Lego Bedford tipper truck repairs

 
This Bedford flatbed truck came in a lot with other little Lego cars. It already looked a bit suspect in the seller's photos. But the entire lot was a very good deal, so no worries there.

Upon arrival the truck turned out to have lost its original tipping cargo bed. A previous owner had removed most of the chassis of a trailer and stuck that on the rear of the truck. Which meant a nice salvage job now lay ahead.

I already had a couple of trailers that go with the Bedford tipper, which had warped to a degree of utter uselessness. The cargo bed recovered from the truck wasn't quite straight either, but nowhere near as bad.

The chassis was removed from the warped trailer, the bits cut from the cargo bed being removed after this picture was taken. The other cargo bed had the remaining bits of its chassis removed and was then mated to the loose chassis to make a very presentable trailer (I appear to have forgotten to photograph these steps).

The glue damage to the rear of the cab and the frame of the truck was sanded away, followed by compound wax and copper polish to make the surfaces shine again.

A spare cargo bed obtained from a fellow-collector was now repaired with a part cut from the twisted cargo bed. The strip was first cut and sanded to the right width, next the hole was drilled, then the rounded edge sanded around the hole and then the part was cut to the right length. (The cargo bed had been in the peroxide but didn't bleach further than shown.)

With the new part superglued in place (and left to thoroughly dry), the cargo bed was gently fitted to the truck bed. Though best operated with care, it now works like new.

Next up for repair was the very first Bedford tipper and trailer I had found at a swapmeet. I had no idea that the cargo bed could actually tip until I got it home. Upon closer inspection I discovered one of the legs had broken off the bed and that therefore the bed had been glued to the truck frame. 

Thankfully the glue job had been carefully done, and the cargo bed came loose with little effort and few traces of glue.

The trailer wasn't entirely straight but not at all bad. The loose front axle was repaired with the Vreede method described in an earlier post.

The cargo bed was repaired much as the other example above; the warped cargo bed yielding another length of the correct type and colour of plastic.

End result is another Bedford tipper, repaired and functional once again.

And then more than half a year later, I got a really nice and intact cargo bed in one lot, and a barrel truck with missing rear panel in another lot (I do really wonder why so many of those are missing. This one was neatly sawn off, but perhaps it had broken first, who knows).

Removal of the incomplete barrel cargo bed left glue damage to the rear of the cab. Which was sanded away, then smoothed out and finished with fine-grit sandpaper, compound wax and copper polish. Bending an edge of sandpaper round a straight surface allows for more precision, in sanding only the lower rear of the cab.

The intact cargo bed was fitted to the blue truck to replace the repaired example it received before. It's now in very good condition - a far cry from when I got it with the trailer bed glued on. The red truck now sports the repaired tipping cargo bed, and so provides a nice alternative colour to the fleet.