Death Korps of Krieg, Atlas recovery vehicle - work in progress

I bought some toys at the local market square this weekend. One for the son and one for me...
My idea is to build a new Atlas recovery vehicle for my Death Korps of Krieg.
Here follows some pictures of use placing the top part of an excavator on a second hand Leman Russ I had laying around.

The initial idea was to mount the excavator bucket and the hydralic arm mounted on the hull in the place where the heavy bolter usually is mounted and have the heavy bolter as a pintle mounted gun. But I see now that the whole top part of the excavator fits nicely ontop of an Leman Russ hull as it is.
I am still undecided.
If I add some armoured reinforcements to the excavator house it could work.


Here are a quick mock-up:

I have thought about making a Atlas conversion like this for a long time. One of the main inspirations were from when the military engineers had a display some years ago.
http://kampgruppe-engel.blogspot.se/2016/04/defence-force-pictures.html

This Excavator arm is atached in front of the main hull and this could be a nice way of doing it. And with a bulldozer blade in front of that.