D90 Project

Page 1: RTR Original

Since this is an RTR it comes in a pretty big box. There are two special editions: a Heritage Edition and an Autobiography. RC4WD initially sent me the wrong one so I had to wait another couple of painful weeks for what I ordered. The result is shown above.

This is a really complete RTR as shown in this picture. Not only are electronics included, but also a battery, a charger, and even AA batteries for the controller. Every thing you need to get rolling is in the box except electricity for the charger.

Here are a couple views of the Gelande II chassis which is new to me. Pretty much everything is metal. The chassis rails are aluminum bar and so are the bumpers. The axles are cast and the gears are all steel. The stock electronics are adequate but not impressive. The 45T motor works fine as does the ESC so I didn't touch them. I did install my own Spektrum radio receiver. From the bottom you can see the 4 link suspension in the rear. The front uses 3 link with a panhard bar and chassis mounted servo. Oddly, the drive shafts are plastic. The beadlock wheels are stamped steel.

The aluminum coilover shocks are capable of holding oil but did not come with any. I disassembled and filled them. There are dual springs in series which allows multiple rates if desires although the stock springs are identical. The body is shown on the right. It came painted on the outside but with no stickers applied. There huge sticker sheet allows for several different liveries. I chose the longitudinal stripes shown here.

Although the interior is very detailed, it comes completely unpainted so it looks way too plain in all black. Not only that, the molded plastic is shiny which looks all wrong. Painting the interior gave me a way to make this RTR my own so I started by disassembling the whole body as shown. The parts on the left will be painted. The right hand picture shows how little structural material there is connecting the front and rear halves of the body once the windows, doors, and interior are removed. There are aluminum rails attached at the lower door sills though.

Here are a couple pictures I found online of the the interior of a real Autobiography Edition D90. You can see that there are a lot of red highlights on the seats and dash. This was my template for painting the interior.

Here I've masked the seats and dash as shown on the left. On the right I've painted the door cards with red and also highlighted the speakers, door handles, and locks. For the red portions I first used white primer so the red would be nice and bright over the black. Once the color was dry, I sprayed flat clear over the whole thing for a more realistic matter finish.

I happpened to have some adhesive backed felt from another project so I cut some carpets for the floor.

Here are a couple of views of the completed front interior. I think it looks vastly better and I feel I did a pretty good job of matching the real thing.

Here the interior has been installed back into the body along with the back seats (which fold down and are held up with magnets). The doors, hood, and rear door also open and are secured with magnets.

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