LR3

In the day she might have surprised you. Here she is in 1956, never having left Southern California, she is on her way to my first real job in Minnesota. Little did she know she would be residing in Japan 4 months later. Ah, those were the days.

Yeah _ I thought your battery connections were first rate but I don't work well at this scale so I used two banjo fixtures from RB Motion. Again - thought the Optima colorful for my Rodeo Drive special. Wish I could have afforded one of these when I was young enough to drive it. Not sure it would handle the snow up here though.

Pretty far along with the cockpit. Hey Len or Cato - what is the left most peddle for? I only have two feet - I have heard of heel and toe but now there is one more to worry about. Also my wife is complaining about where to put her feet with that battery placement. She is not happy about where to put all her shopping packages either but I am still going to leave off the tin boxes in the rear.

So what are those tin boxes in the back for? And I agree - it is embarrassing to post pictures of a build after looking at Propellers work but I keep doing it so other builders might be encouraged to post their work and not be intimidated by the experts that post.

I like your body color. I would paint my body if all my paint efforts didn't look like sheets of sand paper. Gotta find some blue tape to use as racing stripes for my Rodeo Drive white replicar. Seeing different views of your model helps me see what to paint even though I have many other reference images.

Lots of information coming from various sources. All of it appreciated. Cato - I like the weathering, used look (tires), wire loom and carburetor bowl springs. My paint ability sucks so my car will be Beverly Hills white (original plastic) with only the frame braces black. I wish I could have afforded an Exoto 1/10 model 1015 but I will have to be happy with my B.H. version. Got the oil lines on! Decided to leave the ignition wires red as this is a Beverly Hills special you know. Not sure I will leave the plate behind the carburetor dish. Hides the distributor.

This is getting interesting. Thanks to all for the help and comments. Didn't know I would start such interaction. I doubt my capabilities will allow me to build a perfect reproduction of any one GT40. I hope you will post some images of your work to date. I am sure we all would benefit and enjoy seeing how you made the plug loom. I believe I can replace the plug wires with black (don't now why I used red, just looked pretty) as they are only poked into the holes. My paint capability leaves much to be desired so I left the pan and heads the existing gold. Looking at all the variations of GT40s it seemed there was considerably individuality in most components and color schemes so I thought I could get away with my own individuality. It is amazing how the kit is so perfect in some areas then wanders off the mark in others but I personally think it is a fun and challenging build. I hope I can make the appropriate adjustments where it really counts and would look forward to seeing how others have overcome problems.

Thanks for all the help. With those huge oil coolers I guess you are right. I did find a picture though after many tries that says I could figure the pipes as metal and they head down the same area.

Thanks Len. I can't find any reference photos to help with the routing or type pipes. I appreciate the help and if you have a reference photo it would sure help me and maybe others.

Need help identifying the white pipes. I believe they are water lines and would have assumed they were rubber except one has a flange on the end. Need to know what color they should be (although they will disappear inside the body when finally assembled.) Half the molded parts are chrome plated requiring stripping before paint. There were holes in the head about where one would expect spark plugs but no distributor or coil included that I could find and no information in their booklet so I scratch built the ignition system. It probably won't be seen as it resides below the plate attached to the carburetor dish (chromed part) if I use it. Below is an example of why I wish this was in 1/8th. The big engine is about the same displacement in 1/8th. It would be a real masterpiece to build this in that scale.

Thanks but it did not have the same satisfaction of a TDR build. This was basically assembly whereas with TDR models there is so much more personal involvement and decisions to make like type of surface texture, detail, etc. The end result though was very satisfactory. I have ordered the Trumpeter GT40 and I hope to be much more realistically detailed with it.

Finished! I will add the antenna when I am through waving this thing around. Really a joy to build. Parts all fit perfectly. Minimum flash. Very little extra detail required.

Crispy - this is what I mean about room for the fuel pumps. Not that the two upper pegs for the bottom of the fuel tank fit but that the two bottom pegs are off. The right hand one is down and to the left of the hole. The left hand one is up and to the left of the hole. If you removed the pegs and moved the tank all the way back it would ride high and fight the to be added cross bar and keep the hood from closing. One might remove the pegs and remove part of the tanks lower right hand corner to move he tank back. I chose to ignore hooking up the fuel pumps and just enlarge the two maverick holes.

I am rather hooked on the Tamiya 1/12th scale too due to the detail available vs the price. If you plan to try for ultimate detail you might want to file the backs of the fuel and oil pumps because there just is not enough room to hook up hoses between the pumps and the fuel tank. Here is another image of the engine. I am waiting for some 1/12th scale banjo fittings from RB Motion to finish some detail here.

The scratch "T" is on ice because building a detailed model like the Tomiya Porsche 935 is just too much fun. About halfway through now. Nothing significant done as the model is basically just an assembly since all the great detail is molded in place. Just a few shots to wet the appetite for anyone else looking for a model to build.

Nuts - The Tamiya Porsche 935 is still apparently in the mail in Indiana. Guess I will have to fiddle more with this scratch build. I have much more fun detailing a sharp Tamiya model than scratch building. In fact now that I think about it I don't know why I spent all that money early on buying Pocher kits. Must have been the 1/8 scale. It is a bit of a problem handling the 3mm screws the 1/12 scale models sometimes require. Anyway "Model T" so far.

On another thread someone asked what you do with the TDR engines after you make them. Well they all, even the elephant, fit a Deuce model chassis. Might have to do a little tinkering as I did find scratch building the motor mounts fun. Then you might even go whole hog and put all the TDR stuff into just the Deuce frame rails as I did below. This model has the blown Hemi 426, Muncie 4 speed, IFS, IRS, rack and pinion steering, wheels and tires all from TDR. It is still in work so there are a couple of wires holding things in place for moving around the model.

Will assemble the engine/transmission with some detailing then this project goes to sleep for awhile. The Tamiya Porsche 935 shipped first of the week. If the kit looks like I think it will, I will be really focused on detailing it. I haver never been disappointed with the molded in details of a Tamiya kit and they motivate me to do my best. Scratch building is a challenge but detailing a good kit is a joy.

The nice thing about the TDR engines is that they pretty well stand on their own w/o needing a mount and 1/8 is a great scale for detailing.

Good eye Harry.

Thanks for the VERY kind words. Sorry for my bleet! Was temporarily feeling sorry for myself. Don - I forgot about Sculpey. Last time I tried it was on a part apparently too small to be effective as I gave up on it but you are right, it would have been excellent for the tranny parts. I wound up using portions of PVC pipe and styrene. Made so many false starts I quit making working pictures. Will add pics of the parts as they go to paint. Been looking back through the forum at 1/12 scale models for economy and detail possibilities and am thinking a Tamiya Porsche 935 might be a great project for detailing. Can't afford the $500 plus trans kit but it would be fun to try to imitate it and build that model. The basic kit sure is nice and not too expensive.

Been laid up with the flue and am having real problems with trying to handle the transmission and pan curves with my limited tools. I will have pictures next week?? Thanks for your interest. I feel constrained in scratch building capability as I see what people do with lathes and mills. Somehow files, sandpaper, pliers, etc. limit me to less perfect detail. Could also be 80 year old hands and eyes.

That model A block, head, pan, distributor, etc. are all scratch built, right? If so, a really excellent job - if not - who sells a "A" model kit in 1:8?

Well seeing as I have more time on my hands than money I decided to see what can be done with left over styrene and scraps from old models when building a 1/8 "Model T". The 1910 technology works pretty well for me seeing as I only have a dremel and hand tools for building on our kitchen drain board (and yeah and I sometimes still call that white thing in the kitchen an icebox.) I was 10 years old before we traded in our icebox for our first fridge. My shop is the first set of squares on the left. The wife lets me over run like the picture between meals. Any way the pictures tell the story and the simplicity might motivate some others to try scratch building. The "T" is ideal for scratch efforts. Price is key here so bolts will be represented by styrene octagonal rod rather than using real hardware. I printed out to scale reference data to use as plans. I have a devil of a time making square joints so I either use balsawood or foam board material as inside support. I just hope I can get past the hog's head (transmission cover), the wheels and the body curve before giving up. I noticed that about this far along one could switch over and build this engine as a Model A. Just add a distributor to the head and work up a different pan.

Had to modify a drawing, the one showing the cylinder head open. I had to resize it so the overall engine/ transmission length was 5 1/4". The drawing dimensioning the head to be 2 7/16 could be used to layout the head. The drawing dimensioning the over all engine as 5 1/4" can be used to establish the pan joining plate.