Simple scaler

FJ Cruiser made easy

As crawling continues to grow, one of the hottest trends is to build scale vehicles that resemble 1:1 rides that you see on the road or trail. While the competitive "Comp" crawlers are amazing to watch, these vehicles are often so capable that they're not fun on smaller rocks. What's a potential crawler to do? The easy answer is to build a smaller rig. The smallest class of crawlers currently being built by a large group of enthusiasts are referred to as 1.9s. Classifying a vehicle as a 1.9 means that its wheels measure 1.9 inches in diameter. These wheels are usually standard touring car size items. Tamiya produces several 4x4 vehicles with 1.9 wheels such as the Hi-Lift, the new Hilux and a whole slew of XC/CC-01 vehicles such as the Volkswagen Touareg.
In this article, I show you how to take a relatively inexpensive, durable vehicle like the Touareg and make it into an "insta-scaler" by picking up a body from eBay and doing a simple conversion. I used a Toyota FJ Cruiser that has working lights and a steel roof rack. The proportions of this body are great, and since it's hard (not Lexan), it can be repainted and repaired as it gets damaged, or as you see fit.

Chassis

You can't build a nice scale crawler or trial rig without a chassis. Tamiya's CC-01 line of vehicles serves as a perfect foundation for such a build. They build fast, they're fairly inexpensive, and they're nearly impossible to break. The CC-01 chassis can be built at a 9.5- or 10.5-inch wheelbase. To use the FJ Cruiser on the CC-01 chassis, I built the chassis as a 10.5-inch wheelbase by using the rear mounting holes for the upper and lower rear suspension links. The only other change that will need to be made to the chassis is to omit the stock body mounts; you won't need them.

Body

Body Mounts

There's no point in having a trick-looking scale rig if you're going to ruin it by having body posts sticking through the hood or roof. Start making your body mounts by cutting a piece of aluminum about 2 inches wide, and cut the length so that it is just slightly shorter than the width of the chassis at the front wheel arches. This will be one half of your front body mount. Cut another piece (slightly shorter) that will be used to attach the mount to the body.

The rear of the FJ Cruiser is curved, so I used poster board to get the proper shape for the chassis half of my rear body mount. Once I was happy with the template, I transferred the outline to aluminum and cut the upper and lower rear body mounts.

Determining where to drill the mounting holes in the aluminum plate can be tricky. To simplify things apply a bit of paint or nail polish to the bosses on the chassis for the stock body mounts, and then put the aluminum mounts in place. The paint will mark the necessary locations to drill the aluminum, so you can use the stock body-mount holes and not butcher the chassis trying to find a clean way to mount things. Once you have the aluminum mounts on the chassis, it's time to focus your attention on the body once again.

There will likely be several bosses, or standoffs, molded into the underside of your body. Before you get happy with the rotary tool and start cutting these bits away, take the time to place the body over the chassis, check the clearance at the wheel wells, and then trim away portions of the bosses as needed. You need to trim away just enough of the bosses to allow the body to have the proper ride height and to keep the bosses intact so you can screw the upper half of each body mount to the body.

With the proper ride height determined, mark the bosses with paint or nail polish, place the upper halves of the body mounts in place, and mark the drilling locations.

Fasten the body mount to the body with button-head screws and attach Velcro to the mating surfaces of the body mounts. I always use the hard hook side on the chassis and the softer loop side on the body. That way, if I find myself doing a scrub-down after a bit of fun in the mud, the hook side is easier to clean (I do this with all electronic mounting as well— hook on the chassis)

THE LAST WORD

If you're thinking that it's insanely easy to build a vehicle such as this, you're right. The only parts you have to make are the body mounts. The rest of the assembly just takes a little time and patience. I've been enjoying the little FJ Cruiser quite a bit. When my wife and I went out crawling recently, she had a chance to drive the FJ Cruiser. She had so much fun with it that I decided it would become hers. At a local scale crawling competition (her first), she did well, making clean runs and even beating some of the guys.