'66 F-600 kitbash ideas

[Harv Mushman]

I have a leftover engineless Moebius '66 F100 kit from a project (in this case, retrofitting a 240cid six into a F100 4x4) and I'm thinking I'd like to kitbash a medium duty truck.
In this case, a '66 F700. The bodywork seems straightforward enough. Wheels, tyres, no problem aftermarket.

Should I scratchbuild a chassis (e.g. rails/xmembers), and if so, how? I looked through Evergreen and Plastruct and neither seemed to have suitable channel (approx 9.5x3").

It will need a front beam, 2-speed Eaton axle and some suitable spring packs, anything in the aftermarket that anyone would recommend? I considered buying a C600 as a general parts donor but the detail seems pretty representative, at best.

I'm unsure as to which engine yet, but I do have a 352 available. I can live with the Custom Cab interior (e.g. sweep instruments) for this job.

Edited yesterday at 04:31 AM by Harv Mushman

[Fat Brian]

The best chassis for this is the Dodge L700 cabover, it has the two speed axle and everything. If you want the Ford engine from the C600 it shouldn't be too hard to find one, those kits get their engines swapped pretty frequently or you might find one from a kit breaker on ebay.

[Ace-Garageguy]

10 hours ago, Harv Mushman said:

Should I scratchbuild a chassis (e.g. rails/xmembers), and if so, how? I looked through Evergreen and Plastruct and neither seemed to have suitable channel (approx 9.5x3").
 

Straight channel wouldn't do you all that much good, as the rails are tapered in the rear and curved/shaped/tapered in front.

One way to fab them (and the way I'd do it) would be to draw them out in profile (after research and suitable scaling), cut two identical outer walls from something like .020" or .030" styrene sheet, and carefully attach the top and bottom flanges (which CAN be made from straight sections of strip stock).

Make the crossmembers from suitable channel.

As for the rest of the chassis details, just break each part down into basic shapes, and fabrication becomes relatively straightforward.

A little tricky, but entirely doable with some patience.

There are some threads on here where similar procedures have achieved strikingly fine models.