DanielG

I just assumed that the wheels were also powered! Great, fun build.

Part of the beauty of doing it for someone else is being able to bounce ideas back and forth during the build (but when it comes to the actual construction it is "... oh no, do whatever you have to do.)!

Great engine, just like any engines in any of the cars I have owned, only cleaner!

It is not evident in these pics but the bolsters for the chassis screws are set in awkward places in the rear, one beside the tail-gate and the other in the corner so that no one method of hiding them has yet presented itself to my poor old brain.

Well, I didn't get the box completed but managed to get the deck fitted and the wheel wells sorted out. It was after carefully getting all the supports leveled up that I discovered that everything changed when the chassis was bolted to the body!(sigh) Here you can see the separation of the box components to allow assembly and disassembly, something to keep in mind when doing these conversions. The fit so far, bulkhead detail and sides to be added yet and then the shaping of the box at the tail-gate, something still to figure out.

Check out James May and his toy stories on You-Tube, especially the Airfix model kit one. Priceless!

Thankyou for the kind words. Yep, it is die-cast with a lot of hacking, filling and sanding!

Wicked!

Very nice clean build, when are you going to throw mud at it!

Thanks, Rusty, Fridays are unpredictable, I may get a lot done or nothing, I hope to get the box completed tomorrow.

...there ain't no sense in goin' back cause Jody's already in your sack... You have a good attitude, you will be A-One before you know it!

This was my first car conversion done for a client. The car was shortened about eighteen scale inches behind the door and lowered. The rear deck and head-rests were made to heighten the coolness factor (for those who like that sort of thing) and the spare-tire housing molded into the trunk-lid. The rag-top would have folded under the deck out of sight. The paint is Tamiya Light-gunmetal left in a satin finish.

Sat around most of the day trying to plan the sequence of the deck construction. Chopped out some of the hump and added some of the deck support. We decided that we would give it a bit of a rake while we were at it and maybe put on some GMP wheels and tires or maybe not!

Bondo, milliput, JB-Weld, melted sprue in liquid glue, CA, they all have their uses depending on what you are trying to achieve. I'm sure there are more favourites out there.

Pretty much primered. Gutter to be added along the roof line and final sanding to come. Now to start on the deck which on this one I think I will be building on the chassis and try to get everything to line up under the body.

Well, you learn something new everyday!

I might also add that as well as the saw mentioned above I used a battery of small files and what seemed like reams of sandpaper! If you are going to make any serious mods to a die-cast car then you pretty much have to disassemble it and remove all the plastic bits. If you are lucky you can do this without trashing the paint (if you plan on retaining it). I have a '58 Impala on my bench and watching this build will pretty much show any of the methods employed in previous builds.

I completed this before any thought of documentation on a web site so I have no pictures of the build. I used a Zona saw to make the cuts. I rehashed the suspension to give a bit of a rake and widened the rims to accommodate the GMP tires. Added some brass and rubber brake lines and gas line. I was able to hack and chop the thing to get the Ford V8 mounted, no easy task! The folded rag-top cover is leather glued over a wooden base and then painted and 'tacked' to make it look like it has snap fastenings. I have pretty much given up on trying to remove the factory paint from die-cast and just sand and primer over it (it is baked on solid and supplies a good base). The doors were altered to a rear hinge just because I think it looks cooler on older cars and I really hate the large hinge that die-cast cars come with. The box cover is plastic. The rest is just little details that came to mind at the time and I could probably have done more but I was anxious to move on to something else (I am thinking it was a front pumper fire truck (converted from the HWY61 mid-pumper) which is now at the local firehall and I would like to get some pictures of it and post them here).

I like the satin finish.

Nice job on the fans.

Good start to this one.

What he said, like the two-tone.

Nice paint. I had to put on my sun-glasses to look at it!

Some guys use bits of small expansion springs. I think I salvaged these from an old VCR or something.