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


Mooneyzs

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i think i have the pieces, that paul is talking about, in these pics. i can only guess as to the setup as i have never owned or raced a funny car. the stuff i am familiar with due to hanging out at the chassis shop is also much newer. so, it may or may not be applicable to this build.

here is the rear of the lenco trans. i believe the lip paul is talking about with the "v" is machined into the rear trans cover plate.

0052_zps4c156992.jpg

here is a shot of the same car. showing the rear axle pinion support and the rear of the trans.

011-2.jpg

perhaps paul can verify if i'm right on the trans piece.

again, i hope this helps but, remember this stuff is much newer than what the build is.

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Arron.... Thanks for the pic. It does help.

Paul.... Thanks for the pic of the "V"band clamp. I am very familiar with them since I used to design tooling and test equipment for an aerospace company that I used to worked for. One of the clamp companies we used was clampco. I can totally picture what you are talking about and I have an idea of how I am going to do this, I just hope it turns out as good as the visual I have in my head lol.

Dave....thanks for posting the pics. Now I know what I need to do to the end piece of the lenco tranny to modify it.

I just want to say a big thanks and appreciate your guys help it has given me a solution on how to fix this. I just hope I can make you guys proud. Stay tuned and I hope to have some good progress to show on it. Thanks again.

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As your drive shaft and coupler thing intrigued me I looked at some other pics of the real car and notices that in your mid motor plate mount the oil pressure gauge is missing. I can hardly live with the fact that you omitted that on purpose ;-)

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Hans.... I havent forgotten the oil pressure guage. I just havennt made it yet. I was planning on making it and with Dave's help he told me where some oil ports were located on the block.

Dave... thanks bud, I really appreciate it and I will email you when I have more questions.

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Chris;

Regarding the drive shaft alignment issue....Is there anyway to slightly shim the motor mount plate at the tranny where it rests on the chassis rails up a degree or two without completely throwing everything else off or is that impossible at this point??....Would that maybe help minimize the alignment angle a bit so it's not as noticable?....It's amazing how correcting one problem begets another one sometimes!....Enough to drive ya crazy!!.....I think overall, the correct stance of the ride is more important than the driveshaft issue in the grand scheme of things.

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Lee.... you know I will have to take a look to see if I can do anything with possibly shimming the motor plate at the tranny just a smidge. I could also possibly lower the pinion on the rear end just a tad that may help. I know what you mean with trying to minimize the alignment angle so its not as noticeable. It does bother me a tad but I think when I was lowering the mounts for the rear end to get the correct stance for the car I didn't even consider the the drive shaft and transmission at that point. I am going to take a look at a few ways I could maybe adjust that. You are right at how correcting one problem creates others to drive you nuts.... :lol: Gotta love this hobby though. I will be finishing up redoing my couplers and drive shaft today, then I will take a look at what I can do to change the alignment angle of the drive shaft.

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Paull.... Thanks man I have a few pics to show what I have done so far. I have been looking at things and I have a couple of options the mid plate will need to stay where its since I have the tin work to the body that fits to the mid plate. I can either try and raise the bell housing and the tranny or I can slightly angle the the transmission a little to raise the end up as well as lower the pinion on the rear end just a tad. I also thought maybe I could raise just the transmission on the bell housing but I may be better off raising both. I am trying to think of the easiest route to take to correct this.

Here is a little of the rework with the drive shaft and couplings:

DP-Army-Vega3370-1_zpsf530de57.jpg

Here is a side view. I took a quick measurement and it was a little bigger angle than I originally thought. There is about 1/4" difference in height:

DP-Army-Vega3373-1_zps36970d6f.jpg

Here is a little bit of the start of the drive shaft cover I am trying to fabricate. Right now my plan was to install the couplings, drive shaft and the mount locks inside of the the cover. I know that you would never see that once the cover was installed but I know it would be there. I will be making a V-Band clamp that will go on the end of the transmission and was thinking I would make a bolt on flange on the end that bolts up to the rear end. Let me know your thoughts on this:

DP-Army-Vega3378-1_zps47820851.jpg

I do have to add that this has had me stumped and taking me a little longer to figure out because I want to make it look right. Thanks for everyone's help so far.

Edited by Mooneyzs
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Paul... you are correct that the side tins will cover a good portion of the drive shaft and there will be a little bit of it noticeable. I have to agree with you at this point I will get it as good as I can and will let it be and if there is a little angle to it then there is. I know that since I started out with the Revell chassis and hacking it up to almost not using much of it I wished i would of just scratch built the whole chassis by the time I was done heavily modifying it. I bet revell's chassis wasn't even close to what Prudhomme used in this car. I never would of thought about that with the cars getting first place at GSL. I can tell you this on the next funny car I know a lot of mistakes I made and redid that I wouldn't do next time. I would also take into consideration the alignment of the tranny and rear end that I didn't think about when I was getting the stance correct on this one. I will tell you this I don't regret once having to redo parts because the results that I am shooting for I am happy with so far. I love this hobby and each build I do I learn something new every time. I know I have raised the bar on myself with this build challenging myself to go farther than I ever have in the past. I would of loved to of had a chassis drawing of this specific car or even of any funny car builders from back then, that way I could recreate the correct chassis.

Here is the tin work back in the fabrication of it, It doesn't cover all of the chassis but a good deal of it:

DP-Army-Vega1397-1.jpg

Here is somewhat of a side view with the tires on will cover a lot of it up. also take in account that I will be having the seat belt material for the lap portion of the harness wrap arund the down tube below the seat. But I know that when I display this at a show I will have one of the tires off so you can see the detail to the hubs:

DP-Army-Vega3004-1_zps0972ee41.jpg

Side View of the tins:

DP-Army-Vega2482-1.jpg

Inside of the Tins:

DP-Army-Vega2472-1.jpg

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Paul... Thanks for all the support and believing in me. I have to agree with you that this should look good when done... Well I hope it turns out as good as I would like. I also think that sometimes we can be our own worst critics and I feel I have beat myself up and down over this issue.

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I say get it the best you can without having to re-frabicate most of your work so far and move forward.

Just go easy on it when you let the clutch out for the 1st time

And I'm well aware of being our own worst critic, I know I am . And I don't even have the knads to build at this level. But I sure like looking when others do . :D

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Chris;

I'd have to agree, it's close enough for rock and roll....Plus as you said, with the drive shaft cover and all the tins on, that slight angle will hardly be noticed....

Another thought; Did FC's of that era have balistic blankets on the tranny?....Some sort of rubber-like or cloth-like boot that would go over that end portion of the tranny?....Not sure if they did or not back then, but if so, that might be another way to disguise the slight angle where the shaft cover meets the tranny and button the whole thing up....Either way, this is phenomenal modeling on your part and interesting as heck to follow along with what you're doing....Keep it up!!

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Mike.... Thanks Bud!

Bill... Thanks for the kind words. I will make sure to take it easy when I fire it up for the first time ;)

Lee... Thanks for compliments on this build. Yeah You won't see much of it but after I was test fitting things tonight I think I have a way to make so it is pretty much straight and you won't see the slight angle. I am not 100% sure if they did have the balistic blankets back then or not. I will show a pic of the restored car and it does have a tranny blanket but it is only around the one section. Here is the only shot I have of the tranny in this car:

Army-28copy_zps137e763a.jpg

Edited by Mooneyzs
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So I got a little more work done on this tonight. Not as much as I hoped but I am making progress. I decided to test fit the drive shaft and cover again but this time with the engine, trans and midplate hooked up so I apologize for more boring pics of it. But then I decided to start scratch building the "V" Band clamp for the one end of the drive shaft cover. Here are the pics.....

Here is the drive shaft and couplings in again but with the engine in, This time the Angle doesn't look as bad as it was before but I have thought of a way to lower the angle some more and hoping to finish it up tomorrow:

DP-Army-Vega3390-1_zpsc7f76140.jpg

Another test fit with the drive shaft cover with the engine in:

DP-Army-Vega3394-1_zpsb2fae23e.jpg

Here is the "V" Band clamp that I scratch build. It has a total of 7 pieces and the band portion was made from aluminum printing plate:

DP-Army-Vega3396-1_zps9a1d4472.jpg

Here I was test fitting the clamp around the tube I will be using for the drive shaft cover:

DP-Army-Vega3402-1_zps710961e5.jpg

Here is an image of a brand called Clampco V band clamps, When I used to work with one of the aerospace companies we used to get V band clamps from them:

V-Band%20Clamps%202.jpg

V-Band%20Clamps%201.jpg

I had to mock it up in the chassis real quick to see what it would look like:

DP-Army-Vega3406-1_zpsf9556abd.jpg

Edited by Mooneyzs
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Crazy good scratch building Chris. Another fine episode in 1001 uses for printing plate. Even before you do that last modification to adjust and correct the angle of the shaft, it looks great. I'm not sure that it is even necessary.

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Dave... Thanks mate. I had to challenge myself to see if I could make the clamp and I am pretty happy with the results.

Brad.... Thank you my friend. You were the one that introduced me to printing plate and I can't thank you enough. I think you are right about the drive shaft angle. my only concern at this moment is with the cover I am afraid of it being a very close fit to the seat since I never have installed the seat to check the clearance between them. at this point the next time I put the seat into the chassis its gonna stay...lol I have had a few times that I have busted a solder seam putting the seat in an out of the car and had to fix it. now that I have the seat painted. I only want to have to install it once and not have to fix it... :lol:. My thoughts are to drop the pinion maybe a 1/16th of an inch or little that I can, then call it good and then I can make the final mount of the rear end and attach the brake line.

Leonard... thank you

Charlie... Thanks Bud!! I can't wait to put some of your great parts to use.

Scott... Thanks Bud, The V-Band clamp took a little time to do but then again it was a few hours worth it :lol:. I guess I better not slack off any other details now huh ;)

John... Thanks Brother... I appreciate the kind words. I am not sure if this car is worthy for best build of the year and I feel honored from such a talented builder as yourself saying it should be. I need to finish it already :lol:. I need to give you a call.

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