1/25 Peterbilt "can do" wrecker

[PakRatJR]

Thanks Neb. That was my thought also.

On the plus side, with the door now needing to be fixed, it's almost giving me a excuse to attempt a possible.....adjustment.....to get the outriggers to fit right

[The Mad Klingon]

I don't build cars but heavy stuff appeals to me and I like where this is going.

Bummer about the decals. I noticed the city was Tampa, my home town.

[PakRatJR]

Thanks MK

The truck is actually based off the real deal. It was owned by a company called Stepp's towing based out of Tampa.

http://www.steppstowing.com/

I don't know if they still have it tho, the only picture on their site is the same one that's on the box.

[Neb]

Originally Posted by PakRatJR

Thanks Neb. That was my thought also.

On the plus side, with the door now needing to be fixed, it's almost giving me a excuse to attempt a possible.....adjustment.....to get the outriggers to fit right

You know you want to......

[PakRatJR]

Originally Posted by Neb

You know you want to......

Yeah....I do.... hehehe

[PakRatJR]

Of repair, destruction and a small bit of dispair......

Got some time to play with this again.

After the decal debacle I spent a bit of time deciding what to do to fix things. I finally decided to continue with the white and red stripes. The plan was easy enough, tape things and paint the stripes.

First thing first tho, fix the broke door and adjust things for the correct fit of the outriggers.

The offending areas




As you can see, things are a bit off.
After about a half hours worth of cutting, sanding and fitting, proper clearance has been achieved. Altho barely on one side. Note the repaired door




Copy and paste for the other side. Easy peasy

For the door repair, a bit of hacking up of things for proper clearance for the new brass hinge pin, and a fair bit of CA to hold things in place, and broke door is now repaired.







And being that the other door decided to jump ship about five minutes after fixing the first one.........copy and paste the repair on that side also.

And now for the destruction and bit of despair part.....

Had to do a small bit of disassembly of things to make it easier to tape and paint the stripes. Easy enough.
The problem started after I got the first coat of paint on things. I don't know what happened, but things didn't work....at all . Never even got to the actual striping bit.

I ended up having to completely strip the thing, which ended up with more destruction of things, including the de-chroming of the two biggest chrome pieces in the kit.









I still have a small bit of cleanup to do, but on the plus side...sort of....I came up with a new paint idea.

I have decided to go with black white and red, along the lines of the "Dons Towing" wrecker kit. The previously chrome deck will now be completely red with a small bit of chrome, the rotator unit will remain white, and the body and cab will be black and white with a possible red stripe.

That's all I got for now.

[Neb]

[PakRatJR]

A small update.....and a couple teaser pics

I finally got the wrecker body back into paint, and got the sleeper put together and painted.

I didn't do anything special on the inside of the sleeper being that you don't really see the majority of it once things are together.




I am still trying to work out the paint scheme. I'm still thinking I want to do the black white and red, I'm just not sure yet how much of each I want.

So, for the teaser pics....how I have things sitting right now as I try to work out the design.

The tape is where I am thinking of leaving things white with black from their down. I just haven't figured out how I want to transition on to the sleeper and cab yet.

[Neb]

Loooookin good!

[PakRatJR]

Thanks Neb



Working on the new paint scheme. Got the chrome bits just sitting temporarily. Also need to figure out how to clean up a couple spots where things ran under the tape.

I'm still not entirely sure I'm happy with things. It's not quite what I had in my head, but it is pretty close.

I'm thinking I want to go with a red stripe between the black and white and possibly under the chrome strip as well. Also not really sure that I like the red fender flares but I'll give it a few days and see if things grow on me

[PakRatJR]

Managed to get a bit more painting done on things. Despite the fracken cold weather.

Nothing major. Just the cab and sleeper, but it's something.

Decided to leave the wrecker body as is paint wise and also decided to leave out the red stripe on the front half as well.

I have been doing my best to avoid the "black truck with a white stripe" look. I think I'm doing pretty good so far

Nothing is mounted permanent yet so things ain't exactly lined up as they should be, but at least you can get the idea of things.

[Neb]

[PakRatJR]

Well waddaya know....I managed to get a few more things things done on this

I got far enough on things that I was finally able to glue things to the frame.

The interior is done, except for the steering wheel which has gone awol.. It was on the tweezers for paint. I turned my head to grab a brush, when I turned back...it was gone. No idea whee it went




With the finished interior, I was able to get the cab and bunk glued together. Then came the messing with the doors.....

Spent close to a hour getting things set and working correctly.....only to drop the thing ten minutes after getting them glued in place. Broke the passenger door right off. Sadly, with the way they are mounted, I have yet to figure out a fix. So the door will be the removable type for now




On the fun side, I finally got to try out that bare metal foil stuff. Some interesting stuff that is.

The grill, exhaust stacks, fuel tank bands headlight bezels and the trim on top of the hood were covered.

I also had to break the rules a small bit and had to buy some PE. The badges are all decal with most being integrated into the stripe decals.

The PE badges are a bit larger than I would like, but it was all that was available.




I still need to do some adjusting on the hood. Due to the amount of frame flex, the hood won't stay closed when the truck is sitting on the wheels.

Also had some minor issues with the windows. They are slightly too small and slightly the wrong shape. I had to use gap filling CA to get them to stay put.



And finally, I got the wrecker body glued down. That was the really fun bit.

Snug fit on things and no good way to clamp things. A liberal coating of regular glue and a few dabs of CA in key spots and it ain't going anywhere.

The boom and accessories are just temp installed for now.









That's all I got for now. I'm hopeing it will start warming up a bit more sometime soon. I might be able to get some good pictures for ya'lls.

[Neb]

Very cool---it has a very "heavy" look as she sits there.

[coolwill99]

Hi your truck looks sweet I'm from England uk and just manage to get my hands on one of there's models if it turns out half as good as your one I'll be made up once again your looks truly amazing