1/16 Scale Army Vega Funny Car - Finished 10/14/2018

[Mooneyzs]

Niko... Thanks for kind comments it is appreciated and i am glad you are enjoying following along on this. Thanks for sticking around on the slow process of it. I hope things are coming along on your vega and look forward to seeing more on it.

[comp1839]

chris, looks great! it looks really good on all fours. are you still anticipating fixing the upper rail / shoulder hoop?

[Mooneyzs]

Dave... Thanks buddy. Yeah I was still thinking about replacing that as well. Do you happen to have a top down view of that area by chance to see the radius of the tube?? The more I have been thinking about the area that I need to move the more I think I need to cut the roll cage away and just replace it all instead of trying to splice into part of the tube.

[John Teresi]

Chris......looking AWESOME!!!!!!!!

[Danno]

!

[Nitrozilla]

Kind of ashamed of myself for not commenting more often on your build Chris, but every time I view your progress I go into a state of shock and awe. Never have I seen such attention to detail and accuracy. It's like you're building it for the Snake himself and don't want him pointing out stuff.

I am truly impressed, as we all are. Take your time and get it right man while some of us (mostly me), just blast through builds so we can get to the next one.

[walt francis]

Everytime I see this build I know i don't build models I just play with plastic toys next to what you do

[Mooneyzs]

John... Thanks Buddy, still wish I could build just a little faster. I have so many other builds that I want to start but I am being patient and waiting but I do need to finish up my 1/16th FED though. I need to spend some time on that one here and there since it is basically 75% done.

Joe... Thanks man. Don't be ashamed. This build is one where I am trying to capture all the details I can and making it the best that I can with the limited reference pictures of this car. I wish I had more details other than the pics I have but I am using other cars for minor details but also have picked a few people's brains here as well. I appreciate you following along and this is just one build i am taking my time on to get it right for myself.

Walt... I don't want anyone feeling that way. I can tell you this, there is no way I was building stuff like this 20 years ago when i was 16. I have learned alot over the years and I had some time away from the hobby when I was going to college. I realized 2 years ago when I got laid off that I missed this hobby so I started building again. then got back into a job and into a not so good relationship that took me away for a bit, that relationship ended for the better. Unfortunately was laid off again at the beginning of this year got back into building heavily at the beginning of the year and was able to land a contract position with the company I work for now, which I have been working crazy busy hours because of a big project we are doing at the moment. I also have an amazing girlfriend now that supports me with my hobby addiction and she is wanting to build a car herself. So I am looking forward to teaching her and guiding her the best I can. Again as I mentioned to Joe, I do appreciate everyone that is following along.

I will have an update shortly from tonights work. Downloading and editing pics as we speak.

Edited December 3, 2011 by Mooneyzs

[W-409]

I hope things are coming along on your vega and look forward to seeing more on it.

My Vega is fine, and I should continue it soon. I've been bit hurry now and had no time for building because of the school. But now it's four day weekend ahead, so maybe I can get something done for Vega too.

[Mooneyzs]

ok So tonight I was able to sit down and get some more bench time in. Tonight I was focusing on reworking the front end a little bit. I was having to shorten up the radius rods as I noticed a couple weeks ago that I originally made the radius rods too long after I was studying the pictures I had a little more closely. so with that came shorting the rods and removing the tabs and repositioning them. I also had to do a little work to the axle with what I am calling making shims and adding to the axle to help with the play/slop that I had in the spindles. That should be completely buttoned up tomorrow as you will see in the pics I had to add another .010" to one side. Here are pictures of tonights progress. Thanks for looking....

This first picture is for Brad (Gasser59) as I mentioned in a previous post that I would get a shot of the rear of the car and how he mentioned how bit the rear tires were, after downloading the pics I thought that this was a cool looking pic:

Tonight I started out with cutting the Radius Rods down to shorten them:

Here they are once they have been shortened. I removed the RB Motion rod end and currently they are just placed in the cut end for the pic:

Here I started removing the tabs that the radius rods attach too:

Edited June 10, 2020 by Mooneyzs

[Mooneyzs]

Removed the next tab:

All Tabs have been removed here:

Here I have taped the chassis down and got the tabs set where I wanted them and used Weld-On #3 to glue them back into place:

Here is another view of the tabs being glued. Just to mention at this point I still haven't glued the rod end that I removed from the radius rod. I wanted to let the glue dry well overnight and in the morning I will go ahead and glue the rod end in with 5 min epoxy and I will actually glue it in place on the chassis to get the correct length for the rod:

Stay tuned, I will be working more of it tomorrow (Saturday) well guess its actually today seeing the time that this is getting posted . Anyway I don't have to work tomorrow so most of the day I will be tinkering on this build. I will probably start with finishing up a few loose ends on the front end then I will jump right into the refab work of the chassis to get the motor moved forward as planned. Thanks again everyone for looking.

Edited June 10, 2020 by Mooneyzs

[W-409]

Wow, truly amazing scratchbuilding! This Vega will be just like 1:1 car when it's finished. Those tabs are really great looking, and those Radius Rods are really awesome too. And hey, it's already Saturday, 2 pm.

[hansb57]

Removed the next tab:

All Tabs have been removed here:

Here I have taped the chassis down and got the tabs set where I wanted them and used Weld-On #3 to glue them back into place:

Here is another view of the tabs being glued. Just to mention at this point I still haven't glued the rod end that I removed from the radius rod. I wanted to let the glue dry well overnight and in the morning I will go ahead and glue the rod end in with 5 min epoxy and I will actully glue it in place on the chassis to get the correct length for the rod:

Stay tuned, I will be working more of it tomorrow (Saturday) well guess its actually today seeing the time that this is getting posted . Anyway I don't have to work tomorrow so most of the day I will be tinkering on this build. I will probably start with finishing up a few loose ends on the front end then I will jump right into the refab work of the chassis to get the motor moved forward as planned. Thanks again everyone for looking.

Its not just the moddeling details you added, its the way it looks like its the real thing.

Cant wait to see it painted.

[bobthehobbyguy]

All I can say is this is great work.

One suggestion for the from axle is to replace the nuts that hold the torsion bars to the chassis if you weren't planning to do that. I think that real metal nuts would look better since you've replace most of the plastic ones on the rest of the model.

Also I suggest you consider taking this to GSL in 2013 I definitely think this model would do well. With all of the references and documentation I would think you should enter this in the replica class.

bobthehobbyguy

[Mooneyzs]

Niko... Thanks buddy... I am back at this build right now and starting to cut the chassis up. so I will have pics in a little while.

Hans... Thanks man. I can't tell you how much I want to get some paint on it. Just want to get the fab work done first but am very anxious to see some paint on it for sure.

Bob... Thanks for the Kind words. I appreciate your suggestion. That was another nut that I was wanting to change out as well. I have sorta been holding off on that one till I was done with the refab work I am starting on right now. You know I would love to take this one to GSL. I will have to see when it is in 2013 and plan on bringing this build if I can make it. thanks for the suggestion ont he replica class.

Alright back to working on this......

[Mooneyzs]

Alright so I have an early afternoon teaser with a few pics of the current process the chassis is going thru....

Before:

The chassis is currently going thru some changes...lol cutting away parts for the refab, removed the roll cage and motor mount tabs:

Removing cross bracing:

Edited June 10, 2020 by Mooneyzs

[Danno]

Looking good ... in the neighborhood!

[Mooneyzs]

Here is progress that I was able to make last night.....

I started out by cutting away parts of the chassis:

Removing part of the upper tube:

Removing the other side:

Edited June 10, 2020 by Mooneyzs

[Mooneyzs]

Here I removed the upper tube around the driver area:

Starting the refab work. I have drilled into the upper tube and added a brass rod for extra support at the joint:

Here I got the upper tube glued back into place and now ready to move to redoing the driver area:

I am currently working on the next portion of this chassis refab. Hoping to have some more progress pics in a few hours for you. Thanks for looking.

Edited June 10, 2020 by Mooneyzs

[Magic Photos]

Looks great Chris great job keep going.

Mike

[eviltwincustoms]

Oh man Chris this is definitely the point of no return cutting that much of the chassis away! I know you will only make it look a thousand times better once completed though.

Keep up the great work and in no time you will be right back to where you were.

[Mooneyzs]

Mike.. Thanks again for letting me pick your brain earlier. Really appreciated it.

Bart... You are right about that its at the pioint of no return. I will be actuallycutting more of the tubing away and redoing more as well...lol. I feel like its never gonna end. I almost should just of scratch build the whole chassis...

ok couple more pics to share with everyone. Sat down a little more tonight and make the top tube around the driver area and got it glued in place. My next thing to do is pretty much remove all of the support tubing on the side of the driver area and redo it since the pieces I cut away don't even touch the new pieces I made.

I first started out with making the upper driver tube. I actually made this out of 3 pieces. I started out with one piece in which I made the "U" shape from. I tried a couple of different methods to bend the tubing and didn't get it work very successful so I resorted into drilling the tubing out and inserting a brass rod into it, so it would hold the bend I wanted. I left 3/8" of the brass rod hanging out from each end in which I drilled out some straight pieces and then glued them together. I should of taken pics but I spaced it:

Here is the top tube glued into place, using Weld-on #3:

Here is the space between the top tube and chassis supports. I figured it would be best to make new tubs rather than trying to bridge the gap between the kit from and new tube:

Edited June 10, 2020 by Mooneyzs

[Prostreet]

Holy ###### Chris, Your really putting alot of effort into this build and it shows. Looks great, What is the #3 weld?

[Mister Twister]

Your patience and skill are showing here.....Looks real good!

[Mooneyzs]

Joe.... Thanks man on the kind works. Weld-On #3 is a glue just like Tenax or Ambroid Pro weld. Many years ago they used to bottle Weld-on for the hobby industry and I really liked using it and belive they stopped making it in the small bottles. So I ended up finding a plastic's supply shop and get it in a pints or quarts and it is much cheaper in the long run. here is a pic of it in the back ground, if you want to see a better shot of it let me know. this was the only pic that I could think of that I had the container in:

Darryl... Thanks man. It has taken a lot of patience here to go back and redo all of this but on a good note. I am getting closer to having the refab work done and then I can jump back to the engine and even get some primer on the chassis.

Couple more pics from tonight. I started removing the rest of what I needed to cut off the chassis to redo.

Started cutting away...:

All gone and ready to sand frame down and start cutting tube to put back in place:

Edited June 10, 2020 by Mooneyzs