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W-409

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About W-409

  • Birthday 12/02/1996

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  • Scale I Build
    1:25

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    http://lindstromracing.weebly.com/

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  • Full Name
    Niko Lindström

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  1. Thanks guys for the kind words! David, I'm not really a Mopar guy but I do have one 1:1 scale Ford so I guess they're a little closer to my heart even though I'm more like GM and AMC guy. Well, this thing is finally finished and posted in Under Glass! Thanks for everyone who has followed and/or posted comments on this thread. See here: https://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/190358-41-plymouth-special-deluxe-gg/
  2. Finally got this thing finished. I originally started building this in 2008, but after several times being stalled and boxed away I didn't finish it until today. The plan was to build somewhat a low-buck race car for NHRA's Gas Coupes & Sedans class, using the 1963 rulebook as a reference. I chose to build this into G/G class, which was reserved for cars equipped with straight six or straight eight engines, or Pre 1960 Ford Flathead engines. The engines had to run stock cylinder heads and they had to be naturally aspirated. So my starting point was an old Matchbox reboxing of AMT's '41 Plymouth. For the engine, I decided to go with a 221 Cid Ford Flathead from Revell's 1940 Ford kit. I scratchbuilt an intake manifold to use a Hilborn Fuel Injection setup. The injector stacks are somekind of electrical parts and fuel pump came from AMT Double Dragster kit. All fuel lines, throttle linkage etc were also added with several fuel line fittings made out of hex-shaped plastic rod. Headers were also scratchbuilt from round plastic rod, sheet styrene for flanges and pieces of mold sprue as collectors. Engine mounts, accessory belt and some small detail parts were also scratchbuilt and the engine was finished with a little black wash. Front suspension was completely modified to a straight axle setup with all parts from various sources (parts box). Springs were modified to get a desired ride height and steering system was partly scratchbuilt, partly modified from parts from my parts box. Shocks are also from parts box and shock mounts were scratchbuilt. Rear suspension is pretty much stock, I only had to widen the track width a little. Tires are from my parts box and wheels are resin cast steelies by a friend of mine. From the chassis I removed the stock gas tank and added a brake master cylinder and brake lines. Inner fenders were trimmed a little to make the fenderwell headers fit and radiator was taken also from Revell's '40 Ford. Interior is pretty much stock. Only additions are driver's seat belts, helmet, floor shifter and a tachometer + tach cable. Otherwise the interior is stock, just detailed with paint and a little BMF for the dashboard. The only real body modifications were to enlarge the rear wheel openings to fit bigger slicks on the back and building a hood scoop from sheet styrene. Front end needed some prepping before paint as the nose comes as a separate part. After the seams were smoothed out, I had to add the seals between front fenders and the rest of the body to the front because they were pretty much gone. I made them out of stretched mold sprue. I wanted to have a primer finish so the body was painted with grey primer and after a couple of decals I shot it with flat clear. Class designations on the door are handpainted with a brush to replicate white shoe polish. Chrome trim is BMF. So, here are the finished pictures. All kinds of comments are welcome so I can make the next one better. Thanks for looking everyone.
  3. Thanks David! The interior is a little simple at some areas, but I think it came out pretty good. Especially as it's not seen that well in finished model anyway. I mocked up the grilles that came with the kit and found out that both of them had an issue with the mold, a piece of the grill was missing from both of them. I have one '41 Plymouth glue bomb on my stash so I checked that one, but it had the same problem. I carefully added a bit putty in there, sanded to correct shape and covered that with BMF. A bit tricky, but I think it came out decent. Then I painted the areas between the grille tubes with flat black. Body trim was also done with BMF. That was not easy either because many of the chrome trim were not that well visible after a couple of primer coats. But in the end I made it and while it's not my best BMF work I think I've also done worse... So I guess I'll live with it. Underside of the body was painted flat black and headliner area with flat brown like the interior. Then I glued windows on place. The fitment of the windshield is pretty bad, but there's nothing to do about it at this point unfortunately. Here the body and chassis are ready to go together... ...And body mounted on place. Now I'm pretty close to finishing so I guess this is the last update before I'm done.
  4. Thanx David and Mike, much appreciated! I think the chassis is pretty much done so once I get the body finished I can glue them together and then work on the last details. For the engine bay I installed a Mooneyes gas tank in front of the radiator and built a fuel line from the tank to the fuel pump. The tank was glued together from two halves so it required a bit of filling and sanding before it could be painted, but it turned out ok. Fuel line fittings were done, as usual, from hex-shaped plastic rod and for the fuel cap I used the original '41 Plymouth unit. Interior was also finished. I added lap-style seat belts for the driver and a helmet that was painted with red metal flake. Shifter and tachometer are also my own additions, everything else came from the Plymouth kit. Dashboard was just detailed with paint and a little BMF.
  5. Thanks Keith and David! I appreciate the kind words! After the first primer coat I needed to correct a few things here and there. Not too bad though, so a little putty and some sanding... Then I sprayed a second coat of primer on the body. When that dried everything looked good, so no more sanding was required. And as this is representing a budget racer, I wanted to leave this thing in grey primer. I also wanted to add a couple of decals between the doors and rear fenders. While the finish is a matt grey, I had to trim decals very carefully around the edges to avoid them silvering. I didn't want to go crazy with decals so I just added Isky Cams, Hilborn Injection and Mooneyes decals on the body. After that I sprayed a coat of flat clear to protect the paint and decals. Then I had to build a cooling system for the engine. Radiator is also from Revell's '40 Ford as is the engine. I wanted to use the radiator hoses from that kit as well, so I had to be really careful to get the radiator on the correct place so that all four water hoses fit. Finally I was able to figure out the right position so everything was glued on place. Then I had to paint the class designations to the body. I randomly chose a racing number and the class is G/G. I didn't want these to be perfect, because someone just painted them with white shoe polish at the Drag Strip. So I brush painted them on, and I think I managed to get the look I was after.
  6. Very nicely done Oldsmobile! I think the stance looks great and I love those red headlights too. Excellent paint job and very clean work BMF'ing the chrome trim. Nice work!
  7. That came out very nice! Great job backdating the car to match the earlier version of this iconic car, in fact I've had a plan to do the same thing myself so I have bookmarked your build thread for reference. Really nice build, the driver figure definitely finishes it off. Too bad the real car can't be seen on race tracks anymore, luckily I was able to see Mike Boyd (RIP) behind the wheel of this beast at the California Hot Rod Reunion a few years ago.
  8. Very nice chassis work so far! And, I love these Shoebox Fords so I know this one will be a cool project. As far as the accuracy and correct racing classes, I guess we all build just for fun, but personally I think one of the cool things in modeling is to do the research on the subject, and then trying to create an accurate version of it in scale. After all, it's a pretty small amount of time what it takes to do the research and figure out how something should be done in order to be accurate, compared to the actual model building itself, so I think it's worth it. Someone will disagree and build their model without even thinking about old class rules or anything like that...And that's okay too!
  9. Wow! That's a very nicely done Cadillac! I really like the look of a late '40s Cadillac and I think you did a very nice job on building it. Where can I order one of these kits? I've had a plan of turning the Revell's Foose Cadillac into a Traditional Custom, but that requires modifying everything, and as far as I know no one is offering those tail lights / rear fenders in scale anymore which is one of the big issues in the whole build as those are not easy to build from scratch. This would be a lot easier way for sure.
  10. Very nicely done, we certainly don't see these long nose cars done too often so it's nice to see one done this well. Overall a very nice and clean build!
  11. Thanks guys! I appreciate the kind words. Now I've been doing bodywork in order to get this thing painted soon. The most work was on the front end, after I had glued the nose panel to the body and added some putty and sanded it a couple of times, the seams between front fenders and the rest of the body had pretty much disappeared from the front. So, those were redone using pieces of stretched mold sprue glued to place. I think they came out quite well. Then I sanded the rest of the body. It didn't have too many mold lines, but a couple of them were at really tricky spots... I also glued the rear bumper filler panel on place. Today it was time to spray some primer on the body. As I predicted, a couple of spots need to be fixed before the final primer coat, but it's not too bad. Front seat required some putty for the seam between the seat halves.
  12. Thanks David! I think red steel wheels fit very well in many different applications. I had glued the firewall on place earlier and now I had to smooth out the seam between the interior tub and the firewall. So a little putty and sanding had to be done. Then I painted the firewall with gloss black and installed the whole interior tub to the chassis. Next up was to figure out how to make somekind of a steering system for this thing... None of the kit parts would work so I had to dig some parts from my parts boxes. I started with a steering box, which might not be 100% correct for a 1941 Plymouth, but it's way better than nothing at all, and honestly it's only barely visible on the finished model. So this is the one I came up with. Underside of the steering box was hollow, though. I filled the hole with sheet styrene, sanded to correct shape and then painted the steering box with gloss black. Here is a picture of the finished steering setup. Tie rod was found also in my parts box and it was a perfect fit for that axle. Only modification that I did was to cut the Pitman arm off and then I glued it back on a little different position. Tie rod was painted with Humbrol's Metallic 53 and I added a couple of bolt ends on it for detail. Steering box was glued on place and a correct length steering shaft was made out of plastic rod. It was really hard to photograph the steering box setup, but there it is! Especially from the top you can only barely see it. If I'm not mistaken these Plymouths have a brake master cylinder mounted under the floorboard. I tried to find some reference pictures, but came up short. Only thing I found was that it didn't appear to be in the engine bay. So I scratchbuilt a really simple brake master cylinder from plastic, mounted it under the floorboard and made a brake line from the cylinder to a distribution block. The kit supplied driveshaft wasn't good for this build, so I had to make my own. On the top, some unknown driveshaft from my parts box that is too short, but it had pretty good driveshaft joints on it. On bottom, piece of mold sprue... After combining these two into one, I had a proper length driveshaft for the Plymouth.
  13. Thanks guys! Michael, you're right, the injected Flathead would look good in many applications. Next up was front shocks. The ones from the kit didn't work with the new front axle setup, so I found these from my parts box. The upper shock mounts were made out of a beer can aluminum just simply cut and bent to shape, painted gloss black and finished with bolt ends made out of hex-shaped plastic rod. Engine got a couple of more parts and now in these pictures it's ready to be installed. I added the crankshaft belt pulley and made the belt from paper that I "painted" black with a Sharpie. I chose not to use a generator at all, because it's optional in Gas-classes at the NHRA Rulebook. And this car would probably not get many street miles anyway. Starter and the stock oil filter assembly were installed as well. Then I glued the engine on place. It sits kind of high and a little "nose up". But, with the body on place I think it looks pretty natural in there, and I think, after all, that is more important in a finished model.
  14. Great looking bodywork! Having built a couple of 427 Cobras and having one still as a Work In Progress, it's very cool to see one of these 289 versions built. Keep up the good work!
  15. Thanks for the kind words everyone! The progress hasn't been very fast, but with a local model car show coming up in a few weeks, I really need to finish something. I think I can pull this off in time, so let's go! First I fabricated brake lines to the front. The rear brake line will be added later, as well as the brake line from the master cylinder to the brake line fitting/distribution block on the frame rail. All fittings are made out of hex-shaped plastic rod, brake hardlines are some thin metal wire, brake hoses are Scale Productions' spark plug wire material. Then a little engine work. I built collectors to the headers. They were made out of plastic rod, cut to length and then I of course drilled the ends open. A little putty was used to smooth out the seam between the collector and the header tubes, and after that the headers were painted flat white. I also painted some other things like the engine mounts and transmission. Once I get a few little details done on the engine and chassis, I'm able to glue the engine on place.
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