AMT Kenworth Kits

[Warren D]

I have a question or two about the AMT Kenworth 925 kits.  I have an old kit (unknown which one) that I built up around 1980.  It has the torsion bar rear suspension.  I have a NOS Watkins KW 925 kit that has springs for the rear suspension.  Can I take the torsion bar set-up off the old model and use it on the Watkins frame?  Put another way, did the two kits share the same frames?  I'm looking to do a Smokey and the Bandit KW and would rather use as much of the new kit as possible, but as long as I have the torsion bars, I'd like to do it as correct as possible.

Thanks

[KJ790]

Yes you can put the torsion bar suspension on the the Watkins version of the kit without any problem.

[Force]

It should not be a problem as KJ says,
The W925/K125 designation stands for Torsion Bar Suspension and that's what the kit originally had, AMT changed to Walking Beam later but the frame rails are the same.
They should also have changed the designation to W923 for the model to be correct when they changed the suspension, but left the W925...I don't know exactly when they changed the suspension but I know it was after the T559 KW Challege Transit Mixer and before the T560 Movin On and T511 Alaskan Hauler.
Apparently also the K123 originally had Torsion Bar suspension but that was also changed to the Walking Beam sometime...the K123 has the right designation now tho'.

[Warren D]

Ok, thanks.  Does anyone have a copy of the instruction sheet for the torsion bar system that they could send me a scan of?

[Force]

Here you go (curtesy of public.fotki.com/modeltrucks25thscale)

[Warren D]

Thanks for the reply, but the links aren't loading.  They are working now, my old home computer is better than the newer junk I have at work!

Edited January 6, 2017 by Warren D
Update

[extmcdriver]

Building the torsion bar suspension is a task in itself. I think folks complained to AMT back in the day hence the walking beam.

[Warren D]

That's why I was looking for the instruction sheets.  When I strip it from the old truck, I want to be sure I put it on the new one correctly.  I'm not sure it was done correctly the first time.

[37 caddy]

I remember when i was about 10-11 years old,i purchased a mixer kit,it was really sharp looking on the box,I could not finish the suspension,it was too hard for a 11 year old,it didnt help that i painted all the pieces first,glue wouldnt stick very good.Never did finish it,it just wound up being a parts rig.Even today i wouldnt want to build the torsion bar setup,give me the walking beam anyday. Harvey

[kevjoh]

the easiest way to set up the ride hight for the torsion bar suspension is to first fit the shock absorbers to the chassis cross members and diffs. Then do the linkages, it's all rathar fiddly, but by doing it this way one has a reasonable chance of having all the drive wheels sitting evenely on the road

[lapazleo]

The real life torsion bar was a maintenance nightmare and would have been useless on a vocational truck like mixer as it was not designed for of road use. However it did ride decent even better than early 8 bags according to many guys I knew back then.