Chris B

Well it's been 3 weeks today since I had surgery to replace my right hip joint, all has gone well and today I felt like I could sit at the bench long enough to do something. it's not much but I got a bit of color on the rear axle and shocks. I'm contemplating whether I should paint he driveshaft tube aluminum also, what do you think?

Thank you all for your wishes, much appreciated

Looks nice. Should be a sweet build when finished

Well it looks like I may not be getting too much done on this build in the very near future. I have finally got my appointment for my total hip replacement and it is only a couple of weeks away baring any issues. About a month ago I had to have a CT scan with contrast die added and the next day I broke out in a total body rash that has mostly healed up because of the cream they gave me to smother myself in but unfortunately there are two spots where it has not completely heal one being on the hip right on the site that the incision will be. When I had my pre-opp appointment yesterday they were not happy with this and have insisted that I see a GP Nurse at my Dr surgery everyday for the next week to monitor the rash, photograph and measure it and do everything possible to get it to heal in one week so that at the end of that week they can decide if they are going to proceed with the opp I have also purchased a new PC that I am currently transferring everything from my old PC to the new one so I will not have too much time spare to work on the model between now and surgery. I am hoping to finish painting the rear diff and shock absorbers however. I will then pack it away until I am sufficiently healed enough to sit back at the building bench

Thanks David I really appreciate it

With the rear end finished I threw some color on it and while waiting for it to dry I moved on to tackling the exhaust starting with the Lakester style headers. I had to make a wedged shape piece of styrene to glue between the head and header flange to raise the angle of the primaries up so that they would not interfere with the chassis rail/ I took this opportunity to drill some holes and super glue styrene locating pins to the header flanges. It is my intention to run an exhaust pipe out of the back of the headers under the vehicle some how.

Beautiful model. What do you use to paint the exhaust/trans etc?

Apart from a few nuts and bolt details added I'm calling this rear end finished

A little more work tonight Unfortunately my medical issues are catching up with me again. After having surgery to remove the infection from my left foot, the time I spent struggling to walk has affected the osteoarthritis in my right hip and I have been having issues with it dislocating when I'm sitting down and intense pain. in the last six months it has really affected life in general not to mention work. It has been a struggle to sit at the building bench and I tend to sleep a lot in the evenings because of the large dosages of meds I am on for the pain. After an X ray showed earlier this week that the ball has collapsed the specialist has final acknowledged the need for surgery and that is now happening early in October thank goodness. I have been continuing to work on the new diff assembly and have so far constructed one shock mount that I have attached to the axle tube and have begun constructing some shock absorbers from scratch out of styrene stock I was a little concerned originally that they may have been a little large, out of scale but after looking around at some photos of other models and 1 to 1 vehicles I am happy that they are fine. I have drilled some holes in the floor boards and glued some styrene rod in at an angle to simulate a mounting tube that the upper shock stem passes through. it is my intention to also create a washer and rubber mount to fit over the stem for added realism. I'm also going to add some nuts and washers to the lower eye.

One of my favorite kits I'll be following this one

Ah thanks for the info

Tell me more what are these NB castings?

Looks awesome. That vinyl top looks real

Trimmed things up a little and drilled some holes for the pins I have used to secure the transverse spring to the axle tubes and it all looks like it fits pretty good. Next up will be shock absorbers. I haven't been able to find anything suitable in the parts stash so these at this stage will be scratch built also.

Well after spending a little bit of time modifying this axle this afternoon I've decided I really don't like the results. I stumbled upon a chrome center section just randomly laying on a shelf in my display cab net. i have no idea where it came from or what kit it came out of but I played around a bit with it and decided I liked the look. I stuck it in a shot glass of bleach and stripped the chrome from it split it into two halves and gave it a good cleanup, I glued the two halves bvack together and drilled it out to accept the axle tube and I have decided to stick with the enclosed torque tube for a drive shaft. I think I'm liking the results so far, what do you think?