Shop Built Shunt Truck ( a yarn about a yard goat)

[dptydawg]

The Saga of the Yard Goat

Over at Tabletop Industries, The owner who is big Tom cheap brother-in-law decided that they needed a shunt truck to handle the congestion in their shipping and receiving yard. So he asked Tom if he could put something together for him.

Since things were winding down for the winter, Tom agreed to have the boys in the shop could probably build something. His back lot was full of junked equipment. So with a deal in place both Tom and Sid headed off to warmer climes and left the build to the boys in the shop.

Tom’s instructions before he left was to build a yard goat from parts that they could scrounge from the scrap yard out back, but to make it look good or his sister would wreak havoc on him. So before the snow got too deep the boys dragged a bunch of stuff into the shop and started cutting and welding. In order to build a yard goat you should probably start with a goat. They found and old Dodge L700 glider. This was there starting point. Needing a power train they found most of it in a wrecked Louisville. A 3208 Cat and an Allison auto tranny. Some frame splicing was required to get the correct wheelbase.

The rear axle was mounted rigidly to the frame and the truck was converted to air brakes

After shoehorning the power train into the frame, the boys then fabricated a hydraulic lift for the 5^th wheel, custom built and exhaust system from Italeri parts, converted the fuel tanks into step tanks for easier access to the rear deck and found an old Euclid air cleaner

Rather than buy custom rads, they just piggy backed some extra rad cores onto the original Dodge rad. This also included power steering cooling because the power steering pump was modified to run the hydraulics as well

The rolling chassis was almost complete

Most of the trailer hookup stuff was derived from Italeri Accessory packs.

And finally as spring approaches the Yard Goat is rolled out the door.

Inside the cab a new consul was built to house controls for the auto trans, 5^th wheel lift and the new air brake controls including a trailer brake spike.

Thanks for looking

Carl

Edited March 16, 2014 by dptydawg

[dptydawg]

Sorry about the links and not the actual photos. I think Photobucket is playing games with me.

Carl

Edit to the edit

had to redo the original url's directly into the post. had previously written it in Word then pasted the whole thing. It always worked before.

Edited March 16, 2014 by dptydawg

[kilrathy10]

Very nice work, Man....Very nice.....That's a good looking shunter....I must say, this old Dodge is starting to grow on me.....

[slusher]

Very nice work, looks great...

[Apriliadan]

Very nice

[flat-top]

Very nice, good looking spotter.

[TokyoDrift99]

Wow! Looks great, and I like the story that goes along with it. I don't really know the backstory to it, but I think it is neat.

[dptydawg]

Thanks Gus for all the kind words.

There is not much of a back story to this build. A while ago I built a backdrop display to photograph mainly construction models. I hung a sign on the door for Big Tom's track works. Tom is a diecast dealer who has separated me from many a dollar over the years. Table top industries is another display dio. The family connection is purely fictional. But I'm glad you liked the story. I made it up to justify the creation of a dumb model.

Thanks

Carl