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I threw a bit of putty in the worst areas, including completely skimming the roof.  Hopefully that will fill in all those little sanding marks, that will be really hard to paint over.

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My new servo winch arrived from Overland RC this week.  These are great.  £22.50 for a high-torque, metal-gear servo with full unlimited 360 degree rotation, including spool, thread and a spring clasp.  That's different to, say, a sail winch servo, which has the capability to rotate more than 360 degrees, but still tracks its position and tries to centre itself when the input is released.

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I can now store it in the upright position.  I seem to have fixed the sticky hinge problem, but my new hinge pin allows the tail to go over-centre, meaning it now won't fall down on its own.  Which is annoying.  I'll have to make something to stop it folding too far over, or maybe put a spring on it to force it down.

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After that, I had a play with my new LED beacon.  £8.50 from Astec Models.  No pics yet, as I didn't get as far as mounting it, I just wanted to see if it would work.  Luckily it survived my tests - as I mentioned before, I'm temporarily using a TEU-101 ESC until I can get something better in there, I never realised that these don't have a BEC.  It's putting a full 8.4V from my LiPo into my radio and servos, and into the LED beacon bar when I fitted it.  I couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work, it was quite infuriating, until I just randomly decided to try it on the adjustable power supply that I use for testing electronics projects, and it worked perfectly.  Then I measured the voltage coming out of the servo plugs on the radio and found it was 8.38 :o 

So, luckily, this little unit has some kind of safety feature that shuts it off if it's over-volted.  I could even hear something clicking when I plugged it in, which is unusual for a circuit that uses only semiconductor components.

Yesterday I was looking at some awesome photos of older tow trucks, including some 1980 F150s and even a few Holden conversions with twin rear axles.  It looks like the beacon bar should be mounted behind the cab on a separate beam, so that's where I'll put mine.  Shouldn't take long to knock up a beam at the weekend.

A lot of the images I saw have neat panelling around the back end, but most of them have smaller tyres, so I think I'll leave mine open.  I need to hunt around in my truck parts box as I'm sure I'll have some light hangers that will work here.

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I also started thinking about the overwinding / underwinding problem with the rear lift.  The problem is that the winch doesn't need to spool in that much line to lock the back end solid, and probably has enough torque to damage the lift mechanism or snap the line.  Also I used those cool little pulley wheels to ease the load on the winch, but if I wind it out too far, the line will jump off the pulleys and needs manually threading back on.  Neither of these are a problem if I'm standing right by the truck, but if I want to operate it from a driver's rostrum it could be tricky.

Just fitting some microswitches in between the servo power won't be enough, because once the lift is fully up or down the power will be cut and I won't be able to move it again.  If I can get some microswitches mounted, then I can use an Arduino to limit the winch motion.  That will also give me a way of making the hazard lights flash without having to buy a timer chip or flip/flop chip and make up another circuit.

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Belated update from last week's Big Weekender!  With my wife away from Friday morning through to late Sunday eve, and my daughter staying over at my parents, I had the rare treat two-and-a-bit days with the house all to myself (longer if you count the Friday morning when I was working from home, and also spraying the F150 cab in between meetings).  I didn't spend the entire weekend eating junk food and watching bad horror movies - at least some of it was spent in the workshop, as these pictures will show.

I went for red paint.  Firstly because I already had some left over from painting the fuel tank on the GMade BOM, secondly because the BOM is also a cab-only Ford pickup in red.  So now I've got two red cab-only Ford pickups.  I was even planning an "off road recovery" livery for the BOM (I printed the decals months ago but haven't fitted them yet) so perhaps my fictional recovery company will get a second vehicle.

I'm not really one for hardbody painting but I'm really pleased with how well all my filling and sanding came out- none of the old marks are visible.

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Even my repaired hood line came out OK

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These corners were in terrible shape, but a bit of filler has made them far tidier

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The roof was covered in horrible sanding marks, but these have all been nicely filled.

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Next job on the list was fitting the beacon bar.  Originally I'd planned to screw it into the roof, but I found some online pics of tow trucks and saw the beacons are normally mounted on a bar behind the cab.  So I made some uprights.  I'm rapidly running out of metal stock on this project...

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I accidentally started cutting at the wrong place on the left upright, as seen in this photo.  I didn't have any more L-section in this size, so I decided to just live with it.  It's not a visible part and doesn't provide any structural rigidity, so it doesn't really matter.

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I made the top bar out of some U-section.  This stuff polished up really well on the bench polisher.

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I filed some slots in either side to accommodate the servo and switch leads.

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Fitted!

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Looks great with the body on!

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I went rooting around in the storage area and found my Box Of Scaley Parts.  In there was the original grille that came with this body.  I had planned to make my own grille in the resin printer, but this will save a lot of time and effort if I buy Ampro's headlight lenses and buckets from Shapeways.

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I also found something else while I was snuffling around in the Scaley Parts Box.  Can you see what it is?

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That's right!  These are the exhaust stacks from a 6-wheel Konghead.  I had no need for the Konghead body (my G6-01 wears a King Blackfoot hardbody, see Truck of Many Wheels) but I kept all the plastic scaley parts, just in case.

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The eagle-eyed among you will have spotted a problem with this configuration, but that's a story for another day...

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With one problem solved and two interesting ones created that I didn't even know about yet, I turned my attention to the lift mechanism - specifically the plate that now goes over-centre after I fixed the sticky hinge problem, thus leading to a sticky hinge problem.

I found this spring.  I think it's the axle articulation spring from a Lunchbox, but I cut the end off, so it doesn't look like it.

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Now it forces the plate over so gravity will take it down when lowered

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And now...  time for a test-run!

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Now here's an all-new problem.  With the lift plate resting on the ground, the bolt ends dig into the concrete and won't let the truck reverse.  I later "solved" the problem by turning the screws around so the smooth domed heads are underneath, but it might need some kind of skid plate to help it move smoothly over rough surfaces, or even some little dolly wheels.

Anyway...

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and lift...

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RESULT!  IT WORKS!

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Now, there was a slight issue with my spring on the lift plate.  Note that I'd ground out and replaced the hinge pin to fix the sticky hinge problem, which allowed the plate to go over-centre and caused a sticky hinge problem, which I fixed by installing a spring?

Well, in the fully-up position, the spring kinda prolapses onto the wrong side of the hinge, and causes a sticky hinge problem...

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I figured if I could keep the spring centred on the pin, it would stop doing that.  This turned out to be way more fiddly than it should have been (I even managed to completely bend part of the hinge while trying to drill it out a little, I almost had to start again but managed to fix it using the Hammer method), but eventually I was able to press in one of those brass stand-offs that are used to mount shocks onto some cars.  The narrower part slotted down into the hinge (I also pressed one in either end of the outside of the hinge, to help centre the new threaded pin better), and the wider part was the perfect diameter for the spring to fit over.

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Now the mechanism works perfectly :)

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I spent most of Sunday driving my monster trucks around the garden (vid to follow when I have time to edit it), but I had a few spare minutes to throw some paint on Halfie.

The jacket is Tamiya translucent orange over grey primer.  I did this before on a Rough Rider driver and it looked like a tan leather jacket.  This time it came out looking a bit more orange, maybe I'll give him a coat of red later to see if it darkens off.  Still got some face details to add.

I think I'll call him Arliss.

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My front wheels arrived this week, too.  These were very cheap from Ebay.  They're not a perfect match for the RC4WD items on the back, but a whole set of 4 cost about the same as one RC4WD wheel.  Nobody will notice.

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This is the offset of the ubiquitous Tamiya 5-spoke Pajero-style wheel with the cheap tyres installed

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This is the offset with the all-new China Special wheels installed

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I didn't even notice before I came to post this photo that Arliss has turned himself around to face the camera :lol:

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The wheel face is all lovely and nice and got holes in it and everything, but the middle part and back of the wheel are solid and painted white.  That's a bit lame.

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Also they seem to have some kind of manual quality control going on - this one must have been chipped out of the sprayer, so somebody toothpicked on some white paint before bagging it for shipping.

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These are how the wheels look when they're disassembled

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With the centre parts painted black, they look a lot better

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Regarding those exhaust stacks - I was so pleased with myself for finding that they were a perfect fit for the cab, that I forgot to check if they'd clear my stubby rear wheel arrangement.  Well, as you probably saw above, they don't.

It took me more than a few moments to come up with a suitable solution.  Just going higher wasn't going to work, as I ran out of cab to screw them into.  I couldn't move them inboard as they'd hit the beacon.  I tried rotating them 90 degrees and screwing them into the beacon bar uprights - that looked cool but would have meant making all new standoffs for the uprights, and that was a lot of work.

So, in the end, I went with this totally crazy option - I lifted the stacks as high as they'd go, then I rotated the bottoms inwards for a crazy V-angled stack arrangement.  That's pretty awesome, right?

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Much clearance now - I might have to install some pipe under the floor so it doesn't look like the stacks are connected to thin air.

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How cool is that?

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There are some screw holes to cover up, but I might spray some chequerplate to install on the cab back.

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And of course, I had two spare wheels and two spare tyres to use.  I was considering using the same wheels and tyres on my CC01 projects, so a pair of spares would be nice to hang on the back of them, but now I'm not so sure I'll use these wheels.  Plus every recovery truck should carry a couple of spares.

They kinda work like this..?

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or like this..?

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Then it was time to set Arliss installed.  I used hot glue for this, which probably stung a little, but after all the trauma he's been through he probably doesn't have much feeling down there anyway.

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I might add a bit more detail to his face, but I kinda like his expression right now.  Sort of gentle and quietly sympathetic, which is what you want from a recovery driver.  I mean, at best, you've been hanging around for an hour waiting for this guy to show up before you can be on your way, at worst you've got a two hour ride in a noisy cab and a huge repair bill.  You want someone with a bit of empathy.

He also needs somewhere to sit.  And when you're being recovered, so do you.

I knew there was a reason I kept these.  They are foam pads from the bottom of Turnigy servo boxes.

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I only needed one, so I cut it in half

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This is normal boring plasticard

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This is normal boring plasticard with two bits of foam next to it

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This is normal boring plasticard with two bits of foam stuck to it with PVA glue

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This is my sock.  It's a very 80s seat cover pattern.

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This is Arliss, sitting on his lovely 80s seat

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There's lots more to do here - including figuring out how to locate the seat against the floor (it's wedged against the back of the cab right now, which will be really annoying for putting the cab on and off), and getting the old sewing machine down to fit the seat cover properly, building a dash, making spare wheel brackets, and various other things, but it's really starting to come together now :)

Also I'm back to the drawing board on the grille and lights.  I found some tail lights that would work well on Astec Models, designed for truck trailers, but for some reason the website is borked and doesn't have any payment options.  A mail to the new owner of Astec has gone unanswered.  I probably wouldn't have let that bother me until I went to order the front light lenses and buckets from Shapeways and realised how much it was going to cost for delivery.  I mean, really?  Are they chauffeuring it to me personally in a Bentley..?  If that's what it actually costs to make the stuff then fine, put it on the product price.  I refuse to accept that it costs £20 to post a few small pieces of plastic.

Sorry Shapeways, I'll make my own, thanks.

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Love this build. The sock is a great idea, for my seats I've just bent plastic in a rough no degrees, but then my main driver is a toy cat, so perhaps I am less concerned about scale.

I think it looks great. Personally not such a fan of the V exhausts, I would try and shorten then to get them out the way perhaps?

Either way it's a great idea, and really well executed.

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Looking awesome! Once its complete we definitely need a video of a recovery :)

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Sunday morning began with me making a hanger to store the spare wheels either side of the boom.  For some reason I have no photos of this - I'm starting to wonder if my camera is losing data, as this is far from the first time I've arrived at photo-update day and thought "I'm absolutely sure I took a photo of that..."

Anyway, here it be:

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With that little distraction over, I turned my attention to the interior.  I wanted to build a dashboard to hang the steering wheel on and provide a bit of interest on the inside.  I didn't spend too much time on detail, just something rugged and functional.

I started by cutting a piece of plasticard

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Then I added some tags to the end.  I use square-section tube to get a good strong join between square corners.

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Then I added a thinner sheet of plasticard over the top.  Thinner material bends easier and doesn't come unstuck when drying.

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Underneath, I added some thin plastic bar stock - when covered in glue it goes soft and bends into shape, adding lots of strength to the join.

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et voila

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Then I cut some windows.  I used very thin clear plastic and trimmed at the edges until it fit the windscreen area.

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I stuck the windscreen glass in with hot glue, although I was having trouble with a blockage in the gun which decided to come unblocked and split glue over part of the screen, partially melting it.  It doesn't really show that much unless the light is on it, but it wouldn't be hard to peel it out and start again, maybe when there's time.

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Dashboard glued into place so that the wheel drops into Arliss' hands when the lid is placed on.

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After that, I started thinking about the electrical installation.  It's been messy so far, and I've been using an old TEU-101 ESC as a stand-in for the 1080 that will eventually go in.

My first issue was what to do with the battery lead.  There's not really space for it under the body so it will have to be clipped up underneath.  However there's a big air gap under there and it looks daft - plus this supposed tow truck has no tool storage - so I grabbed these side step / boxes from Drag King (that's another custom project that needs finishing...)  This is just resting in place for now, but gives an idea of how it will look.  I'm not 100% sure if I'll use these steps, or fabricate some new ones from plasticard.

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While I was digging out the King Hauler steps, I also found the rear bumper.  This might be a cheaper, easier way to install some rear lights.

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But that's a job for another day.

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After that, I took off the top deck and started tidying the wiring underneath.

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as Duke Nukem might have said, "aah, that's better!"

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