Lotus 32B from Resin Joker 33 kit - long story

[absmiami]

The rockers on this car are carried in a sandwich of two bulkheads. It’s a little different than the 33  -  but not much ...

the bulkheads are .015 evergreen sheet - cut, CA glued, sanded, filed, and sanded to shape 

[absmiami]

The rockers and the pedal assemblies are exposed on the 33 -  but on the Lotus 27, 32, and 32B, there is a cover that was made from .015 evergreen sheet ...

mockup of the steering rack and some openings drilled for the oil and water lines that run through the bulkheads on their way to and from the oil tank and radiator ...

the steering wheel column runs at a slight angle from the instr panel forward to the steering wheel - a feature common on Lotus open wheelers - and something that most kits miss ...

[absmiami]

The kit includes a resin radiator casting and a portion of the oil tank casted to the chassis casting. That was sawed away and filled out with some evergreen. The radiator has to be reshaped and given more depth ...

[absmiami]

So the nose presents a problem. The radiator doesn’t fit properly and it appears to have the wrong profile .  So it’s been sawed apart and reassembled with slivers of evergreen. The new profile has enough space for the radiator and matches some drawings that I have for the Lotus 25 - and although there are four years worth of changes to the 32B - the basic profile of the car did not seem to change much...  now don’t be worried about those poor naca ducts that I ruined.  The 32B didn’t have them because TeamLotus dispensed with them on this car - although I don’t know why ...

[absmiami]

Blisters on the cowling - perhaps for the clutch and brake fluid cylinders ?  From renshape - glued into holes drilled to locate the blisters ...

[absmiami]

The 32B has a large brace that also serves as the mount for the instrument dash. It’s different than the frames used on the 25 and the 33 - and it appears to add some strength to the tub.  Openings ground into the tub. With plastic sleeves - the tube is 1 inch scale made from detail master aluminum rod. The instr panel will be a sandwich of plastic and maybe alu sheet - not sure ...

[absmiami]

Correction

brace has a diameter of 16th inch. 1&1/2 in in scale

[Ralph Henderson]

Wow, just Wow..  Nice work Andrew..

[absmiami]

Well thank you Mr Henderson. Was beginning to think that everyone had lost their cell phones ...

In order to answer the question of what kits Joker produced,  I had to locate my stash of Happy man’s Bibles - that was not easy ...

but I found’em - I’ve got about a dozen of them ... so I’ll post a partial list in the morning - it’s an interesting list ...

[absmiami]

In order to answer the question of what kits Joker produced,  I had to locate my stash of Happy man’s Bibles - that was not easy ...

but I found’em - I’ve got about a dozen of them ... so I’ll post a partial list in the morning - it’s an interesting list ..

2 or three Abarths

bunch of Loti :  

Lotus 49  - early season and late

Lotus 49B

Lotus 25 and Lotus 33

Ferrari 166P  

Lotus Elite

Honda R273 and R271 GP

Lotus 63

at some point The caster who did Joker produced kits as K models so it will be hard to come up with a full list ... looks like they made trans-kits too ...

 

 

 

[absmiami]

Don’t think Joker actually produced this but I’m not certain

has anyone ever actually seen one of these ... ?? ...

[absmiami]

Back to the 32B:

the brace that supports the instr panel is opened in the center for the steering column - so it is strengthened with short strips of nickel bar to hold its shape.

then some adjustments to

the brace and to the opening in the body - then the instr panel face is tacked on with sm amount of epoxy to check its fit .... everything is in its right place [Kid A] so I’m now messing around with the steering wheel

the kit casting is pretty good  -  measuring to 12.5 scale inches - for comparison - the kit st wheel from the Finecast Lotus 33 kit measures to 12 sc inches.  Lotus used st  wheels measuring to BOTH diameters on it open wheelers  - so I’ll stick with the Joker kit casting - but I ground away the thickness of the spikes and I’ll replace the center disc with something aluminum - probably ...

 

[absmiami]

Working on the fuel filler pipes. In studying the handful of contemporary photos of the car taken during its one Tasman season  -  I noticed that Team Lotus used the same sort of assembly that was used on the 33.  The restored car uses a different shaped assembly - either way the tubes have to clear the steering wheel column and also not interfere with the bodywork  -  and their is no opening for the fuel cap on either the original or the restored car ..

so I’m using .047 nickel rod - heated to ease the shaping  -  that cleans up easily with a sanding stick -  and i ground away Some resin in the body to clear the tubes as they curve out of the chassis ... it’s a tight fit - just have to add the fuel cap neck ...

[absmiami]

Rain delay at Road America ...

fuel neck. -  16th nickel plated tube from the depths of my material stash ...

[absmiami]

Lower front susp arms

made from .08 m nickel silver rod and tube - pivots made from bent .06 nickel bar - soldered and drilled

[absmiami]

The body casting has a dimple on each side to guide the placement of the suspension arms - the kit parts are White metal - and not too good - so the replacements are placed / pinned to the body with new openings - a little closer angle - there is enough play on the parts to permit good alignment with the rocker arms once it’s time to assemble everything ...

[absmiami]

The casting comes with a great looking shift plate. - but I dont think the 32B has one.  The restored car just has an opening in the monocoque. -and most of Clark’s cars [all?] did not have one.  So off comes the shift plate.  Made some more corrections in the cockpit - re-cited the right side mounting tube for the dash support ...the mounts were not

perpendicular with the front bulkhead - now they are ...

[absmiami]

Wonderful feature this morning on the GP 70 Silverstone pre-race show. 3 of Stirling’s GP cars demoed on the circuit - including the Rob Walker Monaco winner   - which is creeping up to the top of my project list ... same engine that’s in the 32B ... why hasn’t anyone asked me about the engine yet ??  ...

[mad mike]

Well I've been waiting for a while to see an engine in that chassis... bring it on I'd say

[absmiami]

Coventry Climax 2.5 lite FPF ....

[absmiami]

i scratch-built  one Years ago and had some resin castings made. This particular build is for an inclined engine mounting - which is why the Weber’s are pointing downWard.  

[absmiami]

I’ll post pix of the castings later ...  the Climax FPF was mounted straight up/down on the Lotus 32B.  I’ll have to make the exhausts and the “swirl pot” That sits at the front of the engine.  The transmission will be “borrowed” from one your Ford GT 40 printings ...the Lotus 33 used the 8 cyl climax engine - so the Engine casting in the Joker kit is now just spare resin stock ...

[absmiami]

now - what could possibly be better than a site full of Lotus porn ...

http://www.colinchapmanmuseum.co.uk/?page_id=2861

this link will take you to an article written and illustrated by one of the site's curators:  a certain John Scott-Davies - someone I would like to meet some day ...

very good article on Climax racing engines

the FPF illustrations match quite well with the drawings that I used to do the engine castings years ago. 

- on a very good site ….

[absmiami]

one of the FPF drawings fr this article

[absmiami]

this Scott-Davies drawing depicts the sports car FPF - with the generator - excepting this / it is dead accurate for the engine used in the 32B ...

enjoy