Custom GMade Sawback Land Rover Defender Completed Build

It’s been a couple months of work, but the custom Gmade Sawback turned Land Rover Defender is now complete. I started with a used Gmade Sawback that was already built and running and converted it to fit an RC4WD D90 body from their Gelande II kit that I bought off of RC Crawler Workbench. The wheel base of the Gmade had to be reduce by 11mm to line up how I wanted it to fit. This meant moving the axles by inverting the very front and rear shackles and then moving the 4 interior leaf spring mounts down one screw hole. Currently I only have one of 2 screws in those mounts and they could move. I’m going to try to have them welded in place in the future.

Once the axles were moved, I had to cut the drive shafts to shorten them and cut the rear part of the frame off to fit inside the body. I swapped the placement of the battery and the electronics, so the battery is now in the front sitting on top of the old receiver box and the ESC and Receiver are now on a piece of styrene that I mounted to the original battery mounts. I used an axial battery tray on an piece of styrene when I moved it to the front. The original receiver box had to be cut to allow for the larger waterproof Savox SW0231MG servo I installed.

Speaking of waterproof, I swapped out the ESC with a 60A Hobbywing Quicrun 1060 and changed the motor to a Novak TerraClaw 55T brushed motor, then dipped my receiver in Plasti Dip to make sure the truck could handle water.

The body is mounted using rare earth magnets - 2 in the rear that mount to the metal shock mounts and 1 in the front to a 2x4 joist hanger I hacked together in the front. I installed led headlights and tail lights, but will probably look for a more robust option in the future. I have a roof rack / rear ladder combo coming in from China that will eventually be installed, but the main part of the build is now complete.

Let me know what you think and feel free to ask any questions you may have about the build.


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