I ordered my Bearings and got them coming and I purchased a set of aluminum rims for a 1/10 touring car to see if they fit the tires that came with the High Lift. They did! Well I could not get a good mental picture of how these wheels were going to look on this truck, so I decided to mach it up. I found some left over bearings that I had bought as extras from my TXT-1, they were just enough and just the correct size to use in the gears inside the tranny! So at least I will not have to disassemble that part later!  I will assemble only the necessary pieces to get a good mental image of how the wheels and tires will look on the truck. Below are pics of the mach up!
After getting the kit mocked up to this stage I began noticing little things about it. First off, this is not a re-make of the old Juggernaut body. It is close and probably started out from the original mold, but this body is different. The wheel well openings are not the same, neither is the front bumper. Some other things I noticed about the kit is how well it sizes up scale wise, though it is not quit 1/10 scale. It is actual closer to 1/12th scale. I got to measuring the wheels against the body and some other areas on the truck and this thing is pretty close to scale wise in allot of areas. The wheels and tires, though at first I felt were ridiculously to small for this truck, actually scale out to be about 39" tall rollers, which could be fit under a real Ford F350 with a 10" lift. Lift wise this kit has gobs of potential. You can build the springs to add another 2" of lift scale wise,by putting the top most leaf under the main leaf and then bolting in all the other leafs from biggest to smallest after it. Watch how much lift that gives your truck! The wheels  will look way to small then.	Speaking of wheels. I thought I would just throw a set of 2.2's off one of crawlers on  this thing! Well I did, and it really looked DUMB! The tires scaled out way to big, as did the rims. It did not look cool even! You would really need to add a bunch more lift to the suspension, and probably the body, to get the truck to look correct with 2.2's under it. And even then it still would not be scale looking. I went back to my picture archive and studied Bruisers with Jugg bodies on them. After studying them it was apparent they did  not look correct scale wise with the wheels. Now my Bruiser on the other hand with the Hilux body on it does look to scale. Why is this? Well actual size wise the Bruiser and this High Lift body are close to the same size, and width dimensionally, but in reality, the Hilux was a mini truck, so the answer became apparent after the fact. The High Lift needs a tire that scale wise would be 44"s tall. The tires that are on it are comparable to say a Procomp 40/13.5R20
I decided to go ahead and shoot some paint on the body while I was waiting on my ball bearings to arrive. I tried Tamiya's Acrylic paints for the first time on this model. I sprayed the entire body in Chrome Silver first. Then masked off the bottom portion and sprayed several coats of Clear Blue. The lights in my garage really make the color look brighter than it actually is. The blue is only a shade lighter than the blue of the box art truck. I added the lower flame decals, and pinstripes to separate the two tone paint scheme, and then laid down 3 coats of Tamiya clear. I stopped at three because the humidity that night caused the clear to blush and I did not want to risk ruining the paint job. I waited 3 days then lightly scuffed the body down and applied about 5 more coats of clear. Other than surface dirt on the upwards surfaces, the paint job turned out ok. I like the Tamiya paint but I can see I will have a mild learning curve before I can really gain the full potential of this paint system. In between Painting my ball bearings arrived.

	I think I am going to make a bull bar for the front of the truck. I need to make a game plan on how to do it. I know I want it to be stainless steel, and be a bolt on. I am also going to make a trailer hitch and a trailer. So check back for updates on that!
The stock steering set up on the High Lift's are, well to put it politely, very inadequate. It would steer more to right than it would the left! This always bugged me. So I was needing the Hitec HS5645MG Servo I had in my Lift so I could use it on my K5 project. So while I had the Lift apart, I decided to mod the steering. The two JR servos I am installing are not as strong as the two Hitecs I removed, but they will do the job. I mounted the two servos side by side on the front servo mount. I then cut down a white nylon stock 4 blade servo horn for the shift servo. ( Note: this mod may not work for those who can not adjust travel % on there TX. ) I cut the horn to clear the steering servo saver. I had to rotate the servo saver to face the front of the truck.	Next I swapped steering knuckles from left to right and put the steering arms facing the front of the truck. I put new rod ends on the steering tie rod and lowered the tie rod  under the steering arms. Next I swapped the stock rod end nut and ball stud and installed only one of them on the right side of the truck on top of the steering arm. I then shortened the hooked drag link by about an inch, and rethreaded the end with a 3mm die. I installed the stock rod end and installed drag link on the truck. This made an awesome difference in steering performance. I miss my HS5645MG though! : (  This tightens up the steering radius and really helps if you have your front diff locked. It is still not a touring car, but it doesn't steer like a dump truck now!
Well I tested my skids on the rocks and got hung up on them a couple of times. Well they do work to keep my axles from getting banged up, but....I want more ground clearance. So I started on the second generation of the concept. Really the only change is from the skid to the outer axles ends. As you can see I tucked the truss bar in much closer to the sides of the diff, and brought the support beams more parallel to the axles, butt still slightly triangulated for lateral support. Then I narrowed up the skid plate slightly and welded it on.
Well I started on a new steering drag link tonight. This is a prototype to test the concept. I still do not care for the way it looks. I am going to buy an aluminum servo horn for the JR servo I have on the truck, then redo the link again and try to make it more cosmetically pleasing. I would like it to be more scale in appearance, and still be functional. The real truck pulls from the drivers side to the passenger side front wheel. Mine will be the opposite. Unless I can figure our a way to make it pull from the drivers side. Once I get the aluminum servo horn I plan on lowering the mount off it so the drag link drop will be shorter. I'm hoping this will help the appearance of the link.
	I tried raising the link mount on the steering knuckle up so the link would be straight from the servo horn and above the spring. When the servo was activated it actually flexed the knuckle before it moved started to turn the wheels. I was afraid it would break the steering arm on the knuckle, so I made this dropped link to test it. I will try it out in dirt and on some rocks as soon as I get a chance. I will let you know how it works.