leafsprings

You forgot Safeway, with the green, white cabs and red frames, the cab paint scheme was similar to CME. CME was one of the originals, started truck service in California in 1927. Later became part of Delta Lines which went of business in the mid 80's due to pressures from deregulation of the trucking industry. Found of an CME with older logo. Note tractor number.

Great job on this medium duty hauler. Wasn't as popular as the Ford tilt, but it was the first popular tilt cab in the industry for others to copy.

I agree, ready for a wash after a long haul the wet Pacific Northwest. The CF decals have held up well also.

Nice progress, the long frame drom box was quite a site back in the day, PIE ran a lot of Pete bubble noses set up this way. Looks great with a WF cab as well.

This is an epic build, who thought a trailer was just a 4 sided box with wheels. The fabrication work is very impressive, these types of trailers are much more complex than most people think. Great job. Hope big plastic is taking note, bottom dumps and double bottom dumps are very popular in the construction industry.

The frame looks great! Yes, 1963 was the first modern Chevy-GMC pickup frame, design basically the same thru '72. Late 60's brought out a leaf spring or coil spring option on Chevys, GMC's used leafsprings starting in '63 and had a coil spring option in the late 60's. Vinyl bench seats are, IMO, much more typical in '67-'72's, however, seat upholstery styling kept changing depending on trim level and year. Interior Door panels are pretty much the same '67-'71, however 72's used a new plastic design panel.

More progress, beginning to come together, almost done.

Great idea and great work on the J 20 conversion. 8 lug steelies look right at home on this one.

Those look great! A perfect match for a 70's 4x4.

Good choice for a build. When looking for inspiration, I look at original factory brochures. Seeing a pattern on many 60's and 70's trucks, aluminum front wheels, steel rear wheels. Working on an original issue 4200, used Modeltruckin decals for the IH paint scheme and in the process of converting the spoke wheels to 10 hole aluminum fronts and eventually get 2 hole white steelies for rear.

Yes, looks great, would be very interested in this offering!

Yes, old thread, but interesting, build shows how much better, IMO, the standard wheelbase bed looks. The stretch wheelbase F 350 bed was probably used on less than 10% of '73-'79's pickups, yet the geniuses at AMT used it. Probably not a good business decision. Oh, well, more opportunities for the aftermarket $$$$.

Looks good, your making a lot of progress, thanks again for your effort. The only 16.5 tire offered by AMT was in the Ford F 350 Super Camper Special kit in the mid 70's, shown in photo, a Goodyear custom hi miller bias ply highway tread 9.50-16.5. The rim diameter appears to be around 3/4". Sorry, don't have a micrometer. A tire, wheel and hubcap package would be awesome, we could build the truck in the photos.

The custom topper work is impressive. Rookie Resins once offered the correct base model C 10 hubcaps, would look great on this build!

Wow, that was quick. I don't know how you do it, but that is it. Thank you very much. Here are some close up photos of the real 3/4 ton 12" hubcap ( painted version) that might help fine tune it some more. I've always wanted to do a 3/4 ton Chevy camper special with all the recent '72 reissues. The popped out center blue bowtie shown is '69-'72 ( shown), later '73-'75. the center was pushed in with a gold bowtie.

3/4 ton hubcaps for Chevy pickups, 69-72. Used on Chevy 1 ton vans also. The AMT van caps are very poor representations and were never designed to fit a larger 16"-16.5" wheel.

Great job on removing all the "gingerbread". Model companies automatically had a habit of giving us high level trim vehicles.

The original paint green F 250 appears to be a "Ford of Canada" build due to its special color, a color not available in U.S. The originally yellow, to red to blue Flareside is very rough, much better examples out there.

Thanks everyone for the positive comments! Added wheels from AITM, replaced the wedge brakes with S cam brake chambers and oval hole frontal air intake system.

Great looking build! The classic lines on this IH really make your beautiful paint job stand out. IH styling was so much smoother than typical cabovers of the time, Dodge and Ford in particular.

Always wondered how the decision was made to choose an engine for truck kits. IMO, a Cummins was a much more popular engine in early Petes. The real 1:1 Pete that the original AMT non sleeper box art cover depicted had a 1676 CAT. I can see the logic with Detroits in Astros and Titans.

Finally out of the paint shop, interior is a goldish silver, exterior gloss black and white, CME fleet colors. Used the window less back panel for a more vintage look.

Great idea for a build. A clean working class vehicle with a slight touch of chrome looks sharp. All white cab and green debris box look realistic.

Very impressive job on the transformation. With all the details added, it really looks like the AMT model. All the colors, exterior and interior, look factory spot on.

Here is another shot of a '72 GMC. And here is the little devil that got missed by AMT. GMC called it an "extension".