1958 Edsel - - W.I.P.

[Ramfins59]

Hello all. In continuing my desire to build models of 1958 cars, I started work a few days ago on an AMT '58 Edsel kit, the "Ultimate" kit with skirts and a full continental kit. This is going to be another mild, bolt-on style late 50's Custom. I like that style which is why I keep doing them.

I've almost completed the engine. In addition to paint detailing, I added a fuel line to the carb, installed an MAD prewired distributor, and put on a chrome air cleaner from my parts bin for a little bling. When I was fitting the pulley assembly I of course noticed that both the generator and the power steering pump would be just "hanging there", which I knew would NOT make Harry P. very happy. So I grumbled a bit and dug out my PE brackets and picked 2 which were the right size for each location. I painted them black and CA glued them in place, adding a couple of PE bolt heads to complete the chore. It was a bit of a time consuming task to get them lined up properly, so Harry, if you have trouble sleeping tonight, it's because of all the pins stuck in the Harry doll...!!! An engine pic follows...

I also painted both the chassis rails (flat black) and the chassis floor pan (dark gray). I still have to paint and assemble all of the chassis components. Chassis pic follows...

I attached the skirts and sanded off the Edsel and Pacer lettering for a mild dechroming. I also removed the molded in center backing for the horse collar grille on the front of the body. I then cut and trimmed a piece of PE honeycomb grille material to fit in its place. I'm going to mount the kit's chrome horse collar to that on final assembly and add some small chrome bullets to the center of the honeycomb also on final assembly. Body pics follow...

The color is going to be Testors One Coat Lime Ice and Duplicolor White. The interior will most likely be shades of Green flocking and White.

Thanks for peeking in on this. More pics will come as work progresses.

[Gluhead]

Smells like another good one, Rich. I did one up stock not long after they came out. I keep thinking I'll get around to doing another as a kustom, but something else always ends up taking priority. Maybe you'll get me off my butt!

[Edsel-Dan]

My favorite car!! (Can't tell by my name can you??)

I have a few of these started!

Converting one of this issue to a convertible.

Think I have a Ranchero, Villager wagon, and Limo in-progress too!!

(I Beat your 'Class of 58' Here!! Class of 58 EDSEL!!!!!!)

Edited February 27, 2013 by Edsel-Dan

[impcon]

Based on the quality of your previous builds here, I am really looking forward to watching this beauty take shape and come to life! The Edsel was IMHO, a very under rated car that dies a premature death because of circumstances not of the cars doing at all. Like most cars of that era, they had rust issues but they were still an attractive automobile made unique especially by the "horse collar grille". I think that much like the Corsair, there was bad publicity and we people being the sheep that we are, believe everything that the media throws at us. Personally, I always liked the Edsel and in the right color combination, they are quite striking and very pretty. Good subject and congratulations on picking a theme and staying with it Rick. I am anxiously waiting to see what you do with this one. it is certainly was lucky to find a good home and fall into caring hands. Carry on..

[Davewilly]

nice looking engine cant wait to see more on this one

[72 Charger]

Good to see another 58 project Rich you do crank them out .Where do you get the PE brackets from as I also hate to see floating pullies !!? Where the fifty's ford blocks all yellow? or is that custom?

[Nxr]

the Edsel should of been played as Christine instead if the fury, for some reason this car scares me but beautiful project you have in mind otherwise.

[Ramfins59]

Thanks very much everyone for all your encouragement.

Yes Daniel you definitely have me beat on the Edsel builds.

Yeah Gary, the Edsel was a very unappreciated car and with all its "strangeness", to me looks a lot like it was customized at the factory. I just love the looks and styling of ALL the '58 cars.

David, it seems that I've been on a building "roll" since I came back from last years NNL East show. I reclaimed my basement modeling work area from my daughter, and this is the 10th model I've worked on since then....an all time record for me in one year. I'm retired and for the last year I've put in an average of about 5 hours per day at my workbench, which is why I've been "cranking them out". At the rate I've been working on models lately I should have this one finished before the end of March. I believe that I got my PE engine accessory brackets set from Detail Master. The Google reference pictures that I worked from showed the Yellow engine with White valve covers and air cleaner, and I believe they came that way from the factory. I'm wondering who picked those colors..??

Eugene that would have been cool seeing an Edsel as Christine..!!

OK, time to get back to the bench.

[Tom Geiger]

Engine looks great Rich! Especially the brackets anchoring the accessories in place. I look forward to watching the build take shape!

[ChevyCoupe41]

Engine looks very nice. Can't wait to see more updates about this Edsel.

[72 Charger]

Rich thanks for the info on the PE stuff .Im looking to get an Edsel from e/bay (fingers crossed that I win it ) so I will be following your biuld closly

[om617]

Edsel is cool,i dont get why it did got so much hate. It`s not that everything Virgil Exner touched looked like a diamond.

[Edsel-Dan]

The Factory engine color was called "Golden Rod. so Yes the E400 engine came from the

factory Yellow!! The E475 was green.

I replaced the cast belt with thin rubber strip.
"Spider Legs" is one Brand I got.

I saw it in that former 'Enthusiast' mag some years ago.

What I have is actually for Bow string muffling not fishing tackle as in the mag though.

I made my own mounts for the Generator & Power steering pump.

Guess I need to get close up pic's of those and the belt.

Have to find a friend with a Good camera first though!!

[Ramfins59]

Thanks again everyone for your input and kind comments. I made a little bit of progress on this build today. Almost all of the chassis components are now painted. I glued on the fan belt assembly and the exhaust headers so now the engine is complete. I finished fitting and trimming the PE Honeycomb grille piece and a picture of it sitting in the opening follows;

I picked out the colors of green flocking that I'll use for the interior... a dark green for the carpet, and a lighter green for an accent on the seats and side panels. I have a dashboard gauge panel on the way from BestModelCarParts.com along with gauge panels for 11 other 1950's models that I'll eventually build. I highly recommend those gauge panels for the models that don't come with gauge panel decals. Thanks to Kevin (Magnum4342) for turning me on to them.

More progress tomorrow. Thanks for looking in on this build.

[IMPALA SS 427]

I was wondering what 58 you would be doing next, I did an Edsel not too long ago... great fun... I look forward to this one.

Here's a few pics of mine in case your interested:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/78253497@N06/7499625510/in/photostream

http://www.flickr.com/photos/78253497@N06/7499621460/in/photostream

[Ramfins59]

Hey James. That Edsel of yours looks great. I like the color combo. What will be next......Hmmmmm...... Well, if I finish this before the NNL East show on April 20th (which I should do) I have a Monogram '58 T-Bird kit and a Revell '58 'Vette in my stash. I'll have to toss a coin to see which one wins. I'll be picking up a resin '58 Oldsmobile curbside kit from The Modelhaus at the NNL, but I probably won't start work on that until around the end of May or sometime in June as I'll be in North Carolina for a few weeks visiting close friends, and then I'll be travelling to Florida. My grandson turns 2 and my daughter, son-in-law, his parents and my wife and I are taking the little guy to Disneyworld. Hopefully he will enjoy meeting a

BIG Mickey and Donald Duck (A J calls him Duck Duck). After all that travelling I'm sure I'll be happy to get back to the peace and quiet of my workbench.

[TooOld]

The engine looks great , glad you added the brackets to keep everybody happy ! I love Edsels too so I'll be following along .

Why wait 'till summer to visit Florida ? The weather's great right now !

[slusher]

Rich looking forward to your Edsel build. You do really good work and l think Edsels are great looking cars. l never knew why they was so hated....

[Ramfins59]

Thanks very much Bob and Carl. Bob the trip to FL is on May 12th for about a week so hopefully it won't be TOO terribly hot and humid.

[Ramfins59]

Today I finished flocking the seats and interior side panels after putting on some BMF trim. Sorry no pictures yet as they're drying.

I think I'm doing a color change on the body. I originally wanted to go with Testors One Coat Lime Ice and I sprayed the dashboard and firewall with it. I ran into the same issue I've had previously with these paints. For some reason they come out of the spray can way too heavy, run and puddle up and then bubble. I've had this happen with 3 other colors and I think I'm done with using these paints..!! I LOVE all the colors that Testors puts out and bought about 8 cans, however, I can't deal with the constant hassles. I'm not spraying too close to the parts and I'm NOT trying to cover everything with ONE COAT. I'll be stripping the 3 parts that I painted and am switching to Duplicolor Dark Jade Metallic for the main body color with White as the secondary color.

Tonight I'll try getting all the chassis parts assembled as all the painted parts should be dry now.

Progress pics will probably come soon.

[Ramfins59]

OK I can finally post some updated progress pictures on this project. The chassis is completely assembled. The engine is in, the wheels are on and all 4 touch the ground...... wooohooo. I brush painted the hubcap centers with the Duplicolor Dark Green Metallic body color.

I finished detailing the dashboard. The upper part is painted the Dark Green Metallic and the bottom is White. I glued on the gauge faces and the radio face from BestModelCarParts (cutting them out was a chore..!!). I then glued on PE metal trim rings for bezels on the round gauges and next I applied small drops of clear epoxy for lenses. For the center Speedometer I glued on the tiny black & white gauge face and then flowed some clear epoxy over and around it with a toothpick to make the clear domed cover. It's not "perfect" but it's the best that my almost 66 year old eyes could do using an Optivisor..!!

Today I'll finish assembling the interior. The body has been primed and I painted the roof, side coves and rear panel Duplicolor Arctic White. I'll mask that off and apply the Duplicolor Dark Green Metallic to the rest of the body, hood and continental kit pieces. I'm on the "home stretch" with this build. An all time world's record for me, as this is the 10th model I will have finished since last years' NNL East Show...!!!

Thanks for looking in.

[Gluhead]

Looks great, Rich.

I can't remember if you have an airbrush...but those one coat paints are twice as nice decanted and shot through one instead of straight from the can. The mix with each other well, too...I've got a couple new tones out of experimenting that I'll be using on future projects.

[Guest Johnny]

Dang it Rich!!! Your getting me in trouble with the wife here with all these cool looking builds!!!

Now she is asking me "why can't you build them that fast so they aren't sitting all over creation in pieces???"

Looks like the beginnings of another great build!

[scalemodelworld]

Wow Rich, what a great looking build. Like you, I'm getting to spend a solid 5+ hours a day building these days (thanks to Long Service Leave), so I've already churned out 3 builds this year!

[slownlow]

Looking good! Soon you'll really test that optivisor with the BMF.