neil.

[cdm]

Well you actually want to shrink the hose.. I know what you mean but that wouldnt work.

You can get them on stock if you slide the clamp halfway over the hose and then push both on and gradually slide the clamp back as you get the hose all the way in. almost impossible to do in limited access situations.

that's how i got the y splitters first time around but its not worth minutes of fighting and risking damage when you can drill out in 30 seconds a whole lot of them. since the hose expands when its over the barbs, it jams tight against the bored out sleeve.

[cdm]

After a 7 month absence im back to pinging away at this. I wont bore you with the reasons but it's been a weird ride. And 2014 is forming to be even more interesting, so we will see.

Finished up the undercarriage. Still some dust from storage, could use some paint touch up etc. But I mean.. it will be in the dirt anyway, right?








^^ charge and balance ports for the 3s cells in there. Couldn't think of a cleaner way to do this.

And its all metal, except the tracks. And if for some weird reason I need to, I can take it all apart like a model kit. Which I pretty much did this week.

Also ordered some stuff from premacon as I wanted some cool looking parts. Now we await for DHL to get them here. more later. I need to dig out my miles of tubing so I can wire the hydros again.

[cdm]

began cutting the canopy pieces. rough cuts are best cuts. the end is near I guess.... this is the last thing to do before final assembly

[cdm]

Began the chargeback process against premacon. Another company that collects $, doesn't ship and doesn't respond.

Hopefully its just an oversight. I'll update on the outcome. First bad transaction with Germany to date.

So basically 2 months waiting on parts that never came. fun times.