Zvezda Mercedes L4500A Chapter 7: Painting

With the kit fully built in sub assemblies I plan to show this as a late war supply vehicle towing a trailer which has been pushed off the road on a French road during the retreat to the Rhine.

Preparing softskins for paint is often a tricky business. For one there is rarely anywhere suitable on the vehicle to suspend it safely. Then there is the issue of completing the interior before masking glass areas to complete the exterior. I often prepare at the building stage and this almost always make the whole project a far more enjoyable experience.

Zvezda Mercedes L4500A Chapter 6: Wheels & tyres and kit build report

 

Wheels and tyres

Although the kits narrow shoulder treaded tyres do look a little odd they do appear to be authentic and there are pictures of them on L4500's

 

Schwerer Wehrmachtschlepper (sWS) armoured cargo version. Chapter 6: Decals and adding initial weathering effects with acrylics

A light coat of sand coloured lifecolor acrylics were airbrushed over a coat of hairspray and scrubbed back leaving remnants of the sand colour to simulate the first layers of dust and dirt. A further coat of VMS satin varnish sealed all the work in preparation for upcoming pin washes.

Chapter 7

Zvezda Mercedes L4500A Chapter 5: Cab assembly and engine bay

Cab construction

Once the main chassis compenents have been fitted we move onto the cab construction and is often the case with trucks and cars we are faced with the dilemma of how to approach painting the interior.  Unfortunately, Zvezda have not helped us with this task!  They have designed the cab roof to join just behind the screen where there is not actually a joint on the real vehicle (so far as I could determine)  Masking the joint after painting the interior would not be my preferred plan of attack so I figured that issue would need to be addressed first.

I have built the Zvezda L4500 S with the wooden cab so a fair amount of parts on this kit are identical.  You got both the metal and wooden cab with that kit and as I had built this cab previously, I employed the same method of construction with this kit.

To be able to get decent access to the cab interior with the airbrush and add the instrument decals the cab needs to be built in two halves.  The windows on mine will be left off until the cab is painted. I started by building up the rear section, cementing the floor and cab rear together. I left off both the seat and seat back until both parts had cured to avoid any potential interference. There are a couple of tabs on the inside of the rear panel to line up to the floor and it is important to make sure the lower points of the rear panel sit at the same height as the bottom of the floor moulding.  I found out in my earlier build this positioning is critical for getting the best overall alignment of the cab, and more so if building with the doors shown closed.

Once dry the front panel and roof can then be attached to one another. Whilst curing I dry fitted them to the rear section already built up with masking tape to ensure the roof dried at the right angle.  Once fully cured the any joint line can be easily cleaned up and masked.  Once dry the dash panel can be fitted.

The main issue with the whole cab assembly, I found, is with the doors. They do require some trimming to sit well in the closed position and any paint added will make this even worse such are the fine tolerances of the fit.  The sprue gate position on the door parts is awkward to clean up as they are positioned right over the intersection of outer skin and inner body. If you wish to model the kit with the cab doors closed a great deal of trimming and test fitting will be required to get a good overall fit.  I dry fitted my front and rear cab assemblies together with the doors with masking tape. Much test fitting was made before I was happy to proceed

In step 22 you are to attach the steering box and column to the chassis at the same time as you add the completed cab assembly.  This is fine if you follow the instructions as the steering wheel can easily be fitted to the column inside the cab as the roof top part is still unattached. This also allows you to complete the steering link assembly in step 22

As I had adopted a different approach my solution was to cut the column off just above the steering box, drill both pieces and insert a piece of copper wire. This way I could attach the steering box to the chassis, complete the steering link assembly and still be able to line the column up once the cab was painted and completed. Using my method of cab construction the steering wheel will still need to be cemented to the column inside the cab after it has been pushed through the bulkhead as the roof I had connected to the front panel will obstruct the fitment if connected together. To aid painting the steering wheel in its final resting place I dry fitted the cab to the chassis and with the aid of the copper wire attachment to the steering box, was able to determine the wheel location in the cab. I then added a spot of Blu-Tak to the column as it passed through the bulkhead to hold it in place for painting.

As already mentioned the engine assembly will not locate in the engine bay once the cab is fitted so the chassis so if you wish to paint the engine separately you will also have to leave the cab assembly off.

Radiator, engine panels & fenders

In my last L4500 s build I displayed the vehicle with the bonnet/hood completely removed but this time I planned on only removing the top half of the driver’s side panel.  This meant that the radiator housing, bonnet/hood and bulkhead all needed to line up neatly.  Making this an altogether more difficult task was that both fenders also locate to points on both the chassis, cab floor and engine side panels.

The instructions have you adding the fenders to both the chassis and cab floor after the cab is fitted to the chassis.  In leaving the cab assembly unattached for painting this meant I would now attach the bonnet/hood, engine side panels and the radiator housing together to ensure a good fit.

Attaching the strengthening bar to the underside of the bonnet/hood first, I then cemented it to the cab front assembly (bulkhead).  Once dry I added both engine side panels and finally the radiator housing making sure that all parts sat at the correct angles. Once this now bigger sub assembly was dry I test fitted the engine for any clearance issues. All appears to fit well.

As for how the engine sits in the bay pay particular attention as to how the rear of the engine locates onto the chassis.  There are two location slots, but they will require widening to get the engine to sit flush on the crossbeam.  This is a particularly important step as if the engine sits too high it will interfere with the cab assembly.   

 

With the engine snugly located in the engine bay the front cab assembly was test fitted to the chassis.  As with the previous L4500S build the tab at the rear of the block needed trimming and also the top of the gearbox needed shaving a little to get the cab to fit on its two forward location brackets.  Happy that all looked to fit well and that the steering column located into the steering box I could now position the front fenders to the chassis. The cut out for the steering box outer arm on the driver’s side fender needed widening on my kit but once addressed the underside cut out makes positioning them easy.

 

Chapter 6 

Zvezda Mercedes L4500A Chapter 4: Aftermarket resin wheels and suspension

Aftermarket wheels

If you are to employ an aftermarket set of wheels beware to check before adding parts C42 and C43 to the rear axle. The outer hub moulding is included as part of the outer wheel in my aftermarket set so the inner rear wheels mount directly to the backplate parts C39 and C40

Axles

The front and rear axles are nicely rendered, and all the small assemblies go together without hitch. The front wheels are designed to rotate. If you wish to model the kit with moveable wheels you can first squish down the idler arm tops with a little heat effectively trapping the tie rod but still letting it move. Next, carefully drill out the steering arm and drag link to the knuckle arms. I did this successfully with the L4500S kit so it if I can do it……   

This time I decided to fix the wheels at a rotated angle.

Leaf springs

My first build issue I did have was with both sets of leaf springs. Neither of the rear ones in my kit sat nicely in the chassis location recesses. They both required a small amount of plastic to be removed to get a good fit. On attaching both of my front leaf springs completely snapped in half! Luckily, I had used some slow drying cement to add them to the chassis for the sole reason of giving me some wiggle room to get a good alignment of the axle. Thankfully, this saved both pieces.  Upon inspection I am confident that the design of the front leaf springs is not strong enough. As the part has a large cut out at its centre (to line up with a tab on the axle) this becomes a weak point when any weight is applied to it (i.e. when fitting the axle).  As I had rescued both springs from the chassis, I was able to cement both ends together, let them set and then re-attached them to the chassis. A second and far more careful attachment of the front axle was then achieved without incident.

Chapter 5

Zvezda Mercedes L4500A Chapter 3: Cargo bed & chassis

 

Cargo bed

The cargo bed is attached to the chassis by way of a wooden frame and three beams that sit on top of the chassis. The beams are fixed down to the chassis by U-shaped shackle pins.  As access to insert the shackle pins will be extremely difficult if you keep the cargo bed, frame and beams separate, there is an alternative build process to those in the instructions worth considering. I followed the instructions but the method explained below is definitely a better idea as I discovered as it will aid painting and finishing.

This option is to just attach the cargo beam parts F17, F26 and F27 (step 8) once the chassis is built up leaving you to attach the remaining frame parts as per step 7 to the cargo bed. This way you can add the U- shaped shackle pins but keep the cargo bed separate. 

Zvezda Mercedes L4500A Chapter 2: Engine

 

Engine

The instructions start with the engine and gearbox and the Mercedes-Benz OM 67/4, Diesel is quite a substantial assembly once built up. Noteworthy from the outset is the engine and gearbox will not fit in the engine bay once the cab floor is fitted. A mistake I have made with other similarly designed kits on the odd occasion in my enthusiasm to complete a build. Sadly, one half of my engine block was severely warped.  Whether this was a manufacturing defect or a direct result of being packaged in a loose bag and getting trapped against another sprue in transit will remain a mystery.   

The whole assembly is nicely detailed and even includes an oil dipstick, however, looking at ref pics there does look like a chunk of cooling pipework is missing over the manifold. If displaying the bonnet/hood completely open, fuel pipes to the injectors will also need to be added as will a battery and bulkhead pipework and wiring.   

Zvezda Mercedes L4500A Chapter 1: What's in the box

Zvezda kit # 3596

 

 

The Mercedes-Benz L 4500 was built by Daimler-Benz from 1939 –1944 in the Mercedes-Benz plant Gaggenau,^[1] and from 1944 – 1945 by Saurer. The vehicle is a long-bonnet truck and was offered as a rear-wheel-drive truck (L 4500 S) and as an all-wheel-drive truck (L 4500 A). The German Wehrmacht used the L 4500 with armoured cabins as Flaks during World War II. Due to the lack of production material, the cabin was replaced with the simplified standardised Wehrmacht cabin and the mudwings with simplified wings in 1943.^[2] Also, the L 4500 chassis was used for the Sonderkraftfahrzeug 4.