GrandpaMcGurk

It's in the works.

Almost done.........tinted windshield was an experiment....the kit came with a blue tint & clear one, I cut a section from the blue and glued it into the frame along with a piece of the clear, probably should have polished the cut edges a little more but anyway, what are your thoughts about it?

I've had pretty good luck simply boiling a pot of water, turn off the heat and holding the plastic in it for a couple, three minutes depending on the thickness. Bend to shape and hold it there for a few seconds. Conventional hair dryers never seem to get hot enough, after all...they don't set your hair on fire! If the curve isn't quite right on the first try...stick it in the hot water again and repeat. Works for me.

Very cool & interesting, . What scale is it Tim? I get a lot of questions in my travels about the differences between the early TDR stuff and the newer UD & FUD materials.......... You might want to let the viewers (especially the guys that aren't familiar with RP) know what flavor material it was printed in and what you had to do in the way of prep before painting.

I haven't polished out the hood and rear engine cover yet so it's hard to tell in the photos......but it's actually a shade lighter than the tub. The rear hatch will be hinged so that it will flip up to show the inner workings. Here's a few mock-ups, all that's left to do is lights, dash, seats, roll bar, headers & ginger bread.

Thanks folks. I sprayed the pan and underside of body with textured paint to simulate one of those spray on bed liner products and finished up the electric fan cooled radiator and hoses.

Will it ever take another cruize down the strip Dave?

Yeah Alan it does look kinda like sandpaper, that's mostly due to the color, see post # 10......3rd photo. The bottom of the pan was shot with Krylon Textured Shimmer, keep in mind you could spray a coat of any color you wanted over either of these paints while retaining the "texture".

Thanks Alan, I wanted a "textured finish" on the floor so I taped it off & sprayed it with RUST-OLEUM multicolor textured rattle can paint. Sounds strange but the stuff is inexpensive & works great for things like undercoating, bedliners etc. on models. Krylon also has textured paints, neither of them has had any bad reactions to plastic (at least what I've used it on).......watch what you buy though as some have a much grainier finish and way out of scale for 1/25th stuff.

Added brake lines, carb linkage, dip stick, battery cables, altenator wiring, fuel and water lines and got some paint on the body.

Guess I'd better start thinking about what color it's going to be........

I didn't want all that VW steering linkage taking up space so I fabricated a rack & pinion unit. It runs thru a hole in the VW backbone.

Oh boy,a roller.....added motor mount to the top of the V-4, it'll tie into the roll bar.

Here's the hood in progress.........used a pin vice & some small files, a little clean up and I'm good with it.......although it does kinda make it look a little like a jeep from the front. Radiator from the top & bottom with electric fan....The water lines will run through the VW back bone....at least that's my story & I'm sticking to it. Yes, the radiator is upside down.....didn't notice it when I did the mock-up & pic.....fortunately it's not glued in yet.

I cut a few air intake slots in the hood & there's an electric fan under the radiator.

Radiator is going up front.....I was going to jam it between the gas tank & rear of engine.......but it got looking too clunky back there.

The gas tank is now going to live just in front of the bell housing.....the idea here is to keep more weight on the rear tires for better traction while keeping it toward the front of the car (ahead of the rear axles) to help control unwanted wheelies...hee. I'm cutting some flat panels to replace the original molded section of the tub that I removed. Gas tank in place. I'll be using a couple of Crazy Jim's resin buckets....

These are photos showing the re-shaped tail section & where I've removed material from the basic Manx tub.

A couple of mock-ups checking fit, etc.

Many thanks guys........here's a few more pics. I'll be bending up my own set of tuned pipes.

I wanted to build a Manx with a bunch more beans than the VW engine could muster "reliably" without having to rely on air flow to keep the heater cooled down. In the foggy recesses of my mind I conjured up an aluminum water cooled 170 cubic inch V-4. I started with a re-issue AMT Manx kit and swiped the V-6 block from a '77 Revell CJ7 Renegade kit. On with the pics.......I put a couple of bolts in the torsion bar tubes to look like those old adjustable "select-a-drop" deals, when I add the seams for the center sections they should look cool....yeah I'm old enough to remember them. Cut the middle 2 cylinders from the V-6 and spliced everything back together.

Soon Bart....been tied up with other stuff lately.

Top side of the rear missle hatch...... the underside with "smart missles"..... in the car with hatch closed. Started on the belly pan.

Cool idea Martin, maybe even paint the missiles to match the Road Runner...hee.

Not really sure about paint yet Martin........... I'm leaning toward a typical Stang color with the wide white racing strips from front to rear. Although gloss black with flat black stripes would look kinda wicked?