Rockford

Had a proper session at the bench yesterday. Got my wheels painted so they look like whole units. Cut the transmission out for remodelling. I only want one exhaust stack so cut the air intake out of the frame and mounted one from a 352 where the second stack was. Then i had to replace the missing support bars with brass tube. The frame for the intake and exhaust clips to the backmof the cab on this kit, so I made brackets and chassis mounted it as per the real thing. Spent a few hours rounding off some 1mm square rod, slicing it into tiny flakes, dropping them and crawling around on the floor looking for them and gluing them to the chassis as bolt heads. Helps the appearance no end. I wanted the rear of the frame to be left open like i did with Sundance so I made some upright sockets for the mudflap mounts and put my mudflaps on a chunky paperclip. Finally I filled and sanded the frame where there were sink holes etc... and rounded off the top and bottom edges of the frame rails. Not sure what I'm doing with fuel tanks yet, they're just for posing.

That's clever, Freightliner Powerliner sort of thing. Maybe your next project. Getting the doghouse right would be interesting, especially when you consider the radiator stays put when the cab tilts, you can't just taper the doghouse.

Did some detailing work on the chassis, added crossmembers and top and bottom flanges on the chassis. Makes it look better and makes it stonger to boot.

Ive just been watching this on YouTube, it's fantastic, some great photos of Pete cabovers. I dont think I've seen any of them before. Enjoy.

What a fantastic piece of work! It looks ready to go to a job. One of the forgotten workhorses.

Stole half an hour last night chop the T600 frame and splice in the K100 front half. It looked far too long until I put it at a certain angle with a trailer on, then it looked just the right proportions.

That's dedication.

Clever stuff going on here. This will be an impressive finished piece. When I see the things you have to consider in design it builds my appreciation for the kit makers in the 70s!

Great build mate, as ever!

Looking great mate, good ploy on the mudguards, as we'd call them in UK. I like the additions to the cab.

This needs to go into a museum or something when it's done. It's just unbelievable. My dad drove mobile cranes in the UK and this brings back so many memories. Fantastic stuff.

Just a fantastic build all the way through. I know I get more nervous about mucking the thing up as I get closer to the end of the job. I'm almost scared to pick the thing up. With the work you've put into this you must be really wary of the next step. I think you care more about your truck than the painters in the shop ever did!

Some great work going on here. Love that paint job! Great idea on the hood pins. The alignment of the cab and hood is about all i don't miss on the 1/32 snappers I build!

Hopefully this post marks my full-on return to the forum. I'm sorry for being absent but the new house has been taking so much of my time that I can only snatch half an hour here and there at the bench and it's just not enough for an involved project like the 352. Plus the fact that, after opening every box I brought, I still can't find all my tools!!! Back to business. I've been curious about the origins of this rig that was in Movin' On. Was it an old dromedary chassis that had the box removed and the company bought for the episode or something else? As poor as the pictures are I couldn't really see any evidence of it carrying a body or platform of any sort and they certainly hadn't spent money on painting the thing! The fifth wheel was also in the normal position over the drives, not set back as in most droms, and it had a normal pogo stick. Then I saw another picture of a very similar length tractor on interwebs which took me to a Curbside Classics article that shed new light on the subject. These were insanely long chassis used to exploit the bridge laws in California. Although the federal bridge laws applied by then, each state was free to employ it's own existing bridge laws within state boundaries if that gave a weight advantage to trucks within the state. In California, if the front axle was a certain distance away from the drives, more weight was permitted. That IH is so ugly it's beautiful! I don't know what either of those two figures were but if you look at the photos they're all a very similar length, which shows that they were each building to a specific number. Some companies have elected to use the extra space for a dromedary setup (which changed the category of the truck and permitted even more weight) but not all. (Question still unanswered: why not just build a conventional? I can only think of unladen weight but not certain.) All that suggests strongly to me that the K100 in Movin' On is one of these "California specials". To add weight to that the episode was filmed around San Francisco apparently so that puts it in its home state. These things are just so American I've got to do my own. I've got a K100 Aerodyne that I got for £10 a while ago and a spare T600 chassis with the Reyco spring suspension which would be more fitting than the KW 8 bag on the Aerodyne. That will also help with the stretch. I'm trying to establish a frame length. Looking at the photo of the blue KW it appears to be 4 cab lengths and, judging on the cab being an 82 inch sleeper, that gives me 328 inches. In scale that's 10 and a quarter. I'm not far off but I think a bit more is needed. So far I've decapped the cab, cut it down to a single sleeper. Adjusted the rear wheel rims, built a Holland fifth wheel and made the slider functional. It's going to be a 'no front brakes ' rig because I think these would have been. It was thought to reduce the likelihood of a jack-knife.

What an excellent job you've made of that, well done!

You started me on the process mate, thanks for that!

I wasn't sure if this was worthy of its own topic but it's been keeping me occupied so I thought I'd show everyone. You all know I build 1/32 Snap Tites and try to improve the look of them. I've sorted a system for deepening the awful shallow wheel dishes but it invariably led to the loss of chrome wheels, which isn't always a bad thing, but sometimes you want a polished finish. I'd pondered solutions for while. Aftermarket? Not really affordable for me. Chrome effect paint on my usual plastic insert? Doesn't stand up to handling and there's a lot of it in building the tandems. I was determined to get something because the tandems on my 352 were starting to annoy me, they spoil the look of the truck. I bought some thick-walled aluminium tube for a few pounds, it's an extruded piece, no seam in it. I very gingerly cut 3.5mm slices from it with a hacksaw or pipe cutter, both have their advantages and drawbacks. I need about 3.2mm in the finished form so the extra 0.3mm gives me room for filing and polishing. After I had the 4 rings I made a rough jig where I can hold the 4 together and file them simultaneously to the same size. I used progressively finer files as I go along, then change to wet and dry paper, used wet until all the deep scratches are gone. I then add a chamfer on one side to simulate the edge of the wheel dish and start buffing with metal polish and a buffing pad on my motor tool. The wheels themselves are reduced by 3.2mm at the inner mount, which I then used on the outside of the wheel as the hub, I just reduce the diameter with a file. I rub the edge of the rim away so the outer edge is flat. The overall effect is excellent and improves the stance of the trucks no end. I've also been adding sliding 5th wheels where possible. I'm really pleased with the improvements I made to my Freightliner conventional. As well as the tandems and the 5th wheel I reduced the front track, replaced the quarter fenders and painted under the wheel arches on the hood. Here's my 352:- 'm working my way through the fleet, upgrading those that I can dismantle without destroying them.

I know I've not been posting much lately, I'm a bit overwhelmed with my new house and everything's still scattered about the place. My bedtime reading nowadays is back issues of Overdrive Magazine on the Dutch Model Truck Club's Fotki page. I've also been looking at 352 Petes as research for my current (stalled) project. Last night I was looking at the January 1983 issue and when I got to the Tractor of the Month page I thought the subject looked familiar. I flicked to a "for sale" page I'd saved and it does indeed look like the same machine. It's not just the paint scheme though, same 350 Cummins, 13 speed, Dayton spoked wheels painted blue, still has one high back seat, rear facing alley lights on the roof, polished visor, 44,000lb rears, rubber lip on the bottom edge of the cab, the caps on the air horns, the licence plate board below the front bumper with the round amber reflectors on. It's still in Michigan too, about 200 miles from where it lived in the Overdrive days. The paint job has been pinstriped, there's a hefty front towing bar fitted and the half fenders have been renewed but I reckon there's enough there to say that they're the same truck that's had another life. I know, I should get out more, but we dullards make the rest of you look better!

Great looking K100, love the Salem paint scheme. Well done.

Here's my stripes I drew up on Paint® for the Aircon unit.

BOOM! I'm back! Sort of. I can't find half my materials or tools so I'm struggling a bit but I've got a basic bench set up for now and I've took the leap to get back into the habit. I've really missed working on my trucks. Here's my bench setup:- I've still got boxes to empty after two months. To get myself moving again I decided to do a simple job and build an air conditioning unit for the roof. It's a Kysor unit, which seemed to be the most common in the day. I used aluminium mesh for the grille and I'll plumb the lines in once the cab is sorted. I drew up some decals for it. I also got the itch to sort the wheels on the AMT Trailmobile van I built a few years ago. I swapped the AMT pieces for Monogram ones, which sorted the familiar scale issue, but then I had the Snaptite shallow wheel dish issue. I did my usual modification of adding depth to the wheel dish using two strips. Transforms the look.

It's because I've never had one up until then so I just thought I'm not going to miss anything. If I had a presence on there then maybe I'd approach it differently but I didn't see the advantage of it.

I think ive just had the shortest Facebook membership ever. I signed up (against my better judgement) to look at Facebook Marketplace, as we've just moved house and are looking at offloading "stuff" and acquiring other "stuff". Whilst on I went looking for 1/32 trucks because I'd seen a group come up on image searches. One of the first things I see is two images of MY 1/32 Freightliner cabover being used to advertise 1/25 3D printed kits! I was incensed. I left a comment on both images stating that they were not the product being sold, and that they were being used without my permission and had been lifted from this forum. I know it's a compliment really because the person thinks that there's no difference between my 1/32 snapper and a 1/25 AMT but it's misrepresentation and very wrong. I thought "I've been on 5 minutes and im already seeing stuff that's bent, and even using my work to perpetrate their lies!" I decided i wanted no part of such a setup and deleted my account. Am I being too sensitive?

The brake chambers do the actuation, the air stops there. A bit of research on the interwebs will help you mate, and you'll be able to do it systematically. In the meantime, what you've done so far will add some good detail.

Well done, not always easy with a kit that age.