Custombilt 379

[Sergey]

Hi, dear friends.

I'm new here, but would like to share with my latest project progress.

Long time before (when I was buildind my "Can Do" Wrecker) I wanted to create Texas Show Truck. Painting scheme will be like this:

The sleeper unit will be like on this photo:

I took Italeri's Peterbilt 378 as a base.

Of course the chassis has to be extended. White styrene pieces serves as extra frame piece. Clear plastic strips - are strengthening, glued inside:

Clamps and level for gluening:

I plan to lower the suspension. For this purpose I cloned front springs to have possibility to modify them. As you can see I shave down some spring:

Here I casted front bracket deepening with resin:

Now I can file down front suspension area under the frame about 1 - 1,5мм, and lower the chassis a bit more:

I do the same with rear suspension. Original on the left, casting wint resin in the center, filed down on the right:

Finally I made air balloons for front suspension. With it I can now increase front axle load (resin hood):

Feel free to ask questions.

Edited November 21, 2018 by Sergey

[highway]

Hello from the USA, Sergey! I'm happy to see that, even though you're from Russia, you have fine taste for our American trucks! Here's a couple websites that may help you in building your sleeper:

http://legacysleepers.com/

http://trucksleeper.com/

They are both companies here in the states that build custom sleepers and have nice pictures of both the outside and inside of the sleepers. I found them while researching my latest project. Here's a couple pictures of mine:

And here it is with some primer on it and the livestock trailer it will be pulling:

I look forward to watching your build!

[Sergey]

Thanks, Matthew. North American Trucks is my favorite subject.

As the truck will sit lower, we need shorter air balloones ar rear. So I cut off the ones of "Can Do" wrecker spare frame and made two items. And again I copyed the rest. Black balloon on the picture is Italeri's original:

Extra crossmembers for the frame:

I decide to make a "Taylor wing" (chromed spoiler on the sleeper rooth) for my Show Truck. It should looks like here:

First I made the blank from resin:

Long time I shaped it with file and sand paper:

Drilled holes for rivets:

And finally Ruber mould was made just in case (for future projects):

All I left is to made etched side (tear drop like) boards and fastening.

Edited November 21, 2018 by Sergey

[macs_rock]

Looks like this is gonna be a great truck! I can't wait to see it.

[Porky]

Hello, Great work on your truck. Alot of attention to detail, very nice the way you lowered the suspension. I will stay tuned to your build and can't wait to see your truck finished.

[Jim B]

That's really nice. I'm diggin' the wing. What are you going to use to paint it? Will you be using Alclad, or something like that?

спасибо

Edited March 24, 2010 by Jim B

[Smart-Resins]

Not always a truck fan. However you have a great plan and a good eye for detail! This will turn out terrific I am sure! Jody

[Sergey]

Thank you, guys for your coments.

2 JimB: Yes, Jim. I will use Alclad for the wing and many other parts.

P.S. You know Russian.

[Jim B]

Thanks for the info.

I know very little Russian, but my Russian & Moldovan dance instructors are sort of teaching me. I'm trying, but it's not easy.

[SpreadAxle]

You've done some great work thus far. I like the scratchbuilt work.

[Tony Bryan]

Sergy

Very nice choice of truck and colour scheme,

there is a few good idea's you are sharing here, especially they way you have lowered the kit to look the same,

and the way you made your wing, very clever

will defiantely be watching this one

[Sergey]

2 FlatbedKW & Tony Bryan: Thank you, fellows for your interest.

[studioman3]

Sergy,

This looks great so far, Your work is very impressive, thanks for showing us how you are making modifications. Keep us posted.

Tim

[Old Albion]

Sergey,

Very nice work. I like your attention to detail. Using an empty tea tin is a novel idea for making the wing. Something I would never have thought of. I will keep an eye on this one for progress.

Dave

[Sergey]

Sergey,

Very nice work. I like your attention to detail. Using an empty tea tin is a novel idea for making the wing. Something I would never have thought of. I will keep an eye on this one for progress.

Dave

Dave, be carefull with this tip. The tin becames very hot, when resin harden in it.

Edited March 29, 2010 by Sergey

[Tony Bryan]

Dave, be carefull with this tip. The tin becames very hot, when resin harden in it.

Cans are great for a lot of things, so here is another tip, the underside of a spray can has a nice concave shape, depending on the can of course, but you can use this for tank ends, fill it with resin and slide it out, cast it in rubber, then slide your pipe in, pour the resin in the centre.... tank ends, if you use aluminium tube the resin will release so you can do 2 ends........ and then if you get the right can, you can make ribbed guards out of them as well, this works for 1/16th better than the smaller scales

[Kostas Parchas]

Nice one!!!

Amazing work so far!

Keep the good work coming and please keep us posted!!!

Kostas.

[Sergey]

I worked a little with rear suspension. The altered suspension above. The original - below:

Altered and stock suspension for comparison:

New axle supported by three 1,5mm styrene strips. Resin air-bags will be sanded in high a little more.

By the way, how do you think: new (chromed) U-bolts 0,75mm are thick enough? Stock plastic U-bolts are 1,2mm thick.[/

Edited November 21, 2018 by Sergey

[Tony Bryan]

Hi Sergey

With trimming the control arms on this your gain for dropping the suspension was 4.5mm? are the airbags that you have cast, are the the same size height wise as the orginal bags?

How many scale inches where you looking at dropping the whole truck?

I also think the new chrome bolts look more in scale the the injected ones

Look forward to more updates

[Sergey]

Hi Sergey

With trimming the control arms on this your gain for dropping the suspension was 4.5mm?

Yes, approximately.

are the airbags that you have cast, are the the same size height wise as the orginal bags? How many scale inches where you looking at dropping the whole truck?

The originals are 12mm high, my own casted are 11mm high, but I will lower them accordingly.

I hope to lower the truck about 4 - 5 inches. Is that O-key?

Tony, thank you for your thoughts.

[Tony Bryan]

Yes, approximately.

The originals are 12mm high, my own casted are 11mm high, but I will lower them accordingly.

I hope to lower the truck about 4 - 5 inches. Is that O-key?

Tony, thank you for your thoughts.

Sergey

Dropping a truck like this 4-5 inches is ok, and really doesn't seem that much, the truck that I am building in 1/16th has been dropped 16 inches

efectively it is 16 inches when parked, but raises 5 inches when driving, so therefore it has a dropped height of 11 inches from standard

The set up is much the same as yours, just a little lower, my theory was to use the peterbilt rear on the KW, but turn the bags and shocks to the outside to give the illusion of a neway rear end, in theory this should work, it is yet to be proven if it will, I will be starting the suspension next week, it still may turn out that new arms may still have to be made and the various other parts to go with it

I like your idea of trimming away, the underside of the arms, and it appears that you have trimmed a little off the axles,

Really it doesn't matter how much you have dropped this truck, it will still look great with the paint that you have chosen, so keep up the good work, I am looking forward to your next update

[Sergey]

Hello, friends.

Here are 379's resin hood and single headlights form Bobby Griffen:

Here I decided to reinforce middle axle, as Italeri's one (see above one) are hollow. I'd rather used some steel rod or tube, but couldn't find suitable one. So AMT's sprue was used for solid axle.

When I had built "Can Do" wrecker, I noticed "Peterbilt" logo on rear axle brackets, which doesn't exist on Italeri's one:

To copy that I used technique recently described by one of the AF-forum members. Here are materials needed:

Take a piece of foil and fix it over the detail to copy:

Using rounded toothpick smoothing the foil down. Very small details (my case) can be picked out with sharp end of toothpick later:

Our mould:

Casting the resin :

Here are our billets after an hour:

A little sanding from back side and we have a logo. It turned out so thin, that can be glued on curve surface:

Now I'm asking my self: to glue the logo on axle bracket or on air balloon?

Actually the logo is so small (about 3mm whide), that details are hard to see (and hard to reproduce in fact) Even in "Macro" I couldn't focus my camera well.

Feel free to ask questiones.

Edited November 21, 2018 by Sergey

[mercer01]

The logo should be on the bracket, not the airbag. I've never seen a Peterbilt logo on an airbag as they are usually made by different companies such as Firestone.

[mackinac359]

The airbags used to have the logo on them.

Tim

The logo should be on the bracket, not the airbag. I've never seen a Peterbilt logo on an airbag as they are usually made by different companies such as Firestone.

[Sergey]

Thank you, David & Tim.

Let's continue

I was have to lengthen the cardan shaft. The best thing found was brass tube 4mm.

There is original cardan shaft on top, front half of cardan in the middle and rear half - below. As the shaft was lengthen and Angle of slope changed, I was have to make a crosspiece movable to simplify the assembling.

It is great feature, but time consuming.

Edited November 21, 2018 by Sergey