Cato

By all means-please post your work on Willie's cars (and TV's too)-I'll be watching. Funny Ivo story: In '68 or '69 I used to hang around a local chassis/header shop called 'East Coast Headers' and did racecar lettering and striping. When Ivo and Tarzan came east on the match race tour, they would stay at the shop as a base of operations. They raced at NY National, Atco, Ct Dragway and Virginia. Well anyway, Joe DeLoca, the owner of the shop always b!tched to TV that he never advertised the shop. Ever the wisea$$, TV said one day 'Come here kid-I want you to letter 'East Coast Header Corp' on my car!' This was the brand-new and beautiful 'Rainbow' car, Long chassis and Tom Hanna tin covered in rainbow-striped metalflake. 'Sure TV, (I Said) I'll gold leaf it right now-where do ya want it?' They pulled the spent bullet out and Tom pointed to-right under the zoomies... Virtually invisible with the headers on and he laughed his tail off. Sad note -the car wrecked FIRST TIME out with my fingerprints still on it. I prolly cost TV $40K worth of bad luck. Now adays, a short block is $40K... I've searched high and low over the years for a snap of that car with no luck-that's how new it was before it died. I hope TV has it in his coming book.

John, You're a master at drag cars. Great work. Have you ever done Wild Willie's Winged Express? Would love to see your take on that. Ivo said some nice things about you in Burgesses' article on haulers and you might get mentioned in his forth-coming book. I'm sure The Snake's a fan of yours too.

More pain and suffering: Here's the end of a woven tube as explained above. It's standing on end, slid over a t-pin but you can make out the round hole and no frayed edges. I have two left to make-this one is 20mm long and then the one from the filter to the carb inlet. The glue tip works: Now here's a tip to prove that 'Wacky' can sometimes work-no laughing or I'll go to my room and cry. Pilfered from the female's magazine collection, I give you a plastic magazine stand-converted to a GT40 work stand. Wrapping the car in a thin layer of foam wrap, it just fit comfortably into the stand with the nose flat on the stands 'floor'. Being a klutz, I need 10 hands to do fiddly things like tiny AN fittings that have a mind of their own. This got the car out of my hands and allowed me better and steady access to the work area. If you don't think this is nuts, just look around for a stand that will comfortably fit your project. See: Like magic, it also works great when you have to change positions and work flat: Now here's the near finished fuel lines (2 to go) in place. When you paint the hoses, it helps if you bend them a bit to shape and let them dry that way, but they're quite flexible without kinking if you go very lightly with the cyano. While I have my pants down and am embarrassing myself you can spot the curl of BMF that came loose and the sprue brace I made to stiffen the heat shield. I really should have scratched a new one from .020" styrene or .005" can aluminum and I may still because the kit piece is irritating me. I modified this one by mounting to the base of the cabin window rail (using white glue-which I like for 'temporary' joins) instead of lower where Trump wants it. It just gives it more of an angle than I like but looks OK (for now). The reason is because the fuel filter (silver can with lines) interferes with it where Trump mounts them. The carb line will go from the right edge of the filter to the carb and just barely will go on the fitting the way I have it. BTW-Trump wants you to put the hose right into the hole in the filter-I took an unused 'J6' AN fitting and joined to the filter. You really have to plan carefully when you get to this stage. Maybe you guys will have zero trouble with this but I sure painted myself into several corners. Also notice that you hardly see any of the detail (like on the pumps) that you worked so hard to make. Same on many places on the car-like Syd's coilover question. See: Here's a trial fit of the pan and carb and it actually meets the heat shield better than Trump's way. There's a gap if you do it that way and that defeats the purpose of having a shield over the distributor on the original GT's: Am I the ONLY guy on this planet building this car? Sure wish Syd and any of the rest of you would show me the way you've solved these challenges.

I won't tell you until you post some snaps here. First I cut a clean end on the tube with a brand new straight edged blade. Then I stuck a t-pin into the tube to get it perfectly round. Removed the pin and just touched the cut end with cyano so it only wet about 1/32" of the end. If you put too much, the whole tube gets stiff and you can't bend it in place. (Also paint the tubes with acrylic paint-I used Nato black- or that will stiffen the tubes too.). Let it dry, then when the painted fittings were ready, another drop of cyano on the pin end of the fitting and join. The key is getting the tubing perfectly round with no fuzzy ends and the glue keeps it that way all the way onto the fitting. They come out nice and clean but you need the patience of a saint...

Guys-thanks for the kind words. Stump, I posted those reference shots in the hope that it will interest guys to get going on this kit. It's hard to model something when you don't know what the original looked like. I was hoping other guys with similar reference would post them to help me too. Pete J. has been a help with his material. I'm struggling now with the fuel pump lines and it's a challenge. One help was to enlarge the instruction illustrations to 200% on the copier. I'm having no trouble with their woven tubing as I read other modelers have, but there are other conflicts to resolve. The fuel filter and heat shield under the cabin window are a particular PIA. I should have scratched a new shield but I'm getting this one to work. Will post snaps which will explain better. I know when you guys get around to building yours and post, I'll want to crush mine...

Well that's a noble exercise but unless you're going to scratch the complete accurate suspension with Heim joints and tubular pieces, you're still looking at Trump's toy-like attachments and thicknesses. Turned shocks with coils are beautiful. Then too, it would mean you have to display the model completely open front and rear because, unlike a formula car, you see none of your hard work. I did brake lines but they're nearly invisible. I did solder coils on the front but left the rears which look lame IMO. Turned coilovers in the rear would look better because with the rear clip tilted open they are more visible. These attach differentlt than the fronts-both upper and lower mounts are circular like heims. Here's what you're shooting for: The attachments for the shocks are visible in this snap from earlier. The upper half of the shock is the top pair with the modified lowers below. I trimmed the inner stop 'piston' by 2mm to shorten the shock then pushed the lower into the upper. The open upper and lower attachments attach to the chassis inboard at the top and outboard at the bottom. But if you get heim connections made on the turned shocks you will need to either fish-mouth them to snap on the stock suspension locations or make complete tubular attachments to go through them: I've now got the chassis joined and you can see what it looks like with the nose off. If you tilt the nose open you will still have difficulty seeing the suspension. See below: Tip: I used a #6 split washer(with 1mm snipped out of the circumference) in the wheel axle hole (outboard side) which makes the attachment screw 'center' the wheel. If you don't do this the wheels flop around on the upright axle and tilt like a child's toy. The change in ride height works perfectly and the wheels sit centered and very close at the top of the front fender clip. Len, did you start the kit yet or are just planning? Was the KA info I posted helpful? If started please post progress and feedback.

A small update: Getting ready to close the interior and join the chassis. Here is a mock-up of the finished dash and wheel in place. The details I added are plumbing and wiring that these cars were loaded with. In my research, literally no two cars had the same wiring/plumbing detail layouts. Here are views of 1036 and 1015. They are slightly overexposed so you can see in the dark areas of the cockpit. 1036 has the speedo in place but 1015 has the master kill switch in place of that. The battery cables and fuses are different in both cars, plus a lot of other picky details: Realizing I could not do an exact replica of one car because of the kit's (and my) limitations, I set out to create the atmosphere and general race-ready condition of these cars. I scuffed the sills and floors, used Nato black and German gray on the seats-nothing has a 'just painted or finished' look on my car. The battery I worked so hard on is almost invisible and will completely go away when the roof and doors are on. OH well-they were cramped and hot and I hope that comes across when I'm done. So that's why my details are a composite and only suggest the real cars: Here's a quick tip: I found that waxed dental floss makes an excellent binding to hold things in position for gluing or mock-up. Of course many of you probably know this but I tried it for the first time. On the GT, you need to hold the brake tubes out of the way while joining the chassis sections, then pop them over the ducts on each wheel. Works great: That's Friskit on the windshield BTW. I think my skill set is around the lower medium area and not up to the heavyweights posting here. So I'd appreciate any and all criticism, advice or tips to progress to a higher level. I'm no machinist like Comp and several others but their work sure inspires me. Please comment on the work so far. I love the car but am having a hard time doing it justice.

A Veyron-esque attempt at chic. Almost an Aston/Veyron DNA.

PM sent.

Surprising new information: I have progressed a bit further and will post some snaps in a day or so. However, I have come across some info that may be of value to builders here. On another modeling forum, I found comments posted by two builders regarding the KA kit and it's use on this model. I cannot vouch for the accuracy or opinions of the posters. Further, I'm not affiliated with them or KA-indeed-I did not buy the KA kits. I know that Len for one is using the KA parts and I hope this is of some value to him. I think my thread has several 'lurkers' but very few are posting opinions or discussing the model kit. First quote: "Out of curiousity, any idea what the KA PE parts on fret E number "1.2", "1.5", and "1.8" are? The instructions they provide just show them being bent into a circular bracket, but I've no idea where they mount. Given that there are a grand total of 160 of those things, I'm sure it probably should be obvious..." Second quote: "Interesting...I'm building the same kit plus the detail set...I'm having massive problems with both because they are simply of very bad quality...I redid most of the whitemtal engine parts because they are so way of the original and badly cast, same for most of the exhaust parts. I really hope you did a testfit of the exhausts :-) I'm also very dissapointed about the PE parts...they just offer the wrong parts as metal :-) but the seats are nice...well they are absolutely identical but that can be solved easily;-)" Any comments or different experiences??

:)

Here are mine run on C-12. Sorry no red film, mostly brown/gray around the boosters. The pipes get nice and light gray running this leaded gas.

Lucky-not professional...

ALL FIXED. The solution turned out easier than I thought. I made two small shims (.020" styrene ) for the two outboard pumps, and glued to the tips at the bottom of those pumps. This is so the pumps sit vertical, not angled like the bulkhead they're mounted to. Then glued that to the aluminum mount plate I made so that the pump bottoms angle out and the tops of the pumps touch the plate. Then glued the plate to the bulkhead and test fitted the firewall/chassis. As you can see, it fits and the plumbing is easier to do than Trumps method.

HOLD EVERYTHING! Do not begin the above fuel pump procedure. Just as I was about to mount the plate and pumps as above I decided to mock-up the rear clip. Guess what? The thick inner shell that Trump supplies to stiffen the skin interferes if you mount the pumps there. On the original, the skin has the inner ducts molded directly to it so it's not as thick. I'm not sure anyone cares but I sure don't want to mislead anyone. Now I have to rethink whether I want to trim the inner panel or mount the pumps as Trump has them. Sorry to post bad info-won't happen again.

Fuel pump change: From a lot of reading and research I found out Trump got most of the fuel pump mounting wrong. First, I found no reference of pumps on the driver's side. So I decided to omit the second set they give you. Several snaps of then and now views of the cars show that the pass. side pumps were mounted on a plate bolted to the firewall-not buried on the inside bulkhead under the firewall, which makes it very difficult to mount the pumps in there then plumb the fuel lines. I think Syd had problems with his build doing that. So I found a good view of 1046 as restored now with a plate attachment. I then made a similar looking plate out of tin sheet and detailed the pumps with color, paint straps and wire retaining clips. Here are the same SW pumps, mounted in a competition Cobra: Here is my crude attempt to replicate: Here is where it will mount on the firewall: And finally, here is the example of 1046 as restored today: All the original GT's had varied ways to mount these depending on the team or particular race being run-makes it really hard to say that they were always EXACTLY one way. But it also allows us modelers some artistic license. Many talented guys on here could fabricate exact metal straps, rubber dampers and turned aluminum pumps with wire clasps. With my meager skill I tried to simulate the real thing and hopefully not 'cheese-up' the overall appearance. My car will mostly be displayed closed as my passion is the overall form and business-like race appearance. I will occasionally display with the front and rear clips up and want just enough detail to add visual interest without making swiss timepiece detail. If the kit came with COMPLETE detail, like every tube, fitting, heim joint, hose and individual panel-I would love that. For that I chose a 1:1 Cobra replica instead of the GT, but that's all I could afford at that time.

A little more progress. I spent this afternoon lowering the front suspension as I mentioned earlier. I can see I'm getting close and it's fun to be working on this again. The principle is to raise the axle stub relative to the chassis pan, tucking the wheel higher in the fenders. Pardon the junk snaps as I did not take time to set up the tripod or play with light settings. I think you'll get the idea and when it's all done we can look at pretty pictures. Here's the area of work-the front of the chassis pan. In the early assembly stages I tacked everything together with white glue so it was easy to disassemble for this work. (Did most of the car like that). Trump has you screw this crossmember to the pan which is good in this case. You don't see any when the car's together: The first mod I made was to the coilovers. I decided I wanted to take 2mm out of the shock's assembled height so I sanded their inner shock bodies by that amount, then glued together for strength. The modded one is 6mm long, the stock piece is 8. The total shock length from their pivot points is 20mm. Be sure to get the upper and lower attachments positioned 180 deg apart: Next to fix is the upper control arms. I simply made an oblong slot in the upright attachments (ball joints on the real car). This will allow the upright to move upward and a hair inboard: I made a shim out of a #6 washer to glue to the lower arms to further raise the axles. I just used the 'looks-right' (to me) method to arrive at these dimensions: Looking from the nose back you can see the angle of the driver's side arm angles upward compared to the still-stock pass. side. This raises the axle on that side; Now some final comparisons. First the stock pass. side then the modded driver side, and a rough idea of the front tire attitude. The total drop is 3/32" without weight. Race cars use a lot of neg. camber and when the model's full weight is on it they will tilt in slightly at the top and look real. They're very 'vertical' now: If you're up for these kinds of mods for your kit, just remember to start EARLY in the build process, (not like me )mock everything up many times and don't rush. Thanks for looking and any and all suggestions appreciated.

Len, Please throw all the other projects in the trash and start this one. I passed-up the KA kit but would love to see a quality build using those parts. Also shoot some ideas/crits my way-I can always learn... Harry, Thanks for the boost and your interest. They sell this kit to Moderators too you know... Chilly, Nit picking is welcome. That's some careless rash I caused by the endless dry fitting I did to get the deck to sit flat. The good news is the car's lower sections will have some stone chip, scuff and weather damage as well as road dust/exhaust/tire dirt so that will go away easily. Serious race cars are pretty scruffy things-the key for me is to be subtle and not over-do the effects. In fact a mist of Dullcoat in certain areas can make a showroom finish seem dusty. I plan that too but will go easy. Here's the Andretti/Bianchi car at '66 LeMans early in the race. Notice that the upper deck is shiney but the spoiler and aluminum frame and mesh is already dull, exhaust and dust-covered. The whole rear face looks like flat paint. And there's always tire kick-up, front and rear. This is what I'm after: Sorry you won't build the car but very happy to have your input-just don't wear your glasses and look at my work so close... Being a 'lowness' freak, I've decided the front ride height is too high as the kit comes. So I took it apart and am modifying it to get close to how the cars actually sat. They did not want lift at 210 MPH. Will post when I do. Also have to change the bogus fuel pump mount Trump gives you. I've got a lot to do to get what I want but I'm not a machinist or fabricator as many of you pros are...

Syd! Where did you go-vacation? Your words are kind but that's complete c&%*! Your work is first class. We went two different directions building the same kit and there's no right/wrong, better/worse comparisons. I think it's great the cars are different and other prospective builders can formulate their own ideas as to how they want to go with it. I know my version is not everybody's cup of tea but that's the beauty of these things. Please post either here or in your thread the work so far or the complete job. I really want to see what's ahead for me as you are way past where I am. It's nice to have you back, now jump in and tell me how you handled the things above that I screwed up! Jim, Yes D-Types are a fave of mine too. When you get the GT, just ask away, the reference stuff is from Pete and myself and there's no problem sharing. That's what I am hoping for with this thread-more guys building this kit. I've loved this car for four decades.

This thread is to hopefully continue and amplify the small dialog started in the "1/12 Trumpeter GT40" thread started by Syd, LR 3. Although there have been many views, there have only been 3 or 4 participants and the OP and myself are the only two to construct the model. Hopefully many more will dust off that stashed kit or show your wip's in this thread. I hope to show my progress, although infrequent, and hopefully get advice from you all on ways to improve and proceed. I will show as best I can some pitfalls I got into and my ways around them. I chose not to build an exact replica of GT40 MKII chassis #1046 which is black and won LeMans in '66-the car Trumpeter used for measure and kit engineering. Instead I wanted 'my' GT as I would race it today in vintage events but using virtually all the original car's bits, look and design. Mine is a 'track rat' the kind I would use frequently at track days then tear down at the end of each season and renew parts and fluids. It will have track dirt, rubber dust and a generally 'well-raced' look but not a jalopy. Please join in and criticize or give advice as desired. I'm just really trying to get serious builders to show me better ways. Many of you have seen my car in the other thread so here is some very recent completed work. Still have a long way to go. If few members participate in this thread, I will not go into boring details if there's little interest. Pardon the generally poor snaps as I didn't play with white balance and the colors are somewhat 'whited-out'. The latest work is the completion of the rear clip and these first two show the general look of the car. Paint is TS-58 and TS-7 stripes, all airbrushed and stripes sanded flat with sanding cloth kit. No clear over will be used and no decals or numbers: The rear clip as well as most of the nose and lower surfaces, will be 'weathered' with road and rubber dust and some rain streaking. It's all new and shiney now as it comes together: Here's a problem I got myself into and out of: the oval hole in the deck is just supposed to fit around the carb pan. When I mocked the clip onto the engine/chassis assembly, a certain header pipe (seen lower down) stood too tall and prevented the clip from closing flat. I decided to oblong the hole in the deck to clear it because the pipes were firmly glued when the motor went into the chassis. I guess I should have looked much further ahead in the assembly sequence but Trump got me with this one. Also the pipes fit together perfectly just this way so it wasn't careless assembly. So big heads up to you guys that do this kit. BTW, that's BMF on both sides, fogged with gray primer and a splash of Dullcote: The glass all fit perfectly and a dip in Future made it perfect. I used a clothes pin just on a corner to hold it, and Sharpie for gasket and rivets: A tough area to get right is the side scoops for carb and oil coolers. You barely get body color paint into them when spraying. I used some Tamiya German Gray acrylic applied with an eyedropper. Of course it gets on the edges too so when dry, I came back with 90% alcohol on cotton tips and a very fine brush to blend into darkness. It's always a dusty area on GT's and you don't want a sharp black/body color edge: A big deal for me was adding the rocker stripes which are a MKII signature. The kit decals are silver and the 'Ford' letters have silver centers and are too small to cut individually (for me at least). Some of you know how to make your own decals but I'm not up to the 19th much less 21st century yet. So I measured the decal stripe width (9mm) and made mine 10, using 1/32 Chart tape for the dividers. A big disappointment when I unmasked was that the leading and trailing edges of the upper stripe bend upward due to the curve of the rocker. Maybe I'll remask (PIA) and just shoot the silver-blue top edge. Then wet sand with the cloths to take the edges off: Finally, here's that bad-boy header pipe, standing tall but fitting perfectly with the nest of other pipes. Too bad mine hit the deck. At least now my deck closes flat and mates perfectly with the cockpit: Thanks for looking and please jump in.

I hope he does too, I'd love to have that 10 minute vid. I have his 935 upgrade kit and CD-it's excellent.

Pete, Thanks for a great reference shot. I'd kill to have that book it's in, looks like a Ford engineering reference. That plumbing goes to a Weber, not used on MKII's. I actually made time the last two days to work on my model and think at some point soon I will take more snaps and start my own wip thread. I came across more problem areas from earlier in the assembly sequence that you don't know about until you get to later assemblies which have to fit with them. Mock-ups only go so far. Even airbrushed the rocker panel stripes which I spent a lot of time trying to figure out. I've now got major subassemblies of chassis, cockpit and bodywork-but still a ton of minute details to sweat. My hope is that more guys will chime in with tips, criticism or advice. I'd like to see guys start building this project instead of just looking at it.

Thanks-I knew about the rear carrier differences but never saw that term. I thought this was a MKII interior shot (note water pipes) but you're probably correct about f'glass seat buckets. This is an older pic, not a restoration shot: A documentation CD would be great to have.

Pete, All the photo reference I tried to supply Syd is for MKII cars and are focused around LeMans '66. MANY cars I have found were raced and modified or repaired within weeks of June '66 for things like LeMans trials (testing) or other races in Europe and US. So the same chassis car almost never looks the same in period pictures from event to event. Sure makes it tough to ID them. I don't have a 'source' as such, just a lot of digging and reading. Both pics are in fact a MKII's, the top one at the race. The visible details compare well with 1046 and 1015. Our problem today is that both Shelby and Holman made different mods to the cars they got. You are lucky, your 'source' is the originator of some of the cars. Like Len, I never read or heard the term 'horse collar'-please explain. And does the fact that you're sending material to Matthew mean he has 'renewed' interest in doing a kit or transkit??

Please STOP your talented work on this project and start the GT40 you "promised" me in the GT40 thread.