1965 Chevy II stock wheelbase

[mvadrag]

This is a project I have wanted to attempt for a while.  I want to make a stock wheelbase Chevy II from the AMT Rat Packer funny car.  I had bought an original little box Rat Packer that was painted and mostly built at a swap meet and I had one of the later kit Street Freaks reissue, so why not cut them up.  I wanted to build the old kit as stock, but after I removed the old paint I saw that the body was warped by over use of glue when the glass was installed.  That body became the donor.

See the warp in the roof line?

I used an AMT 1966 Chevy II (body and chassis) to try to figure out where the fender needed to be.

I cut out extra material for the fenders so I could move it around before final cuts.

I cut out the altered fenders just after the door line.

Fender taped in place. Couple of different angles to check looks.

 

 

 

Edited June 8, 2020 by mvadrag
More text. Smaller pictures

[mvadrag]

 

Here are the fenders cut and glued in place.

Need some body work to blend the seams and fill in the door line from the donor fenders.  I am not the best at putty and sanding, but we will give it the old college try.

Edited June 6, 2020 by mvadrag

[bisc63]

Shaping up nicely!

[Spottedlaurel]

Looks good so far, great that the old kit will be of use.

I was looking at photos of some Altereds the other day, looks like they moved the front wheels forwards on some of them? At least you don't have to contend with that.

[mvadrag]

17 hours ago, Spottedlaurel said:

Looks good so far, great that the old kit will be of use.

I was looking at photos of some Altereds the other day, looks like they moved the front wheels forwards on some of them? At least you don't have to contend with that.

Thanks for the comment.  It seems all the AMT altered wheelbase funny cars that I have seen did not move the front wheels forward as was the practice with the real cars.

[Snake45]

Very nice work! 

Someone else here started doing the same thing a couple years ago, but I don't know how far he got. He was kind enough to send me the remains of his "donor" body so I could do the same thing but I haven't yet started mine. 

Since then I've found a couple different resincasters doing 1st-Gen stock Chevy IIs at reasonable prices, so it might not be worth the work. Probably gonna try it anyway.   Drive on! 

[mvadrag]

Years ago, a friend of mine bought a bunch of kits from a going out of business slot car track.  All the kit bodies were gone (slot cars) but all the chassis and unused parts were piled in various boxes.  I managed to get a few of the AMT 1966 Resto Rods Nova boxes.  Naturally, I will use this chassis for this conversion.  There are a few changes I needed to make to get the 65 Chevy II to fit this chassis, more than I would have guessed because the real cars share the basic chassis. First I wanted more room for the rear tires, so I made some mini tubs.  There is a kit you can buy for the real cars to add mini tubs.

The inner wheel wells are cut away.  You will notice I also moved the leaf spring hangers inboard to make some room.  I also trimmed the sides of the rear chassis plate to fit inside the 65 body.  Later on I had to trim off that little bit of the plate after the fuel tank support.

I glued strips to the cutout inner wheelwells and them reattached the to the chassis.  They are only taped on for this picture.

Edited June 8, 2020 by mvadrag

[Nazz]

This is going to be interesting. Lovin it so far.

[mvadrag]

Here is the trimmed rear chassis pan.

I had to trim the top of the firewall to get the body down on the chassis.  Stock kit part, left.  Trimmed part glued to chassis (no upper nub).

Also trimmed all the nubs under the 65 Chevy II valance panel to get everything to fit.

[Snake45]

Very nice! I'm gonna bookmark this for when I get around to doing my own. 

You going to use/modify the '66 interior, too? I had that thought, have no idea whether it would work.

[mvadrag]

1 hour ago, Snake45 said:

Very nice! I'm gonna bookmark this for when I get around to doing my own. 

You going to use/modify the '66 interior, too? I had that thought, have no idea whether it would work.

Thanks for the interest, Snake.  Yes, the interior will work with some adjustments.

You have to cut off a nub at the front (left arrow) so the interior tub will fit up into the 65 body.  Also the sides need to be sanded down (right arrow) to narrow the tub a little bit.

This really washed out picture, due to the flash, shows the interior tub from a pre-paint 66 Nova street machine fits.  May still need more adjustments when I try to fit the glass in place.  So far, things seem to be going well.  Need to start working on the front and rear suspensions.

A couple more chassis shots.  Here you see how the chassis fits with the rear bumper.  On a real car, there is more room between the bumper and the rear spring shackle, but it fits.

Front bumper also fits, but it is tight with the front edge of the frame.  May need some clearance sanding there too.  I trimmed the radiator bulkhead to fit between the fenders, but it interferes with the back of the bumper/grill piece (no picture of that yet).

Edited June 8, 2020 by mvadrag