New Wedco 345d Quick Release

[Ian (the norwegian)]

Hiya Paul.

Yes, I have seen that the earliest machines had plastic pullies and narrow rubber belts. A friend of mine fron Denmark told me about that. He also had that first edition of drive system. But he got it replaced with the alu pullies and wider belts from WDC.
On my machine, who are number 203, there's only alu pullies and 5 or 6mm belts. But there's still no kind of tentioner on the belt. So I'm thinking that I might make a simple tentioner if there are problems.

I got my chain drives from TTM also. Great guys. I've been there a few times on my travels to Germany.. I actually baught my first Scania there

Well, yes. They might have the plastic pullies, or, they might also not have been careful when the assembled all the wheels and bearings in the undercarriage. I noticed that if one just slams it together, a lot of wheels get half stuck. Including the sprocket wheel. I have seen at least one Cat 345 with that problem. Wheels didn't turn freely. And, of course, the guy that had built it was NOT to blame While others don't have a single problem.

I've also been looking at the hydraulic cylinders on this machine. The couplings are all wrong, compared to the 1:1. And there are supposed to be metal pipes along the cylinder with couplings near the end og the cylinders. On top, the WDC couplings are standing WAY to far out from the cylinder sides. Look darn, right ugly.
As far as I have seen, the hydraulic pipe set from Leimbach also seem to contain replacements for the original cylinder couplings. Is this so? Kind'a hard to tell by the tiny photos in the Leimbach homepage.

So far there's not all that much of the model that I have completed. I am rebuilding quite a number of things as I go along. Detailing, making new parts and modifying existing parts to make it look more like the 1:1. Undercarriage are complete, and now I'm working on the boom.
All the yellow parts have been repainted, since the original WDC color are not correct. I'm lucky enough to be living not very far from a Cat dealership So I could take a lot of pics of a brand new 345. And also purchase the original paint.

In my singature, there's a link to a forum where I have a building thread. It's not in english, but there's a lot of pics there, if you wanna have a peek