Cross Kit General Lee.....ish

[mustang1989]

Thanks Wayne and Carl!

I'm currently working on the chassis and suspension. Before I go too far with the painting I've gotta get the stance set up. One of the good things about going with the Revell kit for a Lee build is that it has ALOT more detail packed into the kit as well as (and this is a definite plus) posable front wheels. I've been spending the last three days cleaning up all the chassis and interior pieces of all flash and mold seam lines. It's not tooooo awful bad really but it's been some work.

Referencing this for the undercarriage color coating...with orange of course....

Here's after working on the chassis, rear suspension and exhaust system.





Applied a subtle wash to the undersides to bring out some of the details and add some depth. I also hit up the leaf springs and differential edges lightly with a silver lead pencil:

 

[mustang1989]

In my opinion, there's two major things to get right with a General Lee build: 1.) The car body-It's gotta look the part and it's gotta be near perfect in regards to the look and finish...……….and 2.) The wheels. If the wheels are a flub job then the whole thing looks off balance. I've got one of the rear wheels pretty much completed and I feel pretty fair about the outcome. The wheels will come from the Eckler Corvette and are a little wider/ deeper for a more aggressive looking Lee. I stuck the tire on a 14mm deep socket (next time I'll use a shallow socket for more control and less wobble) and spun it up on a drill with the tire on some sandpaper to achieve the worn tire tread look.

 

 

The hairs on the bench....still floating around a couple weeks after he's been gone. Good ol' Bear. My red heeler that I rescued off of the street and had for around 10 years had a series of seizures that lasted 30 minutes. He couldn't pull out of it...just too much on him. Pretty tough thing to do in putting him down but it was his time I guess. Miss you "big dog". 

Bear on the right:(Not to be forgotten either was Scooter--pictured here on the left. That dog lived to be 17 years old.)

Edited November 26, 2019 by mustang1989

[mustang1989]

This'll be my second go round with these door panels as I didn't prime them before painting the first time and the paint lifted when I tried to apply the BMF to the trim areas. Bummer! So I stripped them and began with priming this time but ended up using Molotow Chrome the second time instead of BMF.
Picked up this new acrylic primer from Badger called STYNYLREZ. It's an acrylic polyurethane primer and I was pretty impressed with the results.

Just apply in thin coats and it goes on smooth as a baby's butt:

Finished door panels. I used RLM 79 with some shadowing here and there and chromed the details and trim with Molotow Chrome:

[adamelvis]

This is a nice, clean build so far.   Looking forward to the finished process .. 

TCB,

Adam

[mustang1989]

17 hours ago, adamelvis said:

This is a nice, clean build so far.   Looking forward to the finished process .. 

TCB,

Adam

Thanks Adam.

Got the console & seats done, interior carpeted, seat belted and mostly underway guys.



 

[Flynlo]

sweet interior!

[Dann Tier]

This is looking like one of the NICEST General Lee builds i've seen!!!!

[mod3l Lover]

   I like it Joe!  Nice finish for sure, and good

call on the better kit for donor too!!

  My plans are still to build a "General Grant"

version out of a `70 Torino !!!   LOL!!!?

        David S.

[mustang1989]

Tim: Thanks man! Glad to have you along.

Dann: Wow! Thanks for the votes of confidence bud.

Dave: Thank you as well! Looking forward to that Torino build! 

Well I've officially completed the interior tub today. All that's left is installing the door lock knobs into the holes that I drilled in the top of each door which will happen after I've got everything installed neatly and securely up into the body as to avoid damage to the knobs during the interior install.
Revell really did everything right on this kit. If you look up under the dash on the passengers side you'll see the HVAC case. AM items include the seat belts and buckles, PE foot pedals, PE steering wheel spokes, PE keys and key chains and of course the carpet/ flocking. All chrome was applied with a Molotow Chrome pen except for the chrome endcap on the rear of the console. I'm pretty pleased with this.

Edited November 30, 2019 by mustang1989

[Belugawrx]

Looking good Joe !

I feel you on saying good bye to your buddy..I just laid Riley to rest last weekend...

Cheers to all good boys

[mustang1989]

On 11/30/2019 at 8:42 AM, Belugawrx said:

Looking good Joe !

I feel you on saying good bye to your buddy..I just laid Riley to rest last weekend...

Cheers to all good boys

Thanks Bruce! Yeah he'd mosey into the modeling room every time I went in there. Of course......he expected his treat you know.

[mustang1989]

First off.....I worked on the battery a couple of days back and decided not to go with real cables for this one. Gonna concentrate most of my efforts on the brake lines coming off of the master cylinder and more so on the engine which I still haven't decided which way to go with yet. 



Secondly.....If you wanna know about stress...…I can tell you about that. I have never seen an interior that fought the whole way going into a car body before. I just knew one of the windows were gonna pop out or that there was going to be an interior side panel pop out of place or something was gonna break while installing it. I can't really turn the car body upside down to do all of this either due to all the flocking going everywhere during the popping and all from fitting this interior up into the body. I had to do all of this with the body upright which made things really hard to do. But............…I got it. Thank God-I got it.



 

[Maindrian Pace]

What a nice build, the paint, the real looking interior, all coming along so well. Sorry to hear about Bear, that news just hits any of us who have had to do the same thing, more than once in my case.

[mustang1989]

21 hours ago, Maindrian Pace said:

What a nice build, the paint, the real looking interior, all coming along so well. Sorry to hear about Bear, that news just hits any of us who have had to do the same thing, more than once in my case.

Thanks Mike. Always sucks putting them down but as you know it's better than them suffering any more.

Okay......I managed to get the hair raising task of installing the wheels all done. Sounds simple but I made the wheel mounting holes on the rims an oval so I could get this one just wee tad lower. Had to get all the wheels at just the right height so I wouldn't wind up with a "3 wheeler". The stance is now locked in.

I also got the back panel all painted up, detailed up, bumpered up and installed. I hit the body with a little more polish but can tell I need to do it again just to get it just right.

[Dave Darby]

Looking great, sir!

[KWT]

This is looking good, Joe!

LOVE  a well done General

[Lowlife ! !]

 

Looks amazing Joe, the tyres have that real rubbery look, is the lettering on them a stencil or transfers ?

don't think I've seen such a shiny General Lee, it was always dirty from all that racing around Hazard County !!

[mustang1989]

Thanks Dave, Jeremy and Martin. 

Martin: I'm definitely not going for originality on this one. She'll be shinier, lower and a lot more aggressive looking than the original Lee. 

[mustang1989]

Today saw the completion of the engine bay prep. The one thing I couldn't get over was the clear windshield washer bottle out of the box. A little weird but I guess they were trying to appeal to the average modeler.




I made the necessary corrections to it and managed to finish up the engine bay today. Shock studs and retaining nuts were added to the shock towers, brake lines were fabricated and added and I brought out the highlights of the steering column with a silver lead pencil. Anyhow ....here's the engine bay all prepped for that 440 engine to be installed hopefully shortly....








 

[espo]

Great looking engine bay detailing, and the windshield fluid bottle looks correct also. 

[marv13]

are you going for the 440 from the happy birthday general lee episode with those moroso valve covers? 

[mustang1989]

2 hours ago, espo said:

Great looking engine bay detailing, and the windshield fluid bottle looks correct also. 

Thanks Dave. ?

[mustang1989]

2 minutes ago, marv13 said:

are you going for the 440 from the happy birthday general lee episode with those moroso valve covers? 

LOL!! No Vi not that one. I've seen replicas of these cars on the streets in the past and decided to build a General Lee like I would like to have it look in real life. Now you've got me wanting to search for that episode though. 

Edited December 3, 2019 by mustang1989

[LL3 Model Worx]

The General is looking the business!

That interior and the wheel tire combo really set it off!

Stellar work.

[marv13]

16 hours ago, mustang1989 said:

LOL!! No Vi not that one. I've seen replicas of these cars on the streets in the past and decided to build a General Lee like I would like to have it look in real life. Now you've got me wanting to search for that episode though. 

hahha gotcha! and yeah it was insightful  and pretty centered around the car!