Tamiya Bruiser Clone Build Part 1.

Tamiya Bruiser Clone Build

4/7/2020

Please note that when this truck is complete, it will be sold with all the original parts and modified parts. The box will also be supplied. This simply funds my next  RC Car project to share with all that enjoy the hobby.

Hello again Guys and thanks for joining me.

Since I did the overview of the the Traxxas TRX-4, I have taken an interest in rock crawlers. I would have loved to have purchased a TRX-4, unfortunately funds will not allow it. So I did a little homework to extend my limited budget and bought a HG-P407A. See below.

 It is a direct clone of the Tamiya Bruiser.However it does not clone the price tag. The original Tamiya Bruiser has an RRP of around £750 ready to run. This comes with an RRP of £250 ready to run.  However, this is the P407A which means it's a self assembly kit and comes in at an even more affordable price of £160. For an all metal kit, that's a bargain.....or is it??  At £160, my expectations are very low.

Let's find out.....

I was quite impressed with the box art and reminds me of the Tamiya artwork used on their boxes. Upon opening the main box I was greeted by a series of smaller boxes, each with it's own assembly inside. There are quite a few pre-assembled parts in the box including:- front and rear axles, 3 speed gearbox, main chassis rail and shock absorbers. I was on Easy Street, or so I thought....

I first pulled out the assembly manual, surveyed it and got the first parts ready to be assembled.

As you can see the first item is the rear axle, fittings and

Leaf springs.

Now these parts were big, so quite easy to find. It was NOT the case with any other part. The parts were mixed into type groups and not in sequence. This meant measuring each screw and checking all the screw bags for the right bolt/screw. This was highly time consuming and tedious. The manual also did little to help, as the descriptions and drawings are vague and I spent hours looking for parts.

These parts are:-

The above picture shows "E 9", which is located in the body shell box on the plastic parts tree. Also noter above, the Te-407012's do not need to go on yet and will simply fall off anyway.

Parts W1039 and LS022 are already located on the shock absorbers as shown in the picture above.
I made the mistake of thinking I was looking for a metal parts whilst searching for the "E 9" part and spent hours looking for it. As I did with the W1039.

I mention this now to save you literally hours or searching, fitting, unfitting and more searching. The below picture was one of my first efforts.

Notice the "E 9" is missing.

Marching on with the build it was time for the main chassis ladder.

Rear axle first as per instruction manual.

Now the front axle.

As you can see from the above pictures I had not yet found part "E 9".
After further hours of head scratching and searching...

I finally found them and quickly disassembled each corner and fitted them correctly. The "E 9" parts hold the leaf spring in place as well as being a damper mounting point as can be seen above. The parts are actually plastic parts and can be found in the body shell box, where else??

With the elusive part "E 9" now fitted, the chassis was now correct as per the build schedule. The next step was to fit the gearbox.

The gearbox is pre assembled, which is good.  When fitting the gearbox I would advise removing the bolts from the gearbox and insert the grommets first without the bolt as the instruction manual says to just pust them in. I tried that and nearly ripped the grommets.

Please also note the prop shafts can be fitted after the gearbox is installed. The manual states to fit them before fitting them to the car however they just get in the was of fitting so I removed them and refitted them when I installed the gearbox. Part CX001 can be found already fitted to the prop shafts and again are not in bags.

The chassis is almost complete and it is now time to start fitting the plastic parts as instructed from the build manual.

This is the mechanism box as described in the manual. I holds the steering servo (NOT FITTED), the gear change servo, the ESC and the receiver. I have not fitted the steering servo in that position as I have a modification part to fit the steering servo. I decided to do this as all other users of this truck complain of the amount of play or slog in the steering mechanism caused by the incredibly long push rods. The modification will eliminate this problem.

Time to fit the mechanism box,

and the front bumper.

Now the rear bumper and the wheels.

At this point the manual instructs me to fit the body detail to the body shell. However, I cannot do that at the moment as I plan to spray paint the body shell first. I also have a set of extended wheel arches on order from the USA and want to fit them before painting too.
I did put the body together though, to get an idea of how it will look.

It looks really good tbh, however, I do have quite a few modifications in mind and parts on the way so stay tuned over the next couple of weeks.

Well that's it for now guys. I hope this can help you build your HG-P407A should you decide to buy one. In Part 2, I will be fitting ALL the modifications in one go and I will detail all the mods fully.

Thank you for reading my humble post and I will see you next time.

Take care.

Catxls.

6/7/2020