W-409 Posted September 27, 2015 Share Posted September 27, 2015 I've been away for a while, as I've simply had no time to build anything or visit on these forums so often. I've been busy with 1:1 cars, visiting Cruising Nights, Car Shows etc with '60 Impala and building my new daily driver, '92 Chevy S10. It looks like I might find some more time to build models as well so I'll post this thread on a build I started today. A Couple of weeks ago I was at local Model Car Contest where I bought this '65 Ford Cortina Resin Body. It's made by AirTrax and the body has some flaws, but as usual with these AirTrax bodies that have mold flaws in them, this is so good that I can't find any problems in it. I have only the body, but I'll have to buy a separate hood, grille, bumpers etc for this. They're not needed right now as I have tons of other thing on line first. My plan is to build a Finnish Street Altered Drag Car from the early '80s. At that time, Drag Racing was a pretty new thing in Finland (First race was driven here in 1975) and Drag Cars were home built... And they looked like that too. Driving abilities weren't very good and tracks had no prep on them so usually it was quite slippery even though drivers laid some track glue on the ground after burnout and spinned the wheels in that liquid. Street Altered cars had to have naturally aspirated engines running on gasoline, but otherwise engine tuning was pretty much free. It was allowed to build a new frame and suspension components were free as well. My plan is to scratchbuild a frame from square styrene rod and all suspension components will be taken from my spare parts box. Interior will be very simple and overall I'm not trying to make this too cleanly finished so that it looks like it could have raced in Street Altered back then. Here are some old Street Altered car photos to get you in the mood. "FlatTop Plymouth" and "Wheelie Valiant" "Hitler's Revenge" VW Beetle. Street Altered Escort Beaver Rocker Cortina I started today by removing mold flash from window areas and then I started to mock up tires. Rear Slicks are from Jo-Han '69 AMC AMX Super Stock and front tires are 13 inch tires from AMT Chevy Monza. Because most guys didn't narrow their rear axles, rear wheel openings had to be cut larger and then rear tires stuck outside the bodyline. That's why I did the same on mine: Now when both rear wheel openings were enlarged and the tires fit on place, I did a fast mock up: I would have started building the frame as well, but I have no styrene rod for that. In a couple of days I'm going to go buy some more though. Hopefully this thread will keep me going and make it easier to get back building. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mooneyzs Posted September 27, 2015 Share Posted September 27, 2015 Niko... Its great to see you back here my friend. I am sure you have been having a blast playing with your 1:1 stuff. I am looking forward to seeing what you are going to do to this build. Its going to be a neat build for sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cobraman Posted September 27, 2015 Share Posted September 27, 2015 Interesting, I will be sure to check in and see how your doing with this build. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TooOld Posted September 27, 2015 Share Posted September 27, 2015 Great to hear from you Niko , I'll be watching ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Speedfreak Posted September 27, 2015 Share Posted September 27, 2015 (edited) Niko, cool project . This is so weird, I was thinking about PMing you today just to say hello. AND, I had a '68 Ford Cortina 1:1 when I was a senior in high school, no kidding, that was my first car in fact. It was a piece of work. Edited September 27, 2015 by Speedfreak Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vintagercr Posted September 27, 2015 Share Posted September 27, 2015 That is going to look cool! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gasser59 Posted September 28, 2015 Share Posted September 28, 2015 Glad you're back on the scale stuff. We've missed you. This is off to a great start. Hope you're able to source the missing parts without too much trouble. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Teresi Posted September 28, 2015 Share Posted September 28, 2015 Niko......nice start......gonna be a cool project Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
funnycar521 Posted September 28, 2015 Share Posted September 28, 2015 Loving this going to look cool heres a couple of a car getting built here in nz atm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
funnycar521 Posted September 28, 2015 Share Posted September 28, 2015 some more i found for u Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
W-409 Posted October 1, 2015 Author Share Posted October 1, 2015 Thanks for the kind comments, everyone! It felt really good to work with styrene and resin after a long break. Hopefully I can keep working on this and it won't get stalled after a week because I don't have parts or something like that. Funny you posted that one. It is an old Street Altered car that was known as Footbait Cortina. Nowadays it has been brought back to life and it's running with a Hilborn Injected Big Block Chevy here in Finland. Here's a picture of that car from decades ago: http://www.theaccelerationarchive.co.uk/alan_currans/comp_altereds/page_08/1-CA-143.jpg Today I'm going to go buying some material to build the frame for this, so stay tuned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slusher Posted October 2, 2015 Share Posted October 2, 2015 Glad your back on the bench Niko, i will be watching.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
W-409 Posted October 6, 2015 Author Share Posted October 6, 2015 Thanks Carl! It feels good to be back building again and this project is very interesting. I haven't had too much time to work on this, but I have a good start on the frame. I bought some styrene rod from a Local Hobby Shop and after looking at old pics of a Street Altered car's frame I got the idea how it should look. It needed a bit of planning to figure out how it should be built, what tubing should be glued where, how, and when. After all I hope I'm not doing this the hardest way... These are the longest frame rails needed. They are mocked up with tape so that I could measure how wide those frame crossmembers should be. First crossmember was glued to the front end of the frame. I couldn't make other crossmembers yet, because I must mock up rear axle, engine and driveshaft before so that I know if I have to do bends for them. On my reference pictures the car had very simple rear section of the frame (Part that goes on top of a rear axle). So I made a similar one to my Cortina. A couple of crossmembers are still needed here as well, but I'm going to use them as shock mounts so they can't be added quite yet. So the next thing is to glue these two parts together and then continue by adding more tubings to sides. Hope to have more soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
10thumbs Posted October 6, 2015 Share Posted October 6, 2015 Hi Niko, good car to start building! Looks like it could use a nasty motor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disabled modeler Posted October 7, 2015 Share Posted October 7, 2015 That is COOL...love the old Edsel in the background photos of the resin body...very cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sledsel Posted October 7, 2015 Share Posted October 7, 2015 Cool project and cool car. Parts of it remind me of a Falcon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
W-409 Posted October 8, 2015 Author Share Posted October 8, 2015 Thanks guys! Michael: Yes, it feels great to do some scratchbuilding after a long break. Somehow I think I like doing these modifications more and more, it's very rare that I build something out of the box nowadays. And I believe that a 427 Big Block Chevy with Tunnel Ram intake will be nasty enough for this one. Mark: That Edsel is one that I can't wait to start. It's going to be a Mild Custom, but I'll need to do pretty much modifications to that as I'm going to use AMT '58 Edsel chassis and engine in it. Andy: It's true that those cars look like each others a bit. Maybe that's the reason why I like so much about this Cortina body. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
W-409 Posted October 21, 2015 Author Share Posted October 21, 2015 Well here we go again, a small update. Before I was able to continue adding some more tubes to frame sides, I had to do some cleanup from inside the body. On some spots there was some excess resin that had to be sanded off. I took out my Dremel and sanded those smooth. It might be that you all know this already and I haven't heard of it, but I found out that when sanding resin with motor tool next time, wear somekind of a breathing mask! That resin "dust" is pretty nasty stuff when you breath it. I still have some cleanup to do, especially in the engine bay area. I have to clean them up as well, but it's coming later. Now I can concentrate on building the frame. Anyway this is how inside of the body looks now: Now I was able to continue building the frame. I started by making some tubes to other side of the frame. Very simple and easy so far, just cutting tubes into correct length and gluing them together. Now next step will be doing the same thing to other side. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davewilly Posted October 21, 2015 Share Posted October 21, 2015 coming along nicely. There was a 1:1 for sale on Craigslist here in Phoenix last week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gasser59 Posted October 21, 2015 Share Posted October 21, 2015 Looking good Niko. Glad to see you're at the bench again and that you haven't lost your touch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrKerry Posted October 22, 2015 Share Posted October 22, 2015 Giddy UP!!!!!!!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Speedfreak Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Go Niko Go! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
W-409 Posted October 23, 2015 Author Share Posted October 23, 2015 Thanks so much!I was a bit afraid of how well I would do when I got back to the bench. During the time when I wasn't building models, I was building and playing with my 1:1 toys, but as all of the parts there are 25 times bigger, you can't do such a detail work as with these scale models. But luckily it looks like I still can, even though I'm a bit slow on this as there is still lots of other stuff to do (Just yesterday I repainted my daily driver, Chevy S10). But hopefully I can continue the frame work very soon.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DumpyDan Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Looking forward to seeing how this turns out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bumblebi Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Cool build, I love these Cortina's so it's even better Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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