Whew! I’m calling it on this truck build. I dreaded the ratchet and straps and with good reason. The PE ratchets are an ideal detail to add that extra bling but they’re exhausting to assemble, let’s note - tape and tweezers are not good playmates! I wanted to show more tautness on the straps but considering the materials used, it was an unrealistic expectation, just too fragile. In fact I’m not wholly satisfied with the restraint situation, the kit shackle rings were either broken in the box, broken while removing from the casting block or broke while trying to clean them up, heck, one broke just looking at it, end result was I didn’t have any spares and didn’t want to rob from any of my stash kits so I decided to simply hook onto the fuel pods’ shackle boss, it worked well enough but I doubt it was field expedient.
The lead wire for the fuel pump plumbing was more resistant to bending than I expected but useing ring pliers left indents in the wire, not cool. The farther I went the more small items were getting broken off, when trying to get the next to last ratchet strap on I had the model leaned over on one side when the weight of the resin pods just fliped the whole bed over and off the frame, ssshite!, and there went the right side mirror frame, SSSHITE!
So, construction note: the bed to frame glue points are not very robust.
It’s still a great little model and was a fun build that does a fine job representing an M54 5 ton . . .
. . . this thing looks like a Locomotive!
. . . the power cable to the pump/sending unit is draped over the power slave . . .
You think an M88 ARV is a big peice of equipment? Check it out next to this big dawg!
The saga continues, up next . . . a USMC M67 fire breathing beast! 
Cajun 