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'65 Ford Cortina Street Altered


W-409

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Thanks Dan and Johan! I like these Cortinas, too. One of the best looking European cars ever done.^_^

Today I was assembling my Chevy S10 together as the paint on its body was dry. After that I took one Gene Vincent's LP Record and put it in my record player (Gene Vincent - Rocky Road Blues) and did a little work with this. I didn't have much time to build though, but I was still able to add some tubings to other side of the frame. Now it looks like this and I believe I'm ready to start mocking up suspension parts to figure out how to continue building the frame...

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Thanks Gene!

Now I got my 1:1 '92 Chevy S10 back together and back on the road, I hope I have some more time to work with these models again.

Today I was searching for parts on this one. Because I want to mock up rear suspension to get an idea where spring mounts etc need to be attached, I started by digging out a proper set of Slot Mag wheels to rear slicks. I need to strip that chrome plating off from them and then they'll be painted Magnesium color. Inner wheels / wheel backs (Whatever they are called) are from my parts box too. They don't fit quite perfectly, but I guess I can live with it.

But right now there are two problems concerning the wheel & tire combination. First problem is that my rear slicks are very rough and it would be best if I found another pair of them that was in better shape. But as those slicks can be found from old Jo-Han kits only (As far as I know at least), they are not the easiest ones to find. Probably I'll end up trying to restore those that I have, but honestly I'm not sure if I can fix them good enough or not. My other problem is front wheels. As the tires are small 13" Good Years (These Street Altereds had often quite little front tires), it's very hard to find proper steel wheels on that size. Hopefully I can find a set from somewhere though.

DSCN2785_zpsugkzhikw.jpg

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Another part I found today was a rear axle. It's from Monogram '56 Chevy. I didn't find one that was exactly like I wanted, so I think I will have to modify one using that Chevy axle as a starting point. It needs a bit widening and a new set of leaf springs, and Ladder Bars of course.

DSCN2789_zpszpypq4yk.jpg

As it needs widening and new leaf springs, I cut both leaf springs away and now it's ready to be widened with some styrene rod. I hope I can make it, but this is a good axle as if I screw up, I have lots of these in my parts box so I can start over...B)

DSCN2792_zps7jtetm4t.jpg

 

Edited by W-409
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Front tires that i Think should work on this Cortina is the tires that comes with the new revell Vega Funny car (Jungle Jim)

I have used these front tires on a Datsun  510 drag car build. 1/25

But the Cortina is 1/24 scale? i´ll think. Mabye the tires looks to  Small on this body? check it.

The tires in the Vega FC kit are no brand on it,so decals are needed if you want the good year logo.

Fred

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Brad: Thanks! It's great that there are guys who like to follow my projects. I sure hope I can find all parts, too, because right now I really feel like I want to work on this and get some more work done. It's funny how sometimes you can't find correct parts even if you had many parts boxes with lots of parts. That's what happens to me too often, but hopefully not this time.

Joe: Thank You! Yes it's true that it's impossible to stop building models completely. That's just what happened with my dad who hadn't been building models for a couple of decades until I got started when I saw one of his old builds. Since then he has been slicing plastic constantly too, even though he is a super slow builder.:lol:  It's sad that 1:1 cars take so much time from these smaller scale cars, but it is very nice to work on both. Plus, with 1:1 cars it's possible to enjoy the ride once they're done.:D

Fredrik: Thanks for the tip! I will have to check how those Vega's tires look on this body. I actually have one of those Vegas sitting on my stash so it should be an easy check. However, I believe that the scale difference between 1:24 and 1:25 is so small that it doesn't matter. At least I have always mixed both scale parts together in my builds. And not having the Good Year logo doesn't really matter, I think most of these cars had somekind of regular front tires without fancy white letters or anything.B) But that's a very good tip, I'm gonna check it out very soon...Thanks!

 

I did some minor work today on this. Hopefully I can continue the rear axle business tomorrow so I could post an update. Stay tuned.

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Thanks Jason and Gene, I appreciate the kind words!

I haven't been able to get any bench time. I'm coming to watch the NHRA Finals in Pomona with my dad and our flight is leaving on Tuesday. That is keeping me busy right now with packing & finding some places to visit in California (Mostly Speed Shops, Cruise Nights, Hobby Shops etc :D). That combined with other stuff (1:1 cars) takes basically all of my time right now. Hopefully I can do something to the Cortina though before the trip... Otherwise I'll be back on the bench after that and I sure don't want to wait that long before I can get back to the bench...

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Well today I was able to snitch a bit of bench time to work on this. Those rear slicks looked kind of sad since they were pretty rough so I thought I should try to restore them a bit. I wasn't quite sure if it was possible to rescue them or not, but I started with a fine file to get rid of the biggest scratches and other problems. Then I continued by sanding with 600 and 1000 grit sandpapers and actually the tire started to look much better. Then I painted Firestone textes with Revell Flat White and a toothpick. Looks like I can use these tires under the Cortina anyway, but I still need to restore that other tire. It is in better condition than this one I just restored, though so it should be a bit easier.

Unrestored tire is on the left and restored one on right. It's not perfect, but I think I can live with it.

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Thanks Ray and Darren!

Darren, do you have a picture of that Pro Mod? It would be very interesting to see how it looks, Pro Mods are very neat cars to follow.

Well now it's going to be about two weeks break on this build as our flight to Pomona is taking off tomorrow morning. But when we come back I guess it's time to continue this one...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well (unfortunately) I'm back in Finland again so it's time to continue this project. I accidentally found another rear axle for this one, it's from the same Monogram '56 Chevy as that white one I was going to use. Someone had already removed leaf springs from this axle and it was wide enough...Actually even a bit too wide so I narrowed it a little. This was much easier solution to use this axle, plus that when these resin bodies are much heavier than regular plastic bodies, I'm not sure if that widened axle and especially its glue joints could have handled the weight in long run.

This new axle is a bit rough, but I will have to smooth it out.

To make rear wheels fit with that axle, I had to drill bigger holes to backside of them. After a fast mock up, looks like the tires fit just right and stick outside the bodylines a little, just like many of these cars did back then!

I guess next step will be figuring out rear springs and Ladder Bars...

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Thanks! It feels good to be back building this. The trip was a lot of fun, too. Lots of cool places to see and no need to go in those massive shopping centers as it was just me and my dad there. Instead we were shopping in places like Classic Industries, So Cal Speed Shop, Mooneyes, Barris' Shop etc...And of course in many Hobby Shops, too :D ! Cruising Nights, Drag Racing etc...Couldn't get much better!

Today I started filling the hole that '56 Chevy rear axle has on its upper side. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get that thing done so I might post a couple of pics then.

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Yesterday I was working with the rear axle again and it's starting to take shape now, but while it was drying I decided to restore another rear tire using the same methods I did on the first one. Those tires are far from perfect, but "Good enough for the girls I go with" as they say. :lol:  Honestly I think I just have to live with them as I believe I'm not going to find another set of them anyway.

Of course a closeup shot like that shows all those little flaws much better than you see them in person. But even though they look better in person, they're not perfect.

 

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Here's a little update on the rear axle. It had a huge hole on upside of the axle that needed to be filled. Well it might be that no one could have seen that hole on finished build, but as I can't be sure I decided to cover it with pieces of sheet styrene. After some rough shaping with a file, I started to smooth it out with putty.

First two pics show the axle with first round of putty sanded smooth and the third picture shows I still had to put some more putty to that area before it's completely smooth.

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Thank You! I've been trying to do as good job as I can on these things, but I got to say that I'm miles behind some of you guys.:D Especially it's great to see many of you working with metal on your models. It often looks very good so maybe some day I might do the same on my builds. But so far I'll stick with plastic and resin... I get to do enough metal work with those 1:1 cars (And I just bought a new project car for myself).:lol:

Here are two more pics of the rear axle. After a couple of rounds of putty and sanding it's starting to look smooth. Still a few spots are in need of filler, but otherwise it's really close to Primer. Now I can also start searching for correct leaf springs for this and mock them up into the chassis...Stay tuned.

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  • 3 weeks later...

After a lot of putty & sanding I thought the rear end looks good enough to be sprayed with primer. I glued the axle from one end to a plastic stick so I could spray it easily from all over. After a couple of primer coats I still see some spots that need a bit of fixing, but overall it looks decent. I'll put some more filler on it tomorrow and hopefully when I've sanded that smooth I can continue mocking up the rear end with some leaf springs.

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