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Benson Pontiac - Update 6/22


93Z34

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I dug this car out last night and re-oriented myself with where I left off. It's been several months since I touched it and decided I was ready to once again get back into some serious building.

I finished reinforcing the lower front nose on the car as well as filling the joints in the firewall and applying the first coat of primer to bring out the imperfections. I also added the aluminum reinforcing bar to rear bumper as well as the angled reinforcing bars on the lower rear 1/4's. Not really a whole lot that is going to be seen once the body is on the chassis unless there are mirrors under the car. Overall though, the mods will add to the total package of the car and the general appearance. My goal with this car is to make this car as accurate and real as possible. I have obtained numerous reference pics of the 1:1 car which ran at Phoenix Raceway. I was originally upset with the front grilles I cut out because they were the dual grille style and not the tripple grille, however, the car that ran the race actually had the dual grilles on each side. The car that ran the race was the backup car after the primary was damaged in practice. That's a huge relief to me at this point.

Several of the lower budget teams used the same cars for Richmond, North Carolina, and Phoenix, hence the short track grilles on some of the cars which were taped off for the race. Johnny Benson's team was once such team that used the same cars for different tracks with minimal changes. Most of the changes were made to the chassis and suspension, not the body for obvious reasons.

Anyways, here are some pics of what I did tonight. I will primer the nose tomorrow once the super glue and filler has dried overnight.

BensonPontiac001.jpg

BensonPontiac002.jpg

BensonPontiac003.jpg

BensonPontiac004.jpg

BensonPontiac005.jpg

BensonPontiac006.jpg

BensonPontiac007.jpg

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The teams actually reinforced the noses for the short track cars because of the constant bumping. The car Johnny ran at Phoenix also saw action at Richmond and Rockingham, hence the reinforced panels. :wink:

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I wasn't able to work on this car last night due to work, but I have puttered with it a bit this morning. I have finished the inner reinforcements for the rear deck lid. The trunk fits perfectly on the body as well, so I did a good job measuring the distance from the edges of the trunk for the bracing. I will now proced to install the trunk pin plates on the body and then measure to drill the holes for the deck lid pins. I will also use the reinforcing bars to mount the trunk hinges. I am not looking forward to installing the hinges though. Should be interesting...

trunk2.jpg

trunk1.jpg

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I think I have surpassed ridiculous with this car tonight. As I was sitting at my desk grafting the lower nose onto the body I got the idea of installing an aluminum front cage. I started bending aluminum and after about 90 minutes I ended up with what you see in the pics below. The whole front rollbar assembly in this car will now be aluminum tubing bent to shape. This way I can update the cage accordingly and be able to build the radiator airflow box as well. This will definitely take some serious time to build and build accurately, but I'm encouraged by what has happened so far. Anyways...here are the pics...

frontcage4.jpg

frontcage3.jpg

frontcage2.jpg

frontcage1.jpg

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