Tamiya Land Rover Defender Project

Page 1: Chassis Assembly

The Defender comes in a pretty small box, but it is slightly larger than other CC-01 boxes probably due to the tall body. Inside you'll find the one piece chassis tub along with a moderate collection of plastic parts trees and 5 hardware bags. This set also comes with a TBLE-02s electronic speed controller and a standard 540 silver can motor. At the lower left you can see the set of Fast Eddy ball bearings that I'll be adding during the build.

The motor mount is a non-adjustable indexed type. You can attach the motor positioned for either of two pinions: 16T or 20T. The kit comes with a 16 tooth pinion. The optional use of a 20 tooth pinion would make the model much faster, but it would actually be nicer to be able to go the other way for better crawling torque.

The front differential uses a large plastic spur gear housing a set of cast metal spider gears. As you can see, the spur gear teeth are enormous and shouldn't strip under any power that could reasonably ever be applied.

The spur gear which mates with the motor pinion shares a shaft with a large bevel gear. On the right you can see the path from the motor to the front differential (which you may recall is housed in the large plastic gear at the front). The pinion drives the spur which then makes a right angle turn before another set of reduction. The gear which you can see next to the motor will be used for the rear axle. All of the gears are nestled tightly in the chassis tub safe from debris.

This view from the bottom of the chassis tub shows another gear which sits beneath the main spur. This will be used to drive the rear wheels. On the right the cover has been installed and the rear drive shaft attached. This is a nice steel telescoping unit. In this picture you can also see the provisions for different wheelbases. The brass ball joints shown will be used for the upper links. The holes further forward are for the lower links, and the holes further back are for the shocks. In each case you can see two sets of holes which allow variable wheelbases.

Here are the ball joints for the front suspension viewed with the chassis inverted. The balls at the top of the wheel well are for the shocks, and the others are for the upper control arms. Just behind those balls you can see the hole in the side of the differential where the axle shafts will come out.

Next we'll install the front suspension and steering. The left hand image shows the dual bellcranks for the steering. The right hand image shows how the lower front suspension is built. Each control arm is built in two parts and is pinned at the inboard and outboard ends. A C-hub is used to hold the steering knuckles.

The lower control arms (which are just fixed length rods) and steering assembly are installed into the chassis tub. Then the lower suspension assembly is installed which doubles as a skid plate. Dogbones drive the stub axles. The kingpins are large step screws.

The rear differential is quite different than the front. It uses the same metal spider gears, but they are installed into a metal bevel housing instead of a plastic spur housing. Because the rear has the extra reduction at the ring and pinion compared to the front, it is tricky to get them to have the same overall ratio. The plastic gears you see in the background can be used to lock the rear differential.

Now we'll build the rear axle. The first image shows the ring and pinion gears installed along with the solid axle shafts. After the axle housing is buttoned up, the plastic lower suspension links are installed. These are nice and wide to slide on rocks without catching or breaking.

Now the rear suspension is complete. The upper links are much shorter fixed links and are more greatly triangulated to keep the axle centered. The overall articulation angle is quite large.

Time to build the shocks. These are plastic oil filled shocks but are not quite the same as standard CVA shocks. The main difference is that they do not have interchangeable pistons attached with E-clips. Instead, the piston and rod are a single, monolithic metal part so the only adjustment possible is fluid viscosity. The right hand image shows the shocks installed. I find them quite capable.

The last thing to do to get a rolling chassis is install the electronics. The battery sits crosswise with an electronics platform over the top. Only a 6-cell NiMH pack or something of similar size will fit. The steering is the weakest point of the model. Since the servo is on top but the bellcranks are on the bottom, the torque must pass down through a long shaft which introduces quite a bit of play. This is a really new kit though, and the parts seem to fit better than on some older CC-01's. Perhaps they updated the mold. On the right you can see the completed chassis with body posts, wheels, and tires.

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