Kenworth W-925

[Force]

On 5/27/2025 at 10:14 PM, Brenton said:

Wow really? I’d love to see it! I’ve always built models but just recently got into big rigs. I never knew these kits were so old until I got on here and started working on them

The AMT Kenworth W925 (and the K123) was first issued back in 1971, so it was quite old when I built mine back in 1979-ish (Matchbox era), I don't have any pictures of it tho'.
The early issues of the kits had torsion bar rear suspension but it was changed after a while, most likely for the second run of the kits, it was changed to the walking beam they still have today.
So if you think the walking beam and axles were fiddly to put together you should try the torsion bars, they were really fiddly so that's why they changed.
A fun thing is that the W925 had the correct suspension when the kit first came out with the torsion bar suspension as the chassis designation *25 stands for torsion bars, so now when the suspension is changed to walking beam it should have W923 chassis designation.
The K123 had wrong chassis designation when it first came out as it also had torsion bar suspension and should have been K125, but it's correct now as the *23 chassis designation is for most all dual drive suspensions including air ride except the heavy spec walking beam and 6 rod wich were *24, and the torsion bars *25.
The *21 was single drive and *22 was single drive with push or tag axle regardless of suspension type.
Look forward to follow your build.

Edited May 30 by Force

[Brenton]

6 hours ago, Force said:

The AMT Kenworth W925 (and the K123) was first issued back in 1971, so it was quite old when I built mine back in 1979-ish (Matchbox era), I don't have any pictures of it tho'.
The early issues of the kits had torsion bar rear suspension but it was changed after a while, most likely for the second run of the kits, it was changed to the walking beam they still have today.
So if you think the walking beam and axles were fiddly to put together you should try the torsion bars, they were really fiddly so that's why they changed.
A fun thing is that the W925 had the correct suspension when the kit first came out with the torsion bar suspension as the chassis designation *25 stands for torsion bars, so now when the suspension is changed to walking beam it should have W923 chassis designation.
The K123 had wrong chassis designation when it first came out as it also had torsion bar suspension and should have been K125, but it's correct now as the *23 chassis designation is for most all dual drive suspensions including air ride except the heavy spec walking beam and 6 rod, and the torsion bars.
Look forward to follow your build.

That’s very interesting. I can’t imagine putting it together with torsion bars. Good grief!

[Force]

4 hours ago, Brenton said:

That’s very interesting. I can’t imagine putting it together with torsion bars. Good grief!

Yes it's quite complicated, here is how it goes together if you have the AMT original kits.

There are torsion bar sets on the aftermarket and they are based on the original AMT parts, but the suspension mounts for the axles are allready attached to the axles and makes it a bit easier to do.
This is one set from Auslowe.

[Brenton]

10 hours ago, Force said:

Yes it's quite complicated, here is how it goes together if you have the AMT original kits.

There are torsion bar sets on the aftermarket and they are based on the original AMT parts, but the suspension mounts for the axles are allready attached to the axles and makes it a bit easier to do.
This is one set from Auslowe.

I admire you guys who can do this. I know AMT and Round 2 are aware of these issues, but there’s been no update or retooling for these kits?  

[ShakyCraftsman]

3 hours ago, Brenton said:

I admire you guys who can do this. I know AMT and Round 2 are aware of these issues, but there’s been no update or retooling for these kits?  

 Sorry, but it is what it is. If Round 2 wasn't reproducing them we wouldn't have anything at all. Except for way over priced ones on Ebay. There not that bad. I used to hate AMT truck kits, but I've been taking a new look at them and now I find the faults a challenge to my modeling abilities. Keep at it Brenton the clue is to as Winston Churchill said KBO! (keep buggering on)😁😉

 They definitely aren't Tamiya kits that just fall together. They will make you a better modeler, and thats a good thing.

Ron G 

[Force]

I agree, if we didn't have the old AMT kits we wouldn't have anything at all.
The truck model market is too narrow for Round 2 to retool all old truck kits and still make money of them, keep in mind that many of them were developed and first issued in the early 70's (first AMT truck kit was the Peterbilt 359 California Hauler in 1969) so I'm affraid we have to work with what we have.
Round 2 did retool one tho', it was a truck kit where the tooling was modified to another kit and it couldn't be done anymore.
This kit is the International CO4070A originally done by ERTL back in 1973, so Round 2 back engineered the kit from an old original kit, did some modifying to get it even better and issued a totally new tooling kit of that truck in 2021 and it's very nice.
The original CO4070A tool was modified to the International Transtar II CO4070B in 1976 and that tool wasn't among the tooling Round 2 got when they bought the plastic kit tooling from Tomy who still owns the ERTL brand, so it might still be with them, it has to be around somewhere because AMT/ERTL issued that kit as late as 1996.

Well back to the original programming. 😉

Edited May 31 by Force