TT-02 Buggy Conversion

Ok so I got bored and wanted a new car for off road use - maybe a buggy. To get a decent brushless one I would be looking at £250+ at a minimum for everything including spares and batteries etc.

I thought to myself that I don’t use my tt-02 much now as I have the Mission FT which is a much better driving car. So why not turn it into a buggy (tt-02b)?

It already has some nice hop ups so I set about finding out what I need to convert it.

The tt-02 platform is pretty much the same for the touring car and the buggy apart from the arms and the shocks/towers and a few other minor differences. I also chose to upgrade a few bits like the independent suspension pin sets rather than using the U shaped pin to hold the lower arms on.

Complete parts list for conversion + hop ups:

There is enough stuff there to bump it up to tt-02BR spec.

I will be using my trusty Hobbywing Max10 3300kv Gen 1 system to power the car. This can run on 2s or 3s and should provide nice performance.

Out come the old parts:

Arms and hubs off - the rest of the car is the same as the buggy version.

I gave all the bearings a thorough soak in cleaner spray as they were filthy.

Motor/ESC swapped and posts/towers installed - servo and receiver can stay.

Now to begin putting the new arms on - they would normally be connected by a simple U shaped pin. After doing some homework I found that under stress they are quite easily bent so I decided to go for a set of uprated pins and metal holders for the front and the rear.

This meant that I had to mount a front bumper set up on the rear also.

As you can see the pins are a hop up over the kit standard parts.

Now to fit the hubs on the front and rear. I went for the hop up aluminium ones from Fastrax to add strength as I intend to really bash this car.

Probably the most awkward bit of the build - setting the turnbuckles to the correct lengths. The FTX ones are very cheap and nice and strong over the kit standard un-adjustable ones.

I did find I had to cut them down slightly in order to fit correctly. The Vantage ones are used for the upper arms on the front and rear of the car, and the longer Carnage ones are for the steering arms. The drive shafts can now be fitted once the arms have all been adjusted to the correct lengths.

Now for the shocks - I found some really good quality Fastrax ones. Full metal, and oil filled, they are an absolute bargain.

Some shock oil left over from the Schumacher build.

Electronics all in - now to test fit the body.

Final job required is a bit of painting (I hate this part).

My usual poor quality paint job, but it’s a basher so we don’t care.