Elephant tank transporter

 I have been working on the new tank transporter. We need this as part of the filming requirements for the tank. The idea is that the tank transporter will pull up and the tank off loaded. It does not need to be a copy of any existing transporter, infact the brief is to make it look Sci-fi so I can have a bit of fun with this one.

What I did not realise is the size of this thing in 1/6 scale. I think the whole build will be nearly 3m long. 

It should be a fairly straight forward build. 

The hardest thing will be the suspension as it has to be set for the weight of the lorry but I am not sure what the final weight will be. The tractor will be made from 1.5mm steel and the chasis on both tractor and trailer will be steel box section. Tractor wheels will be 200mm pneumatic, tryes taken from a couple of old mountain boards. Trailer wheels will be smaller at 80mm keeping the trailer as low to the ground as possible making it easy to load the tank.

Four wheel steering linkage all made up from 8mm road and eyes.

Suspension is 18mm carbon steel used to create leaf springs all fully adjustable.

Cab is made from 1.5mm steel. Main tractor body is made from 2mm steel.

Starting to come together. This is just the basic structure in steel.

The 2 and 1.5mm steel is so nice to work with plus does not weight to much.

The whole truck was mocked up in cardboard first to get the overall look and dimensions.

The motor is a 350w 24v motor and transaxcel from an old mobility scooter which should be more than powerful enough to move the truck and trailer with the tank loaded. It wont go fast but that is not the point. The trailer  platform will be made from plywood edged with alloy keeping the weight as low as possible. 

Fifth wheel is very simple and will not be automatic so the trailer will have to be manually removed when needed.