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microwheel

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Everything posted by microwheel

  1. Hi Fred, great minds think a like lol. I was actually planning on doing just that. I had already mixed up a aluminum wash with Tamiya's flat aluminum and water, and will give it a few wash coats between the valve cover fins. I haven't glued the valve covers on yet for just that reason. I just have them liquid taped into place for now, till I get more of the detail work done and on the engine.
  2. Thanks alot guys. Got a little more done this morning on the engine. I got the basic components put together so I can get it ready for detailing. The list of aftermarket parts I used on the engine are as follows. Pulley kit Power steering pump Alternator Starter Oil Filter Ignition Coil The alternator and power steering pump brackets are scratch made, and the kit supplied distributor was drilled out to accept plug wires. The starter and oil filter were test fitted with the headers liquid taped into place to check for clearances before permanently gluing them into place, then the headers were removed and set aside to get them ready for re-chroming. I'll leave the engine set for a day so the glue sets up nice and strong, then I'll get working on wiring and plumbing it up. Here's a few pics for now. More to come as work continues.
  3. Hi Guys, sorry it's been a couple days since a update. I have been working on the camaro, I just like to make sure of fit and assembly before I post what I've been doing. One thing I wanted to address on the engine assembly of the camaro, was the headers and side pipes. I dont like mold seems and push pin marks on parts that show. So I dechromed the exhaust parts, cleaned up the mold lines and ejector pin marks, and got them primer-ed. Tomorrow they will get a coat of model master gloss black enamel and set a side to dry for a day or two and then re-chromed with Alclad chrome. Another thing I wanted to do was to pre-fit the engine block on the front sub chassis, and then work on a plan to fit the headers and still get my plug wires installed so they look the way I want them to. (you'll understand what I'm saying here, when I get that far) Another thing I been spending time doing the past couple days, as time has allowed me, was to get the engine, and base engine parts I worked on earlier, painted so I can start putting things together and get some detailing done. And yes I did deviate from the factory color a little on the tranny bell housing. I painted the bell housing gold to give it more of a look a weekend street rodder look. So, though for the most part I will be sticking to a factory stock baldwin motion camaro, I do plan to give it that, "I'm a back yard mechanic and wanna dress up my camaro", look. I'll be doing a little of that under the hood as well.. Not alot just a few touches here and there. more to come as I get it more ready for posting.
  4. Hi Steve, yes Tamiya's spray can primer is a lacquer based primer, and I've yet to find any type of paint that has issues with it. I use it exclusively. Yes a little more costly that other primers, but with the amount of time and money I put into my builds anyway, it's worth the extra cost to me to make sure I dont have issues with my paint jobs.
  5. Next thing to do was to mock up the fan and crank case pullies. I had to trim just a tad off the water pump where the fan pulley mounts so it would sit right, since it is a double pulley and kit supplied one was a single. I tacked the fan and crank pullies into place using liquid tape and then used a piece of hard wire to check for alignment. Now that everything is aligned, it can be disassembled for paint and detailing. The parts by parks pulley kit comes with some strips of round rubber that make nice belts. though not shown here, you will see them once the engine is further along. And that's pretty much where I'm at for today. I'll post more as I get more done.
  6. This will be a multi-part post.. Engine detail mockup started today. This morning I concentrated mostly on mocking up better pullies for the engine, I also wanted to use a better alternator than the one that came in the kit, as well as adding a power steering pump (though not all BM camaros came with power steering, some were deleted for a few extra HP). I dug out a old after market curbside dioramics (wish these guys still made stuff) alternator and power steering pump I had in my stash. I figure these will work good for what I wanted. I started with the alternator and CA glued the top bracket it comes with to it. Next I scratch made the rest of the supporting brackets for it drilled some locator holes in the engine block, and added some hard wire for locator pins for mounting it. Next I cut off the alternator pulley from the kit supplied pulley assembly, (I will be using the kit supplied pulley assembly to keep everything aligned) and also cut off the pulley that came molded on the RD alternator (good things these are soft white metal, it made it easier to cut the pulley off with a exacto knife ) and added a pulley from the parts by parks pulley kit I am going to use for the engine. Next I slipped the alternator assembly into place as well as the kit supplied pulley assembly to check for alignment. Next up was the power steering pump. These were made with a locator pin on the back to make them easier to mount. If you can still find some of these around, I would pick some up. I drilled a hole in the engine block the same size as the locator pin on the back of the power steering pump and liquid taped it into place to check for fit and alignment. Continued on in the following post.
  7. Cool concept, your gonna really piss off the Mopar and GM guys lmao.
  8. Really looking good Ken. The alclad sure looks better on the engine than chrome plating would have, that's for sure.
  9. Hi Geoff, nice to see you back working on this little guy. Cant wait to see it all finished.
  10. Well while in the process of planning out my engine detail for the Baldwin Motion Camaro, I decided I better get some work done wet sanding and polishing out the body. I got the main body polished out today, but I still have the hood and a few small odds and ends body parts left to do. The will get taken care of tomorrow. Here are a few pics of the body for now. I will try to take better ones when I have better lighting. Today is kinda overcast and rainy around here, so did the best I could for pics on the crappy work bench lighting.
  11. Thanks Rodger, I usually don't do quite as much detail work as I am doing on this one. I usually do a moderate amount of detail on all my builds, but one's I plan to take for shows and contests, I try to give it that little extra. This one as well a couple of others, I plan to take to a few shows in the spring and summer down In Grand Rapids, and the Detroit, Michigan Areas.
  12. I also use bare metal foil on my molded on script before painting. after the paint is dry to the touch, I then remove the paint from the BMF covered script with a round tooth pick dipped in Lacquer thinner. Works out great every time. But you do have to be careful not to over soak the tooth pick, and use gentle motion as you wipe the tip of the tooth pick across the script, and it is a little time consuming, but the results are worth it.
  13. Yes you can decal over BMF. You can clear coat of you want to, but you shouldn't need to.
  14. Steve, dont know if you have a Hobby Lobby anywhere near you, but they are starting to carry Tamiya's primer now. I bought some there just a couple of months ago. Check them out if there is one anywhere close by you and see if they have it.
  15. Nice work so far Bernard, like how you did the chop.
  16. Also today, I started planing out, and prepping the base details for the engine. I drilled plug wire holes in both cylinder heads and a hole near the oil pan for a dip stick. I like to drill out my location holes before painting so there is little chance of messing up the engine paint job. And finally, I drilled a few holes in the intake manifold and the water pump housing for heater and coolant hoses. That's pretty much where Im at with things for this morning. I still have a little bit more planning and test fitting for other detail before the engine can get any paint. I'll post more as I go along.
  17. This morning is the planning out stage for building and detailing the Camaro's power plant. Now to figure out how much of this stuff.................. I can cram onto this thing lol............. To start prepping the engine for detail, I first removed the molded on mechanical fuel pump on the passenger side of the engine block. I still may need to remove the mounting locator for the kit starter. I'll decide that later with a test fit of the headers and a aftermarket starter. If it doesn't allow enough clearance, I'll leave it and use the crappy kit starter. I then removed the molded on Oil filter from the oil pan. And finally I removed the molded on ignition coil from the intake manifold. The oil filter and coil will be replaced with aftermarket ones anyways.
  18. Morning guys. Got the front brake lines complete last night. All but running the rear brake line along the front sub frame, and that will get done as I get further along in the build. As will the fuel line coming from the back of the car along the front sub frame. Here is a pic with the pretty much completed sub frame test fitted on the chassis. Next project will be to start on the engine.
  19. Thank Snake, the only reason I said about a week, cuz I usually get busy with assembly on other parts of the model and it takes me a week or so to get around to even messing with the body, so it may be ready sooner, but most of the time, I'm not ready for it lol. And hey Steve, I may have something you can try to see if you can solve and save your cracking paint issue. At this point it cant hurt to try it, and it should work. If you've already got the wet-look clear wet sanded and polished, give it a luke warm bath. If you have access to a air brush, and can get your hands on a bottle of Tamiya's clear acrylic, mix a little of it,(3parts paint, to 2 parts denatured alcohol which you can get cheap at a hardware store), and give your entire body 1 mist coat- and a couple of medium coats of the Tamiya acrylic clear. It will dry enough for sanding and polishing within 24 hours. It should also fill in the cracked wet-look cleared areas if they aren't too bad. I have saved a few paint jobs that way in the past when I have had ones that gave me problems. This process worked for me over lacquer based clears in the past, I haven't really tried it over enamel based clears, mostly because they dry slower than the acrylic does. If you give the cracked areas the first few light coats of acrylic clear before doing a whole body spray, it should fill them in enough to smooth everything out when you go to do your final sand and polish. Like I said, at this point what do you have to loose. If it doesn't work, your no worse off than you are now, the most you'd be looking at is where you are at the moment with a strip down and repaint.
  20. Hi again Steve, I think you might be on to something there with the testors primer. That's why I use Tamiya primer exclusively. I had way to many random issues with testors primers. I have yet to have any problems with Tamiya's lacquer primers. And about the only time I even use Duplicolor primer anymore is when I need a sandable primer during body work or modifications, and then, like you, I never use it directly on the bare plastic. When I have a model that doesn't need alot of body work, just before paint, I give it a couple of medium coats of Tamiya primer and it's ready for whatever paint I want to shoot over it, be it air brushed or spray cans, (though I don't use spay can paints very often anymore). One issue I had with testors lacquer primer in the past, was, it seems if you washed your model in a mild dish soap solution, just before painting, and any soap residue gets missed, not matter how little of it, the primer will tend to pull away from those areas, especially low spots and edges. But like I said, there was a lot of random issues with it for me, so I quit using it all together. For the guy who posted about using Tamiya clear coats over Tamiya paints. I have never had a issue with that. I have even used Tamiya's air bush acrylic clear over their spay can lacquer paints with no issue. As a matter of fact, I have even used Tamiya clear coat acrylic air brush paint over testors lacquers with no issues. I always thin Tamiya acrylics with denatured alcohol though. I have never used their clear lacquer though, mostly because their acrylic has always done the job for me when I use it. Right now I mostly use Model Masters enamels thinned 50/50 with hardware store lacquer thinner and shot through my air brush, (both their enamel paints and clear coat, shot through a air brush), when I need a color they don't have, I play around with mixing a few of their colors to get one I need. Using their paints mixed with lacquer thinner, usually makes it lay alot smoother and it quickens the drying time. Most of the time it's ready for a light sand and polish within a week.
  21. That would be my question as well. I have used testors wet-look clear lacquer, myself, in the past, over testors spray can lacquer, and Tamiya's spray can paints which are pretty much a lacquer paint as well, with no issues. Every time I have used it, I had always primed with Tamiya's fine finish spray primer. And have never had a cracking issue. The only time I have had issues with cracking in paint, was when testing the wet-look clear over enamels or acrylics, or even over flat base colors (Tamiya's flat colors mostly, never really had any issues with testors clear coats over testors flat colors.) But I also saw it happen when I tried different types of cheap primers, mostly the hardware store brands. So to try to figure out why it is doing it now, depends alot on what your clearing over. And yes testors base colors are a little different formula than their metallic paints, so that could still be you issue. Also the humidity can have an effect on it as well at the time of painting.
  22. Hi Mike, And thanks. I already made and attached the idler arm frame mount, the one you see on the tie rod center link that isn't attached to anything yet is the pit-man arm that gets attached to the steering gear box. I just haven't installed the steering box yet. I still have to modify, paint, and detail the steering box yet. It will get done just before the sub-frame assembly gets attached to the chassis.in the post I made just before this last one, the last pic you see with the engine mocked into place, you see the chassis upside down with the pit-man arm not attached to anything, if it were turned over, that side would be the driver's side, and that's the side the steering box is on. The arm that is already attached to a mount on the frame would be the passenger side idler arm. If you go back a few pages in the thread where I was working on the front suspension you will see how the idler arm was mounted.
  23. Nice work so far Ron.
  24. Started on the front brake lines this evening. At this point I pretty much got the passenger side front brake lines complete. Here is the process. First I took some MCG scale metal brake line and bent it to shape to route it along the sub-frame cross member. Next I made some hanging brackets for the line out of photo-etched line hangers that can also be had through MCG. Next I drilled a hole through a piece of evergreen plastic round rod using the smallest pin vise bit I had close to the size if the brake line. This will be used as the transition fitting at the L bracket on the frame. Next I fed the line into place from the drivers side transition block I made earlier, to the L bracket on the passenger side. I then slipped the line brackets into the seam along the cross member and epoxied them in place. I also cemented the fitting I made from round rod to the top side of the passenger side frame L bracket. Next I cut a piece of black scale ignition wire (since this needs to be flexible for the steering), and I cut another piece of drilled out round rod, and attached it to one end of the black wire and epoxied this to the underside of the passenger side frame L bracket. Once the epoxy had set up, I trimmed the black wire down to size and attached it to the caliper line block I made for it, when I made the inner brake caliper half. I still have the driver's side line to make yet, but it should pretty much go the same way. More to come as I get it done.
  25. Nice work so far Andy. Really love the detail work you've done.
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