Here's another Mooneyes Dragster

[CabDriver]

Could you slice the top off the magneto and replace it with aluminum/brass tube maybe?  (I didn’t research the magneto on these cars yet admittedly, need to find some good reference pics…)

[Bill Eh?]

Thanks Jim, that sounds like a plan. Shots of the original car show the ignition wires coming out horizontally from the back. This would be harder for me to replicate. The pics of the newer car (clone?), show the the wires coming vertically out of the top. This design I could manage. If I cut the top off the magneto and replaced it with brass tubing, I think all the wires would fit, as the wall thickness of brass is much less than that of styrene. When I started this, I had no idea of what a rabbit hole I was entering!

[CabDriver]

18 hours ago, Bill Eh? said:

When I started this, I had no idea of what a rabbit hole I was entering!

You're telling me - I figured I'd just build the kit, and add some detail and I'd have a decent replica....I'm over a week into this one just on messing with the frame

Something that muddies the water somewhat too is there being the two different cars (and seeing as the Mooneyes shop has a damaged frame on display from one of the cars, at least one of them has been rebuilt at least once).  Add to that, like any race car, parts break, get replaced, get upgraded, get swapped out for some other reason, tires and wheels get changed, and so it's tricky to know exactly what reference material to go with and which exact time period of the car's life you're trying to replicate.

I'm going with a lot of 'reasonable assumptions' with my build, where I need to fill in a blank

[Bill Eh?]

I'm obsessing, which is good and bad. Good in that it helps me build a better model. Bad in that in the past it has led to shelving a project. Time for me to stop obsessing and just keep moving forward.

[Bill Eh?]

A small update. The idea of knock-offs for the rear wheels did not appeal to me. Please correct me if my interpretation is wrong. Reference pictures seem to show a circular metal plate, through which the five lug nuts pass. I have tried to recreate this with sheet styrene. The one on the left is superior to the one on the right. I think I will take a try at making another one. To replicate the lug nuts, Wave has some with widths of 1.0, 1.2, 1.6 and 2.0 mm. Across the nut, these would scale out to 1", 1 3/16", 1 9/16" and 2". Which would be the best choice? I'm leaning towards the 1.0 mm, but I'm just not sure.

[Muncie]

I like what you're doing here - always thought it was odd that Revell didn't include the wheel hardware with these wheels.  Even a knock off would have had a plate like the wheels in the Orange Crate.  The 1.0 mm nut would be accurate in scale for a five (or six) bolt pattern.  But I wouldn't argue with a 1.2 if it looked better.

[DPNM]

This is coming along nicely Bill. I'm glad to see you jumping over the hurdles and not shelving this project.

Edited December 19, 2021 by DPNM

[Bill Eh?]

3 hours ago, Muncie said:

I like what you're doing here - always thought it was odd that Revell didn't include the wheel hardware with these wheels.  Even a knock off would have had a plate like the wheels in the Orange Crate.  The 1.0 mm nut would be accurate in scale for a five (or six) bolt pattern.  But I wouldn't argue with a 1.2 if it looked better.

Thanks Steve. I think I'll use the 1.2 as they will be easier for my eyes to work with.

3 hours ago, DPNM said:

This is coming along nicely Bill. I'm glad to see you jumping over the hurdles and not shelving this project.

As you can see, this WIP is moving at the pace of molasses on a -40 day. LOL But I try to persevere. If something puzzles me, then I'll just leave the building process until I think I have an answer.

I hope that by sharing my experience it will benefit others. I stripped off all of the chrome from the engine sprue. I did some cleanup and then assembled basic units like the Potvin Blower. From from front to back, the width of the dragster frame consistently measures out at 19 mm. When assembled, the Potvin unit has a width of 21 + mm. I had to force it to fit between the rails. When I did this, it caused the frame rails to bow out. I tried sanding down both sides of the Potvin unit. It now fit, but both sides looked uneven and out of square. I took a saw to both sides and removed them. I am going to try constructing my own from more styrene strip and rod. More to come....

[slusher]

3 hours ago, Bill Eh? said:

Thanks Steve. I think I'll use the 1.2 as they will be easier for my eyes to work with.

As you can see, this WIP is moving at the pace of molasses on a -40 day. LOL But I try to persevere. If something puzzles me, then I'll just leave the building process until I think I have an answer.

I hope that by sharing my experience it will benefit others. I stripped off all of the chrome from the engine sprue. I did some cleanup and then assembled basic units like the Potvin Blower. From from front to back, the width of the dragster frame consistently measures out at 19 mm. When assembled, the Potvin unit has a width of 21 + mm. I had to force it to fit between the rails. When I did this, it caused the frame rails to bow out. I tried sanding down both sides of the Potvin unit. It now fit, but both sides looked uneven and out of square. I took a saw to both sides and removed them. I am going to try constructing my own from more styrene strip and rod. More to come....

Does not matter how long it takes as long as your satisfied with your work and the quality. Hang in there ..

[Bill Eh?]

12 hours ago, slusher said:

Does not matter how long it takes as long as your satisfied with your work and the quality. Hang in there ..

Thanks Carl, you're absolutely right.

A small update. I tried making a pair of breathers to attach to the valve covers. They are based on eyeball proportion to reference pictures. They are okay, but I am going to try making them in a different way to see if I can do better.

[peter31a]

Keep up the good work, Bill. Kudos to you for continuing to work your way through the issues that you encounter on this build.

[Bill Eh?]

2 hours ago, peter31a said:

Keep up the good work, Bill. Kudos to you for continuing to work your way through the issues that you encounter on this build.

Thanks Peter. I took Bruce's advice and did the Scalemates thing with my Evergreen inventory. Only because I picked up 3 new packages today. Time to take a second attempt at the Valve Cover Breathers.

[Bill Eh?]

I had my second try at doing the Oil Breathers. The first set were iffy. Cutting the various pieces to size and then attempting to glue them together was not the way to go. It was too difficult to position pieces that small. The first illustration shows what I am attempting to achieve. The two pictures shows a 4 cm length of the "L" parts glued together. I will let this set up and then attempt to saw off 3 mm wide sections. Then I will cut and glue on the 1/2 round which represents the cap. All of this will get pinned to the Valve Cover.

[Bill Eh?]

The width of the Potvin Blower without the Fuel Injection unit on the LHS or Backfire Valve on the RHS is 9 mm. The space between the frame rails is 19 mm. This means the width of both the Fuel Injection unit and Backfire Valve can only be 4 mm. This allows a gap of 1 mm between the frame and each of these units. I made and added a 0.75 mm mounting plate for the Backfire Valve. The replacement Fuel Injection unit is done and measures 4 mm. I'm happier with the way this will look. No more forcing the frame rails to spread! LOL

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bill Eh?]

I wanted to use the kit exhaust headers, so I have attempted to add pins to help with gluing them to the flanges.

Edited December 21, 2021 by Bill Eh?
forgot to add pic

[deuces wild]

Nice!....🙂

[mr68gts]

On 12/18/2021 at 3:56 PM, Bill Eh? said:

A small update. The idea of knock-offs for the rear wheels did not appeal to me. Please correct me if my interpretation is wrong. Reference pictures seem to show a circular metal plate, through which the five lug nuts pass. I have tried to recreate this with sheet styrene. The one on the left is superior to the one on the right. I think I will take a try at making another one. To replicate the lug nuts, Wave has some with widths of 1.0, 1.2, 1.6 and 2.0 mm. Across the nut, these would scale out to 1", 1 3/16", 1 9/16" and 2". Which would be the best choice? I'm leaning towards the 1.0 mm, but I'm just not sure.

For the wheel disks, sharpen a brass tube thats about the correct diameter, (i.d.) and then punch them out! Because you need the disk, bevel the outside of the tube.

This way you can make perfectly round disks!

[Bill Eh?]

On 12/26/2021 at 8:35 AM, deuces wild said:

Nice!....🙂

Thanks Guido

4 hours ago, mr68gts said:

For the wheel disks, sharpen a brass tube thats about the correct diameter, (i.d.) and then punch them out! Because you need the disk, bevel the outside of the tube.

This way you can make perfectly round disks!

Paul, thanks for your input. A friend recommended the same thing. K & S Engineering sells a multi-pack of varied diameter pieces of tubing. I need to purchase that.

On a modelers Zoom meeting last week, I mentioned my predicament. A good friend responded during the meeting by taking his punch set, and making multiple 6.9 mm disks from 0.5 mm black styrene. He mailed them to me and they arrived four days later. He also punched out numerous in scale, hex shapes for the nuts with tiny styrene dots to represent the bolts. They might just be a little too small for me to work with. I may have to stick with the Wave product that I purchased. Modelling friends like this are what makes this one of the best communities (besides this board of course!) to be part of. Now, I'm obsessing over how to get the nut/bolt pieces equally spaced at 72˚ apart. LOL

Trying to add the pins to the exhaust headers did not work. There just wasn't enough gluing surface to attach the pins to. As an alternate method, I have glued the two left side header pieces together and the same for the right. I am going to now try remaking the header adapter piece so that it serves as a positive locator to the cylinder heads. The problem is that when you glue the two headers together, the ends that attach to the cylinder head adapters, do not form a straight line.