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Peterbilt fire truck DD powered


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I have a few unfinished builds here but I am starting another one. The fire truck by Revell of Germany was not my dream truck at first. But when I found that the real pumper has 8V Detroit Diesel under the hood coupled to Allison automatic and that something has to be done with the sirenes on the bumper to fully open the hood, my interest grew dramatically. This picture was my starting point.   

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The photo reveals the turbo charged 8V Detroit Diesel and also a hinged sirenes plate on the bumper. Another important Picture is this.

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This shows a shifting tower instead of a regular gear stick in the cab, hence the automatic transmission. I have to thank the guys who answered my question here on the forum because I had no idea what the shifting tower was good for.

Now, where do I take the correct engine and transmission? I stole the engine from the GMC Astro kit and copied the Allison automatic from the Super Boss kit. I took one of the twin turbos from the Cummins engine in the fire truck kit and added it to the top of the Detroit 8V.

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Even though the transmission will not be visible at all on the model, I couldn´t help and added a few details on it. Here it is with the original Super Boss plain Jane.

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Then I worked on the fold-down plate with sirenes. I scratch bulit a piano hinge and surprisingly it works quite well.

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So, those are the major changes that I did with the kit. I plan to change some more details but more about them later. This is all for now.

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5 hours ago, truckabilly said:

Even though the transmission will not be visible at all on the model, I couldn´t help and added a few details on it. Here it is with the original Super Boss plain Jane.

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"Added a few details" ???  Nice detail work and clever idea using the piano hinge to fix a kit design flaw!

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Thank you for your interest. Now, let´s turn to the cab. Since there is no sun visor on the real cab, I had to fill in the upper corners of the model cab. Two pieces of plastic and a litttle putty did the job. No big deal.

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You can also see a preparation for the door hinges. Revell has it´s own system of hinges  but that´s not too realistic. I mean the molded-on piano hinges which are too thick for this scale. I ripped them off and made me a pair of functional piano hinges out of a thin aluminium sheet. Similar to the one I have made for the sirenes plate.

The Revell hood ommits all the inside details. I added the reinforcing structure to the inside walls and top of the hood. I would have been more careful with this step if I knew  then what I know now. There is a flattened  exhaust pipe under the hood that goes around the frame rail. Of course, in the later stage of the progress, the pipe got in collision with the hood rib. All painted already, I had to use a file and sand paper to make those parts thinner and paint it all again.  How did I get the knowledge about the flattened pipe?  It came from this video:

The video confirms the fold-down plate on the bumper and it also shows a lot of engine  and engine compartment details. I am really thankful to Railnwings for uploading this video. It helped me a lot. 

This is my hood modification.

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The business end of the truck consists (besises other things) of a central box and two side boxes. I am not sure if I understood the instructions well but the only contact surface between the main box and the sides seemed to be a tiny longitual rib. That couldn´t be true  so I added a spacer on each side. The spacers increased the surface for the glue application and they helped with the geometry too.  The blue oval marks the rib that was supposed to hold the big bulky parts together. That doesn´t seem like a lot, does it?

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So, I added the spacers....

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Now, let´s get back to the front end again. This is the Detroit Diesel installed in frame with the radiator and exhaust piping.  Jeff Bulmer said "green leaker". I like that moniker  but I painted my engine grey as it is the shade that I see in the very first picture of this thread.

The radiator in the model is actually upside down. It was the only way I could get the centre of the fan wheel match the position of the engine pulley.

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 All for now. Thanks for watching.

Edited by truckabilly
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Thanks a lot, guys. I did  not use the original valve covers even though they wear the "Detroit Diesel" sign. I needed the newer square design covers but I did not have them. So, I scratch built them. But the lettering was beyond my abilities. Also the altenartor belt cover shoul probably not be there at all, since it is a conventional truck. But those are the kind of  details that come to my mind usually too late. Anyway, these are the major parts fresh out of the booth.

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I cut off a hole to the RH side door. I don´t know why RoG ommits the peep window in the passanger door.  Another  strange RoG invention is the tires. Some of their tires are of correct shape but Peterbilt kits especially have oddly shaped tires. As if they were retreaded. The tread is much too narrow compared to the width of the tire. I just don´t like them but I don´t have any other to replace them. So, I robbed another kit to have decent tires for this model. But I wanted to spare some so I left the strange ones on the inside duals. The pumper body will hide them.

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I made a few changes inside the cab. I scratch built the seat bases and replaced the ribbed covers that hide the seat base structure. I added 3-point non-retractable belts to the seats. Another scratch built items are the rubber mats, a fire extinguisher, the shift-tower, the console with the sun shades and a fan. I used the kit decal for the instrument panel. The passanger side of the dash board  is hand painted.

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I trimmed the door opening with BMF and you can see my piano hinge ready for the door. The two-piece  windshield doesn´t fit very well and the central column is too wide but I din´t have a nerve to fix it. Stay tuned.

 

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Thank you very much. I applied all the decals to the cab and pumper body. When working with decals I always use tensioning  liquids. Never had any problem with that. But this time the tensol liquid has ruined the black control panel. The black color of the decal dissolved with the scales. One of them lost the readings completely, some other lost the white shine. There is no way to repair that, except getting a new decal. But I don´t have any spare, so I left it damaged. I only added rims to the scales.

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Besides the decals I also added the chrome strips and fake piano hinges. These are not included in the kit.

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The big red lamps are painted with Tamyia transparent color while the white lamps are painted with an ordinery white. The kit beacons are empty, so I filled them with scratch bulit lights.

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CTM offers a set of PE parts for Peterbilts 1/25 by Revell AG but I haven´t bought it yet. For the grill I used their 1/24  mesh for Italeri Peterbilts . I had a few test pieces and these were without the nickel layer, just natural brass color. I painted the whole mesh with the Molotow Chrome marker. I didn´t transfer the liquid to an air brush, I painted it straight with the marker tip. The mesh surrounding wears the kit chrome.

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I think that´s it before Christmas. Have a nice holiday, Merry Christmas everyone.

 

 

 

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Here  is a few pictures of the pumper with the cab and body resting on the chassis. The cab doors are in place and they work fine.

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The hoses in the kit are plastic strips which I don´t find convincing. I was thinking of shoe laces but these have a textile pattern too rough for this scale. So, I bought this elastic band rubber and laid it zig-zag like the real hoses are laid. In order to stiffen the hose blocks I spaced each layer  with the Evergreen stripe.

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This  is how the hoses look when loaded on the truck. They are not painted yet though.

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The ladder is on too. I added some details like pulleys and a line. The line is metallic but that´s probably a mistake. I think an ordinary rope should be there instead. But it´s too late to fix it.

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By the way, if you see the cab and hood being darker than the pumper body, that´s on purpose. Maybe it´s just a light and shade  effect on this picture but the cab here seems to be a bit darker than the rest od the truck. OK, it´s probbaly overdone on my model but I still think that it brings more life to the build. Like a replaced part if you know what I mean.

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Thanks for looking.

 

 

 

 

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Now that turned out spectacular. I need to research which RoG kit this is as I wouldn’t mind adding one to my collection. Also, i’ll have to grab Molotow Chrome paint as it matches the kit chrome well. I’m new to car models as i’ve never needed to paint chrome to fighter jets. ?

Anyway, great work all around. ??

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2 hours ago, youngtiger1 said:

Now that turned out spectacular. I need to research which RoG kit this is as I wouldn’t mind adding one to my collection. Also, i’ll have to grab Molotow Chrome paint as it matches the kit chrome well. I’m new to car models as i’ve never needed to paint chrome to fighter jets. ?

Anyway, great work all around. ??

Thanks Mike. Remember that not everything that shines on a truck is actual chrome. Sometimes it´s polished aluminium, sometimes stainlesss steel. This old Peterbilt pumper is a perfect example of the diffferences between the various metallic surfaces. If you take a closer look at the photos you find it yourself.  I would post a link to the original Klaus Lassen site but it doesn´t work the way it used to. I can´t locate the pics no more. Here are some of them from my archive. Credit goes to the author. I don´t remember his name and I think he´d passed away.

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You have to check the chrome sprues carefully. Sometimes the chrome layer covers the flaws like scratches or debris. I usually strip the original chrome off and after cleaning or filling the parts I replace it with metallic colors. In this case I left the original kit chrome on the grill surround, the bumper, the mirrors, the wheels and maybe some small items. The rest is either rechromed with Alclad chrome paint or polished aluminium paint. Or the Molotow chrome marker. The marker chrome looks great when freshly painted but then it fades a little. The surface must be perfectly prepared. You´d better test it first off the model.

 

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Hello Jaroslav,

Thank you for sharing those photos and tips. I was not thinking about aluminum and stainless steel with chrome. Those too are elements found on big trucks and fire trucks. I need to learn all I can about polishing paints and these elements. Most my modeling has been done building armor or jets and you don’t see much of these polished. 

Btw, I wanted to complement you on the hoses. You are right about shoe laces being not looking right. Your solution seems much better to my eye.??

May I ask, what kit number was this Peterbilt fire truck? TIA

Mike

Edited by youngtiger1
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