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1/16 Scale Army Vega Funny Car - Finished 10/14/2018


Mooneyzs

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Well Fellas... I can officially say that the valve covers are finished with primer and all they need are the bolt holes drilled for the oil breathers. I can finally paint them...lol Then I met up with Brad (AKA Gasser59) yesterday and took this build as a show n tell with him and I asked him if I should paint the rivets or leave them silver.... well I had to do a little test shot today and I will see what everyone thinks....

Here are the valve covers with final primer on them:

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Here are the test shots of painting the rivets versus leaving them the stainless color. Let me know which looks best and be honest.... Thanks!:

DP-Army-Vega5685-1_zpsd6c329e1.jpg

DP-Army-Vega5687-1_zpsd9f84e2d.jpg

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Henry... Thank you

Ray... Thank you

Paul... Thank you. Hey I still owe you a disk. will PM you about it.

Brad... Thank you. I think also with the stainless when its installed it will reflect all of the black around from above and sides. I think it will give a good contrast.

Well I am excited to getting around to painting the tins and installing the rivets although its gonna suck to have to cut and trim the 175+ rivets on the tin work...lol What did I get myself into haha :unsure::lol:

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Well fellas.... I got a little bench time in tonight and decided it was time to start back on the blower. I have started to prep it by sanding areas and going to fill the pin holes to get it ready for primer. Here are a few shots of what I did tonight which isn't much....

Here is the blower as it has been sitting for a while with 3 views. I wanted to show a few before so you can see what it looks like after:

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Now here is a shot of the blower on the restored car:

Army-37copy_zpsf650ecfe.jpg

I started looking at the pics of the car that I have an I noticed that the front of the blower was a little different that what I had. So you know me trying to make this as accurate to the restored car as possible. I started by reworking the front of the blower. what you see here was just me cutting some of the blower away with an Xacto knife and sanding with a file and sanding sticks. After sanding most of what I did I decided to shot a quick coat of primer on it so I can see where I will need some bondo. The next step will be adding bondo to the front pieces and getting them all smoothed out:

DP-Army-Vega5704-1_zpsd4a7f92f.jpg

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Paul... you are right about the Rivets plus some could have used machine screws which I am sure Rivets would of been a much easier way but you never know what people did back then...lol I will work on getting that stuff copied for you.

Bob... Thank you so much. I am hoping to do a little magic with this blower...lol

Jim... Thank you very much.

Dave... Thank you. I can't wait to get paint on the valve covers now but will wait to get the blower done as well because they will have the same paint.

Scott... Thank you. I am gonna have to change it up to keep you on your toes...lol Hey random question how long does it take for you to get your photo-etch back from your photo-etcher?? I may have to PM you with and Idea I am toying with for something on this build. and whats the thinnest material you can get?

Bob... Thank you on the blower. You need to pull that garlits dragster out my friend. I love me some other 1/16th scale builds. I am glad that this build is inspiring people.

Well Fellas... Time for me to get to the hobby bench and make some progress with this blower. Hoping to have some progress to show later.

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Keep up the good work.

The "M" on the front cover of the blower stands for Mooneyham, I don't know if that exact type of blower were around back in the day when this car ran but the restored car seems to have one.
The "M" is surrounded with Mooneyham above the "M" and Blowers under it.

Edited by Force
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Bob.... No I don't yet. I have been out of town visiting Family in Cali this past weekend. Now that I am home I am going to try and get some bench time in tonight but have a few things to do first.

Tyrone.... Thank you my friend.

Hakan.... Thank you for the information. I first thought that the M was for Mert Littlefield blowers. I appreciate the info. You are right that, that is what they have on the restored car. I have no clue what he actually ran on it back in the day but since this build is based of the replica I will go that route. I am trying to figure out how I can make the "M" and put it on my blower....lol Yes I am nuts...lol

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Sorry Chris. I haven't been on the board a lot recently and just saw your question. If it's a new order and the artwork has to be created, you should probably figure a minimum of three weeks, but more likely a month or more. What type of material are you talking? I can get stainless steel in .004", but the other materials and thicknesses that I typically use are .006, .010 and .016 nickel-silver. I've done some brass but not lots. I've gotten that in .006 and .010.

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Mr. Chris Sobak,

Info for you more than anything else....at the time the Prudhomme Army Vega would have originally been campaigned, the blower most likely would have been an original GM 6-71 blower. There is an outside chance it could have been a GM 8-71. They were about the only blowers used by successful teams in the 60's and 70's. Littlefield blowers did not begin manufacturing blowers until about 1980.

As an aside, I actually worked as an engineer on the manufacturing line for the GM 6-71 and 8-71 blowers for a couple of years in the early 80's. The manufacturing tolerances on the rotors were incredibly small....much smaller than many people might think. Unfortunately, no free samples!!

Steve

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Paul... Thank you. I will have to check it out and possibly order some.

Scott....thank you for getting back to me. I am not sure which material would be better. But I was half tempted in trying to draw up the M for the mooneyham blower to add that detail to the front of the blower. I Amal,oat wondering if it would be easier as a 3D print... Guess I am thinking of all options to add the littlest of details....lol I wil. Ponder on it some more...lol

Steve... Thank you for the info. I wasn't sure when Littlefield blowers first made. Very cool about being an engineer for the manufacturing line for the GM 6-71's. the only think I know is Prudhomme only ran this for 2 races I believe, dint like how it handled and switched to another funny car. I guess I am glad I am doing a replica of the restored car because there is a tad bit more pics of it than when it was driven in its day. I am also glad that someone pointed out to me that it was a Mooneyham I stead of a littlefield blower.

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ok Fellas... Before I went out of town for the weekend. I had a little progress that I made on the blower but it isn't much. I started doing a little bit of the body work to the front plate of the blower and started to rescribe lines that I lost when I glued the parts together. Here is where its at at the moment....

Here I added some bondo to the front face:

DP-Army-Vega5705-1_zpsd3b1225e.jpg

Sanded it down:

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Then I shot a quick coat of primer just to get an idea what more I need to sand and fill with some more bondo:

DP-Army-Vega5716-1_zps72180b37.jpg

DP-Army-Vega5719-1_zps811ccb9a.jpg

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Then I started to scribe the front panel putting the panel lines back in that I lost when gluing together. Now keep in mind I am still working on these and they aren't completely done yet:

DP-Army-Vega5722-1_zps5bd0f3da.jpg

Here is the bottom:

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And the other side, which I don't have much done there yet:

DP-Army-Vega5724-1_zps51ab3f13.jpg

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This is truly amazing. I've never seen anyone putting that much work into a single Blower. You do that and it's one of the reasons this is one of the best builds I've ever seen. You're doing an excellent work with this one, I can't wait to see more.

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