DeAgostini 1/8 1967 Shelby GT 500....Update! 2/5/19

[MrObsessive]

While this is a scale I have not built in a very long time (since the early '80's), I absolutely could not resist jumping on the subscription for this when it was announced a couple years ago. As if I didn't have enough to build, I decided to just keep collecting the parts for it and then when I have all the parts and the mood strikes, I'd go ahead and jump right in.

Well, the mood hit me as I got the last box of parts about a week ago and looking over some of the build threads I've seen on ModelSpace, I figured it wouldn't hurt to build this a wee bit at a time. I'm already to the limit as far as how much I can build and how often. As far as this, updates well be VERY far and VERY few in between. I expect this to probably take as long as it took to get the parts which was about two years.

So, here's what's up...................

Not all are pictured, but here are most of the boxes I've gotten over the past two years with all the parts to build the car.

I received the last box just the other day which holds the parts to finish it up which will be a loooooong time from now.

The first parts pack is quite simple in its build sequence. You're just simply putting in the lower grill (PE), headlights, front bumper, and license plate.

This is mostly a screw together job and they do provide you with a tiny Phillips Head screwdriver.

I'm not crazy about it as while it useful for getting the screws started, you don't have enough 'leverage' to get the screws totally in place as the holes in the front fascia are not tapped. You're essentially threading the holes while you're turning the screws and I'll tell you it will require some elbow grease to make sure they're mostly seated. I have a several sizes of screwdrivers in my arsenal for just this purpose which will make it easier to get this together.

I posted this on another thread a while back, but one of the boxes I got about four months ago contained the body. As you can see this is a BIG BEAST!

I can imagine when this is all built that it certainly will be no lightweight as the chassis and wheels are also solid metal.

One thing I found out when building up the front end is that there was a heavy coat of clear applied to the body parts. While I can see why they did this, it's yielded a somewhat orange peeled finish.

My curiosity got the best of me, so in a hidden area on the lower front fascia, I got out the polishing cloths and wet sanded a tiny area. I see none of the color is rubbing off, so what I'll do is as I go along and before I assemble a particular body part, I'll wet sand those parts and give it a real nice shine.

Should go a long way to making this stand out, and not just another factory painted product.

So that's it for now! Looking at the instructions in the next parts pack, it looks like there's assembly of one of the brake rotors and steering knuckles and I'm going to use some artistic license on this as I can see some inaccuracies as far as the wheels are concerned, as one of them is to be mounted on the tires.

BTW, I'll try to build this exactly in the order that DeAgostini sent them to me. So at times while it may seem that there's no rhyme are or reason in how this is being built, for the benefit of those that may want to get into this, I'm going to demonstrate in what sequence this is being built.

Thanks in advance for tuning in and as I mentioned, updates will be quite sparse at times. 

Edited February 5, 2019 by MrObsessive

[MrObsessive]

But wait there's more!

I want to mention one cool item that ModelSpace gives you is a couple neat binders to place all of your magazines you get with each issue.

Roughly four magazines come in each box and with as many boxes as I got, those binders will certainly fill up!

[dodgefever]

I have neither the funds nor the space for such a thing, but I'm interested to see it come together.   I find a drop of graphite loaded 3-in-1 oil helps with self-tapping screws.

[Anglia105E]

I admire your courage Bill for taking on this monumental task and I have to admit to being too scared to even consider it. You have allowed 2 years for getting the parts together for the build, and you have wisely allowed a further estimated 2 years to complete the build...... and I hope you achieve just that. Of course, this will be a truly wonderful 1:8 scale model car once assembled and you have other builds that will take up much of your time..... distracting you from the BIG ONE

Good luck Billl..... you are the man !

David

[MrObsessive]

David you got that right! With the 'little Shelby' I need to finish among other things and other WIP's I want to get started on, I'll have plenty to keep me busy for a looooong time to come!

One hurdle I'll need to sort out is to find a display case large enough to hold this thing! It'll be too much work to have it sit out and collect dust, and I've got nosy cats to deal with. I already have a spot in my place I can display it once it's all built.

On the ModelSpace English boards, I was told that a case was only available to those subscribers in the UK. Well, that kinda blows as it should have been available to all, but no matter------I'll either have one built, or buy one that's ready made.

Edited December 4, 2018 by MrObsessive

[geewhiz]

Bill, you've become a hero of sorts to me as I watch your builds progress and the ways that you overcome obstacles that most would throw in the towel on.  I've learned a great deal of patience as well from you so following this big scale Shelby with you should stretch me even further.  I wait with anticipation as you delve into this iconic Mustang.  I'm out here cheering you on, sir!!!

[Belugawrx]

Wow Bill , looking forward to your progress on this one !

1:8th scale? You could probably run gas lines and fill the tank.. eh? 

I'm sure it will be a museum piece once you're done with it....

Cheers

[TomZ]

This is mostly a screw together job and they do provide you with a tiny Phillips Head screwdriver.

I'm not crazy about it as while it useful for getting the screws started, you don't have enough 'leverage' to get the screws totally in place as the holes in the front fascia are not tapped. You're essentially threading the holes while you're turning the screws and I'll tell you it will require some elbow grease to make sure they're mostly seated. I have a several sizes of screwdrivers in my arsenal for just this purpose which will make it easier to get this together.

I suggest that you go on eBay or some such place and get yourself a tap for the screw holes. I do that with my Tamiya motorcycles and it makes a world of difference! No worries about breaking something or slipping off the head.

[MrObsessive]

15 hours ago, TomZ said:

 

I suggest that you go on eBay or some such place and get yourself a tap for the screw holes.

Thanks for reminding me Tom! Right after I read your post, I went digging for my tap and die set I had bought years ago. Looks like I'm missing the size I need for these particular screws. Either that, or I misplaced it as I literally have not thought about using 'em since I bought the set in the early '00's when I was building my '57 Corvette.

So this weekend, it's off to the hardware store I go and pick up those sizes. I'll probably have to buy a set of them------I don't remember seeing them sold individually.

[MrObsessive]

On 12/4/2018 at 9:02 AM, Belugawrx said:

Wow Bill , looking forward to your progress on this one !

1:8th scale? You could probably run gas lines and fill the tank.. eh? 

I'm sure it will be a museum piece once you're done with it....

Cheers

I'm seriously thinking about running brake and fuel lines (early style) since I have a ton of pics showing the underside of the car. I'll have to 'think big' though as obviously I wouldn't be using the same size diameter lines as I would for something 1/24-25th scale.

That's waaaaay down the road though as the chassis gets built in 'stages' too.

[TomZ]

8 hours ago, MrObsessive said:

So this weekend, it's off to the hardware store I go and pick up those sizes. I'll probably have to buy a set of them------I don't remember seeing them sold individually.

You can get them individually on eBay and Amazon, most likely other places also. Then again, maybe a set isn't that much by the time you pay shipping for one or two taps.

[Jhedir6]

Bill here's a link to Legendary Motorcar in Canada, they do lots of restorations and provide pics. This is a '68 but I doubt there's too much difference if any when it comes to the brake lines and other small details. 

http://www.legendarymotorcar.com/inventory/1968-ford-mustang-shelby-gt500-prototype-824.aspx

[MrObsessive]

Thanks for the link David! Those chassis pics show the 'first style' routing of the brake and fuel lines. Those are a very good reference! Sometime during the '67 model year, Ford changed the routing so that it would run along the chassis sides along the rocker panel. No doubt due to a possible hazard if the car under hard running scenario decides to break free its driveshaft!

Not good!

I've not decided which way I'd run those lines if I do them at all, but when I did the chassis detail on my 1/25 scale '67 Mustang I did run them in the first style.

That's a very interesting history about that Shelby..........I never knew that car existed till you sent the link for it.

[MrObsessive]

We left off the last time with the front end in pieces. Here it's mostly together with the exception of the turn signals. The middle fog lamps and the Shelby emblem were a press and fit type. I'm not so sure about the stability of this so I'm going to take a tiny bit of epoxy and put it behind the fog lights and emblem.

Interesting that DeAgostini does not say anything about painting the PE grille. Every 1965-70 Shelby I've ever seen has a blacked out grille but the instructions say nothing about it.

Not trusting regular primer to stay put without eventually chipping, I went to my local paint guy and I got a can of self etching black primer. I then scuffed up the upper and lower grille with 600 grit sandpaper and sprayed on the primer.

I let it sit overnight and the results came out pretty well as you can see. Now I can handle the front end when getting it on the main body down the road and not worry about trying to fix a paint chip on the grille which you know is bound to happen.

OK, moving on to the next step, they want you to assemble the one brake rotor and caliper assembly together and then put this in the Shelby Magnum wheel.

Here are the parts for that..........

Here's the wheel and here's where I'm sorta stopped in my tracks. I don't like the finish of the wheels at all! Waaaay too dull! It looks like DeAgostini used some kind of aluminum paint over the wheels and then clearcoated over it.

That's all well and good, but it's also dulled the aluminum finish giving it to my sight a bland look. Shelby wheels according to memory and with definite period correct pics have very bright almost chrome like wheels.

Sooooo.............I'm VERY tempted to either rub out the wheels with the polishing cloths and airbrush the Molotow chrome paint over them, or strip it down to bare metal and totally redo them.

Then there's the daunting task of painting that inner circle which was one of the reasons I bought this.............

I'm going to try and paint that as my attempt as my hand painting it was a bit less than successful.

Here are the parts mocked up for the time being. I'm not crazy about the whole appearance of the brake rotors inside the wheels. Too 'plastic' looking with some better contrast needed between the caliper and the rotor.

Gotta get out the airbrush and paint those too.

And for the final test of my patience with this whole step...............getting the wheel to fit inside the tire. This tire is HARD AS A ROCK! They want you to heat up the tire with either a hair dryer (low heat) or put the tire in hot but not boiling water to soften it up.

I'm very tempted to simply put the tire in my dehydrator with the temp set to 110° and let the heat do its thing. I also have to be careful to NOT rub off the paint on the rim trying to get the wheel inside.

I sure hope I can get through this without much drama.

So that's it for the time being. Before the next week is out, I'll decide how to tackle those wheels and hopefully at least get this one painted and together and take a look at the next step.

Thanks for lookin'...........this is going to take a while!

[Chuck Kourouklis]

I've been thru a few of those iron-durometer tires, Bill. Bit of heat from a heat gun or hair dryer or hot water should loosen 'em up well enough to get the wheel in, and they should contract back into shape if the DA Jaguar or Pocher's similarly stiff Aventador tires are any indication.

By my reckoning this also means that any tire lettering someone does is best left till after it's mounted on the wheel.  As for livening up the wheels themselves, there's been one builder over on the DeAgostini forums who did manage to remove the paint and polish the metal.  In that case, I'd think the wheel could weather maneuvering into the tire.  If it's something more delicate like Molotow, that may need to be applied with the tire installed and some tricky masking.

Major finish problem with this one is that anything metallic is finished in basically the same shade of silver paint.  I expect to do a fair amount of refinishing...

 

[cobraman]

Interesting project. For a display case may I suggest an all glass fish tank. They do have a visible frame but they are cost effective. I used one for a 1/12 scale Mustang. You can cut a piece of wood that fits just inside the tank. Just an idea.

[MrObsessive]

Chuck it's funny that you mention this as this is exactly what I did a few days ago as you'll see in this mini update...........

First I gotta say that whatever DeAgostini used to paint their wheels, this was some TOUGH STUFF!

I tried using Easy Off (Yellow Can) to take off the paint and it WOULD NOT TOUCH IT! Same thing with brake fluid......some success, but waaaay too slow.

Soooo, I got the idea to start sanding away at the finish and see what exactly was underneath. I was seeing nice and bright, shiny metal! I then got out the Acetone and dunked the entire wheel in a metal can.

After much peeling away of the paint, I got out my polishing cloths starting with 1800 grit and worked all the way up to 12,000. Some constant washing of the cloths was needed as of course, this is some dirty stuff!

I did paint the brake caliper just a bit with some Alclad Magnesium to give just a bit of contrast with the rotor. As you can see here they give you this teeny-tiny screw to fasten the caliper to the rotor.

I did have to put the tire in my dehydrator set at 130° for roughly 15 minutes at a time. After several tries I FINALLY got the wheel inside the tire, but this was NOT without some cursing along the way!

Here's the wheel and tire all nice lettered up........something I haven't done in a very long time. And to think I get to do this THREE MORE TIMES!

I can hardly wait.

I'll polish up the wheel just a tad more, but at this point I'm done with this pretty much till later this week. Just getting the wheel and tire done alone was a real workout and to me it was a real tail kicker.

It's back to the '68 Corvette for now as I can see the next instructions for the Shelby is putting the seat together and of course another wheel and tire!

I'm thinking about adding brake and fuel lines so I need to dig out my references to see just where the brake line fitting goes in the calipers for this vintage (I have a shop manual) and also to get the 'right size' so things don't appear out of scale. I have to keep reminding myself this is 1/8 scale.

Thanks for tuning in!

[MrObsessive]

41 minutes ago, cobraman said:

Interesting project. For a display case may I suggest an all glass fish tank. They do have a visible frame but they are cost effective. I used one for a 1/12 scale Mustang. You can cut a piece of wood that fits just inside the tank. Just an idea.

Ray, that's a VERY good idea and something I'll definitely keep in mind! I already have a spot in my house where this can be displayed once it's all built. I sure don't want this sitting out in the open despite its size.

[MrObsessive]

13 hours ago, Chuck Kourouklis said:

I've been thru a few of those iron-durometer tires, Bill. Bit of heat from a heat gun or hair dryer or hot water should loosen 'em up well enough to get the wheel in, and they should contract back into shape if the DA Jaguar or Pocher's similarly stiff Aventador tires are any indication.

By my reckoning this also means that any tire lettering someone does is best left till after it's mounted on the wheel.  As for livening up the wheels themselves, there's been one builder over on the DeAgostini forums who did manage to remove the paint and polish the metal.  In that case, I'd think the wheel could weather maneuvering into the tire.  If it's something more delicate like Molotow, that may need to be applied with the tire installed and some tricky masking.

Major finish problem with this one is that anything metallic is finished in basically the same shade of silver paint.  I expect to do a fair amount of refinishing...

Yeah Chuck, there's NO WAY the Molotow paint would've survived all the handling and wrestling I had to do to get this thing in! I didn't know about the fellow on the ModelSpace board that did that even though I have a thread there. Later on I'll be posting there with the same update as here.

[Chuck Kourouklis]

You've proven it again, though - that wheel looks a scat-ton BETTER without the paint!

[Twokidsnosleep]

Interesting, have not heard of this subscription style kit before.

Looks pretty well made compared to a Pocher.

Will follow along on your progress

[TooOld]

 

[youpey]

this is really awesome. i cant wait to see more pictures

[Deuces]

Wow, love that wheel and tire combo..... ☺️

[vamach1]

Looking good so far.  That is a lot of boxes for sure but t least the finished model will take up less room than that. ?

You know I am a huge Mustang and GT40 fan but my unbuilt "collection" is not getting any smaller so I have not taken the plunge to buy either one.  Yet. ?