camaro69 Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 Hello fellow modelers, as posted in Car Kit News & Reviews section nearly a month ago that I tried to correct most of the body issues this kit came with (because it was a kit with a metal body before) I thought it would be time to start this WIP thread. Started this one already on November 5th. I noticed the most issues without having seen the thread from sledsel before. Now lets start with it... Part 1 - first body corrections First of all I flattened the rear spoiler because it´s much to high (sorry no pic from that). Then I noticed the incorrect window openings and shape of the hood. So I marked the areas on the doors and B-pillars that have to be removed and started with cutting and filing these away. Important notice: "If you´ll try to do this to you have to change the inner door panels too because they won´t fit anymore." Marked areas here... Passengers side window opening done... Here you can see the difference between the done passenger side and the undone drivers side... The A-pillars are also to wide and the windshield opening to small in heigth so I filed away the windshield molding first on the passengers side... then on the drivers side too... then I scribed in the new windshield surround moulding... The rear window surround is also wrong shaped on the bottom of the B-pillar. I added small styrene pieces and rounded the corners. Because of removing nearly 1mm from the top of the doors the door handles looked like they are wrong placed. Looked on many photos before changing the position for the door handle recesses. Before... After... Next were the T-top glasses. Without modifications they look horrible as you can see here... After filing some material away from the bottom and adding some small styrene pieces to the roof where they sit it looks much better... Here a complete view from the left front and back corner. The shape of the outsides of the hood are already corrected. Photos from November 19th... As you can see I started opening the grille. Will add photoeched parts here. Because I´ve seen many T/A´s without chrome molding on the hood I removed the groove by adding styrene and grinding it down to the hoods shape. That´s for today. More coming soon. Hope you´ll enjoy this. Any questions, comments and critisms are much apprecciated. Rico 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TransAmMike Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 Man that a lot of work you're doing to get absolute authenticity! I'm expecting this to be a killer build Rico!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
camaro69 Posted January 15 Author Share Posted January 15 (edited) Thanks Mike, I really apprecciate your feedback. The body issues are very pronounced and if you want to get this body right there is a lot of work. I want to update this thread this evening because I´ve done much more already. Edited January 15 by camaro69 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
camaro69 Posted January 15 Author Share Posted January 15 Thanks Mike, I really apprecciate your feedback. The body issues are very pronounced and if you want to get this body right there is a lot of work. I want to update this thread this evening because I´ve done much more already. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sledsel Posted January 15 Share Posted January 15 Looking so much better. I decided not to touch mine and traded it off. Bought it for a quick build but knew it would not have been that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
camaro69 Posted January 15 Author Share Posted January 15 Thank you Andy. It´s definitiv not a quick build but in my opinion the corrections are mostly simple to realize even for not so experienced modelers like me. Next update comes soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
camaro69 Posted January 15 Author Share Posted January 15 (edited) And here it is... Part 2 - more body corrections The kit comes with one simple chrome plated part with a rectangular formed survey one each side for the headlight housings and a single clear part for the lenses. Found this a cheap solution even for a former Diecast kit. So I started to scratchbuild my own headlight housings as I already did on my Corvette C4. For those who are interested I started with a piece of 0.125 x 0.156 Evergreen which I filed the reflectors in. Its one piece per side but with a vertical groove to show the two separate headlights. After I was happy with the shape of the reflectors I sanded them to the correct height so I could glue a small piece of 0.010 x 0.156 Evergreen to the bottom and the top of each reflector as separate pieces and get the correct height overall. At last I testfitted them with a photoetched piece of hexagonal mesh beside them. After the first housings were done I thought it would be time to correct the sidewalls. As Andy (Sledsel) mentioned in his thread in the reviews section they are completely wrong shaped. You can already see this in the pic above where the orange line is drawn in and also in the next one shown by the orange arrow. Everytime I´m at the model kit building day of our modeling group I hear: "Simply do it." So after a short time of thinking how this could be done I started scraping a groove where the wrong body line is molded. Additionally I cutted in the rear wheel spoiler flare directly beside the molding up to the height of the groove. After the groove was deep enough I simply could bend the lower sidewall into the new shape as you can see here. Because of the new soft plastic nothings broken in this stage. This was a simple step but the improvement is unbelievabe. When I was happy with the shape I filled the groove with some 0.025 Evergreen rod. The triangular opening on the flare I closed with a little piece of flat styrene. Next step after the glue has been dried was sanding down the rod to match the sidewalls shape and the flat styrene to the flare. Here you can also see the added grooves on the front and rear bottom of the door. This was the correction I have done first only forgot to mention it in the first post. passenger side... drivers side... front view... To take away anyones fear the chassis still fits without any modifications. You can also see the opened headlight mounting support panel. As already mentioned: questions, suggestions and critisms are much apprecciated. Thank you all for taking a look. Rico P.S.: Preview... Next part will include opening the sidemarkers, scraping the groove around them and scratchbuild the second headlight housing unit. So stay tuned. Edited January 15 by camaro69 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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