MPC 72 Pontiac GTO

[magicmustang]

8 hours ago, Rotorbolt73 said:

Yeah, it's a little wide. Only way I see  to fix it , is to cut it into three sections. Left and right taillight sections and center licence plate section . You would have to remove  just under 1/16 of material  from each side of the center section. Then glue back together and the bumper should be flush on each side with the body . Would work great if the chrome was stripped and painted body color. More difficult to conceal the two join seams for chrome .

I'm not sure yet if I'm going to do that . Not like the rest of the kit is " correct".

 

Hey, great idea. I think I could live with body colored rear bumper, same as the front one..

[Snake45]

10 hours ago, Rotorbolt73 said:

Yeah, it's a little wide. Only way I see  to fix it , is to cut it into three sections. Left and right taillight sections and center licence plate section . You would have to remove  just under 1/16 of material  from each side of the center section. Then glue back together and the bumper should be flush on each side with the body . Would work great if the chrome was stripped and painted body color. More difficult to conceal the two join seams for chrome .

I'm not sure yet if I'm going to do that . Not like the rest of the kit is " correct".

 

Fabulous work so far! Much respect! 

I'm hoping to knock one of these out in the foreseeable future. After extensively studying the rear bumper problem (I think there's a long thread on it here, somewhere), I think how I'm gonna handle it is to widen the body at the trunk. Dunno if it can be done with one cut or it would take two, and not sure if the cut-and-widen would need to then extend on up into the roof, but it looks to me like it won't be difficult, and will be both easier and better looking than trying to section the rear bumper. Dunno if you'd want to do it that way, but you obviously have the Mad Skillz to pull it off.  

ETA: Just did some searching and there are several threads discussing the bumper problem. Here's one where I took actual measurements: 

 

Edited January 28, 2020 by Snake45

[slusher]

Fantastic tutorial Matt!  Did you drill the  rear wheel backs to fit over the rear end correct?

[Rotorbolt73]

24 minutes ago, slusher said:

Fantastic tutorial Matt!  Did you drill the  rear wheel backs to fit over the rear end correct?

Thanks Carl , yeah I opened up the wheel backs with a 1/8 fill bit  to fit over the Camaro axel tubes.

Not sure yet how I'm gonna narrow the bumper. But I sure didn't know it was caused by the body being changed over different releases like Snake45 described above.

I looked at the thread where guy widened the body by cutting the trunk seams open on each side and filling the gap. Not sure how much flex that would give or what it would change. I kinda want to keep the chrome on the bumper. 

 

[Oldcarfan27]

16 hours ago, Rotorbolt73 said:

Yeah, it's a little wide. Only way I see  to fix it , is to cut it into three sections. Left and right taillight sections and center licence plate section . You would have to remove  just under 1/16 of material  from each side of the center section. Then glue back together and the bumper should be flush on each side with the body . Would work great if the chrome was stripped and painted body color. More difficult to conceal the two join seams for chrome .

I'm not sure yet if I'm going to do that . Not like the rest of the kit is " correct".

 

Here's how I resolved that issue, 

The quarter panels are too narrow and the trunk ends at too much of a point. So I sliced the fenders and bent the trunk upwards and filled the spaces with plastic. I also slightly widened the fenders at the same time. 

I also narrowed the rear bumper without rechroming. 

I carefully removed the license plate area (which was too big anyway) and took out a small section right in the middle to narrow the bumper to fit (see the line on the top of the bumper). I then attached white plastic to the rear to strengthen and support the bumper. Once that was done, I thinned out the license plate and put it back in place. 

There, thats better!

BTW - I used the RC2 issue of this kit, which seems to have the correct chassis, spoiler and Christmas Tree.

But I planned on using the 69 Olds chassis anyway. 

Edited January 28, 2020 by Oldcarfan27

[Rotorbolt73]

Wow oldcarfan, that's different way of correcting the body. Great work there ! Didn't know it was that far off correct proportions.

But too late for me..Already narrowed the bumper to fit..much in the same way you did yours. It works and can be done by those that don't have the skills to modify a body like that.

So continuing on....

Another well known issue with this kit is the rear bumper that is too wide. Which has already been mentioned here. Each side sticks out about 1/16th on each side . It is supposed to be flush to the body. It must be narrowed to fit the body better.

[Rotorbolt73]

After looking at several pics of the real cars, I noticed the kits bumper opening for the licence plate is wider than it need to be. Just like oldcarfan mentioned above..

So I decided to shorten it by removing a section right in the middle.

 

[Rotorbolt73]

First I make a center mark and then two more marks 1/16 on each side of center. These are the cut lines. Tricky part is keeping them parallel as you slowly cut.

Once cut, you will have removed 1/8th from the center.

Important note: do not forget to include the width of your razor saw in the total width removed. I forgot and ended up taking 1/32 extra out and thus it is a hair narrower than I expected . But oh well..?

 

Edited January 28, 2020 by Rotorbolt73

[Rotorbolt73]

Remove the plating from the back side and glue the halves back together. Using the removed hood brace piece used to make the chassis plate spacers earlier, cut a section to glue to the backside of the bumper halves to keep it straight and strengthen the joint.

 

[Rotorbolt73]

Checking the fit to the body ..much better.
Note the join seam in the middle. The licence plate will cover most of it.the little join line showing on top will have to be accepted as is.

[Rotorbolt73]

Now another item to be modified is the lower rear valance panel. Since the bumper is narrowed , the mount tabs do not line up to secure the valance to the bumper.

Start by cutting off the tabs from the valance and glue them back on so they will line back up. Also trim fit the valance to fit between the lower quarter panels as it doesn't fit to well as is.

Valance panel now fits the modified rear bumper.

Edited January 28, 2020 by Rotorbolt73

[Rotorbolt73]

Test fit the assembly to the body. Much better now.

 

[magicmustang]

Looks much better. I cut my bumper too, and it really helps. Thanks for the lesson.

[bisc63]

Hang you one of those GTO "tiger tails" out from under the trunk lip to hide that bumper seam!

[Bills72sj]

8 minutes ago, bisc63 said:

Hang you one of those GTO "tiger tails" out from under the trunk lip to hide that bumper seam!

I like that idea

Edited January 29, 2020 by Bills72sj

[Snake45]

9 minutes ago, bisc63 said:

Hang you one of those GTO "tiger tails" out from under the trunk lip to hide that bumper seam!

Were any of those things still around by 1972? They were a big fad of, what, 1965, 66? 

Who did that promotion--was it ESSO? 

[bisc63]

23 minutes ago, Snake45 said:

Who did that promotion--was it ESSO? 

Yep. (I had to Google it, I really thought it was Exxon!)

[Snake45]

39 minutes ago, bisc63 said:

Yep. (I had to Google it, I really thought it was Exxon!)

ESSO became Exxon. Same thing. I remember when it happened. 

My Dad had an ESSO station at around that time. I had one of those tiger tails, but I don't remember how I got it. I don't remember him having boxes of the things, or whatever, but maybe he did. I don't remember if you had to buy them, or they gave them away as a premium. I think I had the tiger tail on the rear reflector of my bike for a while. What I remember about it most was that the elastic band  was very cheap and soon lost all its stretch, and that the colors soon faded--instead of orange and black, it wasn't long before it was two shades of dark yellow. 

[Rotorbolt73]

4 hours ago, bisc63 said:

Hang you one of those GTO "tiger tails" out from under the trunk lip to hide that bumper seam!

I thought about using a bumper sticker decal to cover it. 

[Bills72sj]

1 hour ago, Rotorbolt73 said:

I thought about using a bumper sticker decal to cover it. 

Like this bumper sticker?

[Rotorbolt73]

Might use a smaller one. Just have to dig around for something .

Got the engine assembled up after trimming off flashing. Put the intake , carburator and alternator in a cup of LA awesome to  strip the chrome off those parts.  The transmission was missing the tail shaft and looked odd. There was this cone shaped part on one of the part trees . Instructions do not show or mention what it is or for. So I decided to use it as the missing transmission tail shaft as it works pretty good for the purpose.also, the starter and oil filter are molded in with the oil pan. When installed , there is a gap between the block and starter half..and the oil filter is just hanging there on the other side with nothing to mount to..I cut a section of tree sprue to make the upper half of the starter and made a block mount section above the oil filter. 

I had to do some minor trim grinding on the chassis plate trans tunnel to clear the trans tail shaft and to give some clearance for the drive shaft to attach to the transmission later. I also went ahead and glued the front valance panel to the body.

 

[Rotorbolt73]

Been busy at work lately, do not much progress as Id like.

The void in the engine bay on either side of the engine bothered me. So I used the last section of the square brace I had been cutting from along with some sprue flashing and more small slices of wheel back posts to make the section of missing frame rail and a arm dust flaps and arm mount posts. Looks better than nothing..

[Rotorbolt73]

The backside of the hood has these deep recesses molded in for cutting a hole to clear the optional supercharger in older issues . I didn't like them showing so prominent , so I cut thin strips from the parts sprues and glued in to fill it in. I then sanded the obvious looking cut out area showing on top of the hood to hopefully flatten out that spot . I glued the hood tach in place as well.

Also, the kit is missing door mirrors. So I found some in my parts and glued them on per reference pictures of the real cars.

I mentioned earlier that I had stripped the chrome off the intake and carburator . It was some pretty tough chrome and took a couple days to come off. The intake had two wierd holes molded in the runners for some unknown reason, so I filled those in with small pieces cut from those wheel back rod posts . There is also no radiator hose in this kit..so I cut a piece of sprue to make a waterneck to connect a hose to later. I went ahead and glued the carb and distributor on. Drilled a hole in the distributor for wires.  Also assembled up the fan and alternator on the belt pullies.

 

Edited February 10, 2020 by Rotorbolt73

[slusher]

What kind of glue did you use on the hood patch, Matt?

[Rotorbolt73]

17 hours ago, slusher said:

What kind of glue did you use on the hood patch, Matt?

Just regular old fashion testors orange.