International Payhauler 350 wrecker revive and drive 1/25

[Stickframe]

I started this a couple of weeks ago, while I was finishing another, so only worked on it now and then.

The idea behind this stems from various Youtube videos I watch, where guys find old trucks and equipment and try to make it run:

And for this, the plan is to build and convert an International Payhauler 350c into the wrecker version and set it us as a dio where some guys are trying to make it run. It turns out this truck uses a Detroit Diesel 16V71N engine, which is huge - 1,360 cubic inches, and as it also turns out, when trying to start an old and neglected Detroit engine, the valve covers are removed and the fuel rail is checked for sticking.

So, as this kit big, and relatively toylike, the first step was to build up all four valve heads:

While not exactly hard to make, this was indeed tedious - there are a lot of small parts top be made and attached to the four base plates. Then, add some detail to the engine:

As you can see, this engine is big - the Dude is 1/24 scale, and this still looks big.

So, this now has some more detail, and the valve heads are visible. As this truck is supposed to have been sitting for a while, the guys who have come to save it, have removed the giant hood, so you’ll be able to see at least some of this.

I started the engine bay by detailing the radiator shroud, and building up the rear hood frame, then on to more framing:

The kit provides a big one piece hood, but in real life it has three sections, so added some framing to hold the central portions up. This is largely speculative, as the pictures I could find of this don’t show much of this area, though one really helpful pic shows a truck like this with the engine removed, so it provides plenty of clues for guestimating what’s going on.

While I was at it, and the door can be made to open, some details were added to the driver seat:

Rather than buying a seatbelt kit, this was made up with styrene - which will be fine.

Building the wrecker bed will be complicated, as I could only find about six photos of the blue wrecker shown above, so I fully anticipate guessing and hoping for the best during construction.

OK, thanks for having a look

Cheers

Nick

[Gluthanasia]

EXCELLENT scratch work.
Gotta love styrene.

[Dioramartin]

Beautiful work on the engine Nick, just crazy meticulous as usual. Is it weird work with butter-yellow plastic? Who’s the kit manufacturer & how old is it?

[joepanzer]

Dude!! Why would you put a hood over that masterful engine scratchbuilding?

[Stickframe]

@Dioramartin, hi Tim, shoot - I forgot to mention the kit, it’s from AMT, apparently a rebox of an old kit. While an old kit, the quality is pretty good, but chunky. It basically goes together as the instructions instruct. But, there are a few weird connections that are soft so you need to pay attention to how part go together, imagining how they might be applied later in the project.

@joepanzer, well Joe, who sys the hood parts will be used on the model? all this extra framing is what I imagine would be under the hood sheet metal. In real life the giant hood has three sections, so I am guessing what it would look like if two of the three were removed - we’ll see how it works as this move along

Speaking of moving along, more styrene and wire has been applied. First though a preemptive strike on Tim, yeah, the seat buckle:

This part was looking too thick, so, out came the knife and off came the old tongue and on went a new thinner version.

And, more tedious nonsense, sure to be lost by the time it’s all said and done:

It turns out the wrecker version of this truck has different fender extensions than those on the dump, so to hold them up, in went some wings.

And naturally, they are not the same on each side, as on the right, they need to avoid the exhaust pipe.

I have two clear and unclear photos of the plumbing to the front wheels. Clear in that you can see lots of tubes going in, but unclear in terms of where they go - so, I guessed!

And the mud flaps - the kit provided ridiculously thick and undetailed versions, so, they now look a bit closer to the real deal.

And more stuff - that I don’t understand, but you can see on the real thing - specifically that disc on the left, and the plumbing to the filter on the frame rail.

And more on the fenders - the small pieces of channel, and that fussy bracketry. My guess is these will look good with some weather.

More unknown plumbing - it’s there….

The fender extensions in place, and as you can see, some cutting and small brackets on the fuel tank - same on each side.

According to the instructions, the fenders should be installed later, but that would make for some painting headaches, and so on, so I cut notches on the underside of the kit fenders so they can be glued to the cab section now, and slide over the front kit fender brackets - a lot of words - in short, some early work to make for easier work later -

And for scale, another big model.

Thanks for having a look

Cheers

Nick

[Stickframe]

Some materials I was waiting for arrived, so I was able to get into the chunkier parts of the build, specifically, the bed.

This is somehow stubby and highly detailed, with three key parts - the roll bar/cab protection, counterweights, and boom mount. Making it more challenging, the kickers for the roll bar pass through the counterweights, landing just short of the rear section of the boom mount - this required a lot of measuring and remeasuring.

The bed frame rails are from an old Peterbilt kit, and the rest styrene. The basic idea was to build this like you might do on a building - starting with a foundation then marking where key parts go, then making up base structures for what will eventually go on top. After building the frame and deck, made up the general structure for the boom, then measuring front and back from this key point.

There is a lot of styrene in the counterweight structure. This was slow going both in terms of figuring out what is going on, then building it up. This also required a lot of measuring and remeasuring.

And this is indeed a big model - the Dude is 1/24 and the kit 1/25 and it still looks big.

As I was/am not at all sure of what is going on in the back of this truck, I built up some frame extensions that set both bed height and provide a location for the bed to slide across and set in place. So far so good. There is a pair of tool boxes behind the fuel tanks that were a PITA to build - as while they look to be square from the side views, they are mounted to an angular substructure, so setting up a square base took some head scratching.

The bed itself is one module. I made up four mid section alignment brackets, then in the back built the whole structure around the extensions mentioned above.

From this view you can see how the basic structure for this is working out. I couldn’t tell what was going on in front and behind the boom mount, so I made up some mesh decking - why not?

In the pic above you can see how the roll bar kickers are set between the counterweights, and speaking of the counterweights:

These ate up a lot of styrene. and while they might look fairly simple, were a lot of work to layout and build. But, this seems to have worked out as well as could be hoped.

OK, on to the boom -

Cheers

Nick

[Dioramartin]

Stunning work, a real styrene-fest – some of those sub-assemblies & components boggle my mind. You surely must have a bunch of elves doing the hack-work elsewhere, I see double-digit hours of work everywhere on the white stuff.

What’s the painting schedule? Presumably a lot of the subs are only dry-fitted for later paint access?

[justsendit]

Did an Evergreen re-supply the other day. Was a little worried there’d be nothing left in the supply chain with Nick around!

Extreeeemly nice work as usual, Nick!

Cheers!
—mike

[Uncle-Heavy]

Impressive work as usual!

[Stickframe]

Hi gents, and thanks. Tim, and Mike, yes, this project seems to be eating styrene - just more and more of it getting cut up and glued!

Robin was kind enough to mention off-line that the top of the counterweights does not appear to be aligned - IT IS! It’s perfect! it’s supposed to look like that, I have photos of the prototype!! There’s nothing wrong with it - AT ALL!!!

Nothing, except, it’s out of alignment Seems Tim was talking about this very subject on one of his recent posts. To make a long explanation short, one of the two central counterweights tilts forward, which I didn’t notice, as I glued them down first. The problem became clearly evident when the other pair of weights were installed - by then, It became a problem I could live with. But, as it is so obvious, I’ve cooked up a scheme to obscure this, but you’ll need to wait for that!

But, what you don’t have to wait for is some progress on the back side of the boom. I don’t know what all of this gear is called, maybe rigging? Anyway, the heavy metal parts that you’ve all seen on the back side of a wrecker:

So how slow and tedious was all of this to make? All of it. I made up four pulleys, mixing styrene, brass rod and white metal parts - and then the various parts they are connected too. Maybe contrition and repentance to the aforementioned blunder, I tried to make this stuff fairly accurate. As such, the mechanical parts tilt like the real thing: up and down, back and forth and diagonally:

I’m sure this would have been fine glued together, but that would have been a lot of work anyway, so why not? Well, it was an onerous process, and just like detailing the interior of a T-55, it will likely go unnoticed when all is said and done. From the other side:

On the good news side of this folly is that now that it’s done, it does look fairly close to the real thing. I think the boom assembly has now rocketed up to being about 25% done…..yep - the actual boom, and it’s winches etc need a lot of work, and as you can see by the blank side of the rear of the bed - yep….not started.

OK, thanks for having a look and on we go -

Cheers

Nick

[Uncle-Heavy]

@Stickframe

I’ve cooked up a scheme to obscure this, but you’ll need to wait for that!

[Uncle-Heavy]

@Stickframe

I don’t know what all of this gear is called

Bastard child of an AT-ST and a clothes hanger, afflicted with osteoporosis?

[Stickframe]

@Uncle-Heavy, you’ll need to be patient! The solution is lower on the list of priorities for now!

You’ll see why below. I was beginning to be somewhat impressed by how fast this build seemed to be going - alas, it’s not, as it’s not nearly done. While I only have a few prototype pictures, those I have seem to reveal more and more - for better or worse!

In terms of one of many little tasks in addition to the more obvious, you can see the thin sheet of styrene added under the driver’s door. It turns out that in order for the door to actually swing open, much of the trim molded into the kit was carved away, which is fine. Except, by doing this, the door was able to sag within the opening. To solve this, a thin sheet of styrene was added as a sill under the the door. Also, how about the oddly shaped screen mounted in front of the grill? Looks easy enough to make - alas, not that easy:

The screen in front, the two small filters behind it, and that strange looking air filter end piece - all seem to be easy enough to make, but ‘seeming’ and 'being’ are not the same. Each of these turned into fairly interesting and complex mini-projects.

And it seems the same can be said for the boom and associated parts. This is nowhere near being done.

The base of the boom required a lot of head scratching, measuring, testing and doing it again. And, still more styrene to go.

This pic gives a better view of the grill screen. It turns out the prototype of this truck was used at a land fill, so I am guessing the strange and not obviously strong (like a grill guard) shape is used to keep flying debris (paper, plastic sheets, trash bags etc) out of the radiator? Who knows, but seems reasonable to me.

OK, on we go
Cheers

Nick

[Taffy3]

Just came across this build, very impressive workmanship, and I look forward to seeing more.

[Uncle-Heavy]

@Stickframe

(like a grill guard) shape is used to keep flying debris (paper, plastic sheets, trash bags etc) out of the radiator?

If I had to make such a protection I would add mesh to the top of the basket

to prevent debris from landing inside the basket and filling it.

[Stickframe]

The struggle continues -

Thinking about @joepanzer 's comment above, he wondered about building a detailed engine then covering it all with a hood, like making the interior of a T-55. My intent is to leave the hood open, and by doing so, seeing the framing that holds the three piece hood up, so I built up the framework. But, the brace I built looked pretty big:

So, I decided it would be a good idea to thin it down some. To do this, I cut the spine down, as shown above, then added back some styrene to give it some depth:

After I cut out the center piece, I added some thin styrene back to the top - then some small brackets beneath each bolt location, used to attach the hood - there are holes in each, just not visible from this angle. I’ll explain the tan material below. And dry fit:

This cross brace is now thinner than before, and you can barely see the bolt holes - and, @Uncle-Heavy, well Robin - more parts installed, specifically the mesh over the top of the grill screen! As for the tan material:

I was able to find this picture of a torn down version of the Payhauler where you can see the red insulating blanket - which my tan screen will eventually be painted and weathered to look like.

I’ve been working on the boom and winches, so some photos in the next few days -

Thanks for having a look

Nick

[Tank_1812]

Keep it up Nick, she is looking good.

[jfeenstra]

Seen at the International Model Competition in Saumur this past weekend. I wasn’t there, but noticed it in a group of photos from the show on FB.

[Stickframe]

@jfeenstra, yes! that’s it. Thanks for posting this picture. I saw one other version of the build on-line, but it was painted green, and less detailed. It seems a few of us have come across the same pictures of the real truck. I can already see something new to me, which is the pair of mufflers coming out generally next to the cab. I might try and add them to mine. I don’t have any complete pictures of the right side, but do have one of the right front, so I’ll go back and see if I can find them. I am currently working on the rear deck, and like the rest, using plenty of styrene and taking many design leaps of faith

@Tank_1812, hi Ryan, thanks for the encouragement. This has been interesting to try and make, so far so good

Nick

[Rabbits]

Maybe you know it…

SilverStateSpecialties.com Reference Section: Payhauler 350 Dump Truck

Rabbit