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62 Pontiac Catalina Mild Custom Finished


Alyn

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Cool; looks like we have a few Pontiac fans around here.

I got a few more details taken care of. The starter, oil filter and fuel pump are complete. Still working on the distributor, fan belt & pulleys and the headers, but they're mostly done. Here's a couple of update pics. The short stacks and valve covers are just sitting in place. Hopefully they're be straighter on final assembly. The plan is to go with chrome valve covers, but the more I mock it up with theses stock covers, the more I like it.

With all the handling, some of the paint is already starting to rub off, some I'm gonna let the motor sit for a few days so the paint can harden up a bit more. In the meantime, the chassis and body can get some attention.

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Edited by Alyn
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  • 4 weeks later...

not much of an update, as I've been focused on my 57 Chevy convertible lately. The intake is pretty much done. I also scratch built the distributor. I wired the one that came with the kit, but the red wire I picked for plug wires didn't look right, so It'll get used on something else. This distributor was build by gluing some 1/2 round rod around some larger round rod. Then holes where drilled for wires, and an aluminum tube was used for the shaft. It'll look just as good as the original once the cap is painted and the wires (clear) are glued in place.

Between the scratch built fuel injection and distributor, there's almost 100 scratch built parts on the engine already, and it's not done yet.

Anyway, I thought it looked so cool that I wanted to share. The valve covers and injector stacks are not glued down, so they may look slightly askew.

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Edited by Alyn
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  • 2 weeks later...

final update on the motor, then I'll be moving on to body prep and chassis.

The blue valve covers are gone. This car will be a custom, so the more chrome the better. Also, for the custom look, I decided to try some clear plug wires where you can see the wire strands inside. Roth did this on his Outlaw and I'm sure many other customs have used it as well.

First off, kit fans always look way too thick, so I scratch built a replacement using .005 brass. After the blades were shaped, they were soldered to a brass shaft.

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Here's the plug wire looms, made from .005" aluminum. Holes are .017" to allow for the .015" plug wire.

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I don't like the way the wires lay, but since the wire is stranded rather than single conductor, it's much more difficult to add bends and curves where you want them.

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As mentioned earlier, the distributor is scratch built by gluing 8 half round strips of styrene around a round styrene rod base. Overall, there are more than 100 scratch built bits on this motor to create the injection system and ignition.

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If I come across a decal I like, or a good way to replicate a Delco-Remy tag, I may add that to the generator.

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Alyn, Alyn, Alyn....you are really going out of your way to make this a killer build! You've got to do a tutorial on how to make that distributor, I'd love to see how you do it myself!

Mike's getting kind of old, so his eye sight ain't what it use to be. He keeps dropping distributors and can't find them in the green shag carpet in his work room. For Mike and guys like him. I put together a tutorial on building a distributor from scratch.

You can find it here:

http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=49781

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  • 4 weeks later...

No body yet, but the chassis is progressing. Out of the box, the frame rails are open on the top, and this opening can be seen looking down at the engine. I scrounged some square styrene rod and filled in the opening at the front of the frame where it shows. This was followed by a skim coat of spot putty and primer.

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Here's a shot of the front showing new coil springs wound with black coated 26 gauge copper wire.

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Inspired by some of John Teresi's prolific use of Alclad and since this car is intended to be a show car, I shot the frame in chrome. I was curious how the hobby store chrome spray compared to Alclad so I shot the oil pan in Krylon chrome. In this photo, you can't tell much difference, but in person the Krylon looked a bit dull compared to the Alclad. The Krylon looked reasonably good by itself, but when placed next to the Alclad, the difference was obvious.

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Here's the rear axle in place. The brake backing plates(not in the picture) will get drilled for brake lines and then painted. then I'll add the brake line across the rear axle. Otherwise, it's pretty much done.

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Here's the top side of the chassis with the motor in place. Since the rear is covered by the body, I only plated the front section of the frame. You can see the ball joint extension that helps lower the front end to where it needs to be.

Rather than finding a decal for the generator, I cut an oval out of .005 aluminum sheet and painted it flat black. Once the paint was dry, I used a new #11 blade to scrape the paint off from around the edge of the oval as well as across the middle. It won't stand up to magnifying glass inspection, but to the unaided eye it looks pretty good.with the light catching the bare metal.

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Edited by Alyn
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  • 2 weeks later...

I really liked this kit when I put it together. The worst problem I have seen with it is the alignment of the front bumper. If you look at a lot of the builds of this car, even on this site, the ends of the front bumper are angled up.

True.

I had trouble with mine being tilted up on the trailing edge. I reckon I should've removed the monting posts and re-set the angle. I think I ended up using a combination of force and jiggery-pokery..!

I thought I'd done a reasonable job on my engine. But taking a look at your progress makes me think I have still got a long way to go...

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Sonofadiddly!

I just had another look at the engine pics.

You totally knocked it out of the park. I really like the details...and that wire is so thin!

I've gotta get me some of that fine wire.

I'm keeping my eye on this build. I can tell it's going to be outstanding.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Chuck, this is only my second attempt at Alclad, so I only show the good parts :) It is good stuff, though. There''s absolutely no doubt that I'll be buying more. I picked up some of their black base, but I haven't tried that yet. What you see here is shot over Tamiya gloss black.

Thanks, Ken. There's only going to be a moderate amount of detail on the chassis, but I'm hoping the use of color and metalizers will make up the difference.

Glad you like the engine, Guy. Thanks for the compliment. It's surely going to be my favorite part of this car.

Here's where I'm at today.

The top chop is finished. The emblems and door handles have been shaved, and chrome trim strips on the trunk and rear fenders have been removed. After a little more clean up on the hood, the body will be only a wet sand away from paint time.

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I sanded off the molded in wiring from the fender wells and firewall. All other detail was removed from the firewall as well to create a clean show-custom look. I also added the small scratch build braces at the top of the fender wells. The brake master cylinder will likely be the only item to remain on the firewall. There's still some block sanding left to do at this point.

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I decided to scratch build the battery hold down, so the molded in detail was filed off. The vertical groove on the side will help keep the hold down bolt in place. A little overkill so the glue won't have to do all the work.

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Here's the finished battery, detail painted and ready to go. The hold down bolts are 1/32" aluminum rod with the top end pinched and filed to give it the look of a wing nut. The cross bar is just a piece of beaders wire wrapped around the bolts. I found the DieHard decal on an old TransAM decal sheet.

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Here's the engine and battery dropped into the engine compartment. More Alclad covers the fender wells.

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The mufflers are covered in Tamiya gold topped with dull coat. The exhaust tubing is covered in more metalizer(buffing aluminum).

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Finally, the chassis is in paint. This will show the final body color; kind of a burnt orange pearl. The exhaust is just setting in place. I still need to file to fit where the exhaust meets the headers. (the kind of thing that should be done prior to paint).

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and one more...

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thanks for looking

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