sports850

Got some colour on Holly's Zombie outreach center's mini today , as can be seen , the body pretty rumpled . It must have had a few soft hits to the sides before being resprayed pink and the paint job is best described as looking really good on a dark night in the rain but hey , it's perfect for going out at night looking for the homeless Zombies in need of support . When they got the body from the wreckers it didn't have a bonnet so they're building something out of some sheet metal that was sitting around . Now to fit the windows with mesh and then start on the roofrack that will hold the "supplies" to help the poor unfortunate Zombies in our midst ...

Happy birthday Doc , hope you have a great day

Nice shot Dingo , I'm north of Coffs Harbour and we've been having the opposite , blood red sunrises and torrential rain

Cool , another mini in the army

Nice looking Austin S there Erik , we only got the Morris range here so somehow Austin's look that extra bit sexy I agree with you too , real mini's have SU's and mechanical distributers , and if anything goes wrong you can fix them on the side of the road , the onlky two times I've had to leave one and walk were for a blown big end and then for an accident where it was still attached to a tree .... LAone , they are addictive once you start on them .... Got a bit of a break in the weather this weekend so got some paint on the body , paints are "export" rattle cans (Australian members will know what I'm talking about , basically very cheap tins of paint that give a good result) in gloss red and bright white (very descriptive names ...) . Will leave it for the week to harden now before looking at finish and deciding on a clear or not .

Excellent job Shawn and great to see you over here too

Yep , I agree , probably more of a lightly armed fast recon vehicle or bait car (drive into a zombie enclave and lead them out) than a heavily armoured Zombie tank but don't discount speed and agility for effectiveness

Thank's Doc , well here's the start of mine , I'm using an old glue bomb underbody since I'm cutting and chopping as I go rather than a new floorpan . To start with I've moved the front subframe/engine/gearbox/diff unit to the rear of the car to make it mid engined (was trialed by the factory in the 60's and by others since to make a twin engined , all wheel drive mini) , I'm only going to use one engine though , I have other plans for the engine bay .... Bodywork is going to be mostly standard and a nice pink colour as this is a different form of zombie hunter than the other builds so far , it'll be just as deadly though , if not more so ....

Ok , I'm in as well , of course mine will be a mini (1:24 tamiya cooper s) and will be "Holly's zombie outreach" .... Zombie's need love too

Too easy , Pendle slot cars make a variety of bodies and their website seems to change fairly regularly , I can only see the van , pickup , clubman sedan and riley elf (mini with a morris 1100 boot) there at present . http://www.pendleslotracing.co.uk/html/body_body_kits.htm I don't suppose there's any chance of getting the broadspeed and traveller bodies copied in resin before you use them , I've never seen any scalekraft bodies down here . Damir , that's an excellent job there , especially getting the (modified) plastic roof to match the finish on the die cast body , normally they look different .

Thank's guy's , I think I've talked myself into the idea of the motorbike engine already actually , just fits my warped idea of modifications . I have the mini diff housing and driveshafts too so they can be grafted onto the back of a motorbike gearbox or have a front fitted to it and chain driven . Dave , I thought it'd take a bit longer for someone to spot my utensil holder It's one of my spare 1275 blocks that came without bearing caps so it seemed like a good use for it . The oil bottles hold , from left - Johnny Walker , Bundaberg Rum and olive oil ... Gotta be careful I don't get the wrong one , shots of olive oil taste like ######

I agree , the original was cool As for your "concept" above , one of my long term builds is a roofless '49 ford coupe with the body sectioned by a scale 4" and running a crank driven supercharged straight 8 Pontiac (I think pontiac from memory) flathead ... The idea behind the build was it was built by a couple of young fella's with whatever they could scrounge from the scrap heap at there fathers sawmill ... The rear wheel flares were an experiment ... they're coming off again

Pretty cool idea , love it when someone thinks out of the box . Now , the question is what powerplant are you using , gotta be a turbo/intercooled Nissan 6 or similar doesn't it ?

This is my first foray into big scale so will see how it goes , I got the kit in a trade and found last night it is missing the engine so will decide on final spec as the build goes on . It just depends on whether I can get replacement parts from Tamiya , leave the engine bay empty or fit a big motorbike engine as some people are doing in the UK (Zcars and others) . Motorbike engine might be fun to do actually , especially since the range of availible 1:12 bike's with detailed 11-1300cc engines . Comparrison of the 1:12 mini body and wheels to a 1:24 Tamiya body , I've got to say though , what I've seen of the big scale mini so far is a little dissapointing compared to the 1:24 scale one by the same manufacturer , I expected so much more detail and features . All parts washed ready for the many coats of primer and sanding it's going to need , I'm sure the body was excellent when new , it looks nice and has crisp detail but this one has been passed around several modellers before me and has slid around in the box with dust and grit . It's going to be a bit of a challenge but will be fun . Unfortunately I don't think I'll get a chance to start the priming today though , there's flooding to the north and south of me here and torrential rain for the last few days which if anything is heavier today again . No problems here where I am though , just not going to go anywhere today so would have been a good building day http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/evacuations-begin-on-nsw-north-coast/story-e6frfku0-1226253775218

Yep , I agree , go for another trailer , it's a good excuse to put up a bigger shelf or build a bigger cabinet for it . So what are you going to put on it for a load or are you leaving it empty ?

This is my ultimate project , though I'm still figuring out how to make the Snow-Trac ST4 tracks it used accurately (though the ones on dptydawg's model before look pretty close , are they from the lost in space chariot ???) . The Mini-Trac was built by an Australian and used at the Wilkes Base in Antarctica , I found the original builder , interviewed him and got a heap of old photo's of it in use and had a 4 page article published in the Australian magazine "The Mini Experience" .

Excellent , thank's for the tips everyone (especially the Heller one , that hadn't come up in any of my searches ) , I'll start searching now and see what I can get a hold of and start modifying

That'd be great thank's Hugh . The previous build's excellent jbwelda , I found photo's of that in my first search , but that resin body is brilliant , have you got the contact details for the maker please ? First up I thought it was the usuall 1:35 resin slot car body from the UK till I remembered they have the bonnet moulded shut . This is to fit the parts from the Tamiya mini isn't it ?

I don't know , everything I've read so far on hybrids being pushed hard (and with decent tyres , they are fitted with narrow , low rolling resistance tyres from standard) puts them as being less economical than conventional cars , they are economical when driven in the city environment but flat out the extra weight of the batteries and electric motor robs economy . Whether the combination of electric and petrol engines helps in power delivery (electric drive might give an edge when the petrol motor is below optimum revs perhaps ???) I don't know but it would be interesting to see all the figures from one racing instead of just publicity figures

Thank's James

I'm hoping to do a build of a friends bike for next Christmas but am having trouble finding one , the bike is a 1981 Kawasaki GPZ1100 , like the photo below (scrounged off Google , not my friends bike) , Does anyone know of any kit's or even diecast bikes availible of this bike or something close enough to modify please ?

Thank's James and Shaun , while it was my first truck it won't be the last , the friend who gave me the fruehauf (Thank's for answering my question James ) also gave me an Italeri Leyland cabover truck kit so will delve into that before too long . It is much more detailed than the Volvo so will probably take as long

Amazing detail , cutting and stacking the piles of timber must have taken days alone let alone the rest of the build ...

I have a couple on the slow build bench at the moment , first is a 4wd mini that I'd like to do full size one day , it's going on a Suzuki Jimny chassis . Early days for this one so far .... and a mini monster truck , the truck chassis/running gear is the USA1 kit while the mini body has been stretched into a ute/pickup with a toy Ford pickup bed that's been narrowed by 1/2" or so . Still a lot of shaping and sanding etc to go yet but I'm having fun

Thank's Leo and robert