One of the GAZ-66 trucks was missing the tires. I bought a set of DEF tires/wheels to replace the missing ones. Only thing is, the DEF set is for the Trumpeter kit and the wheel attachment points are totally different from the Eastern Express kit. It is going to take a lot of effort to get the DEF wheels to fit on the Eastern Express kit. Not looking forward to that at all.
Here are the original Eastern Express tires next to the DEF tires. The DEF tires are slightly wider than the kit tires.
Anyway, the Eastern Express spare tire carrier was way too narrow to even fit the original kit tire so I had to widen the spare tire carrier. When I widened the spare tire carrier it left huge gaps so it needs filling it. The widening of the spare tire carrier at the spacing I widened it at also allows it to fit the wider DEF tire as well.
The frames that the spare tire carrier sits on along with the two utility boxes that sit next to the spare tire were missing from both kits so I have to scratch build those. I started the frame but not the two utility boxes. I did the frame by eye but the boxes are a bit more complicated so waiting till I can get some dimensions before I start scratch building the two utility boxes.
Here is the scratch built frame for the spare tire carrier and two utility boxes to sit on. I used some angle iron plastic strips and sheet plastic, simple enough.
These are the two utility boxes missing. The first set of instructions are from Eastern Express. The other two sets of instructions are from Trumpeter which show them clearer. As you can see, there is a lot of detail on those two utility boxes. When I scratch build mine there won't be any detail though.