6x6 Dakar Race Truck (1:16 scale)

[azbill]

The end of last year I was recently laid up for back surgery and my friend, a model truck enthusiast, gave me an old R/C model truck to play with. The truck was as a MAN delivery truck made by Wedico. The truck was upgraded to 6 x 6 radio controlled drive, and covered in Dakar rally stickers And apparently heavily used!

After I was back on my feet I told my buddy I wanted to update the truck to look like a modern Dakar Rally truck. After a few conversations I was given the go ahead to rebuild the truck.

This is the first model truck I've ever built, but I do have a background in mechanical engineering and have built several custom motorcycles (then raced them on the track).

[azbill]

Body (Trailer): The first thing that had to be changed was body portion of the truck. the simple box body wasn't ever the right size. After taking several measurements, twice and studying photos of past and current rally trucks and drawling of possible future design for rally tucks I set to work. I first drew the body to scale in Adobe Ilustrator as a pattern and printed it out on card stock. Once I liked the end result I transfered the pattern to foam-board and built a full size foam-board model.

[azbill]

After the third or fouth try out on foam-board I tranffered the pattern on to sheets of balsa wood and hand cut them out. I assembled the balsa wood pieces togetther using small spots of hot glue. Once the unit was all together I soaked every seam inside and out with Gorilla glue and let it dry to three days. I then used my Dremel to round all the outside edged to about 1/8" dia. Next, I coated all the edges in wood filler, then after it dryed I hand sanded the body down nice and smooth.

[glorydays24]

Congratgulations on a job well done, you did a fantastic job...be proud.

Big John

[JensR]

Looks great!
But this is not an MAN, this is a Mercedes SK
Bit hard to spot with the early Wedico style and the stickers are misleading.

[azbill]

Originally Posted by JensR

Looks great!
But this is not an MAN, this is a Mercedes SK
Bit hard to spot with the early Wedico style and the stickers are misleading.

Thanks! I stand corrected.

It has a MAN sticker on it, so I assumed that what it was. I really don't know what the different are to look for.

[rcguyfarms]

I see some use out that old truck. Does it still operate very well? I like the new body design.

[JensR]

Not a biggie
Just for your information:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=mercedes+SK
For the MAN, I sadly do not know how the generation back then was called, but they looked like this one:
http://www.hankstruckpictures.com/d_child.htm

[azbill]

I rattle can painted the trailer blue, but I'm really not liking the color. Plus the paint is high lighting my piss poor wood working skills...

I hooked up some "RPM" bar lights for the cab. I wires in some micro-incandescent light bulbs into the light bars instead of LED's. No real reason except I never seen micro-incandescent light bulbs (aero-naut) and tough the light color might be different.

[azbill]

I added some exhaust pipes, Wedico air-cleaners ad hinged the tail gate. Then reassembled the truck and drive around the yard for a while.

I'm trying to post the build in segments, like I built it. I'm several post behind. I'm not really working that fast...

[azbill]

Seem's my bar lights missed up the function of the hinges on the cab door's. So I there now going to be non-functional.

New plan for the truck color. I got roll of blue flexible carbon fiber vinyl wrap (MetroRestyling.com) and went to town wrapping the cab and the trailer. Took about 7 hours to wrap. I think it looks a better!

I got a small sheet of plexi-glass from Home Depot and cut it to the shapes of the cab windows and spray painted the inside black. Then mounted them with hot glue.

At this point the truck looks a little to militant. I'm going to add some decals to the truck to match the decals on my old race bike.

[azbill]

My buddy gave me a smoke generator for a train and dared to integrate it into the truck. It wasn't that hard, but I'm very dis appointed that that I can find in "black" smoke. All the train products produce thin white smoke with doesn't come close to a turbo diesel output.

I got a couple of the MSDS sheets from a couple of the train smoke fluids and I measured the voltage and temperature of the heating element in the smoke generator. I send all the info to a chemical engineer friend of mine and asked him to make me some black smoke fluid...

Then thin walled tubing keep clasping on it self, so I may redo the plumbing once I get the black fluid.

Video...
http://youtu.be/qi5Hpynxl8s

[scalelover]

Truck is looking good. Ive always liked the Dakar builds, I'd like to eventually build one myself.

--Dan