Saturday, 14 October 2023

Zvezda Mercedes L4500A (connecting all the painted sub-assemblies)

The engine and cab are now firmly attached to the chassis. It was a nerve racking moment making sure it all aligned correctly. There are no actual locating tabs! There are raised runners under the cab floor but nothing to channel the alignment. It basically just locates over the fenders using the arch profiles as a guide. 

 

 

Because of the way I went about leaving sub-assemblies seperate for painting, I first had to carefully squeeze the cab over the engine. Even my assembly stage decision to split the steering wheel shaft to make this possible, still required a mini mission to jiggly it into place. Then I just had to orientate the cab square on the chassis before finaly fixing.

The cab to chassis joint areas were then carefully weathered as was the AWD selector rod which could only be added once the cab was in place. I noticed whilst taking pics that just under the cab doors I haven't finished blending a couple if dark oil streaks so that will have to be taken care of next session.

 

The wheels were weathered separately with oils and pigments and then added to the hubs. The masking fluid added before paint to the hub contact areas making this process a much easier task.

 

 


No comments: