Force

NIce, it looks good.

Still waiting on issues 217, 218 and 219...hopefully I will get this issue. ?

It's coming along nicely Tommy.

I'm not that familiar with Freightliner, I know about the Cascadia and many racers use that truck, most likely sponsored, and the German company Daimler owns Fereightliner and Western Star. I wouldn't mind having a Cascadia model myself...and of course a Featherlite style racing transporter trailer to go with it.

Of course it would be cheaper if the truck kits could share things but as most trucks are very different it's not that easy to do, the PACCAR trucks doesn't share much but maybe the Freightliners do, I believe the Cascadia and Coronado shares most things except for the hood like the International Pro Star and Lone Star. But I still think a Kenworth W900L or a Peterbilt 379-389 would sell better than the Internationals as they are lot more popular trucks. It's interesting to see that Round 2 did a completely new tool and did the International CO4070A wich has been lost since ERTL did the CO4070B Transtar II, and they also did the Garwood refuse load packer body wich never saw the daylight until now...so a few kits are coming If we take Italeri as an example they take a lot of shortcuts when they do their truck kits and most of them are not correct at all, some not even close except for the outside apperence. For the various US truck kits they did they only used 2 different chassis and drive trains, one for the Peterbilt's with a Detroit Series 60 engine and Peterbilt Air Leaf suspension, and one for the other manufacturers like Freightliner, Mack, Ford and Western Star with a Cummins NTC and Freightliner Airliner suspension (formerly Peterbilt Stabilaire), the Freightliner FLD has Airliner II suspension, and the Volvo VN has it's own chassis wich is a curbside tho'. Same goes for lots of the other truck kits where they did a new cab and put in a few new parts to an old outdated chassis and drive train to do the model kit. For example the Scania kits still has the old outdated DS14 engine with it's distinctive V shaped valve covers wich originally was in the Scania T142H kit and that engine left the market in the year 2000 and was replaced with the DC16 wich Italeri never did, not even for the latest R730 Highline, it still has the old DS 14 but they added new DC16 heads to it instead of doing a new correct DC 16 engine. And the Volvo F12 and F16 kits had the old outdated TD120F wich came in the first F12 kit but the engine was replaced in 1999 with the D12, and the F16 should have had the TD162 wich came 1987 but it still had the TD120F, the FH series should have the later D12 or D16 but still had the TD120F, the latest Volvo NH4 kits has the newer D13 or D16 tho'. So that will probably make it cheaper but most of them are not correct and you have to go to the aftermarket to look for correct parts.

Hey Scott, this is another thing for you. I don't know if you have seen it allready but these are things I haven't see on the aftermarket.

Disregard

The Pro Star and Lone Star kits are nice kits, but they might not have been that popular due to they are Internationals...the Lone Star is cool but maybe not for everyone due to it's bold design wich everyone doesn't like, and the Pro Star is more like a boring fleet truck, not very popular to customize.

Sodium Chloride is the chemical name for salt, chemical formula NaCl, and this is what they use over here too.

The sales of the Pro Star and Lone Star kits were maybe not enough for them to justify and continue develop and produce new truck kits. I belive if they had done a Kenworth W900L or Peterbilt 379-389 kit they would have sold a lot more of them, because they are a more popular than the Internationals. Maybe even a Freighliner Cascadia and Coronado wich many racing teams use today to haul their transport trailers would have sold more than the Pro Star. But who knows, these International kits might come back one day.

No 379 are made in kit form., the model kit industy almost stopped doing new truck kits after the early to mid 80's, at least in the US and most likely based on sales. There are a couple of transkits from the aftermarket for 379's with the hood and other stuff, Mo'luminum has one on his list, it's backordered now tho'.

It has to be a 1968 to comply with the rules in Super Stock as it's the only year is was available for the Barracuda A-body, same with the A-body Dart. It doesn't have to be an original BO29 or LO23 but it has to be a 1968, so any other year is not allowed for the Super Stock class. AMT did a 1967 Barracuda and MPC did the 1968 and 1969, I don't know they are based on the same tooling but the MPC 1968 and 1969 share tooling and it's the body and body related parts that's different.

Sharp looking model.

I'm very interested in a few for my upcoming builds, so please let me know. ?

Keystone offered the 5 hole Alcoas in 2 sizes but they weren't marked as 20 and 22 inches, but they fit the AMT 20 inch and 22 inch tires, and they are tube style lock ring wheels but the ring is part of the machined wheel, I have both sizes.. The 10 hole wheel they had are most likely 22½ or 24½ and are one piece tubeless style wheels. Blake, the wheels you got from Ben are as you say most likely a limited run and he showed them to me in a conversation, they have the outer ring separate wich Keystone's later wheels did not have, they also did not offer the 10 hole version of the lock ring tube style wheels, just tubeless style for the 10 hole and tube style for the 5 hole. If you cas them, will you offer them for sale and are they 20 inch or 22 inch wheels?

Yes most wheels from AMT are too small in diameter as they are 20 inch wheels, and this raised circle are on all AMT tube type wheels and should not be there. The Freightliner wheels and the wheels from a few others are 22 inch. I have only seen some aluminum wheels with the right look and they were from Keystone Aluminum Model Miniatures, but they are 5 hole and they are not in bsiness anymore. A member here, Ben Wicker, also had some 10 hole wheels made up for him, I don't know the size but they also had the right look to them.

I try to help out when I can so you are welcome. Yes you are right about that, the wheels are polished aluminum but they look real close to chrome when they are newly polished and clean as you say. The lock rings on these wheels are steel and often just painted silver or any other color, but on the Movin' On trucks the lock rings look to be chromed and shiny. It looks a lot better with the ring further in doesn't it. As I'm planning to do a Movin' On build myself and I want my model to look as close as I can possibly get it, so I was thinking of using the Freightliner wheels myself as they are pretty much what's available to us in that size, and I have thought about this and tried to figure out a solution to the problems with these wheels because I have allways thought they didn't look quite right...and I think I'm on the right way here, I can allways paint the wheels with Molotow Liquid Chrome to get them shiny after the modifications...we'll see how it goes when I come to that point...I either crash and burn or succeed. ?

Of course you can, it's your model and you do as you please.? I just wanted to pass the information. The cage bolt is stored on the outside of the chamber when it's not used to keep them handy when needed, over or under, they are on there...but as they are steel and the middle part of the brake chamber where they are stored is aluminum I don't know how well they would cope up after years of driving on salted winter roads, so they might have to use new ones after a few years as the original ones most likely are rusted and probably seized in place and are impossible to get loose from there. ?

Yes the chamber looks nice otherwise, very nice. It's Revell who didn't do the homework properly when they developed the tooling for this kit back in the early 80's.

Well the part at the arrow shouldn't be there at all, it's the cage bolt for when you are caging the parking brake spring to be able to move the truck without air in the brake system, the outermost chamber is for the parking brake and has a large strong coil spring in it so when you don't have air in the system to push the spring back it applies the brakes and holds the truck in place. So the cage bolt is removed for normal use. Here is a couple of pictures to show how it works. Parking brake applied and or no air pressure in the system. Normal use when the system is aired up and no parking or service brakes applied. Here is when the service brakes is applied. When you buy the air brake chambers new the cage bolt is often in there or put in there so it's easier to mount and to be able to adjust the slack adjuster, when mounted this cage bolt is removed. Here is a caged brake chamber when it's mounted on the truck or trailer. and here is an uncaged brake chamber as it looks under normal use, look on top between the chambers, there is where the cage bolt, nut and washer goes when it's not used.

Hopefully, his tires are period correct on most of the truck kits available to us, I really like the Drive Tire #1 and Steer Tire #2

Looks real good Tommy, this is what I would do. But unfortunately the Freightliner wheels are not entirely correct, the raised part where the lugnuts are shouldn't be there as that part of the wheel is not raised on the real wheels. On the real Alcoa tube style wheels there is a flat area where the lugnuts are and from that flat surface it is a smooth curve out to the edge with a small lip where the lock ring is seated as can be seen on the wheels in the picture below, no raised part what so ever. But all the lock ring wheels in AMT truck kits has that raised part and it has allways bugged me as it doesn't look right. On tubeless Alcoa wheels and some steel wheels there is a raised part where the lugnuts are, but not on the tube style aluminum wheels regarless if they are 5 or 10 holes. Another thing with the Freightliner wheels is that if you don't do anything to them the lock ring sits too far out, it needs to be further in so the edge of the ring don't go past the edge of the disc part of the wheel itself, if one don't modify that the wheel looks to be almost like a wider floater wheel. Here is another example to show what I mean. Most people do not care about these things but I do as I want it to look right.

Here is one thing that would be nice to have 3D printed. The marker lights mounted above the headlight "boxes" on the front fenders on Kenworth W900A's, 1 are mounted from the factory but some use 2 or 3 of these. I have not seen any available on the market for model trucks. Another thing is the bullet lights for the cabs also called torpedo lights, the old school light lenses are longer, more pointed and had a blunt nose and not a rounded nose as most of the lights in the kits are. In this case only the lenses are needed as you can use the cab light base from the kits as they may be different. Maybe printed in clear amber, same for the fender light above as the base can be painted chrome silver. These look pretty much like the lights in the kits for comparence, and they are quite different.

And the bottom part is a rear spoiler. Some of these might not being used in the Blue Max kit but the same kit was available with other decals

I'm with you on that. He had nice parts.