Wolf

So I need a Rallye dash……… As the vehicle I’m modelling has the optional Rallye dash and the Revell 1/24th kit doesn’t provide that piece I had little choice but to convert the kit dash into a Rallye instrument cluster. The existing holes for the instrument dials were filled with styrene discs made with my Waldron standard size punch and die set. Any small gaps were filled with CA and sanded smooth. The bulge at the bottom of the dash face for the larger speedometer gauge was filed and sanded down as well. The lower portion of the dash was rebuilt eliminating the stereo face and the opening for the steering column was refined to accommodate the Parts by Parks steering column. I’m going to have to scratch build a new heater control panel too. A hole was drilled through the front of the interior floor pan for the column to pass through. The excess length of the column will get trimmed down later. I also tried my hand, for the first time, at trying to create a silicone mould for the tail lights and casting the lenses in clear red UV resin. In both cases I got extremely lucky and had success at both attempts. Every once in a while Lady Luck smiles upon a guy like me. You can see the silicone mould below the back bumper. I added the rear lower roll pan as well, filled any resulting gaps, and there were a few of ‘em, with thick CA. Once the CA cured I used a razor saw guided with dymo tape to create the panel lines between the rear quarter panels and the roll pan. I’ll post more pics of that next time. Cheers, Wolf

Thanks Bill and Dennis for looking in and leaving comments. Always appreciated! Cheers, Wolf

Finally got my Winchester Gray paint ordered from Scale Finishes. Looking forward to trying them out. I've been using Tamiya lacquers for years so I hope these paints are fairly similar in the way they apply. Cheers, Wolf

That looks great and what a beautiful color. From what I can see I'd probably go with rubbing down the paint as is without clear coat. Very sharp Bob! Cheers, Wolf

Beautiful work Steve! I’ve always maintained that the devil is in the details and there’s lots of awesome details displayed here. I love the little finger pull on the ashtray lid. In those days every passenger had an ashtray. Today, thankfully, new cars don’t come with ‘em anymore. If you want to seriously destroy your vehicle’s resale value just smoke in it! Cheers, Wolf

Neat little Bug! I bet those taillights were fun to mask and paint. I had a ‘69 in Savanah Beige with brown interior. Seeing your model brings back a lot of fond memories. Well done Dave. Cheers, Wolf

Thank-you Michael, The more I look at photos the more work I realize I’m going to have to do. It’s really like a snowball rolling down hill affect. It’s a good thing I really like the car! Cheers, Wolf

Hi Bob, I would be inclined, if the plastic on the hood is thick enough, to cut a very small wedge (width wise) out of the back of the hood and pull the sides in. Use extra thin fast drying Tamiya cement and clamp it 'till the glue sets. Then sand the the sides of the hood to straighten out the profile. Just heat and sanding could leave you with a hood that's badly distorted. Without seeing exactly what you have to work with that's what I would try. You might be able to get away with just a couple of straight cuts either side of the hood center line instead of a wedge. That should give you enough to move the sides of the hood in. Cheers, Wolf

Wait, John, what? You started this when? I can't even get all the parts off the sprues in the time it took you to finish this! Nice Plum Crazy Purple color too! Cheers, Wolf

Thanks John, I'm not planning on going too crazy with the exhaust but figured I'd touch the stuff that might be visible when viewing the model from ground level. I'll probably use a #11 blade and give the mufflers something of an undercut to give them more of a 3D look. That'll also make them a bit easier to paint because I can place the edge of my masking tape in the undercut giving me a nice sharp edge. A little bit of pre/post shading should do the rest. Cheers, Wolf

How can you tell a fellow modeler has ADD and OCD? They never build in a linear fashion jumping all over the place but bring it all together in the end They build slowly and spend way too much time researching everything 'till everything has to be fixed Nothing is good enough. See above. They get buried in details. There's more but these are clearly telltale signs................. Anyways, here's a shot of what the Dana 60 rear end will look like installed. The nice thing is that the dimensions from front to back are identical to the kit part so the driveshaft doesn't need any modifications lengthwise. You can see that one of the exhaust tips has been opened up and the right leaf spring hanger has been rebuilt to make it look a bit better than a plastic lump. The other tip and leaf spring hanger 'ill get done as well. We must have symmetry, right? The new rear end makes such a big difference. Cheers, Wolf

Thanks Carl, I built the Monogram Coupe many years ago (almost 40, holy moley I'm getting old) and didn't think it was too bad back then. Some other kits of the same vintage offered much more though. Today this kit shows it's not aging all that gracefully. Cheers, Wolf

Sharp! Very cool concept and beautifully done. I can easily imagine a lot of these sitting in people’s driveways back in ‘65. Cheers, Wolf

Thanks Keith, I can’t wait to see what I do with it next either. I keep looking at the same photos and find new stuff. After hours of scouring over detail photos for quite some time l just realized this morning that the 1:1 ‘Cuda in Winchester Gray doesn’t have chrome (stainless?) trim around the wheel arches! It’s not a big deal but I assumed all ‘71 ‘Cuda’s had ‘em. The firewall and inner fender panels are going to require work too. There’s definitely more to do than I originally thought! Cheers, Wolf

Yup! Exactly Kenneth! Cheers, Wolf

Hah! The photo of the interior is the exact one I've been studying. It's making me resign myself to convert the dash to the Rallye version. I've also noted the two red pull knobs at the bottom, either end of the dash. It's definitely the little details............just like the red distributor cap boot for the coil wire on the distributor side only. Who does that? Cheers, Wolf.

Thanks Rex! Sometimes missing or complete lack of certain details can be a source of aggravation. That's very true. But then, what fun would we have, right? Cheers, Wolf

Hi John, Ya know, I've been looking at a lot of photos and videos of this car, and I heard it didn't have a radio installed. Sometimes you miss the forest for the trees. And yet I completely forgot about that detail. Thank-you. As well as eliminating the radio face I can make sure the dash pad doesn't have a speaker grill! Cheers, Wolf

Hey Chris, Any chance you might have a picture of the firewall for your model before you painted it? Cheers, Wolf

Thank-you gentlemen for looking in and leaving comments. Much appreciated! The following is stuff I was trying to get posted last night but kept falling asleep. Every few minutes I’d be startled awake when my i-pad would fall from my hands and smack down on my chest! It’s things like that which remind me that I’m looking at mid life through the rear view mirror. LOL! The kit dash and integral steering column didn’t strike me as looking too prototypical so the strange steering column will be replaced by one from Parts by Parks. I’ll have to scratch build the corrugated collapsible section and then add the steering wheel. As far as the steering wheel is concerned I decided to modify the kit piece rather than use the photo etched spoke assembly provided in the MCG set. The photo etch piece was simply too thin to look realistic. I opened up the holes in each spoke and then thinned each spoke by roughly 1/3rd it’s original thickness. Now that it’s been confirmed by John Shoe, the steering wheel will be finished semi-gloss black (for scale effect) on the back portion, and wood grain on the front. I think that’ll look sharp when finished. I’m still trying to decide whether I’ll leave the dash configured as is or modify it to represent the Rallye version the real 1:1 car came equipped with. If I do the conversion I’ll need to source a whole new set of instrument decals. I also started in on the rear suspension and modified the ends of the axle tubes to accommodate the Fireball drum brake wheel backings. These are very nice replacement parts for the kit pieces. They even include the small round protrusion to indicate where the brake lines attach to the brake wheel cylinder. Towards the bottom of the backing plate it’s apparent where the emergency brake cable attaches as it runs through to the self adjustment lever. Finally there’s even a long, thin, but shallow depression on the backing plate to indicate where the slot in the backing plate is located so a brake adjustment tool can be used to do fine adjustments to the brake shoe clearances to the drum. To add extra support for the Fireball wheel backings I added a small piece of aluminum tubing cut to length. The next pics will be self explanatory. There’s also a resin Dana 60 rear end that Is going to require some fettling to install correctly. Here again the aftermarket Dana 60 rear end helps to raise the level of detail provided in the kit. The next step will be fitting the Dana 60 rear end between the leaf springs and then applying the first layers of paint to some of the assembled components. Thanks again for looking in! Cheers, Wolf

Hi John, Yes, I'm trying to model the one and only Winchester Grey 'Cuda convertible as close as possible. I didn't want to have to but I guess I'm going to have to rebuild my kit dash to represent the Rallye option. I don't think there's too many other modifications I'll have to do although admittedly the steering wheel horn button is different than what the kit supplies as well. From what I can see, it looks like the steering wheel is two tone. It appears to me as if the back of the steering wheel is black with the front is a tan (possibly wood grain) color. At some point I may have to stop looking at details and just have fun building the car. LOL! Cheers, Wolf

Beautiful work so far Chris! I have the Revell '71 Hemi 'Cuda convertible on the go right now. The Fireball Modelworks carburetors are indeed little jewels. You'll love 'em when you see them in person. Overall you're working with a nicer kit than mine but I prefer the '71 grill over the '70. The 426 in your kit is also better detailed than the old Revell kit. I'll have to see how much I can do to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse with mine. I wish I had your Rallye dash. I may be forced to rebuild my kit dash to get what I want. Keep up the great work! Cheers, Wolf

While waiting for more accessories to arrive for this build I haven’t been completely idle. I started reworking the headlight assemblies. Dry fitting my original version didn’t give me the look I was after. I decided to scratch build most of what I needed and fill the original headlight holes in the grill. That way I’d have a blank slate to start with. I took some thick styrene card and held it behind the original holes for the headlights. Then, using a high tech needle in a pin vise, I scribed circles in the styrene card using the existing holes as a guide. Then, using the edge of a pencil lead, I highlighted the scribed lines which showed me exactly where to trim the fill plugs to close up all four holes. Brass and aluminum tube with styrene discs were created and new holes were made to accommodate the new headlight assemblies. As originally planned CMT headlight lenses were the finishing touch. I then received almost all of the aftermarket parts I was going to use for this build. There’s no doubt I’m an aftermarket junkie eh? The end product reflects what I was hoping to achieve. Everything is mocked up and held temporarily with small amounts of white glue. I also started working on the Hemi engine. The first step was removing the moulded on ignition coil and replacing the upper rad hose mounting flange, which was lost while removing the moulded on coil, with the base of a 1/12 dzus fastener. I also dug up a set of drive pulleys for the belts that run the engine accessories. The kit supplies 3 pulleys but I needed 4 as this ‘Cuda has power steering. I also replaced the kit’s dual carburetors with some incredibly detailed ones from Fireball Models. They are absolutely gorgeous in my opinion! I bought two sets as the second set will go into my Hemi ‘Cuda coupe. So far it’s been lots of fun figuring out how to do stuff. Also purchased from Fireball were the multi piece Mopar Rallye wheels with trim rings. These are also brilliant and will look fantastic when painted, assembled, and mounted on to the kit tires. All the individual parts are keyed to guarantee exact alignment and the trim rings have fine dimples in them to indicate where the valve stems need to go. The valve stems come from Aber. They add that perfect little bit of extra detail to the wheel assemblies. That’s it for now but I’ll have more progress pictures to post very soon. Cheers, Wolf

Wow! Man, there were some absolutely drop dead gorgeous cars there, but I can see why the ‘57 Chevy took top spot. That said I would have hated to have to decide where I’d place the rest of ‘em as they all looked fantastic. Cheers, Wolf