1977 Tyrrell P34 Late Season Conversion

[Peter Lombardo]

Back on January 3rd, I posted in the “General†section, a little posting about the Tyrrell P34 6 Wheel F1 car. In it, I proposed the idea of building the 1977 late season body cowling for this unique F1 car.

Here is a short recap (well, short for me) of the models that are available in the mainstream hobby arena. Tamiya came out with a 1/12th scale kit of the car shortly after it debuted on the track. I built that back then. Then a few years later, Tamiya followed with a 1/20th scale version of the same kit, which I built about 10 years ago.

Then about 18 months ago Tamiya brought out the 1977 version of this car with new sponsor markings as it appeared in the first 3 races of the year, with the model being patterned after the way it was presented at the Grand Prix of Monaco. All very nice, but I wanted the body style of the way it appeared in the ladder part of the season.

In doing my research on the internet for the body conversion, I found a really neat, but long out of production and very expensive Japanese transkit made by a company named Chevron to convert the Tamiya 1/12th scale 1976 P34 into the later model 1977 P34. Reviewing these pictures was quite a help for me.

On to the wood buck…..I picked up a block of balsa wood which I cut into a few smaller pieces. I modeled the upper portion of the cowling out of one piece and the lower body out of another. Once I had them to the point where I was comfortable, I cut a groove to the shape of the bottom of the top section into the top of the lower body and glued and puttied that into place.

I opened up a hole in the center of the body, where the driver sits so that the vacuum formed plastic would hopefully get sucked unto the opening in the cowl. I had no idea that that would work so well.

So the body went on to the vacuum machine, the styrene sheet was heated and laid over the wooden buck with the shop vac on.

The styrene got pulled down and the body was formed……there is good news and there is bad news with that.

The hole in the bottom of the body did such a great job of pulling the styrene into the cockpit that it actually wrapped around the top of the driver compartment cowling. I mean it was perfect. The styrene filled in the driver compartment so well that I could not extricate the model from the plastic formed body. I had to do extensive cutting and trimming around the opening and finally was able to remove the formed body.

But the mold had a chunk ripped out of the opening which is now being repaired. I think it will be ok, but in order to make a few more bodies, I will have to find a better way to handle the opening so I do not destroy the mold every time.

But I could not be happier with the body after I was able to remove the mold from inside it.

Edited January 17, 2010 by Peter Lombardo

[Peter Lombardo]

The body will get a fair amount of trimming and adjustments. The area where the front wheels are is to be removed.

The area behind the rear radiators gets removed. The lower area gets trimmed out and there are a number of air vents that must be opened up to allow for the brake intakes.

I originally tried to cut them out of the wood buck, but that did not work to my satisfaction, so I filled the holes and will cut them out of the styrene body.

One more interesting note about this car. The Tyrrell team that last year, tried just about everything to make this car more competitive so it looked different in just about every race it was entered in. I can’t really decide on one point on this car I will build. The team struggled with the engine oil cooling problem for many races. Originally, the oil cooling radiators were mounted in the rear on either side of the rear wing supports. In later races, they mounted the radiators in the front spoiler. I like how the oil lines ran down the side of the car just inboard of the front wheels, but the radiators just don’t “do†it for me. So I am going back and forth in my head with whether or not to mount the radiators up front or not. I guess I will just wait and see how the construction goes so I will see later.

The body will be cut just in front of the driver cowling to expose the driver and the cockpit mechanicals. The back portion of the body gets cut off behind the radiators and all of that will be made to lift off. I know I said I am very happy with the way this body has come along but the truth is I am really excited with the look of it. I really sweated the upper cowling shape. I had difficulty in getting it right because at first I just didn’t understand the complete shape of the car. This car is actually wider than the 1976 model, and even the early 1977 model. The front wheels are moved outboard and the cowling is more “squat†and laid back than the early version. It took many light bulbs going off in my head before I could visualize the cowling and get it right.

If I can repair the mold, and figure out a better method of getting the area around the driver opening to work, I will produce more bodies if anyone is interested, but I must worn any one interested, these bodies will require so work and modification to build into a finished model. I will post my progress as I move along, but that may take some time because I need to complete the Art Deco Aero Coupe and the Viper XRT10 before NNL East.

So I ran long, but that is just something that I can not help. And besides, I am so happy with what I was able to do here that I can just not help myself.

And than, as if I do not have enough projects, I stumbled on to another one. I have always liked the look of the 1951 Studebaker Commando, especially the front. So I started playing around with a pencil and paper and came up with a really cool looking custom. Just imagine a slightly stylized and customized body of the Commando with a Dodge Stealth roof and a turbo front wheel drive engine.

This is another car that I will do.

Vacuum formed lower body, on the Stealth chassis with the Stealth roof.

I will do the body in an upper and lower section, mate them together and add the roof. Will the fun ever end?

Edited January 17, 2010 by Peter Lombardo

[Eric Stone]

Do you think it would work to add a "sleeve" in the hole where the chip occurred? You could measure the circumference of the hole, then cut a strip of sheet aluminum/tin/brass/something and shape it into an oval shape to fit in the hole, maybe have it poke up above the top edge of the driver's compartment by a fraction of an inch. Then, when the sheet styrene bends over that edge, the metal will be holding against it and not the weaker wood. If you make the sleeve go deep enough, then the sheet styrene won't wrap all the way around, and you should be able to pull the body off the mold more easily.

[RodneyBad]

WOW!!

King of Vacuum forming..

Just amazing...

[elan]

If you happen to have an extra cowling when you finish the build, PM me.

[vizio93]

I love your builds Peter, and this one and the Studebaker both look promising

[CAL]

It's a Tyrrell P34 "B" which was also wider, heavier. Maybe a P34/5 or P34/6?

[Peter Lombardo]

I have completed some more work on the Tyrrell P34 conversion. This is a conversion for the Tamiya 1/20th scale kit that depicts to car as it appeared early in the 1977 season. My conversion is to how it looked in the later part of the season.

Due to difficulties with the technology in the tires where the rears were evolving due to technical improvements but the fronts were not since Tyrrell was the only team using these tires, the team was forced to make a series of changes to the car at just about every race. The car did not look the same for some times even a day. Because of this, there are so many variations of the car that just about any configuration would be correct for one race or another.

In my first posting, I remarked at how happy I was with the vacuum formed body, but upon further study, I found a number of things that bothered me so I reworked the wooden buck to correct these faults and remolded the body. I am much happier with the formed body now. On the first model, the space between the front tires (left ones to the right ones) was too wide meaning that the body was too wide. Also the side pods covering the fuel tanks had too many imperfections in the plastic so I filled and reworked the wooden buck there.

My mold is rather basic because there are so many modifications to the actual car that I felt that the raw body model should be “adjusted†so that any version could be constructed from the basic body. It is the nose and the windshield area that changed the most over the year this car raced.

After much thought I decided to replicate the car as it was run with the oil radiators in the front nose. Because the car had a full engine covering cowling, there was not a sufficient flow of cool air over the radiators, whether they placed them behind the water radiators on the sides or the in the rear next to the rear wing supports. The Tyrrell engineers then located the radiators in the nose to get the cleanest air and therefore provide the most cooling effect. I think this is not as “pretty†or as sleek looking but there is something purposeful about that look and besides I like how the oil lines look running from the engine to the radiators.

As you can see, I have added wire “lower legs and feet†to the drive figure.

I did not understand why Tamiya left the legs in a short stub position when the entire driver figure is visible when the cowling is removed. Maybe they think us modelers should have to create some of there kits parts to get the true effect of modeling…either that or they just wanted to save money….I think it is the latter.

Next I modified the set by cutting away the excess area behind the driver position and added the six hole on the top.

Also, you can see I cut off the kits side pods

as they will not be necessary with the version I am building.

I have added the fuel tank sides and later these will be detailed with the body mount fasteners, fuel line feeds and the access plate.

I have, as I mentioned before, opened up the openings for the oil coolers up front and added all of the brake and driver cooling vents.

These vents, once opened have the backs filled in and now only have the rear area open of each vent. The two smaller vents on the nose feed cool air to the forward front wheel brakes and the two vents on the side of the driver cowling provide cool air to the rear front wheel brakes.

The small vent in the center nose area feeds cool air to the driver compartment.

The trickiest part of the body adjustment is in the forward section of the nose. I cut away the nose section for the Tamiya kit and shaped the rear to fit over the nose of the vacuum formed body.

This was super glued, than filled with body putty on top and epoxy on the bottom to make it a smooth fit. Next I added the exposed support protruding above the very front center of the nose.

This will be sanded smooth once the putty is completely dry. Later I will cut the nose free from the rest of the cowling just behind the center air vent and the two holes for where the nose attaches to the chassis.

Later I will cut away the back area of the body that is un-necessary.

I have put the engine block together and then move on to the front suspension. This kit is not set up to have the front wheels pose, but I converted the 1976 version I did years ago to four wheel steering and really like how that looks and works so this car will get that treatment also. It is a small touch, but I think it add so much when the wheels all turn together.

I am really pleased with this so far. Last week I was viewing an F1 modelers site and posted some pictures there. These guys are insane. They are so into F1 models that if you misplace a bolt or hose, they are ready, willing and able to point it out to you. It is interesting how the vast majority of the participants are from other countries. It really speaks to the popularity of F1 in the rest of the world vs. the US. I guess the same would be true if you entered a Soccer forum. Anyway, one of the guys gave me a link to a posting that a fellow from Brazil posted last fall where he had mad a resin transkit for this car. His workmanship is beautiful. I did not see a price all though he did mention that he was selling them. My only complaint with his castings is that they are rather thick. The resin produces beautiful parts but they are out of the appropriate scale. The nice thing about the vacuum formed body is that it is very close to the correct scale.

I have run off a few extra bodies, and as I said before I will be happy to send one to anyone interested for just the cost of shipping and a few dollars for the plastic sheet that I pay $3.00 for. I must add though that this is a VERY basic body and much customization is necessary to build up the completed model. I, as I stated before, did it this way to allow the most possible variations and I don’t mind doing the modifications to the car as I build it. But I must state that this is not for a novice modeler. This would rank up there as a level 3 or 4 conversion…you will need some skill to do it but from how mine is looking, if you want to build this variation of the Tyrrell P34 with the full body cowling, it will build up into a nice looking model.

[weasel]

thud..........

[weasel]

ok, back in the chair....

wowowowowowowow, each new build continues to amaze me, and you actually FINISH these!!!

again, kudos...