Mercedes Benz Actros 5 axle end dump truck

[el barto]

Hi guys

here's my next project, which is still at the beginning

after i bought a liebherr l574 wheel loader i decided to get a dump truck as well.
after calculating and thinking that this will be extremely expensive i went online and found a great auction....

a mercedes benz actros 4 axle end dump truck with tamiya chassis and a bruder body. when the car arrived i was really shocked about the awful quality of the truck.

i threw away the following stuff:

dumper
body
chassis
servos
amm

well, the only things i could keep where the axles, the transmission and the spindle drive with the motor....

so i decided to completely overhaul the truck with 5 axles, middle axle is a lifted and steered pusher axle

this is how it looked when arrived (after i already lengthened the chassis and added a 5th axle)



well, i started to find a good original truck which i will shrink to 1:14.5 :-)

this is it. i like the color scheme and all the checker plated aluminium on it. i also get lots of support of the owner of this truck, got about 100 pics on my computer :-)



after buying a new body and mounting it on the chassis



i started on building the fenders based on the original

2nd axle


rear fender before beveling



and after beveling



some first detailing



then i went on the fuel tank


here's the original:



and mine:







the body i got is a mercedes benz actros MP1, the first issue, meanwhile, they had 2 facelifts and i'll have to modify to mp3 myself. especially the front bumper, head lights and the grille are different now.

here's a pic of the originial bruder body



this is how i should look at the end



and this is the situation at the moment. i'm still not sure how to build the 'winglets' on the top sides of the grille...





will be continued