Chassis build: drivetrains and steering bellcrank

Let's get back to the front to prepare the chassis for the front drivetrain:

The second photo shows the parts ready to be installed onto the chassis. But before that, you may need to precisely identify the parts shown on the first photo, especially if you are rebuilding the chassis: one set of three belongs to the front drivetrain, the other set of three belongs to the rear. It is very important to precisely identify these parts since they determine the front and rear drivetrains toe-in or toe-out angle.

The biggest parts on the right are not a problem since they are strictly identical front and rear. To differentiate the four little parts, have a close look at the upper round segment: it is located more or less close to the edge of the lower stay. The closest to the edge of the part are for the front (on top of the photo) and the furthest are for the rear drivetrain. As a side note, this system to fix the arms (and to set the toe angle) is shared with the TRF201 buggy (or DN-01 chassis).

Before processing with the installation of the front drivetrain arms, the manual recommends to build the steering bellcrank first:

The XV-01 steering bellcrank may not be as perfect as on the TRF201 chassis, but still it is one of the most precise and smooth I ever built (except all direct systems like on Formula 1 chassis of course).

Installing universal shafts requires to slightly change the sequence of steps from the manual, but nothing disturbing here:

So now let's get back to the build of the front drivetrain:

On both uprights (at the center on the first photo), you can notice a small screw on the side: logic dictates they are meant to limit or set the maximum turning angle. Actually, the uprights can't rotate far enough to reach the screws: well, the manual says to use them, I did... but I still wonder why .

Now the arms are placed into the chassis, waiting for the front gearbox:

Now installing the gearbox and then fixing the front bumper:

Now at the rear for about the same process: preparing the arm stays, installing them into the chassis, preparing the arms.

Installing the arms in the chassis, preparing the rear hubs and universal shafts:

I didn't detail the steps for the rear drivetrain assembly because they are about the same as for the front and also because the lack of steering makes things even faster to build. Anyway, here's the result on this first full chassis overview:

How to say that? Shooting these photos makes you feel great.

Actually, you do not touch the chassis until quite far into the build, in particular because building the front and rear systems take quite a time. In fact, I spent about 10 hours building this model before reaching this moment. Of course, shooting so many photos while building takes some time, but the XV-01 is not my M-03 that I can entirely strip down, clean and rebuild in one afternoon . I confess that I enjoyed taking my time building this XV-01 so far, but either way, do not expect to run this chassis the same day you open the box.

Next, installing the belt cover:

As you can see with these details of the cover, the rear pulley is well protected while the front one can't be completely enclosed due to the front gearbox shape. However, the belt is not exposed to direct projections and it is protected from most of the dust. A good advice here is to not overtighten the main cover screws or you'll make the belt rub against it: it needs to be a protection for the belt, not a perfectly sealed system.

At this point, the chassis is almost finished and the manual now recommends to build the dampers. However, I preferred to leave this for a dedicated section further in this article. As of now, we will focus on electronics and on how to fit them into the XV-01 specific chassis layout.