Scania Highline Project

Page 1: Assembly

Since I've already fully documented a tractor truck build on my King Hauler page and the chassis is 90% similar, I'll be providing only a cursory overview of the build here.

Here's the typically huge box of the tractor truck series. Unlike many of the others which use old style white boxes, this one has a stylish black box. Inside are the usual dividers with the main body on the left followed by plastic sprues, tires, and finally all the hardware on the right. There is a lot of hardware in a tractor truck. The body parts are mostly molded in white while everything else is black.

The chassis goes together exactly like the Mercedes I built earlier with the shift servo up front and the steering servo mounted on the left side. There are a tremendous number of holes in the chassis rails so I was sure I wouldn't use them all. I used them all. The right hand image shows the rigid front axle and leaf springs. It always amazes me that you can get by with such cheap servos on a big truck like this, but the Futaba S3004 works fine.

The twin rear axles are mostly like those on other trucks with one odd exception. There are a pair of rubber stops on the chassis rails which limit the motion of the rear suspension to almost nothing. I suspect this is to avoid contact with the fenders which have very little clearance. Although the suspension cannot compress with weight, it can still tilt and therefore a wheel can drop into a divot or up onto a bump a bit. This model uses the old style pink shock bodies. The right hand image shows the usual wheels and tires.

I've built this transmission a couple of times now and all the tractor trucks are the same, but it is always worth another couple of images of the internal geary gloriosity. I used a 55 turn Axial motor in my King Hauler and so did it again here, but for some reason this truck drives quite slow with it. I may need to change it out for a 35 turn.

The left hand image shows the rolling chassis with the suspension and tires installed. On the right, I've added the transmission and drive shaft which adds a lot of weight. At this point, the model is pretty much indistinguishable from any of the cabover trucks and you'd have a hard time identifying it.

Time to start making it look like a Scania. We start with the front fenders and side panels which must be painted first. I put on the Candy Lime Green paint followed by the stickers (side marker lights) and then a couple of coats of gloss clear. The side steps are separate parts painted in silver. You can also see the huge electronics tray containing only my tiny temporary ESC and receiver. There are fuel tanks hidden behind the green side panels. I painted the rear fenders and tail light shrouds in semi-gloss black. I didn't bother painting the 5th wheel since attaching trailers would just rub the paint off.

The tail light lenses need to be painted in clear amber and red. The pattern shown is what is called for in the instructions but ends up a bit strange. The lens is basically divided into 6 sections and the colors from left to right are: red, amber, red, red, red, white. However, the light buckets behind have only 3 chambers. This means the tail light only lights up 2 of the 4 red sections, and both the turn signal and the reverse light are half red. Doesn't matter if you don't use the lights, but doesn't look quite right when illuminated. An online search reveals this is the correct pattern though.

The main body takes a lot more work. It may seem like these tractor trucks are pretty much one color paint jobs, but there is actually a lot of black to do which requires a pile of masking. In this case, I also wanted the whole inside painted in black to help hide the wiring and MFC that will be installed later. The picture on the right shows the result. The grille area, A pillars, window surrounds, and interior are black.

The front bumper has a lot of detail. The four small lower round lenses are fog lights. The head lights have a low and high beam as well as a turn signal on each side. The amber turn signal marking is a sticker which isn't my favorite way to do it. There are wipers on the headlight lenses and the grille is a separate part painted in gun metal. There is actually a black mesh behind the grille which looks like the front of a radiator. The license plate is a separate part with a sticker. There are several EU country options and I chose Sweden since this is a Scania. On the right I've installed the bumper, the main body, the fairings, and the wind deflector. The windows are painted in Smoke to hide the upcoming wires and the interior is not installed. Yes, I skipped a few steps here without taking pictures. There is so much labor and concentration involved in the painting process that I tend to forget.

Here are a couple of shots of the (almost) completed truck. The mirrors and stickers are installed and everything is clearcoated. At this point I had forgotten to install the visor above the windshield though. There is no connection between the front bumper and side skirts which can lead to some strange gaps depending on how the model is sitting. I wish there was an attachment here since this would also help eliminate chattering when the vibration motor is running.

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