RC Trucks and Haulers: Practical Tips for Gearboxes, Trailers, Scale Detail and Multi-Speed Systems.
Building and running RC trucks and haulers is immensely rewarding when you pay attention to the mechanical details that make a model perform and look convincing on the road or trail.
Start with the gearbox because it dictates torque delivery and durability for any hauling task, and consider whether a metal-geared sealed unit or a lightweight plastic gearbox suits your use case better depending on expected loads and impacts.
When selecting gear ratios think in terms of the load you will tow, the gradient you expect to climb and the top speed you want to achieve because lower ratios give torque for towing while higher ratios improve cruising speed when the load is light.
For trailers pay attention to hitch design and weight distribution, and use a sufficiently stiff drawbar or kingpin to avoid wobble; also reinforce trailer axles and bearings if you plan to carry heavy resin or metal loads to prevent premature wear.
Scale detail makes a model believable and aids functionality, so fit appropriate tyres and wheel offsets, add realistic lighting and wiring, and secure loads with tie-downs or chains to prevent shifting in corners, and for project inspiration and parts guides visit WatDaFeck for ideas and printable accessories.
Multi-speed systems can be achieved with purpose-built RC transmissions, two-speed gearboxes, or dual-motor setups, and you should choose a shifting mechanism that matches your skill level and the desired realism because servo-actuated gear changes are simple to operate but proportional transmissions deliver a more convincing drive feel.
Setup and maintenance are the unsung heroes of reliable hauling, so regularly check gearbox lubrication and backlash, keep tyre pressure consistent for predictable handling, test towing behaviour at low speed before attempting heavy loads, and balance your trailer to maintain safe tracking and reduce wear.
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Tim Moran Ford: Explore the Full Range of Ford Trucks
Learn about the capabilities, capabilities and versatility of Ford trucks in this comprehensive blog written by Tim Moran Ford. The blog highlights the remarkable lineup that is designed to satisfy the requirements of various drivers, whether you require an efficient work vehicle, an off-roader, or a dependable pickup that can be used for daily driving. Ford’s range of trucks, Tim Moran Ford trucks, and Ford trucks on sale show models that are known for their strength as well as their advanced technology and strong towing capacities. From light-duty trucks to heavy-duty workhorses, every Ford truck is equipped with performance, along with comfort and ingenuity features that are designed specifically for modern-day drivers. If you’re looking for an efficient and reliable truck, this blog offers useful information about the various models and the features that make them stand apart. Learn more
Having been denied government funding for a couple of months my eBaying has necessarily been paused and I’m on new stock only at the minute. Still, got some neat stuff going on, for no particular reason consisting of an unusually high proportion of trucks of one or another type.
ALT
Today I was lucky enough to encounter a new-for-2026 Matchbox 1980 Jeep J10 Stepside.
Like seems to happen often, this Matchbox is a ‘normal life’ version of an amped-up Hot Wheels release; last year we saw a couple of J10s in the guise of Baja racing vehicles, tricked out with fat wheels, cooling fans, spares and a big roll cage, so it’s nice to have a more everyday incarnation of this truck.
The overall style, with stripes apprpriate to the J10’s top-level “Honcho” trim (linguistics aside: for many years I thought this was a Mexican Spanish word, but it’s Japanese! 本庁 means 'main government office’ or similar - hence “head honcho” as a key authority figure…) and a rollbar in the bed is very period correct. Love the white wheels. It reminds me of the Dodge D-100 Dakota that Matchbox made in the late 80s, although the Dodge did the rollbar a lot more pleasingly.
Until the Hot Wheels version I had no idea this truck even existed, but especially seen next to the grey and black 1988 Cherokee from a couple of years back it’s plainly visible that this shares the SJ chassis and some bodywork, not unlike the Chevrolet Blazer and C series.
On the subject of the Chevrolet C series, I finally caved today and got an example of a classic Hot Wheels casting, the '83 Chevy Silverado, an SWB C10 of the era.
ALT
Me being a boxy '80s car afficionado and the Silverado being an iconic truck of the era, and this having been made about 724 times, you might reasonably expect I’d be all over this. However, I’ve always avoided this truck for what all comes down to the same thing: I hate the low stance.
I like trucks to be trucks, not hot rods or lowriders, and I don’t like the effect lowering it has had on the bed, pulling out the bed lining and wheel arches for the space to lower the body, nor the usual liveries this results in the truck being given. I have no interest in an off-roader modified to become useless. Then again, it’s always been on the cards that I could lift it again, so my intent with this was always to do just that.
I drilled it open, removed the axles, modified the base with some lateral grooves below where the axles go, drilled some holes either side, placed the axles in the grooves and the plan was then to use wire loops to keep the axles in place. However, when testfitting the body on the axles it immediately became clear the original wheels were ridiculously small, so I had to raid the wheel box to replace them; these work OK, they are definitely road wheels, not offroad as I would prefer, but they are a decent size and proportion compared to the body and the arches. From below it’s not super elegant, but it looks fine once viewed from most normal viewing angles.
Another Matchbox truck that hit recently Ridge Raider II, which a little atypically for recent Matchbox is a fantasy desert racer. However, it’s wearing a livery that the first Ridge Raider, another fantasy desert racing truck, wore in only its second release in 2008.
I have an eye on getting hold of the 2008 versions once I have some money to throw at ebay postage, but not quite yet. R.R.II is a fairly handsome, stubby and aggressive little creature, but doesn’t stand up to scrutiny that well. it received only two tampo passes and therefore it was down to me to detail the front and rear (the J10 also only got two tampos, but the chrome base forming the bumpers, grille and lights covers a multitude of sins).
That’s one issue, but the most troublesome is the spare tyres. There are two visible in the back, cast into the zamac, and two visible through the open top, moulded as a part of the interior… but geometrically they can’t be the same pair of tyres. Either they are stored squashed, which seems daft, or one has been sawn in half, because otherwise they would have to clip through each other like bad game CG. It’s a weird casting detail fail that clearly was done to accommodate the rear rivet, and the solution seems obvious: delete the cast back ones and leave the back open, where the moulded ones can be visible from both sides but have the rivet running through the middle. There must be a reason why this happened, but this is another tale of diecast design we’ll likely never hear. It doesn’t wreck the casting, but it’s a distraction from what ought to be a really good car.
The Matchbox Gritter King is another 2026 new model with issues. It’s a quite nicely sculpted snowplough and gritter with a minor gimmick, namely that it has a functional grit hopper with small openings in the bottom so it will actually dispense small quantities of grit, or salt, or sugar, or rat poison, or cocaine, or whatever powder or fine granule you favour most.
I’ve not tested this function as I don’t tend to particularly favour any powders or granules, but that’s a nice feature for play. For display, the main issue this car presents is immediately obvious: no glass, with the cab windows represented by glossy faces of the interior piece that forms the hopper. This is a new sibling in the ’[something] King’ european-style utility cabover lorry family, joining a road stripe painter, a concrete mixer and a dustbin lorry, and sharing its lack of cab windows with the road stripe painter. It’s cool enough and looks good in MBX Construction livery (especially with added hazard stripes on the plough blade) but even though I do freely admit I don’t have a lot of practical experience at managing budgets for multi-billion dollar toy companies, I still can’t help thinking this is a bit unnecessarily cheap.
The next one was an instant buy, though: a 2023 Ford E-Transit Custom, Ford’s latest electric incarnation of their bestselling commercial.
The Ford Transit Van is to the UK what the F-150 is to the USA or the Hiace is To Japan: something driven in a variety of forms by tradespeople in hundreds of different professions, from skilled construction trades to delivery to taxi driving; cops drive them, and so do bank robbers. They are a common sight all across Europe too, although VW, Mercedes Renault, Peugeot and Fiat vans compete more strongly on the mainland. And so because it’s so overwhelmingly common, people have them as personal vehicles, customise them in millions of ways and generally go bananas over them. For over 60 years this has been a ubiquitous vehicle across the UK, and across the world.
This is ultimately why my neighbours spend the greater part of the warmer months of the year sitting with their mates on the pavement performing mystic rituals on a revolving parade of Transits, taking pieces off, banging them with tools or each other while singing and shouting magic spells, and in the end putting them back together better, or at least it sounds like that’s roughly what they are doing out there. Their eldrich Transitmancy rituals have raised my awareness of the cult of Transit, and thus like an assassin with a copy of Catcher in the Rye, I was unable to stop myself buying this attractive blue oblong on wheels when I enountered it. See how it glitters! Ia, ia, Transit fthagn!
ALT
The next truck I’ve harvested from the winter crop is this Matchbox 2016 Chevy Colorado.
Since Chevy is barely present here in the UK at all and pickups are only ever close to common in very rural UK traffic (although there are now markedly more around in urban trafic than they used to be in 2013) this is another model I am unfamiliar with, but research reveals this is not a fully US model truck either, and it exists here in the UK in the form of the D-Max, branded with that most forgotten yet still extant Japanese kind-of-GM marque: Isuzu!
The Colorado is sold in the US, where it replaced the chevy S-10 series as the smaller (but still damn big) GM pickup chassis, but for most of the rest of the world, the Colorado was built in Thailand. This particular truck is the Z71 Colorado Xtreme (misspelled by Matchbox as 'Extreme’, or rather officially misspelled by Chevy as if it were still 2003 and that was still cool, and then erroneously corrected by Matchbox), which is a concept model built to display at a Thailand car expo in 2016 by GM Thailand as an indication of what a top-trim performance off-road truck might look like, were they to build one. Supposedly it was also meant to be an indication of GM’s commitment to the Thai market, which is odd as they pulled out of Thailand in 2020, and the factory now only produces this truck as a D-Max.
The casting has mock mud in a pale tan, along with pale tan wheels. I like the concept, but the execution I don’t reckon much, the pale mud just doesn’t work that well, so I felt I had to add a contrasting shade, and the mud pen appeared again, along with more black on the snorkel, roof rack and rear rollbars. Things were looking pretty bad without any front detail either, so that had to be done too. I’m still not quite convinced by the wheels, but it’s better overall, I feel.
Finally, the welcome return of one of my newest faves, the Kei Swap.
This customised kei van with a Civic Type R K-series engine transplant gets a new livery, and it's…all right. I don’t hate it, its decent. But also, I don’t love it, and it’s not a patch on the absolutely glorious livery I named a runner up in the Best Deco category for the Main Line Diecast Awards 2025. Not really worth preserving, to be honest, so these are the 'before’ images.
Crucially, the body paint is white, which I hoped we’d get sooner or later, and I have some acetone just over there. Also, I’ve recently been practicing my rust effects on decrepit old Matchbox castings, plus making primer grey body panels is nice and simple with the grey paint pen. Plus, the award-winning sculpting on the newly black bumper/side skirts/interior piece are still great…whereas the pink version has a white bumper and skirts…black looks nice with pink, doesn’t it? And so the chance for me to make the most disreputable Kei van you’ve ever seen comes gradually into view. As my personal folk religion, the Secret Cat Policy, tells us, the shot will resolve. Just need to dismantle it, plus the pink one, despite it breaking my 1.8mm drill bit off in its rear rivet. But I can do it, my right hand strength is improving gradually, or at least I want to believe it is.
In part 2, another bunch of new acquisitions, but this time, cars. And in Part 3, the chimeras, including the 'after’ version of that Kei Swap custom.
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