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The Straight Six community build


Chuck Most

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Looking at the AMT '71 Duster 4-speed again and realizing it was undersized, I pulled out a spare Revell '69 Charger R/T A-833 4-speed I had previously glued together and started cutting and sanding, removing both the trans mount and forward shifter boss. Here's the comparison shot with the Duster trans on top, though the viewing angle isn't ideal for seeing the height difference between the two:

darttrans_zpsca3da630.jpg

I picked up a Muncie-4-speed p/e set from Model Car Garage, which includes all the linkage, levers, shifter box, and well, everything but the shifter stick and knob, so I wanted the trans to look good before adding the detail parts. I should've just followed my instincts and used the Revell trans in the first place. -_- The MCG p/e shifter is a really great set, and looks very close to a typical '60s Hurst 4-speed shifter box.

I am constantly test fitting the chassis/floorpan to the body shell, and one area which I wasn't happy with was the engine compartment, specifically where the inner fenders meet the framerails. On the real car (a unibody vehicle), this are is all welded together, but that would be incredibly difficult to pull off on this model, considering the interior would need to be finished and sealed up tight. :unsure: Soooooooo, I decided to remove some material from the top of the framerails and the bottom of the inner fenders, so that I could sandwich some sheet styrene between the two, like so:

framflange2_zps8d80ac20.jpg

Using the styrene allowed me to bridge the gap between the framerails and inner fenders, and provides more surface area for future bonding. Here's a shot looking at the RH side:

frameflange_zpsd9bf6169.jpg

The tricky part is deciding which thickness of styrene to use. Too thin and it will flex and bend, and too thick and it will look like steel plate was used to do some backyard rust repair, so I found a good compromise, and will taper/bevel the upper/inner edge of the styrene sheet, visually thinning it. The framerails and inner fenders do not overlap perfectly, nor are both always in the same vertical plane, and the real pieces are stamped with compound curves, so I am cheating a bit in this area, but once the Slant Six is in place, you won't be able to see much, if any, of the RH side anyway.

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Thanks, Joe.

I got around to doing some of the un-sexy, will-be-hidden-from-view-for-the-most-part work the last two days, which included filling the gaps between the rear wheelhouses and quarter panels, and closing the gaps in the area between the fenders and cowl assembly, so that you can't see into the interior while looking into the front wheel wells.

Most of the white areas you can see in the pics below are styrene filler. Nothing fancy here, just superglue, accelerator, then sanding. LR wheel well:

lrww_zps544994ba.jpg

This is the area between the cowl assembly/firewall and behind the fender, on which I used a few pieces of styrene sheet and square stock to "fill in" the gap. I took a bit of creative license here, so while it may not be 100% true to a real '69 Dart in this area, I think it's close enough should anyone actually look up there. The RH rocker panel is at the lower left in the pic, so imagine sticking your head into the RF wheel well, and looking up:

filler_zpsa4b53dbf.jpg

I couldn't get a good shot to show the new shapes in that area, but here's a full width pic where you can see the now-rounded bottom corner of the cowl/firewall and the extensions I added to the kick-up on both sides:

114131_zps0b1e0c49.jpg

I also bent up the p/e battery tray, superglued the corners and the support brackets I made for the earlier plastic tray, then glued it in place:

11413battray_zpsdedffb77.jpg

Overall engine compartment progress shot:

engcomp11313_zps478f471e.jpg

I bought a set of Model Car Garage's p/e leaf spring shackles, thinking they looked a lot like the extended shackles sold at the Penney's Auto Center back in the day, and since this car will have a used, "worked on" feel to it, they seemed to be a perfect fit:

shackles_zps7c36192d.jpg

I will trim them for length, but adding these meant ditching the kit-stock rear leaf spring eye mounting points (which are basically solid cubes of plastic, so no great loss there). I ordered some longer bolts from RB Motion to mount them, once I get the blocks removed and the new brackets made. In the meantime, I started shaping the kit's rear leaf spring eyes to look more like, well, eyes:

leafspringeye1_zpse6970f1d.jpg

I may still make some leaf springs with individual leaves, following the excellent tutorial here: http://automodeler.kitmaker.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=1251 , but for now I think I can make the kit's leaf springs look passable.

I also switched back to the Revell '68 Dart's 8-3/4" rearend, as the '71 Charger's rearend still looked a bit undersized to me. Once I get the leaf springs mounted I will make new axle tube-to-leaf spring brackets, then glue/bolt it all together.

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you're gonna haul in quite a few awards with this baby if it ever hits the contest circuit!

Thanks, Mike, but I don't think we need to worry about that.

I received the miniature hardware from RB Motion the other day, and as expected, it's fantastic stuff. Very small, but the quality is excellent.

I drilled the bolt holes though the leaf spring eyes, so I could see if the bolts looked scale appropriate. I think I went a little too large with the front bolts, at least as far as head size is concerned. I may have to use the next smaller size bolts:

leafeye3_zps7f702183.jpg

leafeye2_zps9b616317.jpg

Maybe the thickness of the bolt head is making it look even larger? It scales out to about a 1" head size, which, going on memory is a bit too big.

I may end up redoing the front spring mounting brackets in brass to match the rear brackets, as they are about as good as they're going to get:

leafeye4_zps49bc9072.jpg

The rear spring eyes were prepped for bolts, then both the shackles and bolts were mocked up with the springs. I had to trim the shackles to length (so easy with a pair of scissors), then round over the corners slightly, but these p/e pieces are a dream to work with, even taking their small size into account:

shackle3_zps55264e72.jpg

I need to find some tiny black rubber-like punched out circles to use for the squished out rubber bushings, as my smallest punch is only 1/8" in diameter.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I've got another six on the burner, and it's another Hudson.

Stumbled across this one fine evening...

1-vi.jpg

So...

file-vi.jpg

I robbed the supercharger from an MPC Fire Truck, and modified the Hudson manifold to fit it. The v-belt, pulleys, and blower drive are old Machined Aluminum Specialties bits I've had lying around for a while. Same story for that alternator bracket- it's from the long-gone Detail Resources. The blower belt is about twice as thick as I'd like it to be, but I'm using it anyway. So there. :P There is also a blower idler, carved from a strip of styrene, and eventually this will wear one of my signature finned heads and sport an MSD ignition setup.

Be advised that this particular setup not only doesn't clear the hood of a stock Hornet, but it also won't fit with the radiator in its stock home, either. But that's fine, I want to put this in a hot rod with no hood. I have no idea what kind of vehicle it is going into...

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  • 2 weeks later...

I made some progress in the engine compartment over the last few weeks. I separated the brake master cylinder from the booster to replicate a non-power brake setup, added the two-speed wiper motor from the '68 Dart(?) kit, installed the core support panel, finished reshaping the narrower radiator from the Lindberg A-100 kit and added a p/e cap, and added battery posts and hold down bracket detail to a smoothed kit battery. I still need to add some battery hold down bracket rods and make the battery cell caps, add the p/e terminal clamps, positive and negative cables...still much to do, but it's moving forward again:

69dartengcomp31132.jpg

I drilled a hole and inserted a brass rod along the crank centerline to help ensure the engine block, bellhousing, and transmission would all remain aligned, but once done I noticed the bellhousing from the Lindberg kit was a bit too short and lacked the flared bottom edge, so I added a strip of black styrene, shaped it, and called it good. The Revell '69 Charger's 4-speed now mated much better with the bellhousing, but this car will have a "three-on-the-tree" 3-speed column-shifted trans, so I had to fudge the 4-speed a bit to look more like a 3-speed. I still have some work to do on that front, but the engine, bellhousing, and transmission are now super easy to repetitively test fit, and when it comes time for final paint and assembly, they should all go together without any fuss:

69dartebht.jpg

I started thinning the alternator belt, but I'm only one third of the way to being done, so we'll see if one of the sections breaks at some point or if it makes it through to final assembly. :blink:

belts1.jpg

I also thinned the vent window frames and started deepening the grooves around the windshield trim, then sanding down the trim so it's close to flush with the surrounding body areas. My hope is that once the BMF is applied, its thickness will accurately replicate the trim on the real car, especially around the windshield and rear windows.

ventwdwL1.jpg

windshtrim1.jpg

windshtrim2.jpg

I have another idea I may try on this car, too, involving the panel gaps around the doors. I'm thinking of cutting the doors free from the body, adding a thin strip around the perimeter to get a more scale accurate gap, then reinstalling the doors on the body without any attempt to make them operational. My thinking is that the fully cut through gaps will provide a better shadow line without the need for artificial darkening using paint, bit I would probably need to "back up" the gaps all the way around to ensure shadow consistency. I may also reinstall the driver's door in a slightly drooped position to show a bit of hinge pin wear, but that might be more appropriate for a second generation GM F-body build. :D

I like the way the right door gaps are now, and though they're a bit too wide, after the body is painted they should narrow a bit:

Rdoorgaps.jpg

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Chuck,I can say that hands down that is the coolest Hudson engine I have ever seen.I'm no engine expert,but is that even remotely possible? Looks like something that would go into a crazy showcar Hudson.

Edited by Austin T
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. I may also reinstall the driver's door in a slightly drooped position to show a bit of hinge pin wear, but that might be more appropriate for a second generation GM F-body build. :D

I like the way the right door gaps are now, and though they're a bit too wide, after the body is painted they should narrow a bit:

I love the work you've done to get the window trim right. Good attention to detail. The drooped position on the drivers door would also be accurate. The lower hinge did wear on those and I had one Valiant that the sheet metal was rippled in the front lower corner from hitting the bottom of the door jamb.

Also note that the door and fender gaps will fill in with paint as you said. I wouldn't go too crazy with them since they varied widely on 1:1 cars. That was not a good era for fit and finish!

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Chuck,I can say that hands down that is the coolest Hudson engine I have ever seen.I'm no engine expert,but is that even remotely possible? Looks like something that would go into a crazy showcar Hudson.

More than remotely- I've seen a few supercharged straight sixes, two of those being Hudsons. I doubt it's very practical, but it's a model, so I don't need to worry about any potential drivability problems in my case. B)

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