Steam powered tonka truck

[scalebowler]

All you have to do is fabricate a bed extender like the one in the picture! 

  Tim

Thats actually not a bad idea. That design even has holes for air flow

[scalebowler]

Did some painting yesterday and it looks pretty good I think. There are a few flaws in the paint (although I am not sure if some are the paint or some dents in the metal that I did not see before) but over all it is not too bad. I ended up painting it with a can of International Red Rustoleum Farm Equipment paint that I found at the hardware store and I painted the bed with a can of heat resistant rustoleum BBQ grill paint since that part will hold the boiler. The pictures are not the best because I took these in my garage and did not have the best lighting (some actually make the parts look orange) but they do give an idea of what they look like. Going to paint the other sides of the parts tomorrow and then I can focus on getting the boiler stuff figured out, making the engine, finding some small gears, and some other stuff I can't think of right now.

[scalebowler]

I may have figured out the drive system now. I have a few mini machine tools like a drill press, punch press and a few other machines that you hook up to a steam engine and make a mini machine shop kind of like they had back in the 1900's and all of those tools are belt driven (supposed to be these spring belts that the company sells but it turns out rubber o ring material makes better belts that transmit power better) so after some thinking I believe that making the wheels belt driven using some pulleys and an o ring (or the 100' of the stuff that I bought from grainger for when ever I get around to building my steam powered shop ) willl work. I am thinking that will work better for me than gears just because of the fact that the only gears that I found that would work were made from plastic and I really don't want to have plastic gears next to the steam engine and I have had pretty good luck driving some tools with the o ring belts.

[scalebowler]

Painted the under sides of the parts on the truck and learned that you can't just paint one side at a time since what ever overspray you get on the front coat kind of screws it up and makes the shiny surface dull. Oh well just got to spray it again tomorrow

[Creighton]

Blue painters tape be your friend to prevent paint in unwanted places.

Good source of metal gears is old windup clocks/can openers etc.. from the thrift stores.

Great project and thanks for the updates.
Creighton

[scalebowler]

Blue painters tape be your friend to prevent paint in unwanted places.

Good source of metal gears is old windup clocks/can openers etc.. from the thrift stores.

Great project and thanks for the updates.
Creighton

Thanks! It is actually pretty fun documenting the progress on this project and I am glad you are enjoying it. Is interesting to see what it used to look like and what it now looks like.

I will have to check out the thrift stores for an older can opener and see if that would work for my truck. Biggest problem I am running into is that I have to attach a gear to the axle and the wheels are only about 1" in diameter. Now I have to redesign part of the body of the engine to make it fit in my truck. Mostly it is just going to make the body a little bit wider just so I can bolt it down sideways and have a part that holds the axle.

[Creighton]

Ok, I understand. How about gears or pulley drives from an Erector set? Nice brass that could be machined to fit.
Creighton
 

[scalebowler]

Ok, I understand. How about gears or pulley drives from an Erector set? Nice brass that could be machined to fit.
Creighton
 

Thats not a bad idea. I know I have some erector set parts somewhere. Will look for those tomorrow

[Creighton]

The only other donor I can think of would be the old wind up toy cars. I would hate to part out one of those unless the body was trashed.
Creighton

[scalebowler]

The only other donor I can think of would be the old wind up toy cars. I would hate to part out one of those unless the body was trashed.
Creighton

I think I would feel bad about taking one of those appart to get some parts out if it. I do remember that I have an old rotisery motor that has a busted coil in it that I might be able to pull something out of. I know all the gears are metal in there. I actually am thinking about trying the belt drive just to see how well it works. I do know that one of the companies who make model steam engines has a steam powered tractor that is belt driven so it might work.