Aeromax And Flatbed Kit With Mfu

[ms053175]

Hello All, I Am New To This Site And Am Excited About My Latest Project. I Am Getting A Tamiya Ford Aeromax Kit And Flat Bed Semi Trailer With The Mfu And Full Bearings. Also Motorized Legs And Futaba 6 Ch Radio That I Already Use With My F350 Highlift.

I Just Wanted To Post This Thread To Ask All Of Those Who Have Built Or Want To Build A Tamiya Tractor Truck. I Wanted To Know If There Are Any Tips That You All Could Give Me Before I Start Building My Kit. And If There Are Any Secrets That I Might Need To Know About. Any Help Would Be Much Appreciated.

Thank You

[trailqeen]

first off welcome, i cant help you much but post pics when you are done. there are tons of great looking trucks in the gallery that might help you out a little:welcomeani::first:

[Mouton]

Welcome to the site!

You have already built an F-350, so in that respect the Aeromax will not be that much more of a challenge. It only takes longer time.

I love Tamiya's manuals. You can clearly see that they are a plastic model company. They are very good and explains everything clearly during the build process, I believe.

However, there are some points worth mentioning:
1. Make sure you use upp all the grease supplied. Get som extra if necessary. The gearbox needs lots of grease - but do not overdo it. Commons sense goes a long way. It will make the transmission more quiet if you grease it properly.
2. Use the supplied thread lock for all screws that screw to metal, be it the chassis rails, nuts or whatever. This model will vibrate quite a lot and some screws can cause a lot of nuisance if they come loose. This year a friend had a nut come loose on his Mercedes during the Swedish Hobby Fair. It held the rear shackle for one of the front leafs. That nut required removing the gearbox, which in turn meant removing lots of his custom wiring...
3. If you want to keep the interior the MFU might pose a problem. The Knight Hauler came with a speaker box of its own. It was about twice the size of the one in the MFU. For the Knight Hauler this means loosing the interior. If it is the same for the Aeromax you can do as I did and use the box from the MFU (meant for King Hauler). You do not even need drill any new holes as two of the brackets will fit directly. Some say that you loose some of the deeper sound. I say you do not. First of the speaker supplied is so small it can not produce any deep bass sound to begin with. Second, the interior of the larger cabs (Knight Hauler and Aeromax) will act as a sounding board and compensate for the smaller speaker box. There is a guy selling a baffle for using half of the Knight Hauler's box. That is a waste of money and time, in my opinion, since the difference in volume compared to the King Hauler box is negligible.

Good luck!

[cruser0026]

Hi, like you i'm new to building these trucks. I have just finished my third. With my first one i just wanted to get it done and play, my second was the same but experimented with amber strobe lighting. When it came to my third i decided to treat it like a plastic model kit in respect of painting. I painted all of the chassis and wheels it looks more realistic and doesnt show the screw heads so obviously. I found them easy to build and just adhered to the instructions doing exactly what they said. so really it all depends on what finish you want. Pre plan and stick to it.
I have MFU's in all of mine and have had no problems with them, they look and sound great. I think one of the most important things is to choose your colour scheme carefully, i looked at numerous pics on the web before starting just so i new what the finish would look like, i tend not to choose the obvious colours recommended.
As for paints i use the canned acrylic car sprays from motor accessory shops, i have an air brush but find with all that surface area to cover it takes forever and the finish is not as good. The chassis i painted with semi gloss paint applied with an airbrush, you have more control of the paint in this smaller and more fiddly areas.
Im sure with all the tips you'll get you'll be fine. Good Luck

[The Collector1]

Hi ms053175 and everyone,
I received my Tamiya Aeromax for my birthday and loved it ever since, I have the box trailer but I cant open it untill xmas. The speaker on the AMAX mounts in the back of the sleeper pointing up so you can still use the interior and have space for all the electronics.

[Gomjaba]

Hi, like you i'm new to building these trucks. I have just finished my third. With my first one i just wanted to get it done and play, my second was the same but experimented with amber strobe lighting. When it came to my third i decided to treat it like a plastic model kit in respect of painting. I painted all of the chassis and wheels it looks more realistic and doesnt show the screw heads so obviously. I found them easy to build and just adhered to the instructions doing exactly what they said. so really it all depends on what finish you want. Pre plan and stick to it.
I have MFU's in all of mine and have had no problems with them, they look and sound great. I think one of the most important things is to choose your colour scheme carefully, i looked at numerous pics on the web before starting just so i new what the finish would look like, i tend not to choose the obvious colours recommended.
As for paints i use the canned acrylic car sprays from motor accessory shops, i have an air brush but find with all that surface area to cover it takes forever and the finish is not as good. The chassis i painted with semi gloss paint applied with an airbrush, you have more control of the paint in this smaller and more fiddly areas.
Im sure with all the tips you'll get you'll be fine. Good Luck

I am pretty much in the same boat ... I just started (well, almost finished really) my Knight Hauler. I have the box here for about 2 month now and didn't even unpack it (yea)... My problem was that I decided on a theme after I bought the Knight Hauler .. ACTUALLY a King Hauler would have been better. I have now decided to just use this as practise .. I didn't even bother putting in an MFU .. my King Hauler project will be expensive and long (of course I will post pictures) considering all those bits and bops .. Now I even realised that I forgot half of the Screwlock and some of the grease (don't ask why - just happened). This shouldn't really a problem as I really use this one as a test subject and won't drive it anyway (I guess).

And yes, the manuals are fantastic and easy .. I was just scared a bit when I saw all those screw bags. But when you plan ahead - you can hardly miss anything. I found that the easiest thing to do is using Epoxy Cups (http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXK360&P=7) for the screws. I simply wrote on the cups the numbers, like BA1, BA2 etc. and its all perfect :P It speeds things up really.

But yea - my 2nd one .. I plan this one for a long time now so this will be a great one :)