Wilkerson Customs - Search Videos

Nate Wilkerson on Instagram: "Chassis Pt 4: How to design a tube chassis in SolidWorks for off-road racing. This video goes into: -Making anchor points for the first arcs of the 3D sketch. -Ensuring room for suspension cycling around the mid-mounted engine while retaining the egg shape for strength -Construction geometry for defining and constraining arcs in 3D sketches, avoiding unconstrained “blue lines”. Full video link in bio! #chassisdesign #tubechassis #3dmodeling #caddesign #engineering #

147.3K views10 months ago

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Nate Wilkerson | Ever wondered how to model a tank track that actually moves with the suspension in SolidWorks? 🤯🛠️ In this tutorial, I’m showing you the... | Instagram

13.8K views3 months ago

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Nate Wilkerson on Instagram: "I’m launching a Skool community for mastering SolidWorks vehicle design and CAD! FREE ACCESS gets you: • 7+ hours of Design Docuseries walking through my custom off-road vehicle design process. • Access to our Community Feed to share your builds. • Access to the Ask Section for direct help with your design roadblocks—it’s way better than DMs! $5/Month Upgrade: Unlock the full Classroom Tutorials with detailed, real-time SolidWorks lessons. This is professional tutor

10K views5 months ago

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Nate Wilkerson on Instagram: "Building the upper 4-link suspension for our AWD trophy truck! Threw in a couple of my favorite SolidWorks design tricks for anyone interested in the process. Since McMaster didn’t have a big enough weld nut, in this design I’m creating a custom one with the revolve feature in SolidWorks. The 4-link also uses a left-hand and right-hand thread setup, a trick that allows for quick length adjustments by simply rotating the tube. With this suspension’s massive articulat

12.2K views9 months ago

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Nate Wilkerson on Instagram: "Chassis Pt 10: Putting it all in place This clip shows my SolidWorks trick: mirroring body parts instead of sketches to avoid over-constrained messes in tube chassis designs. The goal is a STEP file export for review, rebuilding with correct coping for perfect CNC cuts, then tack welding in a fixture. This initial design is one big part file due to complex front and rear independent suspension, ensuring proper cycling and no tube interference. SolidWorks isn’t ideal

8.1K views10 months ago

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Nate Wilkerson on Instagram: "This quick SolidWorks tutorial breaks down how the Loft feature really works—and how Guide Curves are the secret to clean, controlled shapes. A loft blends between two (or more) closed profiles on different planes, but without guidance it can bulge and wander in ways you didn’t intend. The fix? Guide Curves. Think of them as rails that tell the loft exactly how to travel from one profile to the next. Sketch one (or more) 2D or 3D curves that intersect both profiles,

3.4K views4 months ago

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Nate Wilkerson on Instagram: "Big tubes, fewer pieces, faster progress 🙌🏻 I locked in 2-inch tube with a 0.120” wall for the entire chassis—strong enough that I can simplify the layout and use way less tube than past builds (looking at you, rock bouncer). Once the structure was dialed on one side, mirroring everything sped things up a lot. Up front, the bulkhead gets clean, triangulated tube work to tie the hood arcs straight into the main structure for extra stiffness where it counts. And bon

22.4K views4 months ago

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Nate Wilkerson on Instagram: "Kicking off the chassis tube work with a profile sketch that locks in that unmistakable Porsche 911 silhouette. Doing this right inside the main assembly lets me carry the shape cleanly into every chassis part that follows. From helmet clearance and seat position to engine space and pedal room, every inch matters. The goal? A clean, continuous roof hoop bent in one smooth arc on the tube roller—no breaks, no guesses—just pure, iconic 911 lines shaping the whole car.

242.7K views4 months ago

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14.4K views4 months ago

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Nate Wilkerson on Instagram: "Laying out the rear suspension the same way I always do—starting with the geometry. Quick sketches → confirm dimensions → then build parts. The big players here are total shock length and the distance from the bottom-out plane to the main pivot. This time I’m finally doing the thing I’ve been wanting to try forever: push rod suspension with inboard shocks and a central pivot arm. 🤘 The vertical line you see is the pivot, and those angled horizontals are the push ro

12.4K views6 months ago

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Nate Wilkerson on Instagram: "Designing a high-speed track system isn’t just about traction—it’s a massive geometry puzzle. 🧩✨ For the Half-Track project, I’m pulling inspiration from the legendary Howe & Howe Ripsaw. This isn’t a slow-moving bulldozer; it’s an off-road beast designed for long-travel performance. The Engineering Challenge: 1️⃣ Massive Travel: I’m aiming for 22 inches of total wheel travel (12” up, 10” down). On a vehicle this size, that’s the sweet spot for soaking up terrain w

10.2K views3 months ago

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Nate Wilkerson | Rear Pushrod Secret? 🤐 Cutting Unsprung Mass Unsprung mass is the enemy of traction. Here is how I used pushrod geometry to solve it on... | Instagram

4.2K views3 months ago

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Nate Wilkerson on Instagram: "Starting the chassis from the inside out 👀 Front bulkhead is up first—locking in the lower control arm mounts and building outward from there. This whole piece is cut from simple 1/4” 4130 chromoly plate, but it’s doing a LOT of work: tying together upper + lower control arm pivots, the center diff, and the steering brackets… all inside some seriously tight packaging. Plate steel was the only way to make it fit, with a few spacer brackets added to fine-tune hardwar

18.6K views4 months ago

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Nate Wilkerson on Instagram: "Suspension articulation. The Pushrod Pivot Arms are attached to an integrated torsion sway bar. It connects the two sides of the suspension together in a really rigid way, which increases roll stability. #pushrod #midtravel #suspension #solidworks"

844.5K views5 months ago

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Nate Wilkerson on Instagram: "Chassis Build: Side Profile & Bridge Pt 2. A major challenge is building a bridge to connect the cabin to the spare tires while clearing the solid axle’s 50 inches of travel. This is the only part of the chassis with complex bends. Unlike the Ultra4 where the tube work was the art, this time the goal is a simple, strong, and easy-to-fab chassis that will be hidden by the bodywork! #chassisdesign #solidworks #caddesign #trophytruck #sideprofile #chassis #benttube #fa

13K views7 months ago

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Nate Wilkerson on Instagram: "12 inches of travel. Push rod. No compromises. For the Rally Exo Cart, I designed a front push rod suspension that delivers 12” of travel while keeping the center of gravity low — borrowing heavily from road racing and high-speed desert tech. This isn’t your typical off-road setup 👇 🔁 Force translation: A short tie rod links the lower control arm to an angled bellcrank, converting vertical wheel travel into fore-aft force to actuate the King piggyback shocks. ⚖️ H

5.4K views3 months ago

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Nate Wilkerson | Front push bar coming together 💪 Going big on the bumper and wrapping it around the wheels—but first things first: tires go to full... | Instagram

6.3K views4 months ago

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Nate Wilkerson on Instagram: "Chassis Tube-work Pt 3.: Front Chassis Working on the front chassis tube-work. Unlike the back, this part is full of design constraints, so I’m building it from a central spine with ribs that tie everything together. The front winch serves as an initial anchor point, though that will likely change for a traditional trophy truck front bumper later. The biggest challenge was building around the steering box to avoid any interference, while using the sway bar as a key

11.9K views7 months ago

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Nate Wilkerson on Instagram: "Chassis Tube-work Pt 1.: Rear Chassis When designing a chassis, I don’t always start front-to-back. I start with the most important structural members, like the rear shock mounts, and work outwards. This allowed me to easily build the rear chassis, creating a simple cage for the engine that still allows for removal from the top. #chassisdesign #trophytruck #solidworks #caddesign #rearsuspension #tubework #rollcage #chromoly #fabrication #engineering #offroad #design

14.8K views7 months ago

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Nate Wilkerson on Instagram: "Working on the trophy truck chassis! I always start with the profiles first—the bottom and side views—to project everything into 3D space. The base of the frame is 3-inch square tube with 1/4-inch wall thickness. This is oversized to make the roll cage tie-ins much easier, as you can fully weld 2-inch round tube onto a 3-inch square tube. I’m using the SolidWorks Weldment feature to create the base and engine extension. The goal is a completely flat and smooth under

12.8K views7 months ago

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Nate Wilkerson on Instagram: "Chassis Tube-work Pt 5: Mid-Chassis The biggest constraint was ensuring the wheel has enough room at full lock AND full compression to not crash into the cage—a best practice to design for! #chassisdesign #solidworks #caddesign #tubework #rollcage #chromoly #fabrication #engineering #offroad #designbuild #vehiclebuild #customtruck #prerunner #weld #welding #chassis #midengine #solidworkstips #engineeringdesign"

24.8K views7 months ago

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Nate Wilkerson on Instagram: "One spring. Both wheels. Big brain suspension. This is a heave spring — a single spring supporting the entire front of the vehicle. By separating spring duties from the left and right suspension pivots, this setup decouples spring harmonics, keeping the front end calm, predictable, and planted. It also happens to be a wild pushrod suspension packed into an absurdly tight space. Would you run a heave spring up front? 👇 #solidworks #vehicledesign #pushrodsuspension #

439.3K views3 months ago

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Nate Wilkerson on Instagram: "Is the secret to better car design... virtual clay? 🎨🏎️ Podcast miniseries: Part 5 of 6 We’re diving into the “blind spot” of 3D modeling: organic surfacing. While most of our time is spent on the engineering side—suspension geometry, chassis triangulation, and physics—the “beauty” side of design is a completely different animal. Traditionally, car designers used massive tables of clay to sculpt shapes by hand. Why? Because you can walk around it, touch it, and se

4.1K views3 months ago

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Nate Wilkerson on Instagram: "Playing around with the wheel design 🛞 SolidWorks tutorials coming soon on @skool_com Updates will be found in our story 🙌🏻"

15.2K views6 months ago

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Nate Wilkerson on Instagram: "This tutorial walks through designing a high-capacity chopper fuel tank inspired by Billy Lane ( @choppers.inc ) and modern adventure bikes—built entirely from simple, intentional geometry in SolidWorks. No fancy surfacing, just clean thinking. The aggressive shape starts as a basic bi-directional boss wrapped around the frame tubes. From there, everything is sculpted using planar cuts off the side, top, and front reference planes. By letting the tank drop down and

6.3K views3 months ago

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Nate Wilkerson on Instagram: "The Y-arm suspension design is taking shape I’m using a spherical bearing on the inboard side to make the mounting simple, as it can sit vertically on the chassis. The outboard side gets a bushing that will mount at an angle. The next step is creating the mounting plates for these bearings. I’m using a shark fin motif—the same aggressive style I used on the trophy truck shock mounts—to keep the design consistent. This plate has to be extremely strong because the arm

18.1K views6 months ago

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Nate Wilkerson on Instagram: "This entire build was a study in scaling up a trophy truck by 50%, allowing for a four-seat configuration, mid-engine drivetrain, and a wicked cage with an X-style roof, flying-W on the B-pillar, and cool sheet metal work for the shock and 4-link mounts! What do you guys think? Do you ever dream of pushing design boundaries? #awdtt #trophytruck #chassis #solidworks #caddesign #exhaust #suspension #longtravel #58inch #mickeythompson #offroad #designbuild #vehiclebuil

21.7K views7 months ago

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Nate Wilkerson | Designing the push rod pivot arm has been a wild ride! This little powerhouse links the push rod to the torsion bar and drives the... | Instagram

7.2K views5 months ago

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Nate Wilkerson on Instagram: "Chassis Tube-work Pt 6.: Top & Windshield Tying in the side wall tub to the rear shock mounts and starting on the top of the roll cage! The goal is to have all tubes land perfectly flat on the square tube for strong, clean welds and zero weird coping. The front windshield uses a three-tube design for incredible strength, making the A-pillar three times stronger than a typical cage! The top is a standard X-shape, and the B-pillar is a classic Flying-W configuration,

12.3K views7 months ago

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Nate Wilkerson on Instagram: "Lower control arm design in SolidWorks✨ Taking inspiration from @masonmotorsportsinc We’re designing a unique three-piece assembly: a central machined 4340 steel component, flanked by two billet 7075 aluminum pieces. The machined steel core handles the majority of the load and fixes a weak spot we found in a previous FEA on a similar part. This isn’t your average A-arm—it’s an offset design that looks incredibly cool while being incredibly strong! #trophytruck #soli

13.7K views8 months ago

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