FG Street Truck Re-Build...

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Almost 3 weeks later and still no forward progress as my parts are stuck in shipping purgatory thanks to the STUPID Canada Post strike. :mad:

One of these days I'm gonna have to break down and paint the body just so it feels like I've progressed the project a bit...
 
Canada Post moving to a rotating strike meant my parts order was FINALLY released... and delivered!

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It's a shame that Canada Post messed it up, since TPS Racing shipped the order out super fast. Great experience with them, and they even threw in a keychain and stickers. Sweet!

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With a little luck, this will be the last parts order I need to get this monster back to the proper stance and on the road... just as temperatures drop here, the risk of snow starts, and we're almost certainly going to see this project wrap up just in time for a long winters hibernation in the garage. :LOL:
 
With the parts on hand, it would have been quick and easy to get them installed... but instead I decided to take this guys idea to heart:
bRIBEGuy said:
Almost 3 weeks later and still no forward progress ... One of these days I'm gonna have to break down and paint the body just so it feels like I've progressed the project a bit...
Click to expand...


With a rare free weekend, I went downstairs to fetch the body and start the painting process.

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The previous owner of the truck never pained it, but instead just cut out the white mask around the windows, and added some stickers. This was one of the highlights of the buy, IMO, as it meant I didn't have to live with someone else paint job, or shell out the big $$$ for a new shell. Seeing as it was a runner however, it did require a good clean... much of my evening was spent tearing it down and then toiling with dish soap and isopropyl alcohol...

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With a night of rest and drying, the morning was started with the task of coming up with a paint scheme and starting to mask. I made templates for the windows using tape on the outside, which was then trimmed, and flipped to the interior.

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This technique has worked well for me in the past, so it seemed like a good place to start. Some 3 hours later, I was getting pretty darn sick of yellow making tape...

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My plan was to take some cues from my MCD XR5, which was a tongue-in-cheek riff on the RedBull rally cars, using colors and design elements that my daughter likes:

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For the FG, I wanted to keep the same "feel", without just doing a copy. I had a bunch of Tamiya paint left over from various projects, so I figured I'd use that.

Up first... PS-5 Black...

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Not a bad start with the masking removed...

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It was around this point that I started to run into my biggest struggle with this body..... the white external protective layer. It conceptually seems fine, but I found it all but eliminated the ability to see what I was actually painting.

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I'm trying to be realistic that this will be a "fit for use" paint job and not a shelf queen, so hopefully any issues from "painting blind" won't be the end of the world...
 
I wonder if this should have gone in the "Build Threads" section instead on in the On-Road area? Hmmm...... No point in pondering too hard when there is work to do still!

PS-18 Metallic Purple is up next for paint:

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It really does look like junk at this point in the process..... ha! Maybe adding some PS-59 Metallic Blue will help...

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Nope..... now it's just multi-color chaos. But, that is the way this goes, so trust in the process, and move on......
 
The next step (which I missed taking a picture of) is one more round of hand paint application with PS-63 Bright Gun Metal, before backing it all with a coat of PS-23 Gun Metal.

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From here we have more mask removal, and then comes out the PS-12 Silver...

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There was some detail painting on the front & back of the cab using PS-2 Red, PS-6 yellow, and PS-1 White... but again I missed getting pictures here. Each of those colors got a backing coat of silver before moving to the next, and when done, everything got a solid backing coat of PS-12 as well...

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And then a PS-5 Black backing coat on the silver before calling it done.

The body looks like hot trash from the outside at this point, with very little hints of what the actual paint scheme will look like. Sorta fun... but also sorta stressful and worrisome after some 10 cans of paint and 2.5 days of work.

Good times...
 
And now it sits for a day or so to make sure the paint is fully cured before removing the window masks and outer covering...

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Mr-Mike said:
Very cool bro! That plastic spur gear is scary.
Click to expand...

Thanks!

Ya, I feel that replacing the spur was a smart choice. It may get swapped again in the near future if I decide to go electric, but that will be another project for another day...
 
After a day or two of letting the paint fully(ish) cure, it was time to peel back the white (well, now grey...) protective wrap and see the fruits of my labour.

AND

WHAT

A

NIGHTMARE

THAT

WAS!!!!!

It would seem that in the years and years of NOT being peeled off, the white protective wrap decided that it would loose ALL integrity, and instead increase it's adherence to the polycarbonate. What should have been 3 minutes of satisfaction, instead turned into 2+ HOURS of scraping and picking off little flecks of white plastic film with fingernails, plastic implements, and scraps of tape.

WHAT A DISASTER!

I have never seen a protective wrap just fall apart and stick like that.

Oh well, I guess it fits the theme of the project.... MORE WORK THAN EXPECTED!
 
With the peeling and swearing out of the way, the good news is that the paint worked out fairly well overall. It's obnoxious AF, but my daughter and wife LOVE it... and frankly that holds a lot of importance in my mind and heart.

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The paint has a lot of "depth" which doesn't show well in the pictures. Plus the indoor lighting is doing it no favours. Still, I I think in the sunlight this will be pretty cool...
 
With progress being made on the body, it was time to get back to the nuts and bolts since the TPS Racing order is getting dusty.

I had opted to order both 14mm and 17mm wheel squares, as FG Racing told me the 17mm should be on the rear of the truck, but I wasn't personally convinced it would work. I figured this gave me options to play with the spacing of both the front and rear track width.

I started up by mocking up the rear end (which currently has 14mm squares) and exactly as expected, the 17mm ones don't work. Don't get me wrong, the spacing looks great... but there is barely enough axle thread protruding to engage a flanged nut, let alone a locknut with a washer. :(

So..... the original 14mm squares go back on the rear....

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On the front, I installed the longer front axles, and then played the same game mocking the front up with various spacers. I started with the 17mm squares, and it was sooooooooo close to being perfect..... but just a hair wide. So, on went the 14mm ones, and it was just a hair narrow. I figure if the rear is a few millimetres narrow, then the front should be as well! I got the disc-retaining clips installed on the new 14mm squares...

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And then got everything back together...

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The longer front axles seem like they have worked great, and now I have LOTS of thread protrusion on the front wheels.

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Installed the washer and a locknut, and still have more than full engagement. Nice.

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I opted to use a serrated flanged nut (c/w/ threadlock) on the rear wheels, as there isn't sufficient axle thread to engage the nylon portion of a lock nut.

All back together and starting to look pretty!

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With the chassis back in an almost-ready-to-roll state, it was back to body work.

Tossing the 3-part shell back together should be quick and easy... but I am nothing if not a master of turning a small job into a large project. :LOL:

First up... adding some protective tape over the paint in areas that will overlap. Hopefully this keeps paint from rubbing off...

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Next up.... a bunch of things I forgot to take pictures of! Whoops!

[Enter photos of windshield wipers and door handle installation here]

And then it was time for the mirrors! I used some aluminum tape to make reflective mirrors, and then pondered for a while where to drill the hols to mount them

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The body has divots to mount them either WAY too low, or WAY too high. Most of the photos I found show them mounted on the A-Pillar, but I liked the look of it a bit more mounted lower as is spec'd on the Tamiya Actros Race Truck. Ultimately I let my wife make the decision, and she also agreed that lower was the better look.

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In one of those "annoying only to me" moments, I realized the FG Wiper kit, actually has the wiper molded backwards... so it mounts up in reverse of the direction it should be mounted (assuming LHD). I blame this for how dirty the windows currently appear to be...
 
While trying to clean up a bit and put away some extra parts, I stumbled across a package of body-clip-retainers from my long-gone HPI Baja SS. I do really enjoy having these on my MCD XR5, so I figured I may as well make some mods to the FG Street Truck body and use them here as well.

After a quick test to make sure they fit over the FG body mounts (they do) and have clearance for the pins (they do), it was time to grab a step-bit for my drill, and a hand reamer.

20 minutes later and the body has eight much bigger holes, and 8 new ones. But all in the name of improvement, right?

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I really really like that paint job. It reminds me of those artist renditions of space nebulas we used to see in school as kids.

I still need to paint the body for my xr5 but I'm so anxious about butchering it.
 
XJman said:
I really really like that paint job. It reminds me of those artist renditions of space nebulas we used to see in school as kids.

I still need to paint the body for my xr5 but I'm so anxious about butchering it.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I appreciate that.

Ya, I agree that doing up one of these big bodies is quite a daunting task. It seems like it should be really easy (more room means more simple, right?), but I find the scale of the project makes it almost harder to come up with good themes and execute them well.

Plus, you're talking about significant expense in both paint and body cost, so there is a looming dark cloud of making a mistake. Mess up a 1:10 rally car shell, and you might be out $100+/-. Mess up a 1/5 shell and you could be looking at a $400 mistake. Ouch!
 
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