Here’s the third part of our exclusive Pro-Line Pro-2 short course racing truck kit build and review! Just in case you missed them, check out the first article here and Part 2 here!
The Pro-Line Pro-2 short course racing truck has been out for a little while now, but this is the first and ONLY complete build guide you can find anywhere! Read on below to read how the assembly of the front end goes!
The back end of the Pro-2 starts with the shock tower and the camber links.
Once again, I used a power drill on its slowest speed setting (and a very light touch on the trigger) to screw the shock mount bolts in.
The drill and Associated shock mount tool was used to put the 4mm steel camber link turnbuckles into the rod ends.
Slip-joint pliers were used to pinch the rod ends to free up the ball joint movement. Once these are secured in place with screws and bolts, the action will be pretty tight if you don’t do this. Be gentle though, and just do one pinch at a time and check the movement of the ball joint after each pinch.
You don’t want ‘slop’, just easy movement with a little bit of resistance, so the weight of the camber links and suspension parts lets the parts move down on their own. If the movement is super-free, there’s too much space between the metal of the ball joint and the plastic of the rod end, and dust will get in and wear away the plastic even faster than normal.
This is the sort of movement you want to see when the camber links are attached to the shock tower.
Make sure to attach the camber links on the back of the shock tower – they should go on the same side that the heads of the shock mount bolts are on. If you’re looking at the bottom of the shock tower it can be unclear, so use the shock bolts as your guide here.
New page! Here’s where we attach the shock tower to the rear bulkhead, and put the rear body mounts on.
The shock tower attaches in a straightforward manner, with four vertical cap-head bolts. Just make sure the shock tower is mounted properly – the shock mount bolts should be pointed forward.
The rear body mounts are on – holy moly they’re long! But there’s a reason for this – if you want to attach SUV-style bodies, you’ll be happy these are quite long. The Pro-2 kit even includes an extra upper brace to use if you decide to mount a Bronco, Tahoe, Escalade or similar style body.
Of course, if you have no plans to use one of those types of bodies, you can chop the ends off to save a bit of rear weight.
There’s the body mount screw-caps again, the same ones used at the front.
Onto the next page! We’ll be building the drivetrain now. Not much to do here, since the transmission and gear diff are already done and installed, so let’s go!
Screwing on the diff cups is an easy affair – for whatever reason Pro-Line don’t tell you to use any threadlock (or provide any in the kit) but I used blue threadlock on these long setscrews that hold the diff cups in place on the diff shafts.
Putting the driveshafts is simple if you’ve ever build similar CVD-style units. Again, nothing in the instructions about using threadlock, but I used some on the grub screw holding the cross pin in place. I’m not sure the grub screw is even needed, since that silver collar holds it in pretty securely, but I put it in anyway.
And there we are – two completed driveshafts, ready for racing!
Next up: the rear uprights. Like the front, these are held in place with locknuts – M3 in the case of the rear. The arms are again super-sturdy and braced very heavily but also will flex under impact. When accelerating or landing the bracing should keep them from bending, however.
And we’re ready to attach the camber links to the hubs now!
Looking good.
The final steps are to attach rear hex hubs, then the rear bumper and brace.
The rear hex hub is a bit narrower than the front for a track about 3-4mm narrower, but it goes on exactly the same.
Now that funky plastic brace goes walkabout – it’s there purely to help hold the motor mount in position during shipping. Now, it gets tossed aside!
The bumper brace is now attached to the rear bumper in preparation for installing both pieces to the rear end of the chassis.
Now the rear bumper is put on – don’t forget the M3 locknut in step 32…I did until a couple of steps later!
That rear end is looking quite nice, the motor mount plate looks especially nice! And note the milled-out area under the motor!
Reattaching the spur gear cover using the same screws that were already installed is the final step at this stage.
Now we’ve got the back end attached to the chassis, to go with the front end – we’re just waiting on the shocks now!
Of course, we’ve got a video that goes through the steps as well. Check it out:
We’d like to thank everyone at Pro-Line for sending us this review kit – we really have been wanting to check out this truck in person for quite some time, and we’re so happy Pro-Line graciously sent us the Pro-2 to review and share with all you RC Racing TV fans!
There’s more to come – check back on RC Racing TV real soon for more of the Pro-Line Pro-2 kit build and review!
