DRIPTROIT 71

They will make you jump out of your skin if you are standing beside it and are not expecting the noise. There is a company here that has an old Western Star dump truck that they have ran for years. When they first got it, the driver used to cut the truck off at stop lights and hit the air starter just to scare people.

Looks sharp!

Thanks Alex! The engine is a Johnny Cash combo just like the rest of the build. It originated in a 4200 glue bomb that I got in a trade here on the forum. I was missing the exhaust manifolds and someone on the forum sent me the manifolds and turbo setup for it.

A little more progress. The engine is in. From what I understand CF liked air starters. The newer pusher truck definitely had one. I’m not sure about the older one, but I like the look of the big tank on the back, so I went with it.

Very nice! I like it!!

I think that this might be my favorite of all of your builds!

Your work is always amazing! Very realistic!

Very nice! I like it!

Very nice! I remember watching this car race. Nice work!

Very impressive work going on here!

Awesome looking pair!

The black and orange just looks awesome together!!

First of all with everything red, this is just an eye catcher! The weathering is spot on! Very nice work on the entire build! I really like this one!!

Thanks for all the comments guys! Brian, that was an experiment as with most of my projects. It is seat repair tape. It has a vinyl texture, it is very flexible and conforms very well although it has more of a canvas look in scale. I was looking for an alternative to the diamond tuck interior and wanted to give this a try. It looks better in person than it does on camera.

This will be good!!

Excellent scratch building! Nice looking rig!

That is one beautiful build!! Excellent work!!

Thanks! I didn’t take any pictures during the process. It probably isn’t the best way, but this is how I did it. First: I sanded of the passenger side headlight mount and filled in the recessed area. Using reference pictures of the real truck and the passenger front lower vent for a reference point on both the real truck and the model. I drew the circle for where the headlight was to be. When I was satisfied with where the headlight would be, I drilled the center. I then measured the location of the center in reference to the grille location and the bottom of the cab. Using that measurement, I drilled the other side to match. I then cut two very short sections of 3/8” styrene pipe (Evergreen #232) for headlight buckets. I then drilled the passenger side out slowly, one bit size at a time, so that the pipe would fit recessed on the grille side slightly. I then sanded and filled the driver’s side and drilled it as well. I then glued the pipe in from the back slightly recessing the grille side of the buckets. I have some bezels from the parts box that fit nicely into the buckets made from the pipe. I pretty happy with how it turned out. I used super glue and styrene as filler.

Your work never ceases to amaze me!

Looks great! I like the chains!

Wow! That really looks good! The color is perfect! It just looks so vintage, it is perfect! Excellent work! I like it!!

Propane powered truck.

Thanks Carl. These trucks were used by CF to help push trucks over Donner pass in the snow. I’m not sure how well they worked, but Roadway and other companies had them as well.

Thanks Tommy, I didn’t catch that detail until I went to put the front numbers on. Also, the earlier cab, at least the one in reference, is a low mount cab and doesn’t have the right front vent, and less metal under the headlights l. Since this was a Johnny Cash type truck anyway, and I wanted to make sure that I had room for the 903, I left it a high cab. Hopefully it will make a decent representation when it is finished though.

It is not perfect by no means, but it is coming along. With very limited reference pictures, I can’t make an exact replica of the reference truck, so I am attempting to create a truck that CF could have had. This truck will have a different number. I tried to make the interior as base looking as possible, I removed most of the gauges. It took every stick of butter that we had, but I was able to squeeze in a VT 903 Cummins (which I understand that CF liked) backed by a 5 speed Spicer.