absmiami

okay - I learned that you can not open a word perfect link here - so here's the bio: Chassis Num: MK9-14-55 In 1955, the car was sold new by Cooper Works to the USA and its period race history is unknown. It was imported back to the UK by Clive Osbourne in 1970 and sold to Roger Sweet in the mid-1970s. In 1980, it was sold to Richard Crosthwaite. This 1955 Cooper T36 MK9 was driven by Stirling Moss at the 2nd Festival of Speed at Goodwood in 1994. Subsequently raced by Oliver Crosthwaite. It was sold in 2002 to Charles McCabe, the present owner, who has campaigned the car in North America. The car is powered by a Norton Manx 499cc single cylinder engine with a short-stroke magneto ignition. The engine produces around 50 horsepower and is matted to a Norton 4-speed manual gearbox. The oil system is a dry sump setup with a separate 1 gallon fuel tank. The clutch is a 'Dry multi-plate' setup with a Norton motorcycle pattern. The front brakes have two leading shoes while the rear is a single disc HRG-Lockheed, centrally mounted unit. The total weight of the vehicles is a mere 530 pounds.

I photographed the car bout ten years ago at Limerock and this is a bio on the car fr the internet Chassis Num.wpd

this is what I am building :::

nothing fancy - just evergreen stock, some drawings, trial, and error - lots of error. there is a white metal suspension arm attached - more on this later .... kinda choppy - learning how dto do this ....

Some of the Merit parts will be used in the resin knockoff shell casted by Guido of ScaleKraft eons ago. The casting is quite thin - allowing construction of the Cooper frame from Evergreen styrene tubing and stock

top and bottom body shells glued together, enclosing one peice front and rear suspension assemblies. Kit had been partially glued together decades ago. Nothing, NOTHING, managed to seperate the glue joints

sorry gary - you can't watch you'll learn all my secrets ... Rodney - the scale is 24th - Merit only did 24th scale for the car kits - think they did other scales for some other subjects

Dale King ! Herb Deeks! the plot thickens ... thing 1 - I too have the Deeks resin knock-off of the Merit Cooper. And yes, It had white metal parts for the engine, susp, and wheels spoiler alert - these white metal parts are gonna come in real handy for this build thing 2 - Guido was a big fan of Mr. King's. When he sent me the Cooper body castings, he included a photo-copy of Dale's 1/12 scale build !!

thanks ! you're my first reply don't you win something ? actually - I took the workbench shot AFTER I cleaned it up

almost forgot : It's always critical to keep you workbench clean and well organized !!

Wow - my first build blog - finally got an "eye phone" - and learned how to take pictures - and even download them. So into the modern world we go ...... Buried somewhere on the workbench is a 1/24th Merit Cooper FIII. Kinda rare. Bought mine years ago as semi-built-up. Started but not painted or finished. Gonna actually build this with a thin-cast resin body from Guido or ScaleKraft fame. It's a knock-off of the Merit body with a nice thin casting. Also kinda rare - I've never seen another one. To the best of my knowledge, Guido stopped casting before he actually produced a resin kit of the Cooper - which is a shame. Anyway, I'm a complete sucker for Merit kits - got a bunch. Delayed this build until I found some photo-etch that could be used for the chain drive - which I finally stumbled upon recently - more on this later. This is not a "real time" build. The work on the body and chassis was begun earlier this year. I'll post as I have time and sort of catch up on the build as I near completion. Here goes .

Your Wife Bought you two model kits ???? BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH - where can I get me some of that !!

by the way - the cars did all have that parcel shelf - usually carpeted - really !

oh good ... hoping someone would build this online before I built mine . consider replacing those lumps on top of the engine with some parts that actually look like carbs ! after-market carbs - perhaps from Replicas and Miniatures ... have fun and by the way - there are some super Maserati kits in resin - but they are hard to find and cost more but they are out there ...

any progress?? what sizes are the chassis tubing - main and secondary tubes are correctly different sizes - but can't quite tell the dimensions ... I've wanted to do try building the chassis for years - haven't yet found the time - courage - strength - insanity ......

don't know if it's mentioned elsewhere in the thread - did you use the Mike Sells drawings ?? terrific build where did you source: the engine block ?? the wheels and tires for the transporter ?? and the transaxle ?? any suggestions on the use of the Sells drawings ?? did you make any changes ??