mackinac359

2008 looks to be a good year for model truck building! Stevens International will be reissuing the following in '08: Mack R685ST Conventional Fruehauf Flat Bed with steel coils Mack Cruiseliner COE Lindberg will be reissuing: Tanker trailer Dodge L700 with flat bed with a load of crushed cars .. and several other variants of the L700/Big Rig trailers. Tim

Nice! That last green Dodge van on the trailer looks like an old Bell Telephone truck. Tim

A beast ! Tim

The tank body is from an old IMC Milk Tanker kit. The kit was issued by IMC, then Testors, then THC and there is talk it will be reissued in the future too.

Aside from a couple of touch ups and adding the handles to the compartment doors on the back of the tank (I can't find them), the Wisconsin milk tanker is done. Almost done - 11/3/07 9:00AM The truck is finished, awaiting the tank body Tank body mounted on the truck 11/3/07 12:30PM I went with AMPI logos. This was an enjoyable build. Not many issues to deal with. (read that: I didn't mess anything up causing me frustration) I have more photos on my site www.timstrucks.com in the Recent Builds page and in progress photos are in the "Big Glass of Milk/Wisconsin Moo Juice" thread. Thanks for looking Tim

Trey Welcome! Every builder has their own method for painting. I use spray paint from the auto parts store, typically Duplicolor brands. I wash all parts before painting (soap and water), prime with Duplicolor primer, color coat, then clear coat. Many times I will wet sand and polish the paint if needed. I make my own chicken lights from round plastic rod "salami shaved" with a sharp razor making dozens of "lights." I glue them in place, then cover them with Bare Metal Foil chrome, then paint the lens. Bumpers can be purchased or scratchbuilt from plastic. Tim

John, Thanks. I got the idea sifting through a box of unused Peterbilt sleepers.. why waste all this plastic when I can use it for daycab panels. Tim I never thought to uses the wall of a sleeper for a back panel of a truck, I will take note of that tip.

I was organizing kits the other day, a fancy way of saying I was kitbashing parts and laying out some future projects when the idea for a Wisconsin style milk tanker struck me. I had just received a resin Peterbilt 378/357 SBFA hood from Spauldings and an eBay Revell of Germany 377 kit. I had an old IMC Milk Tank truck body kit and decided the 377 kit and the Milk Truck body would be a perfect match. The cab requires slicing the rear fender sections off the cab side panels and replacing them with plastic. The cab rear wall is made from a left over AMT Peterbilt 359 sleeper back wall with a window cut in. I scratchbuilt the bumper and made the battery box cover from Plaskit diamond tread material. Here's the painted cab Here is the cab after wet sanding and polishing. Color is Torreador Red from Duplicolor Since the truck will be from Wisconsin, I felt the driver needed something to read while waiting for the cows.. a copy of the Wisconsin State Journal and some Peterbilt magazines. More photos are on my site www.timstrucks.com Thanks for looking! Tim

Nothing like a paint failure to ruin the day. Tim

John The 359 looks good. AMT never designed hood hinges for the kit, much like some of their model cars at the time. The Ford LN kits are the same way. Tim

Rob White Line Fever is very typical of the 1970's Trucker takes on Big Business movie. Fight scenes, chase scenes, crashes, fires, drama, etc.. Tim

I believe he's talking about Blue Mule, the 1977 Ford WT9000 COE in the movie White Line Fever. There was a resin cab of the Ford about 5 years ago, it hasn't been available since. JBOT Decals did make a nice set of Blue Mule decals including the Red River trailer decals. Tim

So far so good. If you want an "aged look" and your grille has some faded chrome, paint the whole grille silver to look like dulled aluminum. Tim

353 was a 117" BBC, but depending on the bumper location could be longer. 387 had 123" BBC. There were also a few unique configurations that crossed the line between 353 and 387. Tim

The painted crown on the 353 and 387 were standard with the bright crown being optional. The grille screen was always bright. The headlights would have the brackets aluminum and the bezels chrome. The 387 and 353 sold quite well. There was also the 40" wide frame 397. Only 2 of these were built. Real beasts. The 381 and 383 were from the '60s. The 383 was the heavier of the two with full length under-cab fenders. The above photo was taken at the old Newark, California factory. This 383 was engineered by Jim Overmohle. Note the full length flat fenders. This truck was destined for the sugar cane fields of Hawaii. The 381 had a 351 crown with full length flat fenders. SFFA axle. As for using the fenders from the AMT KW Alaskan Hauler, with a bit of modification you'd have a close shape. Be sure to sand off all the diamond tread as the 351, 353 and 387 had smooth metal not diamond tread. A non-slip material was applied to the top of the fenders. The fenders in the Revell Alaska kit are very similar to the AMT KW Alaskan Hauler fenders. With modifications they will look just fine. Tim

Now it is time to muddy up the waters on the color of engines in Peterbilts. I have photographs and seen in person original factory installed engines that were not white. A 359 with a tan Cummins, a 352 with a Yellow Cat and a green 8v71. In one of the Peterbilt brochures is a photo of a sea of white engines behind the factory with a handful of green and tan mixed in. Tim

Nice! I wish I had more of Clint's 379 conversion. Tim

Since we aren't allowed to use cuss words on the board, I'll just say FANTASTIC ! Stunning and well done ! Tim

Jim You got that backwards, the 1st issue of the T519 Watkins W925 had the torsion bar. The T560 Movin'On had the Hendrickson walking beam suspension. The 2nd issue of the T519 had the Hendrickson too. If the AMT box has "Modele reduit de vehicule pour assembler" on the cover, chances are it has the Hendrickson walking beam. Tim

The new headlight module has superior lighting characteristics compared to the old module. I have seen 389's that have had old style 359 lamps and 379 style lights retrofitted. The change requires a new wiring harness, the lamps and mounts and a good installer to make them look right on the 389 grille shell. It idea was to freshen the look, to get away from the 1977 Pontiac/Olds/Cadillac/Chevy era style. The new modules need to be on a deep tapered Texas bumper, they look odd with a straight Texas bumper. The old style 379 lamps are available as options on fiberglass hood "vocational" models - 365 and 367. The 367 looks quite nice, especially a HeavyHaul hood SBFA. Here's a 367 SFFA with old-style quad headlamps. Tim Cheers John

If you swap in the air bag suspension from the K100 Aerodyne kit, along with the seats and gull-wing bumper you'll be off to a good start. The AMT W925 kit is a pre-72 so you'll need to modify the cab doors for the low flush-mount door releases and the battery box needs to have more curve to the top (or the optional step versions). By changing the door handles you'll roughly bring the kit up to a '72-82 W900. As for the kit being a Sonny Pruitt Movin'On truck.. well, AMT missed the mark. They took a W925 and added Movin'On decals. The Movin'On trucks were '73-74 W900 VIT (60" sleepers), longer wheelbase VIT interiors, dual battery/tool boxes and other differences. The kit is close to the truck used in the pilot episode In Tandem - a '72 W900, small sleeper, single air cleaner, single exhaust, short wheelbase. Tim

That is the little window 359. AMT #T500. Wasn't that the AMT T500 359 little window Peterbilt?

Sweet! Is that the Revell of Germany T600 ? Tim

Wow. Tim

Dylan The AMT T600 is the old W925 with new parts. AMT modified the tooling for the W925 into the T600 forever ruining the W925 and eliminating the possibility of the kit ever being reissued (without expensive reworking to the tool). The T600 kit looks like AMT (then owned by Ertl, the real Ertl, not just a company owning the name Ertl) started off to be a nice kit but they ran out of steam on it. The seats are the old Splendor style but the doors and sleeper are the newer VIT style. The dash is good. The engine and transmission are about 7 years out of date for the T600. The wheelbase is way too short for the bigger sleeper. The wheels, well we know that style of split rim wheel was pretty much a relic by the time the kit was produced. Ken Smith did an interesting article on correcting the T600 kit years ago in one of his magazine columns. He corrected the grille, tire/hood/fender issues and some other items. Here's a T600 I built a few years ago with a lame attempt at a T330. This is a T800 with a T600 as the donor kit. The hood is from Plaskit in Quebec. The K100 COE in the above photo is the Revell of Germany kit. I want to convert this kit into a K100E someday. Tim