Brian Conn

I was busy for the few days that the site was down....I'm still working away on the Ford/Garwood trash truck, just needed a change of scenery. In 1976, the Bi-Centennial year, I was 11 years old. I was building a variety of kits, thanks in part to subscribing to a model of the month club through the mail. My skills , if you want to call them that, where typical 11 year old. I've improved some what in the last 50 years...I think??? I remember seeing the first release of this kit and wanting it, but I knew that I did not posses the skills that it would take to build it...may be when I get older. I got this kit earlier this year, thanks to family at Christmas time. Thought that I would be deeper into the build than I am, but sometimes life gets in the way. My goal is to at least have a curbside build by the 4th of July .....I'm not building it as a tractor.....I have other plans for it in mind, so it will be just a truck with no body on it as you might see at a Mack dealership. This is what the color will look like for the most part...some of the chrome pieces will be painted as there seemed to be an excessive amount in this kit. Got some of the sub assemblies put together....every thing pictured will be Blue. Got some more sub assemblies to put together as I am going to airbrush all of the exterior Blue assembled and attached to the frame sub assemblies, then the Red grill, hood and cab areas

Just wanted to say thanks to who ever fixed the issue and got the site back up and running again....

...I have been a contest judge for a few years now with the local club (both AMPS and IPMS)...viewing this thru a 1280 x 720 resolution monitor screen (aprox. 22" across by 14" tall) this is easily a a top 5 ..top 3 build. Don't sell your self short with this one.

appreciate your in put ......I just presumed that finding info. on the Mack would be like my previous findings (dimensions) on the 60's era International Harvester DCO 405 Emeryvilles and VCO A 190's as well as the Ford C series cab overs....discovered volumes of useful information. Looks like I will have to add 12 to 18 scale inches to accommodate the tank body...still undecided about adding a pusher axle.

I have a Mack DM 800 ,tractor version, that I need to increase the wheelbase on. I have a 3-D printed oval tank that will be used with the build. I have scoured the internet including Big Mack Trucks.com with no luck finding any wheelbase options for the DM 800. I did find one spec sheet for the DM 800 showing multiple wheelbases, but the print was so small that any attempt to enlarge it only blurred it. Mack has a fair amount of wheelbase info. on some of its other models, but for some reason the DM 800 remains elusive. My question is to those of you who have stretched a frame to accommodate a body (dump,flatbed, wrecker, etc. etc) do you just dry fit the body and stretch it so the the tandems are where they are suppose to be or is there something else involved.

This part is more of a personal preference from past experiences. The AMT Ford C Series cab over is offered with a variety of bodies.... box truck delivery,trash truck and a flat bed,stake truck. I am going to presume that all 3 bodies mount the same way to the chassis...I am only familiar with the trash truck...in that there are locating pins on the chassis and corresponding holes on the body. I.M.H.O the trash truck body sits too close to the tires. In the 1:1 world this is inviting a D.O.T enforcement inspector to pull you over for an inspection...either your overweight or something is broke on the suspension....either way it will ruin your day. A good rule of thumb is aprox. 6" of clearance between the top of the tire and the bottom of the body ( box truck, garbage truck, flat bed. etc. etc.) with no load. As far as the box truck and flat bed trucks go , I don't know if they sit any higher or lower than the garbage truck body....from what I can tell from pictures of builds, they have about the same clearance as the trash truck. I am going with 6 scale inches (6 m.m) of clearance. I needed to add 2.79mm. to get 6.6 mm. The larger round tube is the spacer cut to 2.79 mm. It is Evergreen part# 224 1/8" tube (3.2 mm.) it fits snugly over the pins on the chassis. The smaller rod is the locating pin that fits into the bottom side of the body. It is Evergreen part# 212 080" rod (2.0 mm.) You will have to slightly open up the end of the Evergreen tubing to get the rod to fit inside. I will fill in the area between the new spacers to illuminate the gaps. 6 mm. of clearance, right on the money.

The cab presents the most visible issues. I've personally seen more than a few where the cab is still tilted slightly forward in the down position and worse. The stories abound about the frustrations some builders have had with getting the cab to sit right and to be able to tilt the cab forward without coming into contact with the grill. Despite what the instructions say, do not attach the rear cab support until everything is where it needs to be and your satisfied with the results. I had to make small notch on the inner splash panels. The reason was that the splash panel was sitting on top of the upper shock mount, thus not allowing the cab to seat properly in the rear cab support. Another area to take a look at is the radiator. The top of the radiator could possibly come into contact with the bottom side of the cab interior floor pan. When attaching the floor pan make sure that the foot box (rectangle box area adjacent to the doors) is level with the bottom of the cab and that the rest of floor pan is level. Doing this is the first part in helping to prevent the cab from coming into contact with the grill when being tilted forward. Note the area where I had to remove a portion of the underside due to clearance issues...some of it was due to scratch building , some of it wasn't. This is the second part in helping to prevent the cab from coming into contact with the grill when being tilted forward. The reason that the cab comes into contact with the grill is that the grill, when properly attached according to the instructions, is too far forward. With the cab in place, start removing material from the front portion of the frame rails. Test fit the bumper/grill, The round, outer portions of the grill need to be flush with the front of the cab. Here are some 1:1 examples:

Unfortunately there is not an easy "fix" .....a picture of the hood would be most helpful

Your very welcome! Look for a part 3 relating to the cab and its inherit issue and how to remedy it coming out soon...got side tracked with work and the winter storm.

I get a lot of windshield time listening to talk radio....mostly news of the world, or is that news of the weird....anyway of all things the discussion of C.W McCall came up....could have been that I was in S.E Nebraska and he hails from the Omaha Area. Here was the gist of the story. Turns out there are 4 different versions of the song Convoy 2 by C.W himself ,the radio version and the movie version. One by Canadian Paul Brandt ....saw a Paul Brandt trucking rig on South Bound 75 North of T-Town today ...coincidence???!!!??? Bonus points if you know where T-Town is! And one by Irishman Paul Kelly , yea that's right the trucking in the U.K! Links to these songs can be found at Google

The rear axle visibly looks good...its what you don't see necessarily that is the issue..allow me to explain. The AMT truck rear axle has a steel rod that is attached to the wheel assembly's. As you can see in the picture, the rod is much smaller than the center hole in the rear axle which can cause, depending on if a body is mounted, a clearance issue with the top of the tire and the underside of the body. As a rule of thumb, there needs to be no less than 5 mm. (5" in 1:1 scale) of clearance between the top of the tire and the underside of the body. More clearance is builders choice. Where this would not be an issue is with the C series tractor since it has a fifth wheel. WASTE NOT, WANT NOT I don't see common, ordinary things like most people, rather I see a potential, useful item to be used for scratch building....case in point. These are the guts out of a dried up click pen...the White piece is the perfect size to fit into the axle and also allow the steel rod to fit into. Its now a bushing of sorts that pretty much eliminates the slop in the rear axle and will add a small, bit more clearance between the top of the tire and underside of the body... aprox. 2 mm.. This is not a drill bit , but rather a reamer. Ream the axle holes large enough so that the White piece fits into the axle snugly. I found that I only needed to ream a small bit on each side of the axle for the pen piece to properly fit. Fit the piece into the axle and cut off the excess. Insert the steel rod, attach the wheels and you done. You can do the same thing with an Evergreen tube...unsure of the number or dimensions as I don't have any on hand at this time.

As I am finding out with my first truck build, an AMT Ford C series cab over, that AMT trucks leave some to be desired as far as parts fitment and related issues as I have read here and elsewhere on the internet. If you have built an AMT big truck with out any fitment issues, congratulations your one of the few, as for the rest of us...... I am going to break this up into parts, hopefully making it easier. PART 1: Squaring the frame The frame is the foundation from which a truck is build, much the same way a sturdy foundation is from which a building is built. Since the frames consist of two separate side rails and numerous cross members is up to the builder to take the time and make sure that the frame is square, if not then pretty much everything will not be in proper alignment from that point forward and make for a frustrating building experience. Everyone has their different ways as far as holding the frame sections in place while their being attached...if it works for you use it....personally I use a flat,steel building plate and magnets along with modeling clay. Use only the two side rails/frame pieces and the front most and rear most cross members. Use the rear cross member that goes between the frame rails and not the cross member that attaches to the body frame (above the truck frame) as in the trash truck, city delivery/Coke, stake truck. Locate a point on your frame that you can use as a reference..in this case I use the rear most locator pin on the frame that is used to locate the trash truck packer box to the frame. There is another one on the opposite frame rail same location. On the front I used the center hole on the frame half of the cab pivot/hinge. It's important that you do a diagonal measurement as pictured, it needs to be an equal length on both sides Once you are satisfied that the frame is square and true, attach the all cross members except for the transmission cross member/mount and cab support despite what the instructions may show. You will locate and attach those while doing the engine and cab alignment.

....One last update for 2025.... Have the hopper done and ready for weathering Began some subtle weathering on the upper panel Will be scratch building the control handle for the over head winch that ties in with the controls for the upper and lower panels HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL AND KEEP ON TRUCKIN'

Thanks for the response!!!! I have had too much outside the hobby room drama going on to maintain the focus and concentration needed...should have knocked this one out a long time ago....so I keep on keepin' on.