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Autocar Truck Lowboy Trailer & Cat Escivator


Texas

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I am new here and have been post some of my models. I finished this one a few years ago. This is the AMT Autocar Truck Kit. The doors were cut and hinged as was the hood. The frame was fish-plated for extra strength. A custom wench bed was scratch built from Evergreen Styrene. The winch itself is a resin cast one. The boomers are photo etched.

The Lowboy Trailer is scratchbuilt using Evergreen and bass wood except for the Wheels, tires and break parts which were taken from three AMT dump trailer kits.

The Cat Escivator is scratch built using Evergreen Styrene, Stainless Tubing for hydraulic cylinders and center pivot, automotive wire insulation for hoses. I also used sprockets, idler rollers engine and radiator from two AMT D-8 Cat kits and a seat from the spar's box. The hydraulic hose and line fittings are from Detail Master.

The decals were printed using a ink-jet printer and white decal paper.

 

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Texas :smiley20:

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Are you freakin' kidding me? Way cool! How'd you paint that CAT? I presume you made it so you could take it apart.

Yes I built it so it can be taken apart. All the booms move and can be positioned and taken off if nead be. The hydraulic cylinders have O-rings in them so they will hold the booms in position.The tracks will move and the front idler is spring loaded to keep the tracks tight.

 

Texas :smiley20:

Edited by Texas
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I would just love to see a full-size version of this beautiful big rig try to fit through a toll booth on I-294 (Tri-State Tollway) in Chicago. They charge by the axle, so this will be an expensive toll.

 

I love the big AMT, MPC, and Ertl truck kits with their many tires. I counted 42 tires on this rig. When I read the title of this thread on the list, I recognized your AMT Autocar tractor, but I envisioned the AMT Lowboy and Cat D8H as the load. Boy, was I wrong when your photos loaded.

 

I have trouble painting gloss yellow for some reason, as it comes out semi-transparent. Your paint job looks superb. :smiley3:

 

Ed

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I would just love to see a full-size version of this beautiful big rig try to fit through a toll booth on I-294 (Tri-State Tollway) in Chicago. They charge by the axle, so this will be an expensive toll.

 

I love the big AMT, MPC, and Ertl truck kits with their many tires. I counted 42 tires on this rig. When I read the title of this thread on the list, I recognized your AMT Autocar tractor, but I envisioned the AMT Lowboy and Cat D8H as the load. Boy, was I wrong when your photos loaded.

 

I have trouble painting gloss yellow for some reason, as it comes out semi-transparent. Your paint job looks superb. :smiley3:

 

Ed

These rigs must plan the route their taking careful to stay out of trouble.

The best way to paint gloss yellow is to first apply white or flat yellow as a primer. Then your gloss yellow will cover.

 

Texas :smiley20:

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I manage sewer construction projects here in Los Angeles and we deal with moving equipment like this all the time. The loads include equipment like this and recently 7 Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs). In LA you can only move at night on a predetermined route with these kind of rigs. What was the motivation for building this setup? Where did you get plans for the excavator? I think those of us who do this kind of work never outgrew our Tonka trucks, they just got bigger! Excellent work any way you look at it. Thanks for sharing.

 

Chris

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I manage sewer construction projects here in Los Angeles and we deal with moving equipment like this all the time. The loads include equipment like this and recently 7 Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs). In LA you can only move at night on a predetermined route with these kind of rigs. What was the motivation for building this setup? Where did you get plans for the excavator? I think those of us who do this kind of work never outgrew our Tonka trucks, they just got bigger! Excellent work any way you look at it. Thanks for sharing.

 

Chris

Sounds like your around heavy equipment all the time. I am sure it's hard work but rewarding to.

I am a retired welder and machinist and have did a lot of work on this type of equipment down through the years. A while back after building this kit and that kit I decited I wanted to build a Autocar truck and a big lowboy trailer like I had worked on in the past. After I finished the truck and trailer I figured I needed something bigger than the AMT D-8H Cat to haul on it.

About that time I ran into a book about Cat Equipment and did a search of their website. They had more information on the escivators on the web than any other piece of equipment they build. I also ran into a contractor I knew that had a excavator on a work sight that I could take photos of. So I used the photos and web info to build the excavator.

This was a lot of work but a lot of fun to. The most boring part I guess was making the 112 track links, that took two months. Each link has 8 parts to it. They were fabricated put together and dissimbled, painted individually and then assembled.

I hope this helps answer your questions.

 

Texas :smiley20:

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Sounds like your around heavy equipment all the time. I am sure it's hard work but rewarding to.

I am a retired welder and machinist and have did a lot of work on this type of equipment down through the years. A while back after building this kit and that kit I decited I wanted to build a Autocar truck and a big lowboy trailer like I had worked on in the past. After I finished the truck and trailer I figured I needed something bigger than the AMT D-8H Cat to haul on it.

About that time I ran into a book about Cat Equipment and did a search of their website. They had more information on the escivators on the web than any other piece of equipment they build. I also ran into a contractor I knew that had a excavator on a work sight that I could take photos of. So I used the photos and web info to build the excavator.

This was a lot of work but a lot of fun to. The most boring part I guess was making the 112 track links, that took two months. Each link has 8 parts to it. They were fabricated put together and dissimbled, painted individually and then assembled.

I hope this helps answer your questions.

 

Texas :smiley20:

 

Wow you did that without scale plans! Amazing. Questions answered. Thank You

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Wow!! Very impressive !!!

 

I've never seen anyhting like that and I'm trying to image the real-world dimesions of that rig and what the max payload capacity of the trailer and of course how much the tractor can handle. That thing have a flagman hanging off the rear bumper ?

 

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Wow!! Very impressive !!!

 

I've never seen anyhting like that and I'm trying to image the real-world dimesions of that rig and what the max payload capacity of the trailer and of course how much the tractor can handle. That thing have a flagman hanging off the rear bumper ?

In the real world a rig like this would be about 110 feet long. 11 feet wide and with this excavator 16 feet tall. The excavator weighs around 170 thousand pounds. The truck and trailer has eleven axles and you are allowed 18,000 pounds per axle which adds up to 198 thousand pounds total capacity without a permit. This rig would require a stack of permits (over length, over width, over weight and probably several others depending on the area and rout to be taken.

No flag man hanging off the rear bumper but at least two escort trucks, one in front and one in the back.

The tractor has a turbo charged diesel engine but care must be taken on planning the route to be taken. Around my part of the country the roads are fairly flat so the Autocar tractor works fine. The only problem that I know of is one rig had trouble not having sufficient brakes going down a sloping road and they hooked a D-8 to the back. Before they got to the bottom the D-8s tracks were sliding. This was on a gravel road and the driver said he never wanted to try that again.

 

Fun Fun Fun

 

Texas :smiley20:

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