Cornbinder

I love 'em! I'd really like to see the Astro reissued with the Turbine and the infamous "bus" mirrors.

Here is a shot of the engine and transmission in place. The engine is a Detroit V-12 from GW Trucks- it is hooked up to the Road Boss transmission. The A64B tapered rear frame rails were used, along with the tail lights, and a Pennsylvania plate was nabbed from the Revell auto transporter. Fiberglass-nosed Autocars used an 18" battery box with an integral step. I modified the A64B battery boxes by narrowing them and making the steps from square plastic strip. The narrowed box is up top, and the kit box is below. Here are the finished boxes, with the steps installed, mounting brackets added, and re-scribed panel lines.

You saw the in-progress here... http://www.modeltruckbuilder.com/index.php?/forums/topic/71-diamond-reo-raider-sbfa-michigan-special/#comment-236 Now here's the end result. I may do a little touchup and add some grease caps to the front wheels, but it still looks pretty good up on the shelf all the same.

Nice! :)

Finally got around to getting the chassis more or less sorted. I ended up shortening the wheelbase just a tad- about 30 scale inches. I also omitted my lift axle as I was never all that happy with it. The chassis is painted in the same Chrysler Forest Green pearl used as accent color on the wheels. Power will be from a GW Trucks Detroit V12, hopefully that will be worked out in a few days.

The version I had was the one that could be done as a long tandem or a short single. I went with the short single, though the axle, brake components, and wheels are from an AMT trailer.

I love it! I need to get that conversion kit one of these days.

That is good news! Ray also sold a '57 IH pickup that would be handy to have.

Star probably still has R&R stuff in stock, but there's no new stuff being cast. The owner Ray Parsons passed away several years ago. I think his cab was originally done by SJS.

Very nice! Wish I'd stocked up on those cabs while R&R was still around.

I just added three new photos to the original post, showing the Fleetstar's new consort.

Mmmmm... Dodge-y.

You can see this come together in the workbench section... it took way longer than it should have. Short version is that it's the AITM cab conversion perched atop an AMT GMC Astro 95 chassis.

Yesterday I did a little work on updating this. I added the slots in the bumper, and the bumper bolts, and I finally got around to adding a wet tank. Still needs some grease caps on the front hubs.

Did a few updates yesterday, after the model was damaged a few months ago. I added some bumper bolts, and cut in come fog lights. I also added a spot light and did quite a bit of re-foiling... I still need to do some more touch up there, like on the driver's side headlight bezel. I also added some thin vertical bars to the grille, eventually I might make up the diamonds to go down the center of the grille.

This is something I've been messing with for a bit. Made quite a bit of progress tonight, so thought I'd post up some photos. Here's how the AITM cab looked mocked up on the AMT GMC Astro chassis. I did make a few changes. The rear wheels and tires are from an Autocar, and they're just on for mockup purposes. I reworked the Astro front wheels to fit the float tires from an IH Paystar 5000 kit. I worked away at the bumper with a foam sanding block until the slots opened up. I also painted and detailed the grille. Seeing it in this stage got me motivated. After weighing my options, I opted to build it as a tractor rather than a dump truck as I had originally intended. The Astro battery box was used as-is, but the round tanks were shortened for use on the 9500. The mufflers are from the AITM kit, though I cut the tops off and used K&S aluminum tube for the stand pipes. I made the exhaust brackets from pieces of Evergreen strip.

I haven't forgotten about this- it's just been on the back burner for a while. I think I finally found a way to make the mirrors. I've been shuffling around in my spares seeing if there were any suitable kit-based mirrors to use- but nothing I had were close enough. So I bent up some solid wire and made a bracket from plastic strip. Still not an exact match but they'll work for me. She'll also be needing a good dusting and touch ups, but hopefully this one will be wrapped up soon.

Shaping up nicely!

Nice! I'm not much of a Mack guy but I've considered getting one of these.

Lovely!

Lovely

Well, that's one way to get fresh air into the cab.

Too bad there aren't more operators out there like you. Lots of them seem like they're never washed.

First day on the job... that must be why she's so clean.

I love it. There used to be a monochrome Aeromax kicking around in my area, but it was yellow. Only brightwork on it was the wheels.