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Revell Mooneyes Dragster Race Team (eventually)


jbwelda

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(wow what a struggle it is to post this stuff! I don't know what the deal is here but nothing goes where I put it and everything I see in the preview window is all screwed up)

here is a Christmas eve update, tow vehicle done, Fujimi Nissan Cube with Parts by Parks spun aluminum wheel disks, Mooneyes interior and some other additions. made twin exhaust pipes from polished aluminum tubing. still need to tighten up gap between front bumper and body on the left side (some superglue inside the fender well will take care of that) and also paint front side marker lights with some clear amber, plus add a trailer hitch for the dragster trailer, but essentially its done. I also wish I had used that technique where you ink in the panel lines before painting but I forgot!

also am going to add a trailer hitch and modify the trailer that comes with the revell midget kits to fit the dragster!

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Edited by jbwelda
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here is a slight update on the rail itself: pieces, body panels, beginning of brake linkage under cowl. note the little brackets I made, they will actually be rotated about 30 degrees downward so the linkage bar is below the first frame rail not above it. also note clutch pedal to be attached to front of transmission case, "vintage" decals applied to body panels and sealed in clear, cowl has been extended about 1/8" backward to cover the instrument panel with overlap as per real car, polished aluminum firewall, disk brakes added to rear wheels again as per real car and upholstery tuck and roll upper pad with rolls oriented vertically and the center two yellow, again as per real car, and seat has had the rolls oriented vertically and yellow again as per real car (kit seat had the pleats running horizontally).

by the way that's the broadspeed mini in the background awaiting chrome foiling and final assembly, an entirely different thread not updated in a while.

thanks for looking and comments encouraged.

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Edited by jbwelda
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  • 1 month later...

the plan calls for a trailer and I have been vacillating on what to do about that, original thought was to modify one of those revell midget trailers but that doesn't seem practical since I would basically have to rebuild the whole thing. so I happened to remember that the old Revell Mickey Thompson Attempt 1 had a trailer at least in the original issue, and since that vehicle basically uses the same frame as the Mooneyes Dragster, I figured it ought to be close. I have one photo of the Mooneyes team loading the car onto the trailer and this one looks the part pretty well: single axle, simple construction, no frills transport for the rail.

so I picked up an incomplete Attempt 1 on ebay with the trailer intact and when I see it my heart sinks. compound warpage, both front to back and side to side, add in the fenders were warped in a different direction and imagine my consternation! so I put it under weights for a while in hopes it would straighten it but no go. so tonite I decided to cut it apart, reinforce it, and glue it back together in a hopefully flatter state. oh yeah and I need to widen it about 7 mm to accommodate the wide track of the Mooneyes vs the narrowed Attempt 1, but I have to retain the tread pattern width in the rear for the close together slicks.

I first attempted to flatten it out front to rear by supergluing some 1/4" square plastruct along the underside of the driveplates. that worked pretty well, they sat a lot flatter at that point. then I cut the connections between the two driveplates and cleaned them up some. of course I forgot to take a photo of the trailer before I began! I then drew up a template of how I wanted it to be and cut some new connectors, you can see in the photos that the thing is fairly level now, I'm going to let it sit overnight and contemplate it a bit before gluing it together tomorrow. ultimately it will be painted yellow to match the dragster and tow car, and some other running gear will be added as well and of course some Mooneyes decals.

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meanwhile, the chassis continues to be refined: added some under cowl detail like brake and clutch pedals, brake master cylinder, hand brake linkage and handle, tachometer and wiring, hot switch, kill switch and wiring and ready to set up the steering box.

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comments, suggestions and criticisms always welcomed! thanks again for looking!

jb

Edited by jbwelda
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Mooneyes is owned by a Japanese firm and the original (as well as at least one repro) mooneyes dragster is owned by that company. the original mooneyes dragster is currently undergoing a restoration in Los Angeles and will then either be returned to the Don Garlits museum in Florida or shipped to Japan for display. so what I am presenting basically is the restored mooneyes dragster drawn by a modern Japanese tow car, just as might actually be in the current era. everyone has a 60 Ford tow car...I sort of like different, especially if I can rationalize it.

and no I don't think the second hoop is hidden by the upholstery...photos I have are pretty clear on that and the second bar hoop I am talking about is plainly visible in photos of the reproduction...its a stretched frame vs the original.

also I don't believe the top portion of the motor is on backwards...there are reasons I don't think this is so though I cannot recall right off hand what they are. what is wrong is I did not align the fronts of the top portion with the front of the lower portion and it wasn't clear (to me) that they should align until after I was done cementing them. I personally find that revell motor lacking in more ways than poor fit but after building one I am sure the second I did would be much better. its just that after I checked out the AMT version the Revell one just sort of faded into the background for me. (edit: just looked at an unbuilt parts pack chevy motor and it appears you may be right about the top part of the motor as it does kinda look like it might fit better the other way around. oh well its done now and not being used but thanks for the tip, might make it work better next time I think of using the PP version)

many thanks for the comments and for looking!

jb

Edited by jbwelda
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JB,

Did you "enhance" the welds on the cowl bars. Looks like the joints on the cowl bars where they meet the top rails have the weld quality of the early '60's before MIG and TIG were really common. They would have either been GMAW or GTAW for chrome molly tubing so the weld beads would be pretty noticeable. (Sorry if I got a bit technical,,, AWS Level 3 certified weld inspector pops out every once in a while.)

Hmm, maybe some of our glue joints on our old dragster frames are just a bit too clean? Just leaving a really thin CA glue fillet might just look like the real thing, especially if it was tooled a little bit with a sharp dental pick or needle just before it set up.

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Skip, I like the way you think! Actually its more a matter of what my eyes can see and my hands can do...and some of the worst offenders are going to be covered by side panels, firewall, cowl etc.

thanks for looking and the kind comments! sorry it takes me so long to get through one of these project but other stuff always seems to pop up, but if I am nothing else, I am persistent.

by the way, a question on a point of order, I just got moved from the workbench section to the drag racing section. actually this is going to be a diorama, but the question is, when this is finished and I post the finished set in the Under Glass section, is it going to get moved from there as well?

another point of possible interest, when this is completed I mean it to mimic the following photo, with the figures being replaced by figures of Japanese people in roughly the same poses as the original photo of the American racing team of old. don't know just yet what exactly to do about the figures, that's a bit beyond my capabilities, but that's what I have in my minds eye, such as it is.

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jb

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actually this is going to be a diorama, but the question is, when this is finished and I post the finished set in the Under Glass section, is it going to get moved from there as well?

No, it should be posted in the Model Cars: Under Glass section when completed: "Post your finished (pau) model cars here..."

If becomes a diorama before it's completed, it should/will be moved to the Diorama section.

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Awesome

This has been like reading a good magazine article, or better still, like listening-in on a very knowledgeable discussion at a model club.

(I imagine, anyway. I don't think there are model clubs for cars over here. People seem to just have a fixation with military stuff...)

I really enjoyed reading this thread. Thanks

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  • 2 weeks later...

couple of updates to report, trailer is well underway, moon disks on big wide whitewall tires, single axle, widened from the original issue like I might have already mentioned. most of the warpage is gone but still is a little bit wavy on the actual driveramps. hopefully the rail will sit with all four on the floor. I also flipped the front V part to make the hitch lower, and bought a Reese style hitch from Scenes Unlimited for the Nissan tow vehicle. This hitch is super super nice...its soaking in some bleech white or I would take a picture, but it is very nicely detailed and is going to look great hooked to the trailer and sitting up underneath the back of the Cube. I also dolled up some jerry cans from the spares box and a fire extinguisher, the jerry cans will sit over the sink holes you see forward of the trailer fenders.

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and speaking of the Cube, there was a paint malfunction happening on the roof, kind of hard to see but once you see it, that sort of thing, so I have been thinking of what I could do up there to obscure or cover it up. big huge mooneyes decal? Ehhh... but then I thought of maybe a roof rack or one of those enclosed storage compartments that sit on the roof. just so happens I remember I have one of them somewhere in some Japanese kit, if I recall it came with an enclosed storage compartment, a roof rack, and a Trek mountain bike. so I started digging around and couldn't find it! still has to be around here somewhere but meanwhile I found an old Imai Rally VW Beetle that I had picked up somewhere and lo and behold what was there but a serviceable, nicely detailed, two piece roof rack. closer examination revealed that it sat just a bit high, but fit the roof of the Cube perfectly whether place lengthwise or widthwise. It really did sit very high though so I grabbed some thin tape and laid it on each leg so I would cut at least somewhere in the area of level, took a stiff drink, and cut away. in my usual enthusiasm I took photos of the rack on roof sitting way up too high, but failed to follow up with a photo of the trimmed rack in place to see the difference but I did manage to take a pic on my table. I have it sitting with the floor bars sitting side to side but it looks much better with them front to back, and I think that's how I will do it.

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thanks again for watching!

jb

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I love messing around...so I thought I might see how this will look when its all put together:

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and heres a final one showing some of the detail in the dragster frame:

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everything is posed, and theres more to the trailer, but this was nice to see how things fit together. the front tires and wheels wont be used, ive got the Reps and Mins photoetch motorcycle wheels for those (which are a project all in themselves) and I may use a narrower axle as it appears I could have done with widening the trailer another couple mm or so. I also got some stuff for the rack (which I think I will cut down another eighth inch or so still and make some feet for) and a little resin wagon for a pit wagon. basically I am in the process of trying to cover for the fact that this motor I have here has two injectors on top and the real Mooneyes had one with four...

thanks again!

jb

Edited by jbwelda
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I had been planning on using the front cycle wheels and tires from the tony nancy double kit, but then it was brought to my attention that Replicas and Miniatures of Maryland made a kool set of photoetched wheels for the front of dragsters, so I ordered some. they turned out to be pretty challenging for me, in fact I basically botched them during assembly, but they still don't look too bad, need some touch up and a not-too-close vantage point, but overall they look ok. I might end up ordering some more and trying again but the problem will remain getting glue down into the areas that need it as you sandwich the wheel together (made up of outer rim, outer PE spokes, hub, inner PE spokes and inner rim, with brass rod going through a kool building jig to align the whole thing) without gluing the whole mess to the jig itself. I found that rather easier to say than to do, so as I say just this side of usable...beside the chrome moosh of the Nancy ones though they look positively delicate:

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heres the basic stance I want out of the front axle and wheels:

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got a big storm or two moving in so maybe I will get some real quality time with this and get closer to getting it on the trailer!

jb

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