Author Topic: Gamester's Original Bigfoot I 4X4 9.6V Monster Truck Project  (Read 15142 times)

Gamester

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Hey guys!

It has been a long, long time since I've posted here!  That mainly being due to that I haven't done any toy grade RC projects for a long time, lol.  Any who, I recently got the crave to build a fun toy grade original Bigfoot 4X4 monster truck; since I've never found a good RC version this truck before.  That fact set me on a quest to build a scale looking original Bigfoot 4X4 RC truck by combining parts from several different quality toy grade trucks.

To start the project off, I decided to first find the most detailed original Bigfoot 1 hard body I could.  I actually stumbled upon a quite rare and very nicely detailed 2WD 9.6V 1:16 Bigfoot 1 truck made by Scientific Toys from the 80s that was perfect for my project.  I ended up using the body and the 9.6V electronics from this truck, which was nice because they also have detailed the transmitter with Bigfoot branding as well, which looks pretty darn cool itself.

Now I needed to find a solid 4WD 1:16 monster truck chassis with the same wheelbase and vintage style of the classic Bigfoot 1 body.  I found what I needed in a 7.2V Nikko Big Bubba truck.  This chassis ended up being perfect for what I needed and surprisingly the rear body mounts actually lined up without modification.  All I had to do on the chassis itself is mount the front part of the body and I also trimmed off the 7.2V battery retainers since they wouldn't be used and just looked ugly anyways.  The 4WD system in this chassis is quite unique as it actually has dual drive-shafts going from the rear gearbox to the front giving a limited-slip effect to the tires providing great traction and also allows for high/low gear selection, which is quite rare for any 4WD RC truck.

Fortunately, the Bigfoot 1 body actually had the 9.6V battery compartment built directly into itself.  The tonneau cover/roll bar is actually the battery cover as the 9.6V battery sets nicely in the bed of the truck.  This was a great thing as removing those 7.2V battery retainers added additional ground clearance and running a 9.6V battery increased power while significantly reducing weight.  I don't know why Nikko decided to use a big heavy 1/10 battery on a 1/16 truck anyways, pretty silly if you ask me.

Retrofitting the 9.6V electronics from the Scientific Toys truck to the Nikko was actually quite a bit easier than expected.  Only slight modifications of the servo arm were required and other than that it screwed/wired right into place with only minor adjustments and worked fabulously.

Now it was time for some small finishing touches.  I wanted non-painted white wheels and some yellow shocks to match the original Bigfoot truck style.  I found both the wheels and shocks on one vehicle surprisingly; the Nikko High Roller had exactly what I needed!

The final little detail was the tires.  I wanted the tires to be particularly scale in appearance due to it being such a big factor in getting the vintage monster truck look right.  The stock Big Bubba tires were ok, but I needed them to be a slightly bigger to get the look I wanted.  Fortunately, Scientific Toys saved the day again as I found what I needed from a Silverado truck they made with the same chassis as the old Bigfoot.  The tires were perfect in style and size.  All I had to do to make them work was notch out the rear trialing arms a little bit to allow the larger tires to rotate freely and I also shaved off the knobs on the tires for a more scale appearance.

After all fabrications and combining all parts from all four different models, I finally had the RC original Bigfoot 1 truck I imagined.  The truck is by far the most accurate scale representation of the original Bigfoot truck I have seen in RC form.  The truck is quite durable and performs in a nice bouncy fashion very reminiscent of real vintage monster trucks and can even do wheel stands!

I'm quite happy with the results of this little project and the truck is even funner to drive than I imagined!







Climbing my hobby Bandit (more on that project in a later post)

Enjoy and feel free to comment :)

« Last Edit: July 26, 2014, 16:58:40 by Gamester »

Dragon

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Re: Gamester's 9.6V Original Bigfoot I 4X4 Monster Truck Project
« Reply #1 on: July 25, 2014, 13:28:55 »
Very cool. Thanks for sharing your story and the photos, Gamester.
"Hello IT. Have you tried turning it off and on again? ... OK, well, the button on the side. Is it glowing?... Yeah, you need to turn it on. Err, the button turns it on. Yeah, you do know how a button works, don't you? No, not on clothes." - Roy (The IT Crowd)

Gamester

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Re: Gamester's 9.6V Original Bigfoot I 4X4 Monster Truck Project
« Reply #2 on: July 25, 2014, 14:57:09 »
Hey Dragon,

Long time no see!  I'm glad to see this site is still up after all these years even though it doesn't seem to be as active as it once was.

I'll probably do a few more posts on here soon that should interest visitors ;)

Dragon

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Re: Gamester's 9.6V Original Bigfoot I 4X4 Monster Truck Project
« Reply #3 on: July 26, 2014, 10:34:06 »
Cool. I look forward to seeing your posts.

Regarding this project, do you have any before photos of the Bigfoot truck, or maybe some mid-process photos? I like seeing the progress too.
"Hello IT. Have you tried turning it off and on again? ... OK, well, the button on the side. Is it glowing?... Yeah, you need to turn it on. Err, the button turns it on. Yeah, you do know how a button works, don't you? No, not on clothes." - Roy (The IT Crowd)

Gamester

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Re: Gamester's 9.6V Original Bigfoot I 4X4 Monster Truck Project
« Reply #4 on: July 26, 2014, 14:46:36 »
I didn't take any progression photos as I really didn't even know how it would turn out, lol.  I guess I usually don't take progression photos anyways as when I get focuses on any project I get really zoned into it and don't even think about it, lol.
« Last Edit: July 26, 2014, 16:49:11 by Gamester »

Gamester

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Re: Gamester's Original Bigfoot I 4X4 9.6V Monster Truck Project
« Reply #5 on: May 11, 2015, 00:48:07 »
Hey guys,

This truck is now for sale!  Check it out here...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/121646782013

-Gamester

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Re: Gamester's Original Bigfoot I 4X4 9.6V Monster Truck Project
« Reply #6 on: May 11, 2015, 00:59:09 »
Good luck on the auction. Thanks for posting.
"Hello IT. Have you tried turning it off and on again? ... OK, well, the button on the side. Is it glowing?... Yeah, you need to turn it on. Err, the button turns it on. Yeah, you do know how a button works, don't you? No, not on clothes." - Roy (The IT Crowd)