'32 Ford B400 (formerly TRICKY VICKY)

[mrm]

Here is the first mock up with the widened fenders on the 32 frame from the 29 kit and the B400 body, sitting on the Phantom Vicky rolling stock. The hoods will most definitely NOT have the louvers. 

Today I managed to do something I wanted to do in a long time. I cut the roof off. 

 

Here you can see the almost unnoticeable amount the fenders have grown inwards 

 

Tomorrow I will sand the rear fenders and then shorten them in the back as they look pretty ridiculous right now. I was also thinking of maybe adding shortened frame horns and tank, for more traditional look, but the jury is still out on that one. 

 

Thanks for looking and stay tuned.....

[David G.]

Wow! This one has been on quite an interesting journey.

Nice work on it so far, I like the sneaky fender work.

It should be great when it's finished. 

David G.

[Modlbldr]

I love what you have done to this and I really like the B400 body. I have wanted to build one of those for a long time. This is really moving me to start one.

You're going to Louisville next month? I am also planning to go. I'd love to meet up and get a closer look at this.

Later-

[Dennis Lacy]

Looks absolutely killer as a B400! Very much looking forward to following along to completion. 
 

My friends at Bruce’s Rod Shop in Texas come to mind with their B400 on Real Wheels. It gets driven all over the country like all their other 32’s. 
 

[mrm]

8 hours ago, Modlbldr said:

I love what you have done to this and I really like the B400 body. I have wanted to build one of those for a long time. This is really moving me to start one.

You're going to Louisville next month? I am also planning to go. I'd love to meet up and get a closer look at this.

Later-

Thank you Tom. I would be happy if my WIP inspires another build by anyone. I visit this place and go through old magazines for inspiration all the time. It's a shame really that there are no magazines left available. 

 Yes, my plans are to go to Luisville on the 16th. I am pretty much brand new to Tennessee and the southern states, so it will be my first time at the Ohio Valley Regional. My wife was not paying attention to what I was telling her and gave me the look. "You are going to Ohio? For a model contest?" LOL. 

I would love to meet new people and to chat models. I will be bringing few different Vickies there. That is if everything goes to plan. 

[mrm]

6 hours ago, Dennis Lacy said:

Looks absolutely killer as a B400! Very much looking forward to following along to completion. 
 

My friends at Bruce’s Rod Shop in Texas come to mind with their B400 on Real Wheels. It gets driven all over the country like all their other 32’s. 
 

Thank you Dennis. 

That's a mighty nice Deuce there, on your picture. It is funny, how all the rodded B400s are black. I mean even the one Boyd built back in the '90s was black. And he did not build many plain black cars. I think it's the roof. And yes, I am aware of the spoke wheeled one Johnson's made. "Deucenberg" I think it was called. But that's the exception that proves the rule.

I had a change of plans for the suspension by the way. I am going with the front from the Wagon Rod. For a whole bunch of reasons:

-It's very well detailed, much nicer than the Phantom Vicky.

-It's chrome plated.

-I believe it is the perfect IFS for a full fendered rod. The Vicky one is neither here nor there for both fendered and fenderless applications. 

-It is air bagged and it is molded in dropped position. Which means that I can literally rest the fenders on the tires and be 100% realistic. 

-I have never used one or built that chassis for anything and it is a challenge.

 

I have the front cross member already glued to the frame with the fenders, but it required quite a bit of surgery and right now is all clamped up. I will take pictures and explain what was done when it cures. 

Thanks for looking and stay tuned......

Edited June 24, 2022 by mrm

[Modlbldr]

3 hours ago, mrm said:

Thank you Tom. I would be happy if my WIP inspires another build by anyone. I visit this place and go through old magazines for inspiration all the time. It's a shame really that there are no magazines left available. 

 Yes, my plans are to go to Luisville on the 16th. I am pretty much brand new to Tennessee and the southern states, so it will be my first time

I would love to meet new people and to chat models. 

I am new to Kentucky. Moved here in February from Eastern Washington State. I hope I can make it to the contest and I'll keep in touch with you to meet up. I'll PM you.

Later-

[mrm]

Saturdays are the only days when both my wife and I have a full day off and the kids have free day, so it is a designated family day. So usually I don't get any bench time on Saturdays.

Today I got nowhere near as much done on the B400 as I would have liked, but here goes it. 

After the rear fenders got sanded smooth from their widening surgery, they were shortened significantly. You can see all the material removed on the right.

 

The front cross member from the Wagonrod was grafted earlier and the supporting styrene strips were sanded and filled with putty. Now I can have a really nice bagged IFS. 

 

All indentations markings and sinkholes were filled so the frame rails can be sanded perfect before new crossmembers are made. Honestly, this is where most of my day went. Not in the frame, but researching and looking at different Deuce chassis from different builders. I think I have it figured out now.

 

The second most time consuming thing was trying to decide on an engine setup. I don't want it vintage, but not super modern. Or maybe modern with a vintage feel. So far I came up with this - the SBC from the 31 Coupe with an intake from a sprint car motor I had, which will be a nice FI setup. Probably will use different air filters. This makes things a lot easier, because now I can use the floor from the 29 Roadster.

 

The rear will be a quickchange, but with new axles and coilovers.

 

As usual, the wheel/tire setup may change later on, but I am pretty much set on the body pieces. JF resin body, Phantom Vicky top hood with the smooth side hoods from the Dan Fink Speed Wagon and the grille shell from the Rat Roaster. 

 

I think it can get lower still on the front, but it would require different wheels/tires. 

 

Here are the new bobbed rear fenders. Normally I would have cut about half that much, but I am not putting exposed gas tank and just rolling the rear to cover the frame, so I think they are just right. 

Stay tuned and thanks for looking.....

[David G.]

Good call on the engine and driveline.

David G.

[mrm]

3 hours ago, David G. said:

Good call on the engine and driveline.

David G.

Thank you. 
I have an amazing supercharged LS motor that is 3D printed in resin. And I can make it work, especially considering that it’s with a manual, but it just doesn’t look quite right with the rest of the car. 

[bobthehobbyguy]

Great start. Cool project.

[mrm]

5 hours ago, bobthehobbyguy said:

Great start. Cool project.

Thank you. 
I’ve had that body for so long, that I had all forgotten about it, bought a second one, thinking it’s my first time getting one and then forgetting about both of them until the beginning of the year. 

[slusher]

You have a really good looking project going. I like your engine set up.

[mrm]

On 6/28/2022 at 1:41 AM, slusher said:

You have a really good looking project going. I like your engine set up.

Thank you. 
I want to run full hoods and be on the non-vintage side of things, so it’s kind of out of necessity. I like the Inglese setups on some of the current high end rods.

[mrm]

I have been working a little bit on the B400, but did not have time to post the pictures.

A full day (actually what remained from it when  got home from work) went into sanding the inside of the body. Jimmy Flintstone makes some cool bodies, but the quality of the casts is questionable at best. Super thick bodies with uneven panels and horrible on the inside. Thinning the body panels and making them smooth from inside was no walk in the park. The idea is the create smooth surface to which a thin sheet styrene could be superglued, so any further work could be carried like a normal plastic model with plastic glue and styrene. Also, I wanted that edge on the top of the body that the real car has under the roof.

 

The windows were opened again, bringing my attention to the totally washed out detail around the windows. This is probably the result of molds used countless times over the ages. 

 

I had to carve that detail freehand with the back side of an exacto blade. 

 

Now the interior work could begin. 

First I cut the upper portion from the DAn Fink Speed Wagon's interior panels and sanded their backs to be smooth, because they are designed to accept windows in the back. 

 

Next I needed to create new notched surface for rear windows. It seems crazy that I first erased the window notches and then had to recreate them with sheet styrene, but this way the notch will be exactly the thickness of the sheet clear I am going to use for windows. In the long run it is the easier and faster way of doing it. 

 

Next I cut out of styrene side panels for the interior, which are going to sit right under the upper trim from the Speed Wagon. 

 

This is going to start building the panels back to the trim's thickness and also create a guiding edge for that upper trim. So the new panels are glued in place.

 

They will hold on its upper edge the trim.

 

At this point I was working with a very sturdy body, not having to worry about the brittle resin, which I had sanded pretty thin. I made templates for each interior panel.

 

I had added a line continuing from the windshield under the same angle.

 

I don't have a well stocked hobby shop anywhere near me (well it's mostly RC stuff) but they have quite a bit of

Evergreen products. One of the siding/roofing V-groove sheets they had matches the size of the Speed Wagon's seat upholstery to the "T".

 

I placed my interior templates on the the plastic sheet, aligning my marks with the grooves on the panel.

 

Now I have door panels with angled design matching on both sides and also creating a subconscious continuation of the windshield angle. 

 

Once satisfied, I added a strip of styrene on the bottom of the doors to create a kick panel portion.

 

And then defined it with the thinnest square rod I had.

 

Now my interior is starting to take shape....

 

Edited July 1, 2022 by mrm

[mrm]

ohhh...... I forgot to say.....

I have to do this all over now, because I did it to my second body, which was very problematic, as a test how things would work out. The problem with the second body was, that the roof had a huge blemish in it, which can not be removed as it would ave distorted the texture on it. Also, the body was "spread on the bottom, where it became way too wide for the frame. So what I did, was superglue the firewall from the Revell 5 window kit to bring it exactly to shape. After I did all the work and I started liking it, I found out that I can not use the body for my original plan because when I cut the roof off the body spread a little on top, where it would not accept the good roof from the other casting. So the plan is to build two B400 models and leave one of them open. 

Now back to sanding. LOL

 

Thanks for looking and stay tuned......

[slusher]

I have never seen using evergreen sheets to hide the roughness and uneven areas on resin bodies before.  I won’t  forget it  that’s really neat  and gives you a smooth area to start interior work..

[89AKurt]

Carl talking about your interior got me to look, and I like what you're doing.  Some resin bodies are intended to be curbside, so that's a drawback.

[mrm]

After a lot more sanding, at the end of the day today I got two B400s with styrene interiors. 

 

I also got most of my chassis done. As simple as it looks, it fought me all the way. But it was worth it at the end. I looked at countless Deuce chassis and finally settled on this simple design. I have seen it used by anybody, from Boyd Coddington to Pinkees and Brizio. 

 

It was set up to accept the SBC from the '29 Roadster. I still ned to figure out the rear end.

 

And the 1000th mock up. LOL

Thanks for looking and stay tuned....

[stitchdup]

Its got a cool look to it

[David G.]

Fabulous work building the interior, you are a master styrene wrangler!

David G.

[Misha]

Wow Michael, that is master craftsmanship you are achieving with this build. To finesse the interior while tackling the thick Flintstone body is quite an endeavour which you perfecting! I’ve often rebuilt the interiors of the early AMT releases that lacked detail, yet I would be hard pressed to thin down thick resin. This will be a worthy addition to your Deuce collection.

Congrats Misha

[Modlbldr]

Michael,

Loving the work you did on this. And to think, you did it twice! I can't wait to see them in person in Louisville. Got to.get me one.of these B400's

Later-

[mrm]

On 7/4/2022 at 1:51 AM, stitchdup said:

Its got a cool look to it

Thank you. I always loved the look of the B400 body.

On 7/4/2022 at 6:27 AM, David G. said:

Fabulous work building the interior, you are a master styrene wrangler!

David G.

Thank you David. I don't know about the "master" part, but I definitely wrangle styrene. LOL

 

On 7/4/2022 at 10:52 AM, Misha said:

Wow Michael, that is master craftsmanship you are achieving with this build. To finesse the interior while tackling the thick Flintstone body is quite an endeavour which you perfecting! I’ve often rebuilt the interiors of the early AMT releases that lacked detail, yet I would be hard pressed to thin down thick resin. This will be a worthy addition to your Deuce collection.

Congrats Misha

Thank you Misha. It is not that hard, but it burns a lot of my time and is tedious work. And I am on a timeline sort of, even if self imposed. 

 

13 hours ago, Modlbldr said:

Michael,

Loving the work you did on this. And to think, you did it twice! I can't wait to see them in person in Louisville. Got to.get me one.of these B400's

Later-

Thank you Tom. Looking forward meeting you. I just have some pessimistic thoughts about finishing it up for the show starting to sneak in my head. Either way, finished or not, I'll bring both models to the show. 

[mrm]

Now, little update on the rear end.

I started with a resin copy of the quickchange from the Tom Daniel Paddy Wagon. I made a bunch of those few years back. I have no idea where the mold is, but I found a little baggy with few copies in a box. I drilled the center and threaded an aluminum rod through, which about matches the diameter of the Phantom Vicky's rear axle. This way the wheels fit perfectly on it. No need to square the off or mess with fabricating special hubs. I am starting to go back to time saving mode. LOL

 

Next I filed away space for the rear radius rods in a square styrene rod....

 

Drilled through it and through the rod ends and pinned it after I narrowed it.

 

Cut off the excess material and file under an angle with a round file, so my new brackets can sit nice on the tubular cross member.

 

Now I have the geometry for a nice rear suspension all set up.

 

I spent considerable time sanding inside the rear fenders. Not fun at all! Next I need to set up rear airbags and shocks and I can move to primer/paint stage for the bottom part of the B400. I also need a transmissio bracket but I am still on the fence about how to make it. 

Stay tuned and thanks for looking.....