DRIPTROIT 71

One chain on each side back then. The “J” hook hooked to the vehicle being towed (swinging in the wind in this photo), then wrapped around the tow bar at the bottom as shown, then hooked at the top of the sling just outside of view in the photo. The excess chain that was left could either be hooked to the chain from the other side or back on itself.

The only way that I’ve gotten rid of them is to wet sand the first coat of paint (lacquer duplicolor) and then top coat. This isn’t an option though on textured surfaces such as the underside of the hood as shown or in the case that I have had before on the side of a Mercury sleeper. Sanding the primer doesn’t seem to get rid of them for me. They seem to bleed through.

Awesome build!! It looks great!! Excellent work!!

Beautiful build!!! Very clean work!! Excellent detail work!! Perfect subject matter!! Top notch work! I like it!!

I’ve heard of doing that. Sounds like a very cool upgrade. I’m afraid that my upgrade days are over for the most part, although I do still have an 84 K20 with a granny box in it. Would love see a picture of the Willys. When Dodge came out with the new 94 style body the output was changed to the driver’s side like a Ford. A friend of mine put a Dana 44 out of a 79 Ford under his mid 90s Dodge back then when he put it on 44” tires.

I used to think that I had some good reference materials. You seem to have it all. I’ve been wanting to find something like this for a couple years. White bought this engine and used it under their name from what I understand, and I’m wanting to build a 9000 project with one of these. Thank you for posting this!!

Dodge transfer cases in 70s and 80s, had same output as Chevrolet on the passenger’s side. We built a lot of lifted trucks back when I was a bit younger. We used to put Gm axles under 70s Dodge trucks Sometimes that originally had the small bolt pattern to have better front wheel bearings. Back then GM axles were pretty easy to come by and easier to get than later model Dodge axles. This was also much cheaper than the conversions to lock outs for those old Dodges. I’ve been into quite a few 208s, a couple 203s, but never had to go into a 205. In “my experience“ (not saying this is law) most GMs 73-77 has 203s and most GMs 78-80 had 205s, most 81-87 had 203s. However the 205 was the case of choice and was often used in truck builds.

You have really got that drop deck looking good!! Great work!

Very nice work Ken! Looks great!!

Looks good Pat!!

I seem to have that problem with most of the popular aftermarket vendors who are still in business, with a few exceptions.The last few orders from Paul have been pretty fast though. The only major problem that I had was on my second order from him that somehow got lost in the mail, but Paul made it good by sending out another order, even though it wasn’t his fault. The lost package eventually showed up too, so I just paid for the second one, as it wasn’t cost effective to pay shipping to Canada to send it back.

There was no change to the trailer, only decals and added accessories. My Mayflower trailer was a race trailer kit.

Thanks Kerry! JT helped pick the color.

Looks Awesome!!

Trailer looks great!

That’s him. I’ve made several purchases from him.

I didn’t know that this place existed until now, but I have actually purchased a set of their tires and one of the 6v-71 engines they list from a supplier on EBay named stsupply out of Canada. He has had some of the other products from their website along with a lot of other model truck related products including items from Illini replicas, Scenes Unlimited, Dan’s models, and others.

This arrived today. I found it on EBay. Original AMT T519 Kenworth W925 with torsion bar suspension; $27.75 + shipping.

Thanks!! They have a lot more f cool stuff!! I didn’t know that they existed.

Oooo! Cool!! Where from???

This one is a real eye catcher!

Working on the top. Got it probably about as close as I am going to get it. It is not perfect, but much closer than it was. Before: After: As you can see the curvature in the windshield on the casting isn’t 100% like the 1:1 which does affect the look of the top:

Thanks, my current project is getting a Detroit. I couldn’t go too long without building one.? Thanks Jim!!

Awesome looking Emeryville Jim! When I first saw it last night on Flickr, the paint job really caught my eye. You really captured the look of one of these trucks! Excellent work!

The push bumper on our old wrecker was 1/4 steel with around 1/4 thick rubber on the front. The top, bottom and sides were rolled 90 degrees with about a 2” lip on the sides and about a 3-4” lip top and bottom. It was not completely flat. It angled backwards on the outside. It also had plates on the inside for mounting, making the bumper about 3-4” thick. It was pretty heavy and one of the main reasons we installed it was for a counter balance when towing, as our wrecker had a short wheelbase. We were even going to mount weights in the hollow back side of the bumper, but I don’t think that we ever did. My point is that as said before, I don’t think that using thicker stock would be out of scale. Ours was factory made, but there were also many homemade versions as well. Use your reference pictures, but these varied quite a bit so don’t stress too much about unknown factors. There may have even been variations in the show. If I remember right, seemed like they had a different wrecker every week.?