#11 Darrell Waltrip '84 Monte Carlo WIP

[Greg Pugh]

I need another project like I need a hole in the head but this one had to get started. Yesterday was my 40th birthday. I wanted to post but got too busy and didn't have the opportunity. My grandparents are/were very special to me. We lost grandpa 27 years ago but grandma is still with us. On my 10th birthday, knowing how much I loved model cars, my grandparents bought me a model kit for my birthday. I put it together and did a fairly good job from what I remember anyways. Lol. I thought it would be cool to buy another one and take another run at it as an adult. We're in the middle of renovating our home so progress might be a bit slow but I wanted to start this thread as close to my birthday as possible.

So here's me on December 30, 1986 and me again on December 30, 2016

Edited April 16, 2017 by Greg Pugh

[Belugawrx]

Thats cool Greg

 

[dragcarz]

Very cool. Good for you!

[Cpt Tuttle]

Oh, lovin' the idea!

[Toast]

I dig it! The recent picture is missing the hat though.

Revisiting an old kit can be fun. I've redone a few that I tried when I was younger. Either just really liked the kit or some I just didn't have the patience or skill to do the kit justice.

 

And you can't go wrong with those Monogram Cup cars. Have fun with the build!

[Daddyfink]

Awesome! Happy Birthday! 

I love going back and building kits that I did back then and hoping I have improved! lol! 

[Greg Pugh]

I'm pretty excited to get started. Thank you!

[Greg Pugh]

Well, we're underway. I cracked open the box tonight. Had a cool little flood of memories looking over everything. Like a good boy, I'm starting with step one.

First modification from being box stock is that the oil pan needs to be stripped of it's chrome.

[Jim N]

First and foremost Happy Birthday!  Have fun building the model.

[Metal Man]

Happy Birthday and I look forward to following your build.  THANK YOU for sharing your 10th bday picture!  Brought back some great childhood memories of my own!

[Greg Pugh]

The quality of the chrome on the tree was pretty horrible. Everything on it will be painted or shot in alclad anyways so I stripped it all. I will probably have the wheels replated.

I also got the heads installed, all seams sanded smooth, and I got the engine/trans combo and oil pan shot in primer.

[oldcarfan]

Yep, it's not the same without the hat! Have fun with it!

[Greg Pugh]

Sorry fellas, I was hoping for a hat too but my wife didn't get me one. Lol

[Greg Pugh]

I wanted to install the nose and rear bumper onto the car before painting it. Problem is, that the nose covers a small portion of the core support (if that's what it's called in this application) when installed and it looked like it would be a bear to mask and paint afterward. So, I decided that I'd paint it now, then mask it off when I go to paint the car's body.

So first, I masked off the body and painted the area flat black.

Then, I masked off the flat black and painted the center section in Model Master's Aluminum Plate

And this was the outcome.

[Greg Pugh]

I was pleasantly surprised at how little work the body needed in the way of clean-up. Everything else in the box is a different story however. Mold lines and sink marks are in no short order. When installing the nose piece, there were basically five things that needed to be lined up. Working our way from the top...the top of the fender to the top of the nose piece, the body line, the indention line at the lower portion, the lower edge, and lastly the left to right adjustment to the fender so that it was as smooth as possible. It seemed that no matter how I wiggled it around, I was only going to get maybe two or three of the five if I was lucky. So I picked the lesser of the evils, got it as close as possible and attached it with epoxy. As you can see in the first pic, the upper body line does not match up and the top of the nose piece is too high in relation to the fender. What you can't see is that the lower edge of the nose piece hung down too far and didn't line up with the lower portion of the fender but that's because I'd already fixed it before remembering to take the picture.

In this picture, you can see that I have fixed the top of the fender and the upper body line. There's still some work to be done here but I wanted to get it in primer to aid with being able to see where things were.

I wasn't ready to prime the whole body yet so I only sprayed the front.

[Bill J]

Looking good. I built one like it recently

Edited November 26, 2017 by Bill J

[bbowser]

Great eye for the details Greg, I'm watching with interest.  Beside some hair and ink, you don't look any different !  

[Daniel Lynch]

Good job! 

[GaPettyFan]

Looking good dude!

[Greg Pugh]

Sorry for disappearing on this. My mom had a minor heart attack right after my last update and needed to have a triple bypass done so I had to go help the folks out while she was going through all of that. She is home now and doing well so I'm back at this.

I started by spending some more time getting the front end sorted out.

The front frame rails were covered with sink holes (see black marks) so I had to get them filled in and cleaned up.

Then I moved onto the rear bumper. Not quite as much work here but still required some work just the same. In the picture below, you can see that the bumper was too wide for the body and protruded out. No way that would've flown with the real car as this would've created some drag.

Before:

After:

[Greg Pugh]

The body is now all in primer and is one final wet-sanding away from being ready for paint.

[Greg Pugh]

I wanted to spray the inside of the body before painting it. I had some other pieces to do in that same Flat Black so I took care of them also.

[Muncie]

Greg, good to see you back on this, it's looking good, nice clean build - hope all is well with your folks

[Shunter]

I do like the older kits, they make you work for a decent finish. Nice start keep it up..

[Greg Pugh]

Thanks fellas!