Mirror Models 1/35 Diamond T 969A wrecker WIP

Modeling Subjects Armor
1

Ok- I thought I’d do something other than comment in the ‘Musicians in the Forums’ and ‘How many kits in your stash’ threads…although, don’t misunderstand, those are fine threads!

I’d been bugging my fantastic wife about this kit since I saw the announcement last spring. I just think support vehicles are cool, and I was curious about this ‘new kid’ on the manufacturers’ block. As a Christmas present she told me to order it when it became available, so Sprue Brothers got it in the last week of December and I had it by Jan. 4.

I started it immediately and …wow. The box says 570 parts and I believe it; the box is jammed full. The detail is amazing and there are virtually no mold seams or knock-out pin marks, but the sprue gates are large and I’ve used a razor saw to cut almost all the parts I’ve used so far from the trees. This is no mean feat as there are a LOT of fiddly bits, some hardly bigger than the end of a pair of tweezers.

As a result of the large sprue gates there’s a lot of cleanup, and there are many small gaps that (as I see it) need filler of some sort or another (to this point I’ve used gap-filling CA, Squadron white putty thinned with Testors’ liquid cement, and Mr. Surfacer 1000).

Anyway, here’s where I am now. I’m historically a glacially slow builder but I’ve made the commitment to stay with this one. Squadron’s Diamond T 4-ton Truck Walk Around and Ampersand Publishing’s Heavy Wrecker have been very helpful references.

The Hercules RXC flat six contains 45 parts, and the Kellogg air compressor 21. The copper wire is the first of the six spark plug wires:

Chassis:

Left and right service drums for the boom winch cables, oxygen and acetylene bottles, and front axle. Cool engineering here: the brake assemblies really do turn side to side:

Body with tool boxes (minus lids) and radiator assembly:

Wheels- L-R: front, spare, rear dual:

That’s it for now; comments/critique welcomed.

Dave

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Hope you can get some pictures up, sounds interesting!

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Yeah, I love that kinda stuff too! Good luck with your project and have a nice day

Paweł

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John and Pawel- thank you both for dropping by, I do appreciate it! Sorry about the pix, I forgot to make the folder ‘public.’ I can be a noob sometimes [blkeye] I think I’ve got things sorted now [:D]

Dave

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Interesting and unusual subject - looks like a great winter project. I’ll be following your WIP.

Mike

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Hey man, this is gonna be “the cheese”.

!http://www.moneymappress.com/pro/images/0813_MMR_Obamacare_MGA.gif

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Mike and disastermaster- thanks to you both very much for dropping by and for the nice words!

I’m working through the suspension and drive train, and I hope to have another update in a couple days. There’s quite a bit to it but I’m very pleased with the attention to detail and thought that was put into the design. Despite the fuss I’m giving every little assembly (or maybe because of it…) I’m really enjoying this build!

Thanks again for the time guys!

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Phew- finally an update! Most of my time has been devoted to the rear suspension and drive train; it is quite complex. Practically every component is its own piece: brake air chambers, their mounts and actuators, the rocker beam and it’s two hub ends, spring seats, torque rods (upper), torque rod brackets, rocker arms (lower)…you get the idea. For as many parts as there are it all fits well and gives a good representation of the real thing.

Things get even more interesting when it comes time to install the drive shafts. It’s a veritable spider’s web between the frame crossmembers and the rear suspension assembly so installing the drive shaft that connects the two differential carriers that sit on top of the two rear axles, and the two U-joints that connect to the differential carriers, takes some time and patience. Tolerances are very tight so I had to carefully shave off some material between the carrier and U-joint mating surfaces, although I didn’t take any material from between the U-joint to U-joint.

All the U-joint assemblies that mate to the differential carriers/transfer cases/transmission are separate pieces (the drive shafts and their U-joints are one piece), and it’s at all these mating surfaces that I had to remove some material to squeeze in the drive shafts just like I did between the differential carriers.

For anyone building this kit (or considering it), the keyhole that aligns the forward differential carrier on its rear axle is cockeyed- it’s supposed to point straight ahead- but I wasn’t thinking ahead at that point and I didn’t correct the alignment.

Here’s what it all looks like now:

The front axle rotor assemblies are engineered to allow the builder to pose the front wheels, but the tie rod is to be glued in place rendering the wheels in a fixed position. I wanted to take advantage of what I thought was some cool engineering, so I drilled out holes in the tie rod ends (destroying the hex nut detail) as well as the mounting points on the back of the rotors and inserted wire pins. The wheels will now turn left and right; the pin locations are circled…faintly (sorry)…in yellow:

Here’s the attached front axle, and the whole chassis/suspension to this point. Only a few minor bits remain to complete this assembly:

I added the plug on top of the winch motor. Yes, it’s a tiny white square bit on top of a round disc:

The engine spark plug wiring is complete. The copper wire I began with gave me a bit of a hard time so I used 10 lb. fishing line for the other five wires. The fishing line was much more cooperative. I couldn’t find clear pictures of how these wires ran from the distributor to their respective spark plugs so I’m going to employ a little creative gizmology: I’m going to wrap the middle of the bundle in a bit of discarded white curtain material and call this an asbestos wrap as some wires are laying right across the valve cover and block. The mesh in the curtain is very fine so I think I can pull it off.

Finally here’s the main cab body and the firewall area. The seats I covered with…umm, ‘tissue’ paper to represent canvas, and the levers between the seats are, driver to passenger, transfer case shift, declutching lever (front axle engage/disengage), handbrake, and Power Take Off. The firewall unit has the gas, brake, and clutch pedals attached, as well as the PE part on top which represents a closed cab fresh air vent.

The round brake and clutch pedals came as smooth discs, but the real things have circular grooves. I used a drafting stylus to cut grooves in my pedals, which I had temporarily fixed to the end of a dowel:

That’s all for now. Thanks for looking in; comments/critique welcomed.

Dave

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Hello Dave!

That’s a very nice looking machine you got there! I like the undercarriage a lot. For thicker wires and for rubber hoses - try to get some thin soldering wire, that’s great stuff and looks very nice like rubber once painted dark grey. Good luck with your project and have a nice day

Paweł

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Looking pretty good. The spark plug wires do not run like that though. The wires are enclosed in the tube that runs down the center of the valve cover. Then each wire comes out of a hole above each spark plug.

Also, check out this site for some great rebuild pics: http://hmvf.co.uk/forumvb/showthread.php?9939-the-restoration-begins-on-the-969A

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Pawel- thank you for the compliment! Thank you also for the tip about the solder; I’ve seen it used for the applications you mention and I agree it looks good.

Gino- thank you VERY much for those pics! That’s exactly what I’d been looking for. I’d spent at least an hour and a half searching for images of that motor before I launched into my wiring frenzy, but google failed me. The rebuild log from that forum is a treasure trove of info. Sooo…off for a redo. Thanks again Gino [Y]

I appreciate you taking the time guys!

Dave

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Good LORD man thats insane. Your build is coming right along, and well, but it looks like that chassis is gonna be a mother to paint with all those different angles on all the parts.

Still thats a mighty fine looking wrecker so far

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Following this build for sure. I just bought this kit recently right off of a hobby shop shelf in Vegas. As described, a lt of parts in that heavy box.

Very helpful link and images, Gino

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USMC6094- thank you for looking in and your comment. I plan to paint the chassis, cab, and body/boom equipment as separate subassemblies, at least with the base coat, so that’ll allow for better coverage.

SprueOne- thank you for looking as well. Yeah, once you open that box it’s something, huh? Please put some pics up when you start your build.

Dave

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Dave, I’ve done a couple of all resin kits before and they can be a bear! Looks like you’ve got this one under control, although that undercarriage looks insane!! Nice work! Keep the updates coming!

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Ernest- thanks for dropping by and the compliment! The resin kits you did: are you referring to the Accurate Armour Diamond T wreckers? I know they had both the soft top and hard top versions available, but I haven’t seen them as available in their catalogue recently and, at over $200 with shipping they were prohibitive for me anyway. I was thrilled when Mirror Models stepped up!

Yeah the undercarriage is a bit tedious; each component is a separate piece, but when done it does look the part! More progress soon…

Dave

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Dave, great job so far, I also am a sucker for support vehicles,

This is a styrene kit, isn’t it?

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Thanks subfixer- much appreciated! Yes, this is all styrene with a small fret of PE, some chain and a length of thread for the cables.

Dave

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There just might be one of these in my future, thanks!

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Ah cool, glad I could help shed some light! As I’ve said I really like this kit, just be aware that there’s cleanup on EVERY SINGLE part due to the large sprue gates. The mold lines and ejector pin marks are almost non-existent. Anyway, a little more update. I’ve corrected the spark plug wiring, and added a water pump feed line (blue wire) and a coil seen behind the blue wire in pic #2 and identified with a red circle and arrow in pic #5. Thanks again to Gino for the link to that awesome rebuild log on a real Diamond T 969 wrecker!

Just a note to anyone considering adding the spark plug wiring: it’s much easier to accomplish this before installing the coolant return line on top of the valve covers, part C10.

I’ve also carefully thinned out the side hood cooling louvers with a sharp blade on the part on the left, and what they look like before thinning on the right.

That’s it for now; comments/critique welcomed and thanks for looking.

Dave