Detailed Lonestar WIP

[XJRV8]

After reading a post about the Lonestar being a waste of money I thought I would post my detailed build of this kit. Yes there are problems as there are with many other truck kits...but this adds to the challenge. I have posted this on other forums so some may have see this before.

Upon examining the parts I have discovered the hood has some damage, not sure if I caused this or whether this is a one off as my other ones are ok.

With the grill in place, looks like some heating will cure this.

Some of the parts on the sprues are numbered on the part itself and not the sprue, a little confusing at times.

I started on the chassis and as you can see the rails are slightly curved, but when assembled this becomes nice and straight:

Next I fitted the front and rear cab mounts. The front ones are very sloppy in the fit:

So I fitted the rear ones first, placed the fronts in position and then placed the cab floor into the mounts. Making sure this is all level and then gluing the front mounts.

The dash is in 3 parts and was a bit confusing to assemble as it looked as if it could fit in 2 or 3 ways. I checked on Lonestars website and the dash is slightly different...so no help there. If you look on the right where the scalpel is pointing I thought the top half fitted over this bottom curve, it could do but a real photo shows this exposed. On the left you see the blue pointer pointing towards the middle. On a real photo this shows this lower and forward a little. This would not sit right if I did this. So what you see is what I believe is correct and this fits perfectly when assembled with the rest of the cab panels.

Next picture shows all the cab in the assembled position. Everything fitted perfectly and have good locating points. I have not glued this in position as I will paint this first then glue it together.

[XJRV8]

I seem to have posted more pictures than I am allowed so will have to wait until I can add more. I hope this post helps.

[Bowtienutz]

Tanks John for the detailed how to. You demonstrated Exactly how to go about building any kit. Test fit all parts before you get crazy gluing stuff together and painting. I do this even with kits I'm familiar with because molds, Packaging processes etc. get sloppy. Don't take anything for granted.

A cabinet maker would never just take his wood pieces and start slapping them together without test fitting things.

Every kit is gonna have problems. It's hard to break bad habits but if thats the way you build you maybe you just take a deep breath realize you need to learn a new technigue.

I just picked up the AMT Manx Kit and all I can say is if I didn't use the technigues John so well illiustraed the engine would be a glue bomb. Nothing fit without filing, sanding. and repeated test fitting.

Now heading back to the bench to adapt Nicer wheels and tires to the manx.

[Jim B]

Looks pretty good so far. One thing I noticed is that your seat bases are reversed. The clip for the seatbelts should be toward the inside of the cab; not the outside. The placement diagram/numbering is incorrect in the instruction booklet. Also, if you're going to use the "LoneStar" decals on the seats & rear sleeper wall you might consider removing the raised detail as the texts aren't the same size.

[Gregg]

I seem to have posted more pictures than I am allowed so will have to wait until I can add more. I hope this post helps.

John, I don't know if this would work for "members" but I tried something that worked.

I put up a bunch of photos, using the full editor, and then before I went to Post it, I went back and added more pictures, kind of like a second batch.

It may be my permissions, as admin, but I thought it may be a workaround.

Thanks for the pics on the Lonestar, nice work so far.

What was Mr. Vince talking about with the VW pics, did you do some on the Manx?

Vince?

[Bowtienutz]

_{I didn't mean to get off topic but I was adding a commet to make a point that the new Manx kit could fit in the same category as (ready for trash), if you didn't do the basics of test fitting, scraping chrome, a little sanding and such the engine would never fit together right. As far as the wheels and tires go, I really like cragar SS mags when I put it together with the kit wheels and tires (personal preference) I didn't like the look. The front tires I felt were too tall and the rear street tires were to not wide enough. So I decided to swith to the Cragar SS mags from the Baldwin motion Camaro along with the rear tires. For the front I found that the Monogram PS front tires gave me a look I wanted. I then proceded to modify the wheel mounting to adapt the cragars to Vw Axles. (EMPI catalog didn't have wheel adapters for model cars )}

[clayton]

try photobucket then copy the photos link here.

[Truck parts]

John, Thanks for the tip, I have one ,and was thinking about starting on it soon

[XJRV8]

Thanks for your comments. Jim B the seats I realised after fitting, down to the instructions. Regarding the decals with the seats and sleeper wall...I fitted these on top of the raised text...hindsight is a great thing. But this is what my post is about so that others learn from the mistakes/faults.

I am constructing the steering and this has been built wrong...not my fault, honest, but it does not affect the steering....just confuses you when you want to fit the steer arm. I had left the steering box off the chassis until I was ready to fit the steer axle so I could see where all the link rods would go. This steering box should have a hole in it where the black dot is, but it hasn't.

The next picture shows the steer axle. Please take note of this as this is what confused me later. Hindsight here, use this position of the axle to work from. As you can see in the right side there is a small hole. This is not mentioned in the instructions but is important to make sure this is on the correct side. This side is referred to the left side in the instructions, which it is when you rotate it into the position when fitted.

I assembled the parts as instructed. Now the tie rod looks like this and the second picture shows it in the incorrect postion,:

Correct position:

Axle assembled and you can see the small hole where the steer arm fits. This is where I have made the mistake and you will see why.

This is the axle fitted and the steer tie rod faces behind the axle.

The small hole should be on the right side, side of the steering box...mine isn't....

This picture shows how it should be, although this is in reverse as you can see by the tie rod facing forward, this is just to show where the hole should be.

The drag link connects to the steer arm and then the drag link should fit into a hole in the steering box, but there is no hole. Do not worry about this because these parts do NOT operate the steering. The steering still steers. So if you construct the axle the way I did it will not affect the steering., and it isn't a problem fitting the steer arm as I cut the locating pin off and glued to the axle.

[XJRV8]

Next I built the 2 drive axles. Here we have another problem with the wrong instructions. This is the backing plate for the last axle, you can see the locating holes and these need fitted in the correct position and not as shown in the instructions.

This is how it is shown to be fitted in the instructions:

This is it fitted correctly as you can see if the brake chamber hole was in the previous position the the brake chamber would be hitting the suspension.

Next I fitted the airbags, and these have to be fitted the correct way. The picture shows the left airbag correct and the right shows the incorrect way. You can see how the right airbag stick out more.

Final picture shows the axles fitted. This is a good fit, and the small propshaft is tightly fitted in place.

[XJRV8]

Here is a mistake I made. The first picture shows the rear shock absorbers. I removed one and tried to fit this realising that I had cut off a locating pin. I am used to shocks with a round edge at the bottom. Second picture shows the part that I cut off:

Assembled drive axels:

This next part fits into the chassis and the part that holds the side skirts. You can see the locating tabs are shorter on the left hand side. This shorter bit fits into the chassis, the longer tab would not fit as it hits one of the cross members.

This is the side skirt holders in place, as you look at the picture the right side faces the front of the frame.

Next I fitted the fuel tank brackets. I used 1 half of the tank to align all the brackets, there are holes for the brackets but I wanted to make sure these were straight:

This is them in place.

Fuel tank braces in place:

[XJRV8]

I have painted the frame a gloss black:

This is the interior finished, no problems with assembling this:

This is the dash fitted with the decals supplied. I am thinking of removing these and painting the panel and switches.

I have more to post but will let you digest this. Thanks for looking.

John

[ntc8733]

Great info John! Wish I would have waited to start mine and this could have saved me some time!

[Jim B]

Your interior looks really nice in the black & red. I like it.

[Hessel Hemstra]

Very nice to have a help like this. Will make it possible to make mine as good as possible. Thanks a lot !!!!

Hessel

[jekylljr]

thanks for th e info iam building a lonestar myself

[Darbo]

Thanks for the heads up on this one, and i can't wait to see it finished.

[W-409]

Very cool build. Great to see more Lonestars. Very nice Truck, even if it's still missing from my stash. Great interior. It looks like 1:1. Chassis work is incredible too. Thanks for sharing this one, and can't wait to see more updates.

[XJRV8]

An update on the build of the engine. This is a Maxxforce engine and from the pictures I have seen the block is blue. I have decided to build this in my colours that will go with the colour of the truck. Pictures show a step by step as it isn't quite clear how the parts go together.

If you want a detailed engine then you have to assemble just these parts and paint the block first:

I then painted the engine pulley belts and fixed in position, the smaller pulley/belt goes on first. I also fitted the Alternator, top right in the photo. This would not fit as the oil filler pipe was in the way. I tried to bend this but it snapped off, so I made an adjustment for it to fit. At the bottom of the engine is a cross member with the horn fitted:

The next photos show the parts assembled in order,exhaust manifold, oil filter and top right is the air pump fitted:

Next is the 2 turbo chargers with exhaust and intercooler. I found it easier to assemble the first turbo with the second as per photo then fit this to the engine, then fitted the exhaust pipe. This is not glued into position just incase I need to make any adjustments later to fit this to the other pipe work::

The rest of the pictures are the engine fully assembled, I just need to go round again and touch up:

[XJRV8]

This is as far as I have got with this build.

The grey on the hood is primer and will have bare metal foil fitted.

[Chad]

I love that paint job, im doing one very similar right now.

Chad

[Inky]

After looking at all these builds of the Lonestar I have to go get me one. Very nice work you are doing. Thank you for the step by step instructions, they will come in handy when I build mine. Keep up the good work and looking forward to seeing more pictures.

[tooltas]

thanks on the frame mine was not as waped as yours but i had to cut the shaf that go in to the rear axle in half an cut a two pice out of it to make it fit. but it in there now,

[doogie7046]

Thanks for the heads up on some problem areas. I will have to remember those items you mentioned when I get around to building mine. Your build is looking great.

[Danno]

Nice stuff, John! Thanks for taking us along for the ride.