Ford C800 Coke truck (but not the original kit)

[Jürgen M.]

Hello everyone! I'm back with a new project.

I'm building a C800 as a Coke truck but I'm not using the original AMT kit. 

What's the idea?

After having finished the Louisville I had the box left with a lift gate and I knew I had to make a Ford cabover now that I have a conventional.

Also making the scrap pieces (IH Transtar cab) for the Louisville I thought a Coke truck might be nice. I have Coke decals from three different kits (Western Star, Pete 352 and GMC General).

Never used them so now's the chance to catch up on that.

I tried desperately to design the cab but it's harder than I had expected so I cheated and ordered a cab with interior on eBay. (Thanks Jeff for the link to the offer).

I designed and printed the engine and will be using a bunch of box parts to fill the parts gaps.

Fuel tanks, exhaust system, rims, tires and a few other things will come out of the box.

The engine will be the same V8 gas engine that Jeff has in his distributor truck but self designed.

I downloaded the instruction sheet of the c600 Coke truck and used a few of Jeff's pics from his distributor build to get the engine and the chassis done.

The chassis rails are materialized!

A virtual mock-up of chassis and engine (I exchanged the automatic by a manual gear box).

That's about it at the moment.

It will hopefully look something like this:

But it won't be a holiday edition. 

Just remembered that I wanted to make a comment on the Trailmobile box body.

Those of you who are familiar with the Convoy movie might know that R.D.'s tank trailer seemed to be a Fruehauf (said so on the mud flaps)

but it was actually a 1960 Trailmobile tank trailer. It was the only trailer they could find in the lack of time before the movie takes began. Since the trailer was quite short and looked a bit strange on that huge Mack they put the fifth wheel as far back as possible to make the trailer and the whole rig look a bit longer.

A little story to both builds! 😊

Edited Saturday at 06:23 AM by Jürgen M.

[Biggu]

Another cool build and slight conversion. The C aeries Ford IMHO was not Ford’s greatest hour, BUT they made thousands of them and they were a stalwart work horse for many, many years. With hundreds of different uses. Don’t see many around still on the job these days, but they all did their job.  I have a front row seat for this one JM. Looking forward to seeing this one come together

[Jürgen M.]

Thanks Pal.

Hope it turns out good! 

[Jürgen M.]

The first real parts progress:

The engine is assembled and painted ...

...the chassis is started...

... Front axle made of earlier printed, now box parts and new parts is assembled ...

... chassis rests on front axle to check the fit.

[Rockford]

Another gem of a project! Also, always wondered why the fifth wheel was so far back on the Rubber Duck. 

[BK9300]

Good to see another one underway from your bench, Jürgen!

[gotnitro?]

Can't wait to see this progress ! Your 3d printed builds are really looking good, a skill I have yet to try

[Jürgen M.]

Thanks very much to all of you.

I just hope I took the correct measures off the pics I have but it should work out.

I believe the Louisville and the C600 kits have the exact same box body so I also had the original parts to check size.

Still it's always an adventure combining kit parts and printed ones. Especially when you don't have all the kit parts yet. There's always something you didn't see.

[Jürgen M.]

The engine is finished!

(I know, Ford engines are/were normally blue but I like it better this way!

The chassis is ready for painting:

 

[Gary Chastain]

Lookin good

[Jürgen M.]

Had a bit of time in my lunch break. Painted the chassis!

The engine is just positioned to see the fit.

[Jürgen M.]

By the way, I decided to make it a holiday edition after all! 🧑‍🎄

[Jürgen M.]

Mocked-up the wheels 

...and painted the box parts:

Still need to paint the outlines and the lift gate.

[Pete68]

.

Edited Wednesday at 02:22 AM by Pete68

[Pete68]

On 11/30/2025 at 4:09 PM, Rockford said:

.

Edited Wednesday at 02:24 AM by Pete68

[Jürgen M.]

7 hours ago, Pete68 said:

Probably because of turning radius so they would not tear the mud flaps off or catch the trailer frame on the chassis. I used to have to watch pulling a 40’ and especially a 20’ container chassis for this same reason. 

No, because the trailer was so short, it looked weird with the huge Mack. They put the fifth wheel all they way in the back to make the rig look longer!

[Jürgen M.]

Made some progress on the chassis:

I used the Louisville fuel tanks.

The steering gear is a bit different than the original but it works:

 And the holiday feeling is coming up!

 

[Gary Chastain]

Wow Jurgen, this looks so cool

[Pete68]

2 hours ago, Jürgen M. said:

.

Edited Tuesday at 11:30 PM by Pete68

[Jürgen M.]

Sometimes things show up twice, sometimes not at all. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

Anyway, the fifth wheel of the R.D. Mack was put all the way in the back to make the trailer and the rig look longer.

[Jürgen M.]

Did some work on the chassis 

...and on the box

[Jürgen M.]

Here's a mock-up of the box on the chassis.

According to tracking the cab will arrive sometime between 14 and 22 Dec.

Means there will be a longer break! 😢

[Biggu]

The distressed rear door decals are great !  Also , something that will make this better are the larger wheels and tires, I used an after market set for my distributor, but I think yours, being the Mobeus ties, may be a shade larger and look even better, I think that was a good choice you made, JM ! Nice engine details as well... this is cool....

[Jürgen M.]

Thanks Jeff!

Actually they're Italeri 1/24 truck tires. 

I like them cause they're a bit flexible concerning rim size and they look good.

Hope the cab gets here soon. As far as I know it was shipped out of Illinois this morning!

[Jürgen M.]

Actually I was thinking of adding a tag axle here too. I noticed that I located the drive axle a bit far to the front. It's only a little bit off the middle of the box. Of course the weight of the cab and engine would keep the real thing from tipping but it does look a bit 'risky'! 

Since I have enough time till the cab arrives I might print a tag axle just to see how it looks!