Superpeterbilt

Depending on what year dodge you are looking to build, I modified a 57 Dodge for the same Ford race hauler kit. It will be a while before I start it, but I bought the Dodge diecast on ebay and took it apart, added fender flares, and its going to be a race hauler. I took this And turned it into this

Ive been itching to build a competitor for the Peterbilt. Ive been building it in my head for months now and finally had to get to work. This truck will also have twin Allison engines, but this time they will be side-by-side. As a result I needed a wider hood, so I visualized a twin needle nose hood. It took several attempt to get something I was happy with. I chopped an AMT KW cab and used a Revell KW long hood. I used the Aussie KW chassis and stretched it out. As for the rest of the body, I didnt want to do the same thing as the Pete. I came up with a Corvette stingray style rear body. I cut up half of an AMT tanker and quickly got what I was looking for. For the rear fenders I used four Kw front fenders. I widened the frame up front similar to a Mack DM to let the engines sit down in the frame. Heres what I have so far, still a lot of work to do on both. Tell me what ya think. WARNING!! Lots of KW's were harmed during this project

The mould is done and Im casting this weekend. Ill post pics later. Those who are interested can PM me, or Truckbuilder@hymelmts.com

I think hes asking about the 1:1. Ive seen them from 22 ft - all the way to 40ft.

Just got all this in the other day. All sealed. I hate seeing the old department store/flea market price tags on these kits. Theres nothing like dropping $80.00 on one of your grails, and seeing that someone found it at a garage sale for $8.00

Depending on the truck in question, yes. Some just need a fender "flare" which also be made with styrene and putty. On the 57 Dodge I just made a flare, on the 56 Ford I widened the front.

It was on the Tow 411 site. They detailed the whole conversion. Heres a pic of King Kong before it was a tri axle rotator, and before High Point owned it. :Note the drag winch at the end of the bed:

Very clean rig JT. Great work

There were a lot of trucks like this in the 40s and 50s. Dodge, Chevy, and Ford used pickup cabs for medium/heavy duty trucks. Keep a keen eye though, in most cases the front fenders are wider (across the width of the axle)than that of the pickups. This can be fixed by cutting and splicing in some styrene stripping to widen the front. All in all, there are a bunch of pickup kits that can be sourced to make a heavy truck conversion. I, myself have used the 50' & 56' fords, 56' & 72 chevys, and a 57' dodge diecast.

Thanks Clayton. I originally built the truck years ago after robbing the mixer from it for another build. It came out good, but I never have "loved" it. I put a wet tank on it and a dump trailer at first. After looking at pictures of King Kong, it was elected to become a rotator.

Heres a re post of the pics lost.

The whole forum lost all posts back to Nov 25. The kit is very close. The rubber is taking a little longer to cure because of this cold snap were having. I will PM everyone who expressed interest as soon as theyre ready.

Hey guys, I finally got a break tonight from renovating the house. I was in desperate need of some build time. I didnt really want to jump back on an on-going project, plus Ive been itching to start another one. I was collecting reference photos of Avella's King Kong Paystar rotator, when I decided it was time to convert my old Paystar. Im going to build the real truck later, so this one is just loosely inspired by the truck. I had the body from a trade a while back. It was missing a lot of parts, but the important parts are there. This actually allows me to play around and scratch build the stuff thats missing. Heres the inspiration. Here what I started with Modified some Italeri rims, and added some fat rubber I moved the whole rotating platform forward into the compartment where the outriggers were. Then I moved the outriggers in front of that. I cut off the rear of the body and added a flat tailgate like an older style Challenger. Im not going to have an under-reach. Im going to build a beefier towbar for more of an 80's style wrecker. So, after a few hours Im satisfied with the look.

Very cool. I love it

Heres another vintage magazine I scored. It has an awesome article by Phil Jensen on converting a Dodge L700 into a Diamond Reo. I figured it was going to be a resin conversion, but he gives the patterns to make it out of wood!! This is too cool!!

I nabbed a Illini Sterling SBFA resin cab a few weeks ago. Ill probably use the Autocar Dumper as the donor kit I also got my hands on a model car mag from 1969 with an article on the California Hauler. Heres an ad advertizing the Calfornia Hauler, but the pic is of a 351, not a 359.

Cool score Sam, especially that IH tractor.

Exceptional build. This came out great. This looks EXACTLY like my dads Ford wrecker. His was dirty white with a single stack, but other than that seeing yours just brought back memories.

Yup

Absolutely incorrect. I have 46 Dump truck kits of all mixed issues, and 24 of the A64B kits and they do not have two sets of axles. The dump truck kits do not come with 5th wheels either. This was not a 2 in 1 kit.

Yes that definitely sounds like a mistake. It sounds like it had the sprue from the Autocar A64B kit.

I have that same issue and it has top loaders. Do the instructions show different axles? Was the kit still sealed when you bought it?