Steam powered tonka truck

[Kilroy]

I was thinking more along the lines like this.

[Creighton]

Nothing like a surplus Crown Vic Police Interceptor with pushbar to clear a path in freeway gridlock.
Looked at one today. Not a bad car to have parked in front of the house either.
Production has stopped. Prices are already starting to climb.

Bet the bumper and grill will turn up in the last place you look :-)

Creighton

[scalebowler]

Found a grill today on ebay and bought it. I proboly over paid for it but what ever I really wanted that part. Would be cool if I could get the grill plated or something like that. I think chrome or brass plating would look pretty good on it.

[scalebowler]

I was thinking more along the lines like this.

That might be pretty cool to make something like that. I think I will wait till I get the entire thing done before I decide to add anything like that to the front though. Just to see if I like the look of it or not.

[scalebowler]

The grill for the tonka truck came in the mail. Looks pretty good and I can't wait to finish the parts so I can finally get this thing running. I worked a little bit on the parts in class last thursday but I did not make much progress. I redid the axle mount and that worked really well but when I went to make the engine mount it was flawless exactly perfect to the drawings but then when I went to test fit it I found that one of the bolt holes was about .100 to .200" off and after looking at the drawing the only reason I can think of why it is like that is because I made the drawings at 2 or 3 am. Got to revise that drawing and redo the part design. Next week I hope to do lathe work and hopefully get the actual engine working.

[scalebowler]

Here are a few pictures of the grill I got. I really like how this looks and I think it will make my truck look a lot better. I also think I want to get it chrome plated although I am not sure of any places that will just chrome that one little piece for me. Also figured out why my part design did not work for the engine mount. Turns out when I was drawing it I apparently made a dimension for how far I wanted the threaded holes to be from the edge but I never really went any further than that and just made the same dimension on both sides so I ended up being off by a ton. Revised the drawing and hope to try again on thrusday. Also plan to spend some time doing lathe work to get a new piston made, new engine post made, drill and ream a pulley and get the flywheel cleaned up since I got a nasty burr inside from the hole I drilled for the set screw. Maybe if I get everything right and slow down while I am working (I have gotten into a really bad habbit of working fast from my job) I might have a working engine by the end of the class.

[scalebowler]

Got to work on the truck today and I made some great progress. I drilled and reamed the engine pulley, I reamed out the hole in the flywheel, I remade the piston, I remade the post that connects the cylinder to the body of the engine and I think I will get this thing running next week in class. All I have left to do at school is drill a hole in the lower half of the piston so I can connect the parts (two piece part) and the rest I is stuff I can do at home like make the fuel tank, attach the burner, repaint the frame, reassemble the truck and run it.

[scalebowler]

Picked up a dremel tool polishing kit today at the hardware store and I think I am going to use that on the tonka grill. Have had pretty good luck with those in the past so I figured that would work pretty good. Going to test it out on the back of the part first just to make sure that it is not plated or anything like that but I think it will work pretty good. Also going to polish up the brass parts on the engine.

[scalebowler]

Used the polising kit on the grill and bumper today and it worked really good. After about a half hour it does not look like the same part and it is almost like a mirror. Only thing is those little dremel polising wheels are kind of junk and if you don't have them on just right they seem to tear the center out and you end up wasting it. I think I went through 5 for the grill and only really got any use out of 2 of them.

[scalebowler]

Figured it was time I gave you guys some pictures of my progress. I am very close to finishing now!

Overview of all the engine assembly, grill, piston and burner




Grill (It looks a lot better in person but the camera flash does not like to take pics of really shiny metal but it almost looks as if I have it chromed)




Machined piston parts (all I have left to do on these is drill a hole in the part on the right and cut the excess material off of the part on the left and then solder the two together and I will have a piston)




Close up of the burner (It is made from a 9mm casing and is soldered to a brass tube. later it will have a fuel tank soldered to the other end and mounted at the back of the truck. Will have a wick in the casing and alcohol will flow from the tank to the wick and heat the boiler.)