LR3

Now is a good time to consider how the exhaust mounts also. The exhaust has mating flanges to the manifold. It would have been helpful to glue 00-90 bolts into the exhaust manifold flange before originally mounting the engine. I have not been able to mount the bolts in the confined area now that the engine and sheet metal are in place. The exhaust pipe rear extension slides through an opening in the rear frame/floor support. It should not be attached until the body is finally mounted, then small straps can be made to hold the rear extension from being dislodged.

Before wrapping up the interior, the exhaust and air ducts should be trial fitted. The realistic air ducts were made from the white RP material as a six-piece assembly. There is a left and right so the bends should be inboard to leave room for wheel and tire. Right now I am just checking to see how they will be finally attached before painting. There is a small hole in the sheet metal to allow a wire to pass through to align the parts, which also have holes in their ends. The front collector piece can be made to slip easily over the front hose end to allow for final mating adjustment when gluing to the body. The part mating with the foot box will fit against the foot box securely and it may be prudent not to glue it to the box as you might need to flex the sheet metal when fitting the body. The collector can be temporarily held in place with masking tape. The air ducts will be seen with the hood opened.

Now is a good time to consider how the exhaust mounts also. The exhaust has mating flanges to the manifold. It would have been helpful to glue 00-90 bolts into the exhaust manifold flange before originally mounting the engine. I have not been able to mount the bolts in the confined area now that the engine and sheet metal are in place. The exhaust pipe rear extension slides through an opening in the rear frame/floor support. It should not be attached until the body is finally mounted, then small straps can be made to hold the rear extension from being dislodged.

Before wrapping up the interior, the exhaust and air ducts should be trial fitted. The realistic air ducts were made from the white RP material as a six-piece assembly. There is a left and right so the bends should be inboard to leave room for wheel and tire. Right now I am just checking to see how they will be finally attached before painting. There is a small hole in the sheet metal to allow a wire to pass through to align the parts, which also have holes in their ends. The front collector piece can be made to slip easily over the front hose end to allow for final mating adjustment when gluing to the body. The part mating with the foot box will fit against the foot box securely and it may be prudent not to glue it to the box as you might need to flex the sheet metal when fitting the body. The collector can be temporarily held in place with masking tape. The air ducts will be seen with the hood opened.

Almost time for the final assembly. The steering wheel cannot be installed until the dash and the dash can’t be installed until the body but now would be a good time to address steering. The wheel is discussed in detail in an old thread from Tim: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=32398&st=0&p=324757&hl=daytonatim&fromsearch=1&#entry324757 It is made up from a nice piece of hard wood milled to shape and two metal parts. The secret is to sand the back of the hard wood until you can just see the wheel emerging. If you don’t sand deep enough, the wheel can shatter as you try to cut it out. (I know mine broke into four pieces.) If yours breaks the pieces can be glued to the metal rim as I have done. The steering assembly consists of the wheel, button and turn arm. The steering column requires the addition of a universal to make it to the rack and pinion assembly. Best to have this done before adding the body. There is a deep hole in the wheel/column assembly to allow easy attaching after the dash is installed. i.e. the steering column length can be loosely estimated now based on it’s position with the cowl hoop. If it is too long the end can be nibbled until the wheel assembly slides firmly into place.

Not sure I understand all the communications but here are pics of the engines side by side. The TDR is on the right:

Dan is update to a new dedicated server.

The body is ready for paint preparation. The last detail is to set up the windshield and hood latch handles. There are holes in the cowl hoop for short pegs that will lock the windshield into position. Test position the windshield now to see how the pegs fit and see how you can snap the windshield legs into place because later you will be doing these as possibly the last step in building the model. I will glass in the windshield lastly. Here is a template I found to work for the windshield glass. Although it's resolution is only 72 dpi, it should print out the proper size on most printers. I have used a soft clear protective envelope for the glass material. If you have access to projector film for presentations it may work better. I drilled holes for 0.8mm bolts to fasten the hood latch handles and deck handle before paint. Masked the underside and painted; painting is the least of my specialties. I just can't get that wet look! If you normally use heat or sunlight to dry model paint DO NOT place the hood into these conditions as the hood may warp with excess heat.

Another hang up slowing down production was the fact you could see the pavement in a few places you shouldn't. I used some filler pieces to close the gaps. There are a number of production model solutions in study but I tore ahead with a styrene wing placed on the body just behind the door and a small piece of styrene on the sheet metal back. Once painted black all was well. This is why there is a prototype model.

The door hinges were the next hang up. Tim had planned on the modeler using a hinge tube that was designed as part of the inside surface on the cowl hoop. My prototype did not have this feature. Rather than hold up the build I fabricated similar tubes but found an application problem. I could not seem to bend a proper hinge for this interior tube. One solution would have been to glue the doors shut. I decided to cut a notch from the cowl hoop to make room for mating the hinge directly to the body. I also found I needed to use lateral tubes so the door could slide away as opened to keep from scuffing the side paint. The upside of this is the doors are removable for paint; the downside is the doors are removable. (They can slide out if they are in the open position and the body is handled.) TDR is working on a better solution soon to be announced. But I rather thought my solution was close to some cars I have seen. And the hood.

The thread hiatus was due to TDR re-engineering parts of the model so that their market could be expanded to include a builder with my limited experience. I ran into problems including the door hinges, grinding the interior sheet metal to shape, creating a front air duct hose and taking care of gaps between the sheet metal and body that let you see the pavement where you shouldn't. These problems for the most part are final engineered now and I can progress. One thing I might pass on is to limit your amount of handling the model, as the CA-sheet metal bonds are not the strongest. There is little for the CA to grab or melt between two clean metal surfaces. A thumb pressed against the wrong surface can pop a seam and the joins don't always go back together exactly how you wish. (Tim adds: this problem goes away if the seams consist of dabs of epoxy inter-spaced with dabs of CA glue. That way the super glue would cure and hold things together until the epoxy sets up.) Initially the plan was for the modeler to grind the interior sheet metal to fit the door interior shape. It was determined the front bumper mount and rear trunk sheet metal positions the body and door precisely. Positioning the door interior part should be so that there is the same open space all around the door then the new sheet metal and door will meet properly with no grinding required. The change was needed because I managed to vibrate too many parts and seams loose grinding down the sheet metal.

You are probably right. Tim has made up a new cowl hoop that has the positioning pegs mentioned. I have the initial cowl hoop w/o the positioning pegs (holes). The windshield here is just laying in place w/o attention to actual position. It can't be attached yet as there are hinges to be made for the doors, etc. and painting before the final attachment.

Time to bend and install the radiator hoses. Tim has written a tutorial and posted it in the Tutorial section of the forum index. It is titled: Making Custom Pre-bent Rubber hoses and can also be found by copying this URL: http://www.scalemoto...bber-hoses.html It is tricky. I could only accomplish the bends by making a large gauge wire pattern to help me visualize what needed to be done then making a soft copper wire copy of the pattern so I could straighten it out to get the proper length. The hose is made up of rubber cord stock covered with heat shrink material. The proper length of cord stock needs to have about 3/8" extra ends that are almost severed (I found it just as easy to sever the extra ends and hold the assemble together by the heat shrunk cover.) The assembly is bent under heat then chilled in cold water to hold its shape. There will be some slippage but the assembly is rubber and forgiving. The upper hose is the easiest so do it first to get the idea. The patterns for the bottom hose show a little more complexity. There is probably more than one way to do this but due to the X frame cross member behind the radiator, the steering box, the radiator and the main bottom frame member I chose to come down from the water pump and up over the rack and pinion steering to the bottom of the radiator.

Forgot about the drive shaft! It might have been best to insert one end of the drive shaft into the differential before adding the tunnel cover during the sheet metal stage. The rear frame cross tube covers the connection area. It is a long way down that tunnel to get to the differential. The assembly consists of two universal joints connected by a modeler supplied styrene tube. The assembly can be inserted in separate pieces so long as the U joint ends are short but it is a fiddly job at this time.

The windshield is of the white RP material and has a built in simulated rubber dam at the bottom. There are two indentations on the 427 body to show where you cut holes for mounting the windshield. A small drill to start and some careful filing can make the hole a slip fit. The real cars have a chrome gasket at the body to cover any sheet metal gap. As in the last picture, one can be made from thin sheet styrene. The windshield is one of the last items to install. The windshield bottom mounts directly to plates located on the cowl hoop with holes matching those on the windshield. Bolts may be used for attachment or styrene rod stubs may be inserted in the cowl so the windshield post can snap into place.

Tim and the Madd Fabricator have provided two dashboard options. Tim provides an aluminum dashboard with two glove box doors. One is solid for the competition model and one with a latch hole for the street version. The Madd Fabricator provides a resin version to simulate either a leather or vinyl covered dash such as I used. It will be glued to the body where it meets the cowl hoop. The instrument bezels and instrument decals go with either dash. The decals are of an extremely high-resolution print on white water slide paper. You can read the names and see the numerals, etc. just like in a photograph. You must trim them very close or a white border will be seen. They do not take kindly to a decal softening solution. They can slide off after about 10 seconds in water. The smaller instruments are very deep for their diameter but the decals drop right in. I used pinheads for lights and 22-gauge wire folded back on itself for toggle switches. The glove box handle is also a larger pin with a ball head. The instruments have a green tint.

The Madd Fabricator provided a battery and many other parts cast in resin, I added 00-90 bolts and flattened some aluminum tube for battery connectors. Tim provided a hammer for the knock offs, a jack, hood latch handles and the license plate holder. I was curious as to what could be seen when these are attached with the body in place. I scratched together a fuel pump filter assembly to add to the trunk even though the real car has the fuel pump under the body at the gas tank. The spare tire is an optional accessory. There is plenty of space on the firewall for accessories. I had hoped to be able to add a mechanical throttle linkage like this but my talent failed. So I settled for a throttle cable. I tried scratching together a solenoid and added some left over ignition parts from an old model. I stopped here because when you mount the body not a lot more would be seen.

As for the trunk, there are interference areas between the body and the front sheet metal. Taping the metal in place and making a few test fits will show the areas to sand. Marking the high points with a fine point sharpie helps. The front sheet metal attaches to the radiator frame and the front outriggers. There were a number of complicated small bends like a degree or two that can best be simulated by just creasing the metal but in the end all these tiny bends form the sides of a good looking engine bay. I dropped the battery into the battery box just to add a little color. This is not the best time to install it permanently. Here is how the chassis looks at this stage but only for evaluating fit. There are many steps left before the chassis and body marriage.

A couple of extra details for the engine came in the mail. The kit will now include a triangle cross-section belt and an oil filter remote mount. The belt was cast in rubber by the Madd Fabricator and is to be cut to length then glued at the bottom of the drive shaft pulley. It is a large improvement over the electrical tape I was using. There will be two oil filter mounts in the kit. One to mount directly to the block and then one to mount the filter remotely on the water pump assembly. The remote mount has a sheet metal triangle bracket that uses two holes in the water pump assembly for structural rigidity. It can be seen here next to the coil. It makes sense to bolt the mount to the block using 1mm bolts then glue on the filter. The final motor for my 427 now looks like this. You can see the triangle cross-section belt and mounted oil filter. Later there will be an oil cooler added to the kit for the competition version and the oil lines will then be plumbed differently.

The last build post was in error. I made the mistake of running ahead before Tim could advise me of the assembly sequence. The trunk and wheel well sheet metal should not be glued to the chassis yet. This might be a good place to advise that in the many times one will be handling the sheet metal assembly, glued bonds will be broken if you are as ham handed as I am. Or if you make a mistake such as I did, the bonds are easy to break apart by just sliding a knife-edge into the bond.After assembling the trunk one must fit the trunk and body to the chassis. So the chassis should look like this as you proceed with the rear sheet metal. First you fit the trunk to the body holding it in place with masking tape and trial fitting the body to the chassis then sanding or grinding the body until the trunk and body settle on the chassis with the mounting post seated into the trunk mounting holes. You trial push the trunk against the body rear and sand (or grind) away the body interference points until the trunk front face is at least 7/8" from the cockpit edge like the picture. This measurement is not exact, just an estimate for initial sanding so you do not have to keep mounting the body, as the real key is how it looks from the top as in the picture above. It will require numerous attempts so be patient as you do not want to grind too deep into the fiberglass but the trunk should butt against the rear of the body. The wheel well sheet metal can be slid into place much later after the body is painted and is ready for final assembly. This shows it can be done with the trunk mounted into a body.

The rear sheet metal is complicated and may seem to require more hands than the human body is allotted for gluing pieces together. The gas tank has a bottom, two sides and a top. I found out after the fact that the sides were meant to over lap. I cut them to butt into each other. The sides are to wrap around the top and bottom, not fit inside. The trunk or tire tub fits on top of the gas tank and consists of a bottom, slanted side and surrounding top. There are also two side ears to attach the assembly to the gas tank. The trunk is assembled then mounted to the gas tank with the rear fingers and side wings on the gas tank establishing its position. Attaching the mounting ears became a problem. I didn't know how to mount them but finally decided to position the trunk assembly to the mounting posts on the frame then position the ears for marking. You can see the mark at the rear surface of the trunk. Then I attached them to the trunk. Then glued them to the back of the interior assembly. This plus the mounting pegs on the frame made for a strong assembly. Here is a final view of the completed assembly.

For any extraneous CA runs (or finger prints) it is easy to use debonder or acetone to wipe away the problem. Just use a q-tip and rub the liquid on, then scrub a bit. It might take more than one application.

Just for fun I had to post this view although the motor can not be attached yet as it makes the model nose heavy while handling and the rear sheet metal is yet to be applied.

The cockpit sides are straight forward and slip into place handily. The foot boxes require the most attention as the engine is a snug fit between them unless you pay attention to the bends and trial fit until perfect. It really pays off here to adjust the bends until the parts fit with no gaps and if the front tunnel cover is not glued down yet it will be easier secure the upper seams to the drive tunnel then glue the front cover. The upper firewall piece will fall into place once the foot boxes are complete.

The next sequence of drawings covers the firewall area. It begins with the front cover of the drive tunnel, however I think this piece could be left until the foot boxes are mounted. Having the foot box seams tight will be very important, as we will see shortly. Next is the very important pedal box. The bends here must be crisp as it butts against the ridged floorboard and partially establishes the front of the firewall. One can get tangled up with the bend sequence because there is an aft tab that should be left till last plus the front and back have to be folded up after the sides and side tabs are bent. The pedal assembly, brake master cylinders and the hydraulic clutch reservoir are supplied from RP material. A few trial fits are in order before trying to glue things down. I chose to mount the brake and clutch parts with 1 mm bolts rather than the 00-90 called out in the drawings.