Accurate Miniatures Corvette Grand Sport

[TransAmMike]

That is such a cool looking Corvette and model.  Great job Pierre.👌

[Bainford]

Looking good. The thing sits perfectly. Nice work sorting this challenging kit. I'm following...

[Pierre Rivard]

A bit of a setback as I added the fuel tank and spare tire. The tail of the car sits up like a dragster...again.

The spare was easy. I added 0.5 mm spacers to the upper attachments, thus tilting the tire down by about 2 mm.

The fuel tank was a harder task. First the visual instructions ask to mate the 2 halves opposite of the way the molded pegs guide the 2 parts together, so which is right. After ungluing and trying both ways...

The way the 2 halves naturally mate is the right way but the diff still crashes to the underside of the tank. After efforts to grind some local relief I ended up removing 2mm from the top side of the tank.

 

[Pierre Rivard]

Now everything fits nicely.

A quick mock up of the interior shows the IP pretty tight to the cowl possibly not leaving enough room for the glass. But that's for another day.

I made the decision to dump the kit tires. They are too big, particularly the fronts.

I like the wheels and they mate perfectly to the Fujimi GT40 tires. I will use those for this car and eventually find some replacements for the GT40

The picture below shows the new tires on the car.

 

[afx]

The GT40 tires are a nice improvement.

[MarkJ]

Yes, that is a much better choice for the tires. I had to use kit bashed  street tires for the front tires  on my   Grand Sport, built from an amt kit, to make it look like the ref pictures of the 005 car I built,  Penske won at Nassau with it  in 1964 . I used 1964 P.P.P.  Nascar tires  for the rears and they seemed to look pretty good on it. I modified some P.P.P. 64 Holman and Moody wheels to look like Halibrands. I was deep into the project when i found out that accurate miniature Gran Sport kits even existed. So I stuck with it to the end. It was one of those builds I always wanted to do.

[Pierre Rivard]

12 hours ago, afx said:

The GT40 tires are a nice improvement.

I agree. Now I need some tire replacement for this GT40 and wheels & tires for some Cobra projects. I sent an email to Randy at MBW to see if Mr Bradford still makes wheel/tire sets.

[Pierre Rivard]

1 hour ago, MarkJ said:

Yes, that is a much better choice for the tires. I had to use kit bashed  street tires for the front tires  on my   Grand Sport, built from an amt kit, to make it look like the ref pictures of the 005 car I built,  Penske won at Nassau with it  in 1964 . I used 1964 P.P.P.  Nascar tires  for the rears and they seemed to look pretty good on it. I modified some P.P.P. 64 Holman and Moody wheels to look like Halibrands. I was deep into the project when i found out that accurate miniature Gran Sport kits even existed. So I stuck with it to the end. It was one of those builds I always wanted to do.

I remember following your conversion of the AMT Vette. That was epic. I am attempting the shortcut route with the AM kit.  It has it's own issues but it's manageable.

[MarkJ]

11 minutes ago, Pierre Rivard said:

I remember following your conversion of the AMT Vette. That was epic. I am attempting the shortcut route with the AM kit.  It has it's own issues but it's manageable.

Thanks, Pierre. I think you will have much better results with the AM kit. If I ever decide to do another one, I can follow your excellent directions for fixing this kit. I believe this kit is better then the Revell kit for this car I have seen posted. It has a lot of ride height issues as well and some other things if I remember correctly. It would probably be very hard to find the Revell kit and expensive.

[afx]

35 minutes ago, Pierre Rivard said:

I agree. Now I need some tire replacement for this GT40 and wheels & tires for some Cobra projects. I sent an email to Randy at MBW to see if Mr Bradford still makes wheel/tire sets.

Mr. Bradford is continuously shipping orders the Randy.  Therefore even though the MBW website might indicate "sold out" there are likely additional sets in the pipeline.

[jaymcminn]

1 hour ago, MarkJ said:

Thanks, Pierre. I think you will have much better results with the AM kit. If I ever decide to do another one, I can follow your excellent directions for fixing this kit. I believe this kit is better then the Revell kit for this car I have seen posted. It has a lot of ride height issues as well and some other things if I remember correctly. It would probably be very hard to find the Revell kit and expensive.

If you mean the recent Revell kit, it's a straight rebox of the AM kit from unsold stock with new decals for the #3 car in the Revs Institute. I've got it in the stash as well as the HRM A-arms and headers. Pierre, this thread is awesome and the work you're doing to correct this kit's shortcomings is fantastic!

[DustyMojave]

I recently acquired a frame and chassis set for a Revell issue GS Vette from one of the guys who sells model parts on evilbay, and was very pleased to find the frame rails do NOT have the shrinkage relief slots.

[Len Woodruff]

3 hours ago, DustyMojave said:

I recently acquired a frame and chassis set for a Revell issue GS Vette from one of the guys who sells model parts on evilbay, and was very pleased to find the frame rails do NOT have the shrinkage relief slots.

I never seen one w/o the slots in the chassis. Do you have a picture to post?

 

[SfanGoch]

I have 8 GS kits and I've never seen one chassis without the slots either. All of the AM versions, including the Revell rebox, were produced from the same tool.

 

[magicmustang]

Following your work very closely and taking notes. I also have one in my stash and have had it out and put back up many times over the last few decades.

Excellent work and good information.

Edited June 1, 2022 by magicmustang

[Pierre Rivard]

Thank you all for the input,

JC, thanks for info about Mr Bradford. I got in touch with Randy. Great service, parts will be shipped today.

Richard, good for you if you don't have to fill slots. Plenty of work elsewhere on this project.

Mark, I confirm, the Revell kit is a repop of the AM kit.

Anyone had issues with decals deliveries from V-R-M?  Purchased 2 weeks ago, PayPal payment went through, no decals received and no answer to my inquiry...

[hobbyfella]

VRM decals are great! I’ve ordered 4 sets recently, I did get them, but it took about 4-5 weeks to arrive. 

[Pierre Rivard]

1 hour ago, hobbyfella said:

VRM decals are great! I’ve ordered 4 sets recently, I did get them, but it took about 4-5 weeks to arrive. 

Thank you sir. Good to know...I just have to be patient (not easy for me)

[Bainford]

On 5/31/2022 at 10:40 AM, Pierre Rivard said:

Now I need some tire replacement for this GT40 and wheels & tires for some Cobra projects.

A couple of the Fujimi wheel/tire sets have the GT40 tires, if that helps. I know this set has them Campagnolo Wheel Fujimi 192925 (super-hobby.com) Most places are out of stock right now, but worth keeping an eye out for.

[MarkJ]

2 hours ago, Pierre Rivard said:

Thank you sir. Good to know...I just have to be patient (not easy for me)

Sounds like they print them after they get the order. Thats a good thing. This way your getting Fresh product. It also might be good that they are backed up getting the product out . It means they are getting a lot of orders because the product is so good. A little communication though, would  be nice.

[Pierre Rivard]

7 hours ago, Bainford said:

A couple of the Fujimi wheel/tire sets have the GT40 tires, if that helps. I know this set has them Campagnolo Wheel Fujimi 192925 (super-hobby.com) Most places are out of stock right now, but worth keeping an eye out for.

Thanks Trevor. I went a different route and got a few resin sets from the great Mr Bradford through Randy Ditton at Model Builder's Warehouse. Randy has been fantastic in making it happen very fast.

[Pierre Rivard]

5 hours ago, MarkJ said:

Sounds like they print them after they get the order. Thats a good thing. This way your getting Fresh product. It also might be good that they are backed up getting the product out . It means they are getting a lot of orders because the product is so good. A little communication though, would  be nice.

It was just me getting anxious. Decals came in today and the one sheet covers needs for 5 different cars.

Fabulous!

[Pierre Rivard]

While the chassis has been sent to the paint shop (we run a big organization here...) I decided to start on the engine.

Mostly OOB there but will add plug wires and oil lines to external filter and Hex.

Lots of nice parts but they don't all agree with each other. For example instructions for the throttle linkage require to gently bend the links to carbs....

Translation: we cast it wrong, you make it right. And the result?

 

[Pierre Rivard]

After fixing it as best as I can I realized that I could not add the cast piece for fuel lines unless I flipped around the throttle linkage relative to the instructions.

As you can see I finally made it all fit after adding a bend to one of the fuel lines (meaning breaking it...)

Putting this to a vote. Is this good enough or should a plumb soft fuel lines instead. 

 

[Pierre Rivard]

Discovering more stuff to fix.

There is no location defined for the oil filler and the coolant outlet is missing. Instructions just say to glue the rad hose to engine block.

Here's what the engine looks like, kit vs reference picture. I will scratch build the engine side components to match and soft hose to rad from there.