5th Wheel Wrecker

[MikeG8 1]

Surfing the net I saw some pics of things like this:

and I thought 'Hmm, that's an interesting little project.' I already have a King Hauler and some ali and odd bits and pieces and a few days off. So far I have sketched out some ideas in AutoCad and will start in earnest tomorrow. To raise and lower the boom, I will use a higher upright with a pulley on the top and a winch. 3 Racing does a nice looking 1/10 scale winch which I think would suit the back of the King quite nicely. I have the auto-legs and auto-couple/un-couple option which I may disnitigrate and use to operate the winch or I may just have the winch as manual (probably the latter).

Has anyone else done one of these?

Mike

[iangam 0]

Surfing the net I saw some pics of things like this:

and I thought 'Hmm, that's an interesting little project.' I already have a King Hauler and some ali and odd bits and pieces and a few days off. So far I have sketched out some ideas in AutoCad and will start in earnest tomorrow. To raise and lower the boom, I will use a higher upright with a pulley on the top and a winch. 3 Racing does a nice looking 1/10 scale winch which I think would suit the back of the King quite nicely. I have the auto-legs and auto-couple/un-couple option which I may disnitigrate and use to operate the winch or I may just have the winch as manual (probably the latter).

Has anyone else done one of these?

Mike

Looks a great idea, I've not seen a 1/14 one anywhere.

[MikeG8 1]

Done it!

I had some ali knocking about, a bit of brass, some chain and some M4 threaded rod and so on and a few hours here and there and here it is. It is not yet finished (needs a lifting point of some sort, paint etc) but it is functional.

I spent some time wondering how to operate it, or if it would have to be static or HOG (Hand Of God) operated. I considered modifying a servo to make a winch, then I found the winch I used, about £20 plus the postage. The winch is my new 'bestest thing in the whole wide world': it really is very good actually. It is supposedly for crawlers and 1/10th scale but it looks OK on the back of the Hauler I think. Anyway, from the internet photos, I realised I needed to raise the arms so I could put a pulley at the top and get a decent lift out of it (around 90mm full distance). I measured up the back of the Hauler and sketched up some ideas, then some more and after a few hours had the bones of it. It is very simple and uses 2mm ali for most of it with some 10mm box and some 8mm channel. The 'axles' for want of a better description are all M4 threaded rod with some 4mm bore (6mm OD) ali tubing over the top. Pulleys and washers and nuts and bolts were just lying around in my shed.

The winch control is good. I could 'lose' my trailer auto-legs functionality and use that channel and operate the lift by RC, but I have decided against that. A manual control is shipped with the winch: press the button once and the winch goes one way, again and it stops and again, it runs the other way. Most of the time the winch is static so I'm keeping it manual via the button for now.

I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. It certainly isn't perfect, but it's OK, I reckon!

Mike

[fatboyslim 11]

That's great

Looks really good!!

[MikeG8 1]

Painted it now...brushed enamel...looks appalling! Runs and drips all over: ugh! Will strip and re-paint, spray this time I think! Still, I have tried to tow a couple of things and it does seem to work very well. I think I will add another pulley top and bottom to lower the 'gearing' and give the lift some more power, and also slow it down a bit. Still really impressed by the little winch. Finished pics when (if!) I get the paint right.

Mike

[skip665 169]

That looks great! Would look good on the back of my Globeliner!

[Blacque Jacque 4]

Nice one Mike, that's a great piece of work, I can't wait to see it painted.

As for the manual winch dilemma, I'd try to fit some kind of switch, so you can leave the winch mounted & wired & just switch it on for wrecker mode & off for trailer mode. It only needs to switch either the +ve wire or the signal wire to the winch & you have realistic control from your radio.

[MikeG8 1]

Nice one Mike, that's a great piece of work, I can't wait to see it painted.

As for the manual winch dilemma, I'd try to fit some kind of switch, so you can leave the winch mounted & wired & just switch it on for wrecker mode & off for trailer mode. It only needs to switch either the +ve wire or the signal wire to the winch & you have realistic control from your radio.

Thanks fr the kind words but oh, if you could see it now, you'd wish I hadn't painted it at all - yeuch! Still, I now have a can of bright yellow and another of black, so maybe a stripy little number, eh? Seeing as how you have to manually (Hand Of God, or HOG as they say in the world of Lego, yes I like that too!) hitch up the towed vehicle, I'm going to stick with a fully manual system for the moment to raise and lower the boom. I have to say that I'm still impressed with the results and took really very little time: a skilled modeller would do it all in a few hours. I do wonder if the boom is slightly too big, but if so, well, I'll just call this one the super-deluxe version!

[MikeG8 1]

That looks great! Would look good on the back of my Globeliner!

A skilled modeller (something I'm not!) would knock one of these up in just a few hours - I took ages because I'm not half as good as I think I am and usually have to make 2 of everything just to get 1 of 'em right! Thanks for the kind words.

[aid232 0]

Now that looks awesome!

I've got a King Hauler with a 3 racing winch on chassis behind the cab - i use it for winching loads onto a trailer but it would be ideal for this too.

A simple yet brilliant accessory!

Cheers,

Adrian

[MikeG8 1]

Now that looks awesome!

I've got a King Hauler with a 3 racing winch on chassis behind the cab - i use it for winching loads onto a trailer but it would be ideal for this too.

A simple yet brilliant accessory!

Cheers,

Adrian

Yeah, when I mounted the winch I thought it could have that dual purpose too. After watching Ice Road Truckers and their very self sufficient ways of loading trailers (including rollers on front and back of the trailer bed...neat idea) then the winch will definitely stay in place. Thanks for the kind words.

[MikeG8 1]

Brush painted bright yellow: runs and curtains all over. Re-did it and it was better. Tried striping in in black...awful, just awful! Stripped back to bare metal (finally, that yellow turned out to be bullet proof!) and sprayed in...vomit yellow! According to Halfords (motor parts store) it is 'Machine Yellow', it isn't, it is slightly greenish and rather unpleasant. Anyway, it is now painted for the 3rd time and it is staying vomit yellow! Just striped it and the results are OK (except that the stripes are not quite aligned one side to the other...oops!).

General view, fully up

General view, fully down

Three-quarter rear view

Safety bar detail

Chain hook detail on lift bar

Lift bar detail

Pulley arrangement detail

I'm really pleased with the end result. I need to add some cushioning to the lift bar (some heat shrink tubing will do nicely I think). Ideally, I'd like to use the trailer light socket to power the currently fake flashing amber lamp and adding a work lamp to either side of the lift frame would finish it off nicely. Anyway, it is done for now and pretty easy to do. I'd recommend it as a nice little project for any rig and I'd certainly recommend the winch.

Mike