It is. I know the common consensus is that an IS crawler isn't capable.... I think that's BS. Same things apply - weight balance, grip, gearing, COG - I think if you address all of those, you can get some decent performance.

Prepare to see double...


Picked up another roller, this one is a Stampede 4x4. Figured it had some good parts on it, and could raid the deeper ratio diffs and what not for the crawler then use the leftovers for a backyard basher. Win/win! So I ordered a few odds and ends and when it all came in I started tearing it all down.


But not all went to plan. At all. Picked up some steel CVD's on the cheap since I figured I'd have to cut them down for the narrower Telluride suspension. Which I did....and it took off the knurled part inside and made them useless. Ooops. And it turns out the Stampede I got had the same diff gears I already had for some reason, so pretty much my entire plan was shot to hell.


After taking a break and noodling on it a bit, I decided to swap over the entire suspension from the new roller over to the crawler. Wasn't crazy about adding extra width, but I have the CVD's and arms, so may was well put them to good use.


Pretty easy swap, I cleaned them up, lubed the CVD's and bearings on everything bolted right on. I swapped the RC4WD hubs for the narrower ones, so my overall track width is about +20mm. I can live with that.


I was at 49.2/50.8 front/rear balance before doing the swap, so I played around with the turnbuckles a bit. I added aluminum ones out back and went with both steel up front. I didn't measure, but I should be really, really close to a 50/50 balance - not bad at all for a rear motor platform.



The aluminum arms and steel CVD's give it much more heft down low, it feels really nice. Just need some rear light buckets and it's ready to go, I can't wait to get it out and try it on a trail.