Rusty Giant Tonka Bulldozer Restoration

Hey everyone and welcome back to another restoration! It's been a while! In today's video I am restoring a this 1960's Tonka Giant Bulldozer. Back In December I purchased an ornament of this exact model. Looking at it on my tree I knew I needed to find a full sized one! I managed to snag this dozer off ebay. It was pretty complete minus the air filter and exhaust piper. The paint was mostly there but the sheet metal was pretty bent up and the spots that were rusty had some pretty deep pitting. The rear drive wheels also appeared to be off a different toy as this would have black plastic wheels all around.
I started by disassembling all the components. I sandblasted the metal and straightened out any bent pieces. Next I filled the pitting with JB weld. This stuff really seems to hold up under the heat of my oved and spreads easy. I sanded down the filler and gave it a nice thick coat of prismatic primer. I sanded that down again and sprayed on a coat of prismatic Hemi orange.
I cleaned up all the plastic parts and ordered the missing ones from gasoline alley toys. For the pistons, I stripped off the rust and original plating with a wire wheel, polished, and re nickel plated. I was pretty amazed with the way they came out. Finally I slapped it all back together, applied new rivets, and loaded it up on the truck to go out to its first construction site!

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