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'67 Impala SS


THORDOOR220

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This is a somewhat experimental build for me, using AMT's 1967 Impala kit, so any tips/ideas are surely welcome, and if you think I could do something better, please do tell me.

Let me start with the goal for this car. I'm not wanting a show car, but not a beater either. I want it to look like somebody's hot rod that gets driven regularly. Worn, dirty, but still in good shape. I'm going to be using the original 427 from the kit and 3 speed manual, but I'm going to see if I can't find different headers and carburetor for it somewhere in my spare parts. It'll have stock black interior, although I did notice an issue with the dash so far. The 427 SS cars (usually) had the heavier duty 3 speed manual, which appears to be the case in the model, but there's no clutch pedal. That, and there isn't a parking brake pedal either. I have a 3D printer, so I'm thinking I'll print out a couple to use, despite the limited detail. I don't know how common it is to see 3D printed parts going into models, but I thought it worth experimenting with.

With that being said, the amount of detail I want with it could be a long shot, so we'll see how it goes. This is the first car I'll be doing spark plug wires, brake lines, that sort of thing, and it'll be a first try for bare metal foil and weathering as well. I was going to have opening doors too, but decided that would be best to try on a scrap body and then maybe incorporate in later builds.

Now, here's where I'm currently at. The body is painted, the white is just cheap walmart stuff and the silver is Testor's 'diamond dust'. There's plenty of flaws in the paint due to a few unfortunate events, but I'm running with it. I've also black washed all of the chrome, and I might go over the grille a second time yet. I've also lowered the front, just by cutting the little protrusion that the wheels attach to off of the spindles and reattaching them higher up. I've left the rear alone, although it might need tweaking. We'll see. Again, if you guys have any suggestions at all, you're more than welcome to share. Feedback is always good, I think, and ideas certainly can't hurt.

Start.JPG

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You have mentioned thinking that the kit represents a 3 speed manual transmission. I think you're mistaken. Look very closely at the drivers side of your engine/transmission part. There is three very faint ridges representing the shift linkage. The bottom two are for the 1 - 2 gears and the next up is for 3 and 4th gear. the top one is extremely short and is for reverse. The Brake and Clutch pedals are hung from the bottom of the dash board, unless yours have been broken off at some point. If you don't already try Googling '67 Impalas or Chevrolets. This will give you pictures from allover the Net to give you a general idea of how they looked 1:1. Beyond that this builds up into a very nice looking kit and you should enjoy building it. I personally like these cars a lot and I will watch what all you do with it.    

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Now that I've looked closer, I think it is the 4 speed manual after all. It resembles this 3 speed used at the time (this one is out of a 66 chevelle) very closely, and I knew a lot of the SS cars had a heavier duty 3 speed, so that's what I assumed was in it. I was at least sure of the manual part, since it lacks a lower pan. Thanks for pointing that out.

5b36a0adc6e4d_66chevellesaginaw3speed.jpg.0708540a6769f65212acb9b31378bbce.jpgengineandtrans.thumb.JPG.7e66317a9f62e5c99e3c939f26dc43b8.JPG

Also, I looked at the dash. It doesn't appear to even have a place for a parking brake pedal. Had it broken off, you would think there would at least be a sign of where it was. At the least, if the parking brake was on there, I don't have it anymore. Upon closer inspection, I found that the gas pedal is actually molded into the floor, so what I have on the dash is brake and clutch. One less pedal to print at least!

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Haven't had a whole lot of time to work on it this weekend. What I have done is 3D printed an intake manifold and valve covers, and fabricated a new belt out of masking tape. It's mocked up just using white glue. With old resin belt, the alternator to hit the inner fender, so I trimmed it away to replace it. I have the alternator bracket trimmed where it'll clear better, but this belt I've made is a little too small and pulls the alternator over to where it hits again. I'll be trying to make a better one before the day is over.

The battery and carburetors are off of the 66 nova pro street model, which I have yet to build but won't be using them for. I replaced the battery because I didn't like the lack of detail the original had. I forgot a breather on the valve covers, but I think it'll be fine without. I have an air filter I was going to use, I believe it was from a 70 cuda model, but it won't clear the plug wires when I get those attached, so I need to figure something else out for that.

Also, does anybody know what those molded lines on the inner fender are for (shown in the left of the picture)? I first thought battery cables, but they don't line up. I'm thinking about cutting them away if that is the case, since I'll be using actual wire for them.

7-1-18.JPG

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I've had a fair amount of time to work on it this week. I've made new springs and front shocks, I always wanted to do this and finally have, I really rather enjoyed that. It won't be seen much, but I know it's there. The suspension won't be fully functioning on this one but it's close. I also made some simple disk brakes for all four corners, and cut the wheel backs to allow it. I have some small pieces of sprue I drilled out to use as spacers, if you will, for the wheels. That way they aren't too far in and hitting on suspension components. Those, along with the cut wheel backs, are chrome painted. I was going to do bare metal foil on them, but decided I'd be weathering in there enough that it didn't matter that much. There's one picture I'll include where you can See the car sitting with the suspension and brakes on, and a wheel as reference, so you can kind of imagine how it'll sit. I also started making brake lines for the back, then realized I set them up to be on the bottom of the differential. Whoops! Gotta reshape those. The last image is of where the engine currently sits. The valve covers have bare metal foil, but the intake is just chrome paint. I've got the plug wire holes drilled out and wires in place (with the proper firing order for a 427 chevy, I almost forgot that part!). I made a small ignition coil and mounted that to the intake manifold, and have a wire running there, too. The wire I have is white, so I painted it red. I apparently didn't give them enough time to dry, so I need to touch up, but that shouldn't be a problem. I have yet to black wash any of these components to bring out detail, but it's on my list. Also have holes for fuel lines and throttle cables drilled out in the carburetors, though I don't have a picture. I have silver beading wire to use for fuel lines and throttle cable, it should hopefully look alright. Still have to figure something out for an air filter. I'm not super fond of having an individual one per carburetor, but I might have to go with it. I'm considering trying to add A/C as well, scratch built. I'm working on a 67 Cutlass with factory A/C at work, so I might use that as a basis for how to do mine, and I intend to use it's exhaust setup, too. We shall see. Anyways, back to work.

7-8-18.JPG

Front Suspension - Separate - 7-8-18.JPG

Front Suspension 7-8-18.JPG

Rear Suspension - 7-8-18.JPG

Wheel Backs 7-8-18.JPG

Plug Wires 7-8-18.JPG

Edited by THORDOOR220
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I thought the same for a while. For final assembly, I trimmed them a bit. I'm kind of going for a messy look with it, so I'm not using any plug wire looms or anything. It's also had a lot of black wash. This is where it's at after tonight, I'm going to finish it tomorrow.

Engine update 7-8-18.JPG

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Had an unfortunate mishap that ruined the clear coat on the model, and in the process of trying to fix it, I burned through the paint. I tried to strip the paint with Purple Power, which mostly worked, but there are a few spots that refuse to come off. The stripes won't at all, not even peel up. So I'm currently trying to get the body straight with a bit of sanding, which is mostly working. I'll be repainting the model over the next week, with a bit of a change. I'm out of the diamond dust Testor's paint I used for the stripes, and I figure contrast won't hurt, so I'm using Ford's Dark Shadow Grey for the new stripes. This is actually going to be a bit helpful, as it's going to be identical to how I was thinking about my 69 nova project (real car, not scale).

Other than that, I haven't gotten very far this week. I got the belt, alternator, and fan attached to the engine, have yet to blackwash those portions but will tonight. Interior is painted flat black, still have a lot of detailing to do there. Also intend on attaching suspension parts either today or tomorrow to the frame, so I can have the car mocked up on wheels at least, since wheels have a little work yet. I'll probably post update pictures with whatever is done tomorrow evening.

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12 hours ago, MeatMan said:

Sorry to hear about the mishap. Otherwise, nice going!

Thanks, it's definitely a learning experience so I'm glad I can do alright as I learn.

So here's some pictures. You can see the new stripe color, which looks a little more brown in person. Mind the red primer. Not ideally what I want, but we'll see what it looks like with the white. I'll be masking the stripes yet tonight, just figured I'd do pictures beforehand. The firewall is detailed, though dark. Very dark. There's a small hole in it for the throttle cable to go through. You can see the cable in one of the pictures, it's not really how dual carburetors work but it works for this project at least. I got all the suspension on, except the steering. I want poseable steering, which it currently how it is. The catch is the steering linkage falls off when you flip the model right-side-up. I'm working on how to fix that, I have a couple ideas. Worst case scenario, I find a pose I like at the end of the build and glue it in place. Unfortunately, that isn't my only problem. The alternator doesn't quite clear the upper control arm. I'm going to need to make a new bracket for it and raise it up, and then do the belt and fan. I've also got the fuel line mocked up, though it's not held in place. It'll run along the frame, just not yet. And the battery is detailed, still need to attach the wires to the starter and frame. The last thing to point out is the weathering on the underside, which I might have gone *slightly* overkill with it :unsure: I'm thinking that since the paint isn't going to be super nice after the mishap mentioned yesterday, I'll have it something that isn't real well taken care of. I wanted it to be driven, not a show car, so this I think is just a step further.

So I suppose the next step (besides fixing the steering and alternator) is interior. I'll put in my valve stems first, and perhaps attach a picture to this post when I do. I just remembered them, and they shouldn't take long. As stated before, suggestions are welcome, as are any comments.

Added a picture of the valve stems. So tiny!

engine bay.JPG

firewall.JPG

new stripe color.JPG

overall.JPG

side.JPG

underside 1.JPG

underside 2.JPG

valve stems.JPG

Edited by THORDOOR220
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Here's the new paint. I have yet to wet sand it, that'll be tomorrow followed by another layer of clear and then buffing to get it all smooth. I was happy to find that the stripes appear darker with the white around them, and the brown is gone. I'm happy with how it looks, almost sad that I'll have to dirty it up. Speaking of dirtying things up, I'm going to want to dirty the glass up a bit. How have you guys done that? I imagine using a compass to mark out masking tape for where the wipers would be effective, but the actual weathering part I'm unsure of what to do with it.

new paint.JPG

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Your idea on the windshield sounds about right. With the masking of the area of the Wipers Sweep area masked off just a light coat of Flat Clear would give the effect you're looking for. Your Chassis looks like a car that has seen a lot of Winter Road Salt. If you're going to distress the exterior remember these cars were notorious for the rear windows rusting out in the lower window Chanel.     

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11 hours ago, espo said:

Your idea on the windshield sounds about right. With the masking of the area of the Wipers Sweep area masked off just a light coat of Flat Clear would give the effect you're looking for. Your Chassis looks like a car that has seen a lot of Winter Road Salt. If you're going to distress the exterior remember these cars were notorious for the rear windows rusting out in the lower window Chanel.     

Alright, and then a light coat of flat clear on the rest of the windows to give a similar effect I'd assume. As for the underside, that's kind of what I was going for. I didn't know about the rear windows' rusting, thanks for that. I'm not sure that I'll be doing a whole lot of rust on the body itself, but if I do, I will be sure to include that.

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Here's last week's update, not a whole lot. I'm posting late since I was at the Dodge Mile High Nationals all weekend. I actually had this typed up Friday morning, but apparently forgot to hit submit.

The new paint is now cleared, buffed, and polished. There is a little orange peel, but it appears to be close to scale, so it shall stay. Some things blew into the final layer of clear, too, unfortunately, but I hope to make them kinda blend with weathering later on.

The other thing is the new exhaust setup. I did away with the resonators and mufflers, took some mufflers and tailpipes from the stock option on Revell's '90 mustang 2 in 1. I'm making an X pipe, and then it'll run up to the headers. Well, stock exhaust manifolds. I probably should have made tubular headers. I have some other ones I could modify to make work, we'll see what I decide on. Also, after thinking about it a little more and seeing what I've got once I got back from Denver yesterday, I've decided I'll be using tailpipes from the Chevy II model I stole the carbs and battery from. I need to do a lot of tweaking to make everything look right, but I'm sure I'll get it there.

Alright, that's it for now. Hopefully more progress this week, but the model will have to share time with building the new engine for my drag car, so it still won't be a ton.

cleared.jpg

exhaust.jpg

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Michael, you're doing very well for someone that's branching out and trying new things!  You mentioned the use of 3D printing in model building-----over the last few years, I've been seeing more and more use of 3D printed parts in WIP's and in fact there's a thread here in the "Big Boyz" section where someone is building a 1/8(?) scale '66 Nova. I've been saying that it's the future of model building as we get ever more esoteric in what we want to build, and the model companies here in the states are having to struggle with getting new tooling done.

I do have a suggestion when it comes to your paint, and this is a personal preference of mine. It might be a very good idea if you build everything up first (engine, chassis, interior) then paint your body. This will lessen the chance that there are any mishaps, and that you'll know everything will fit without a struggle and perhaps damaging the paint.

If you look at a 1:1 restoration, that's pretty much how they do it. The entire car gets restored basically from the inside out. Bodywork, engine, chassis including any suspension work, interior, then it's off to get 'er painted.

Just my 2¢ worth as I've been building this way for quite some time, and it's saved me a lot of grief when I hit a stumbling block as to why something's not fitting right.

Keep us posted! B)

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Very nice work so far!

I noticed the yellow rubber band wrapped around the frame; here's an easier way to do it

http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/102170-variable-length-rubber-band/#comment-1429461

Slide the loose rubber band around the part(s) and tighten it via the clip. This reduces the risk of breaking off protruding pieces when wrapping the rubber ban. The same holds true when removing the rubber band.

Edited by BigTallDad
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17 hours ago, Kiwi_Bloke said:

As I am starting might first build and want to fully kit it out under the "hood", I will be watching with interest.

 

I'm not going to lie, it is a pain. This is the first I've done, and I've actually been procrastinating making a new alternator bracket and doing the belt. From my (little) experience so far, I would say start with wires longer than you need, and do the belt different than I previously did (do a single strip, glue one side to a pulley, and wrap around from there). Good luck with your build!

10 hours ago, MrObsessive said:

Michael, you're doing very well for someone that's branching out and trying new things!  You mentioned the use of 3D printing in model building-----over the last few years, I've been seeing more and more use of 3D printed parts in WIP's and in fact there's a thread here in the "Big Boyz" section where someone is building a 1/8(?) scale '66 Nova. I've been saying that it's the future of model building as we get ever more esoteric in what we want to build, and the model companies here in the states are having to struggle with getting new tooling done.

I do have a suggestion when it comes to your paint, and this is a personal preference of mine. It might be a very good idea if you build everything up first (engine, chassis, interior) then paint your body. This will lessen the chance that there are any mishaps, and that you'll know everything will fit without a struggle and perhaps damaging the paint.

If you look at a 1:1 restoration, that's pretty much how they do it. The entire car gets restored basically from the inside out. Bodywork, engine, chassis including any suspension work, interior, then it's off to get 'er painted.

Just my 2¢ worth as I've been building this way for quite some time, and it's saved me a lot of grief when I hit a stumbling block as to why something's not fitting right.

Keep us posted! B)

Thank you, I'm trying to do as well as I can for it. I originally wanted a 3D printer specifically for this kind of thing, though unfortunately my printer has proven to be a pain with small parts. I'm considering doing a larger scale, like that nova, after my (long) to do list is completed. As for the paint part, I thought about that, too. That's how I did my foxbody irl. I'm doing my nova project more like this model though, body first. My reason there is I simply won't have space to put everything when I disassemble the car for paint. With my model, though, I really should have waited. Another thing to improve on my next build at least :)

10 hours ago, BigTallDad said:

Very nice work so far!

I noticed the yellow rubber band wrapped around the frame; here's an easier way to do it

http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/102170-variable-length-rubber-band/#comment-1429461

Slide the loose rubber band around the part(s) and tighten it via the clip. This reduces the risk of breaking off protruding pieces when wrapping the rubber ban. The same holds true when removing the rubber band.

I wish I would've thought of that <_< I'll have to see if I can't find one of those clips somewhere. Worst case scenario, I have the 3D printer....

Thanks guys. Haven't hardly touched it so far this week, about to work on exhaust again. Hopefully I'll have something done by the end of the week anyways. I am looking for a little bit of help with interior though. I'm not there yet, but I managed to mess up the steering wheel (whoops). I have another out of a foxbody model, I'm considering cutting away the center and printing a new one to go into the wheel itself, that way I don't have flat spots on the round portion. Anybody tried making a frankenstein wheel like that before?

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1 hour ago, THORDOOR220 said:

I wish I would've thought of that <_< I'll have to see if I can't find one of those clips somewhere. 

Walmart, in the camping area as well as the sewing area. JoAnn Fabrics also carries them, but at a higher price.

Edited by BigTallDad
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2 hours ago, BigTallDad said:

Walmart, in the camping area as well as the sewing area. JoAnn Fabrics also carries them, but at a higher price.

 I'll have to go pick one up (or a couple?).

Thought I'd show where I'm at with the exhaust while I'm here. Restarted, same mufflers as I was going to use. The fittings are from the Impala's original exhaust. I'm using PLA filament (1.75mm) for the piping. It doesn't glue very easy, but it's easy enough to work with otherwise.

exhaust.JPG

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8 hours ago, THORDOOR220 said:

I'm not going to lie, it is a pain. This is the first I've done, and I've actually been procrastinating making a new alternator bracket and doing the belt. From my (little) experience so far, I would say start with wires longer than you need, and do the belt different than I previously did (do a single strip, glue one side to a pulley, and wrap around from there). Good luck with your build!

 

Mine has the three pulleys joined with a molded belt so will use that, but I do need to build the Alternator bracket.

 

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On 7/26/2018 at 3:01 AM, Kiwi_Bloke said:

Mine has the three pulleys joined with a molded belt so will use that, but I do need to build the Alternator bracket.

 

Mine had the molded belt, but it's so thick that it just doesn't look right to me. So I am making one, eventually. I suppose a (potentially) easier route could be to file it down until it's closer to scale. Or just leave it, but I'm entirely too much of a perfectionist anymore for that :P

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