Revell 1969 Nova SS

[tim boyd]

I managed to mount an AMT '72 Nova rear panel and bumper on mine. It's not a direct drop-in and it takes a little work but it can be done and it looks 1000% better than the kit parts. If anyone's interested, I'll try to dig up the old in-progress photos and post them.

I'd like to see it too....TIM

[Snake45]

Okay, let's see what I can find.

Here's the AMT body and rear panel/bumper, and the Revell, just to illlustrate the problem.




The AMT body (and of course the rear panel and bumper) are a little narrower than the Revell. I had to "hollow out" the ends of the AMT bumper a little bit, and I think file down the Revell body a little, to get the bumper to go on there and look more or less right. Then there were gaps between the AMT taillights on the ends and the Revell body. I glued a hunk of .030" styrene in on each side of the Revell body to fill the gap. When everything was dry and solid, I just filed the "backslant" into the tips of the Revell fenders to match the AMT taillights/rear panel. It's not 100% prototype correct, but IMHO it DOES now look about 100 times better than the stock Revell rear end.

So my '69 Nova now has a '72 trimmed rear panel. Guess what? I don't care. It STILL looks better and more accurate than the kit parts. And all those unbuildable AMT '72 Novas stinking up the Snakepit now have a reason for existence.

BTW, my very first instinct was to chop off about the last half inch of the AMT body and graft the whole mess onto the Revell, but the width difference prevented that. (I also gave a certain amount of thought to narrowing the whole Revell body to match the AMT parts, or at least taking a pie cut out of the trunk, but being basically a Lazy Old Guy, I decided that was just Too Much Work.)

Edited September 29, 2014 by Snake45

[Snake45]

I now see there's an easier way to narrow the rear of the Revell body if one wants to go that way (and I think the next time I build this kit, this is what I'll do):

1. Razor-saw out the entire trunk, and the body panels/trim above and below it.

2. Razor-saw a slot in the middle of the roof, going from back to 2/3-3/4 of the way to the front.

3. Pinch in the rear fenders to meet the AMT taillights and bumper, and temporarily glue the AMT rear parts to the Revell body (white glue, double-sided tape, tiny spot of superglue, etc.). If you need more styrene removed from the roof slot, this could easily be done with a fresh sheet of say #280 sandpaper, run vertically in the slot till you get it where you need it.

3. Reinstall the trunk piece/pieces, narrowing on the sides to fit the now-narrower opening in the body. Reinforce with sheet styrene on underside.

4. Glue roof with liquid cement if/where the sides of the slot touch; if they don't, fill the slot with your favorite filler--putty, epoxy, whatever (I like Loctite Superglue Gel--ask for it by name.

5. Remove AMT rear panel and bumper and drive on with the build. You might need to make minor adjustments to the width of the back glass, interior, and/or chassis

Yeah, a lot of work to fix a flaw that the factory shouldn't have made. But remember: It's going to sit on your shelf, LOOKING RIGHT, forever.

[horsepower]

Actually the transverse muffler is the muffler, the two small ones are the resonators.

[Guest]

Okay, let's see what I can find.

Here's the AMT body and rear panel/bumper, and the Revell, just to illlustrate the problem.

The AMT body (and of course the rear panel and bumper) are a little narrower than the Revell. I had to "hollow out" the ends of the AMT bumper a little bit, and I think file down the Revell body a little, to get the bumper to go on there and look more or less right. Then there were gaps between the AMT taillights on the ends and the Revell body. I glued a hunk of .030" styrene in on each side of the Revell body to fill the gap. When everything was dry and solid, I just filed the "backslant" into the tips of the Revell fenders to match the AMT taillights/rear panel. It's not 100% prototype correct, but IMHO it DOES now look about 100 times better than the stock Revell rear end.

So my '69 Nova now has a '72 trimmed rear panel. Guess what? I don't care. It STILL looks better and more accurate than the kit parts. And all those unbuildable AMT '72 Novas stinking up the Snakepit now have a reason for existence.

BTW, my very first instinct was to chop off about the last half inch of the AMT body and graft the whole mess onto the Revell, but the width difference prevented that. (I also gave a certain amount of thought to narrowing the whole Revell body to match the AMT parts, or at least taking a pie cut out of the trunk, but being basically a Lazy Old Guy, I decided that was just Too Much Work.)

The tail light panel is an improvement. But, the rear bumper kills it IMO. It's too tall and heavy looking even on the AMT kit. I would cut the '72 bumper off and replace it with the better proportioned '69.

[Guest]

I now see there's an easier way to narrow the rear of the Revell body if one wants to go that way (and I think the next time I build this kit, this is what I'll do):

1. Razor-saw out the entire trunk, and the body panels/trim above and below it.

2. Razor-saw a slot in the middle of the roof, going from back to 2/3-3/4 of the way to the front.

3. Pinch in the rear fenders to meet the AMT taillights and bumper, and temporarily glue the AMT rear parts to the Revell body (white glue, double-sided tape, tiny spot of superglue, etc.). If you need more styrene removed from the roof slot, this could easily be done with a fresh sheet of say #280 sandpaper, run vertically in the slot till you get it where you need it.

3. Reinstall the trunk piece/pieces, narrowing on the sides to fit the now-narrower opening in the body. Reinforce with sheet styrene on underside.

4. Glue roof with liquid cement if/where the sides of the slot touch; if they don't, fill the slot with your favorite filler--putty, epoxy, whatever (I like Loctite Superglue Gel--ask for it by name.

5. Remove AMT rear panel and bumper and drive on with the build. You might need to make minor adjustments to the width of the back glass, interior, and/or chassis

Yeah, a lot of work to fix a flaw that the factory shouldn't have made. But remember: It's going to sit on your shelf, LOOKING RIGHT, forever.

There's a much more simple way to to fix the tail panel on this kit.

1 File the ends of the quarters to the correct shape

2 Test fit the bumper/tail light panel on the body. The forward edge of the bumper will need to be shaved at the bottom to give it the right appearance. Done carefully, chrome paint will fix the edge.

3 Place the panel/bumper back on the body and mark the body by the new leading edge of the bumper. File and sand it down until the bumper fits nicely. That's another issue. A real Nova doesn't have a recess in the quarter panels for the leading edge of the bumper to fit into.

4 Test fit the body with panel/bumper in place with the chassis. The chassis will need to be shaved down slightly. Mostly, the middle where the recess for the license plate is.

As for the square looking fender well arches. You just have to grind those off and start over or graft in a set from an AMT '72. I ground them off and re formed them with putty.

Another issue is the rearend is too wide for even the skinny stock stock tires to fit right. They will rest against the inside of the fender wells.

[Snake45]

I'll have to take a look at your rear-end fix. Sounds simpler than mine, if it works.

As to the wheel openings, I was planning to graft in the AMT '72 pieces, too. Then I took a real good look at both sets of wheel openings. The Revell openings are obviously too straight and squared off, but to my eye the AMT openings are a bit TOO rounded. I decided to just raise the Revell openings in the center a little, creating a little more rounded shape. I didn't get it perfect but I think it sure looks better. See what you think.

Both openings OOB compared:

Revell body after my attempted fix:

[Guest]

The fix I mentioned does work. I've done it. If you check out photos of the real '69 Nova's, you'll see there a huge difference in the shape of the front fender well openings compared to the Revell kit. The rears aren't too bad. But, they need re shaped fore and aft. Something else on the Revell Nova is the belt line crease. It's not that sharp on the real car and needs to be rounded slightly. There's people that build them all of the time and don't correct any of the issues. To some, it's important. To most, it seems, it's not.

[Snake45]

Something else on the Revell Nova is the belt line crease. It's not that sharp on the real car and needs to be rounded slightly. There's people that build them all of the time and don't correct any of the issues. To some, it's important. To most, it seems, it's not.

Agree with you completely. I softened that crease on mine (as seen above) as much as I could without wiping out the Nova emblem on the front fender. If I'd realized that emblem was also on the decal sheet, I'd have removed it and softened that line even more. Can't fix it now, it's already painted. Ah shucks oh well.

Do you have any pics of the rear-end fix you detailed above? Would love to see it.

[Guest]

Do you have any pics of the rear-end fix you detailed above? Would love to see it.

No, I don't. I didn't take any progress photos when I built it. It was years ago when the kit first came out.

[unclescott58]

9 years after the initial release of this kit, I finally got around to ordering one today. Going to build just a plain stock SS-350. No COPO or Yenko for me. I liked them the way they normally rolled out of the factory and on to show floor of your local Chevy dealer.