Tamiya Clod Buster Project

The original Clod Buster came out in September of 1987 as 58065 and was really the first of its kind.  This was a real scale monster truck with solid axles, four wheel drive, four wheel steering, giant tires, 8 huge shocks, and a scale body that looks an awful lot like a 1983 Chevy truck (the body was originally a licensed Chevy, but no longer uses the logo in the latest incarnation).  It uses a single chassis mounted servo for 4WS and the power system is a pair of 540 sized motors mounted directly to the axles.  By modern standards , this is not a great truck.  The steering is pretty terrible, it is not fast, it does not have independent suspension, and it does not have oil dampers.  But if you remember what this is, a scale monster truck, it actually does its job very well.  It looks great and it bounces around like crazy.

The original Clod was produced for a long time and many aftermarket parts were made for it.  In 1990 they came out with the 58089 Bullhead which is exactly the same truck with a different body.  It took until the 58321 Super Clod Buster in 2004 to get any updates, and from what I can tell it is just the same truck with an electronic speed control.  The Super Clod was released again in 2013 as 58518 and that's the version I have.

I replaced the stock friction dampers with oil shocks.  I kept the stock silver can motors and ESC, using an Arrma 15Kg servo for steering.  I eventually added some LEDs when I standardized on my rule that all hard body vehicles should have lights.  The biggest "upgrade" is my addition of aluminum beadlock wheels which caused all kinds of problems as you can read about below.  I later made rather extensive modifications to the suspension in an effort to improve the steering.  I was only partially successful.  Finally I decided that if I couldn't make it perform great then I could at least make it look cool so starting doing some aesthetic upgrades.  There is now a driver figure which you can see through clear windows, and I added a moving supercharged V-8 instead of the static blower that came with the kit.  I had this truck for 2 years before I finally made the modification that made it drive properly: axle mounted servos.

Update:  This model was destroyed in the 2022 fire.  It has not been replaced.