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Force

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Posts posted by Force

  1. 35 minutes ago, RoninUtah said:

    Thanks for the detailed information, it is very helpful and good to know. I removed the crossover tube as you suggested and patched the scars as best I could but that’s as far as I’ll go. As I mentioned from the outset, this build won’t have the detail and accuracy of some of builds out there, where every bolt and air line is correctly placed. I build trucks to look accurate on a superficial level and photograph well and look good on the shelf. The hood is closed 99% of the time. But I do appreciate your insight and your comments!

    Of course.
    It's your model and you are free to do as you please.
    I just wanted to share the information and you are welcome to it as all here are...we are here to help each other.
    Happy building

    • Thanks 1
  2. On 4/12/2025 at 5:58 PM, RoninUtah said:

    Thanks for letting me know! Obviously you know a lot more about these engines than I do. What should I remove to make it more realistic for the mid -90s?

    It helps to have some knowledge on how things on a car and truck works when you work on models to get things right.
    The pipe going over the engine top from the turbo to the intake manifold shouldn't be there if you have an air to air intercooler/aftercooler in front of the radiator.

    If you are replicating a truck from the mid 90's the engine you are using is too old, it's a Cat 3406A wich came 1973 and replaced the 1693, the A model was replaced with the 3406B in 1987 wich in turn was replaced with the 3406C in 1993, after that came the 3406E wich is the final version of the 3406 up to 2007 when the C15 came, the C and E model was produced at the same time for about 5 years as the C model ended production in 1998.
    The major difference between a A and B/C model is where the diesel injection pump is located, about mid engine block lengthwise for the A model and up against the front cover for the B and C models.
    The E model has 3 valve covers like the C15, and the A/B/C models had only 2, the E model was also electronic and has no injection pump on the side of the block.
    I don't think the 3406B and C model are available on the aftermarket, only the A but the C15 is wich is very similar to a 3406E, so for a mid 90's truck I would have used a 3406E/C15 engine for it.
    But it's your truck model and of course you do as you please with it.

    • Thanks 1
  3. On 4/6/2025 at 6:59 PM, RoninUtah said:

    And I mounted the engine permanently and hooked up the coolant lines and exhaust.

    IMG_7059.jpeg.d16073fe51f912f567c1d88a78983eb1.jpeg

    Now I’m detail painting the cab and sleeper; interior installation to follow.

    Thanks for watching!

    Hmm, the turbo plumbing looks a bit weird.
    If you have a air to air intercooler in front of the radiator as you have plumbed you should loose the cross over pipe from the turbo to the intake manifold that goes over the front head, because you don't have both as that cross over pipe is the route from the compressor side of the turbo over to the intake manifold on a non air to air intercooled engine like this Cat 3406 engine originally is, it doesn't even have a water to air aftercooler that most of the higher horse power 3406 engines had.

  4. 15 hours ago, StevenGuthmiller said:

    We can look at the possibility of 3-D printing replacing injection molding from a couple of different angles.

    As a number of people have said, producing mass produced kits through 3-D printing may not be much of a threat to injection molding currently, and it may never replace it in terms of the ability to produce the numbers that injection molding can in a short period of time, but if you look at it from the perspective that there is a pretty good possibility that the designs for thousands of different intricately detailed kits might become available for a few dollars, or even free, to anybody that wants them, and then couple that with the possibility that any enterprising person could begin taking those designs and printing them quickly and cheaply with 3-D printing advancements and offering them for sale to the public, I think there's a strong possibility that the aftermarket could overwhelm the injection molding market.

    In other words, if an individual can take advantage of those cheap available designs, and offer a printing service to print them economically, with better detail, more variety, and in the same neighborhood, or even cheaper as far as price goes, it's going to put a lot of stress on the injection molded model kit business.

    If I can go online and find an aftermarket entity that can offer nearly any car model that I desire, and can compete in price with Round-2 or Revell, what's to keep me buying from the injection molding manufacturers.

    I can easily see how in the not too distant future that I might be able to decide that I want a 1957 Buick Caballero station wagon, go online, and order it from a reputable aftermarket provider, much as I would from Fireball Modelworks today, for the same price, or possibly even cheaper than the $35.00 that I would spend on an injection molded kit from Revell.

    I think it's obvious what that would mean for traditional model kit makers.

     

     

     

    Steve

    I can agree with you in some of your reasoning Steve.
    The 3D printing is mostly better than the injection molded stuff when it comes to small details and lots of 3D prints are really very good, but I see the resin casters on the aftermarket will suffer of this a lot more than the model companies will and that's sad in my opinion because they do fill a void.
    So 3D printing will most likely kill the resin businesses long before they will ever touch the model companies.
    I find it hard to believe that 3D printing will be cheaper than injection molding when it comes to complete kits, one of the largest 3D priniting companies Shapeways who had state of the art machines went bankrupt recently...so I'm not so sure if I believe it ever will.
    The design stage in a CAD program takes the same time for 3D printed part as it does for a part in a tool for injection molding so that's a fact, and time is not free if you are going to earn any money, and therefore the designs will not be free either, so printing out a detailed part will allways cost money if you count everything in, just look at what the 3D printed stuff costs today where a 3D printed individual part costs 1-10  bucks and a complete engine almost costs like an injection molded kit, not far from it anyway.
    I don't think 3D printing will be much cheaper and faster in a forseeable future but it's for sure a good source for our hobby, and if you can do everything yourself, both the CAD design and the printing, it's a win as it only costs time and material...and of course the computer, the CAD program and 3D printer but that's a one time cost.

  5. On 3/30/2025 at 11:46 PM, Gary Chastain said:

    Thanks Hakan for your input. Most of the trucks I drove, the hood shook so bad, it would crack, there was rub marks on the cab, after a few years they didn’t line up very well, even the hinges would get bent.  The best part about a custom built truck is those items can be adjusted and/or fixed. 

    It's a thing I have noticed on pictures of real W900's, none that I have seen has the front wheel in the center of the wheel arch, they are allways slightly forward of the center line, so it's how they were made.
    But of course you are right, a custom truck is a custom truck and you can do what you want with it...like fix the off center position of the front wheels. 🙂

  6. On 3/30/2025 at 11:31 PM, StevenGuthmiller said:

    Well, maybe you’re right.

    But let’s put it this way.

    How many of us here ever contemplated just a few short years ago that some one would be able to sit down at a computer and print out a complicated and detailed 3 dimensional object in their own home.

    If we’ve ever learned anything it’s that nobody can predict what technological advancements could be just around the corner.

    I for one will not pretend that I have any idea what will come, even a year from now.

     

     

    Steve

    Yes you are right there, 3D printing has done much for the hobby so far and will probably do more in the future as nothing is impossible with this technique.
    But for real mass production it has a long way to go yet.
    But I wish I could use a CAD program and have a 3D printer myself...I have lots and lots of ideas on things I want to do.

  7. On 3/31/2025 at 8:48 AM, Mattilacken said:

    That would be epic, and I belive many folowing the sport would encorage it. And if we compare where alot of the electricity (not regen of course) comes from, a good fuel would still be better. But then again should we grow plats for food or for fuel? Debates debates... 

    Yes it's not the internal combustion engine that's wrong, it's the fuel it runs on.
    Sustainable fuel can come from many places, not just from agricultural sources, it will come but it just takes time to do it economically viable.

    • Like 1
  8. I use CA glue very sparingly on few parts, far away from paint, glass or chrome.
    Parts like metal to plastic , strengthening some joints and such.
    Mostly I use liquid glue like Tamiya Extra Thin Cement, Tenax 7R, or Revel Contacta Professional with the thin metal tube.

  9. On 3/23/2025 at 6:22 PM, StevenGuthmiller said:

    Sure, when you look at it through the lens of the technology that we have today, but nothing ever stays the same.

    Time marches on, and technologies advance, sometimes at the speed of light!

    Who's to say that in the future, the designing portion may already be done for you through a huge catalog of finished designs, so that all that one will have to do is punch a computer key and have it ready for print.

    Then, through advancement of the machinery needed, a manufacturer could possibly have large enough machines to print 30 or 40 kits in a pop within a few minutes, or even seconds.

    Then of course there's the possibility that virtually every home will have a 3-D printer capable of the same speeds, and along with a vast catalog of subjects available to download for a few dollars, there would be no need for injection molded kits at all, if you could produce whatever kit you wanted for a few bucks in a matter of minutes.

    I'm sure at one point the concept of being able to buy a ready made frozen meal and being able to pop it into a metal box for a minute to be ready to eat was a pie in the sky concept as well.

    Now we don't even think about it.

     

     

     

     

    Steve

    Well I don't see that happening any time soon, by the time that 3D machine print out 30-40 kits the injection mold machine has produced hundreds.
    So I don't belive the 3D print will make injection molding obsolete in a forseeable future.

    • Like 1
  10. There has been much talk lately about returning to 3 litre V10 engines on sustainable fuel and skip the hybrid systems and even maybe as soon as 2026, pretty much like WRC has done for this year, I don't belive it's possible in such short time as much work has been done for the 2026 cars allready, but we'll see.
    It's the complex hybrid systems that are expensive to develop and get to work, not the combustion engines themselves as most manufacturers has that covered.

  11. 6 hours ago, Mattilacken said:

    GM have not bought Haas, they start a new team, the 11th at the grid.

    powerunit is as explained above the combination of electric and combustion engine and al regen equipment and such. 

    engines will be Ferraris until they can make their own. They need to engineer a new engine and probably make a new factory.
    Ford and Audi is making a new engine for 2026 but started couple years ago.

     

    Ford is doing their engine in conjunction with Red Bull Power Train who today does the Honda engines Red Bull and Racing Bulls use, so Ford doesn't start with a blank sheet of paper as RBPT is building engines allready.
    And yes, Cadillac will be the 11th team, so they did not buy their way in like Audi did, but Audi will do their own power unit, they have been at it wor some time now...but the engine regulations have to be quite firm for some time before it's viable to put in the money.
    If the go away from the hybrid power units they use today the engine will be chaper to develop because all the hybrid technology and battery packs are very expensive, that's why they will skip the MGU-H because it's very complex and very expensive, and that was kind of a demand when Audi was to enter as an engine manufacturer.

    • Like 2
  12. Well Steve, I'm not so sure 3D printing will replace injection molding and make it obsolete any time soon.
    To develop and draw up a kit in a CAD program takes the same time if you will do an injection molded kit or a 3D printed kit so the difference is the tool cutting time for the injection mold, but I'm sure you will get out a larger production capacity from that than the 3D printing will ever do, not from one machine.
    When you are doing the volumes the injection molded kits are done in there isn't even a competition, the molding process in an injection molding machine takes a few seconds per shot and you mold every part for the kit in the same tool at the same time and get out thousands and thousands of copys a day.
    So for small scale production 3D printing is fine but not for larger productions where it needs capacity to do large volumes in a short time.
    If we go to model kit production, once the tool is cut and done they can do the whole years planned production for a kit in a day or two in one machine, change tools to do another kit, and then another and so on.

  13. The whole package with the 1.6 litre turbo charged V6 combustion engine and hybrid system with MGU-H and MGU-K and battery pack together is called power unit and this started 2014.

    Cadillac...or should I say GM...will most likely do their own engine eventually, but develop a F1 engine and hybrid system wich are currently used is definately not cheap and takes time, Honda wich is the last to enter in todays F1 hybrid era in 2015 took several years until they had a reliable competitive power unit.
    Several teams of the 10 currently in F1 buys/leases their engines from others as there are only 4 engine/power unit manufacturers, Mercedes, Ferrari, Honda and Renault...and Renault is not going to continue after this year as it seems, when Cadillac enters it will be 11 teams and 22 cars as every team has 2 cars.
    So today the 10 teams gets their power units from these 4, Mercedes, McLaren, Williams, Aston Martin has Mercedes power units, Ferrari, Haas, and Sauber has Ferrari power units and Haas buys everything they can and are allowed to from Ferrari, Red Bull and Racing Bulls has RBPT Honda power units and Renault power unit only in Alpine.
    Red Bull and Racing Bulls will use RBPT Ford next year as Honda will go to Aston Martin and Renault will be gone so Alpine will be a customer team from next year with wich engine I don't know yet, Audi wich takes over Sauber completely for next year will most likely do their own power unit for the upcoming engine regulation where the MGU-H is dropped but are a customer team until then...and it's been talk lately about going back to naturally aspirated V10's on sustainable fuels and skip the V6 turbo and hybrid system maybe for 2028, it's cheaper to do a V10 without the hybrid system and maybe will get more engine manufacturers to enter F1...so who knows what's going to happen in the future and maybe Cadillac will wait until then instead of putting in huge ammounts of money in something that's going to disappear soon.

    • Like 1
  14. On 3/20/2025 at 3:39 PM, leafsprings2 said:

    I agree. I have discovered the truck hobby has settled on making 2 different size tires and wheels, not 4 different size tires and wheels. The 22.5" (solid wheels) will fit into the same size tire the 20" wheels fits into. Likewise the 24.5" (solid wheel) will fit into the same size tire the 22" wheel fits into. They are not marketed as 22.5" or 24.5" solid wheels, they are marketed as 20" and 22". In 1:1, the trucking industry pretty much made the 11.00-20 tire the same diameter as the 11-22.5, the 11.00-22 tire the same diameter as the 11-24.5 tire. The trick in the matchup is, one has more tire, less rim ( the case of the 20" and 22") and the other has more rim, less tire( the case of the 22.5" and 24.5"). There is a compromise in the truck hobby and have to accept what is readily available (unless your a 3d printer person) to try to make our models as realistic as possible.

     

    When it comes to AMT I'm intrigued that they used 20 inch wheels and tires on most of their truck kits when lots and lots of real trucks used the larger 22 inch wheels wich were very popular back in the day, it's just a few kits like the White Freightliner, the White Road Boss, the Diamond-REO and the Autocar kits that have the larger 22 inch wheels and I believe it's only the White Freightliner kits that have 10-hole drive wheels.
    The AMT Kenworth K100 Aerodyne kits use the same 22 inch tires as the kits I listed above but the rims are one piece tubeless style although the rears doesn't look right as they have no "ditch" in the middle of the rim.
     

    • Thanks 1
  15. Unfortunately the AMT Race Car Transporter trailers is just their old Trailmobile Moving Van trailer from 1972 with some new decals and some interior parts, that could be fairly right if you are building a transporter trailer from the late 70's-early 80's allthough its very short at 40 feet, has spring suspension, no upper deck, just ramps for the cars and so forth and they did 3 versions of it in 1990, the Bill Elliott No 9 Coors NASCAR transporter, the Kodak No 4 Ernie Irvan NASCAR transporter and the STP Kraco Galles Indy Car transporter, same kit different decals.
    The trailers used after that was specially built to be race car haulers and they are longer and taller, has air ride, spread axles or even three axles, double decks where the bottom is a workshop with lots of cabinets and benches and the top deck is where the cars are, a lift at the back for lifting the cars to the upper deck and things like that, and the modern ones are 53 or even 56 feet long made by Featherlite, Competition, Pegasus, Renegade, Ultra Comp and companies like that.
    No model companies has done that type of transporter trailers, I wish they did because I also want one, but nothing.

  16. On 3/17/2025 at 12:15 AM, RoninUtah said:

    Yeah, like I said earlier, they added 379 headlights to their standard 359 and called it good. I purposely didn’t want to build this as the Stepp’s rig because I wanted to have more latitude in building it as I wanted, although it’s not much different.

    Maybe they know as much about what's different between a 359 and a 379 as they did with the Marmon wich is the same Peterbilt 359 kit with a Marmon hood and grille...not exactly right there either.

    Nice build by the way.

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