Trumpeter 1966 GT40 MkII LeMans 3rd Place

[JHDrew]

Well, after warming up with a couple of shake & bake kits it’s time to get down to a little more challenging work.

I have decided to tackle the Trumpeter 1/12th scale GT40 MkII kit with use of the KA Models full detail set. My plan is to do the gold number 5, third place finisher, at the 1966 LeMans 24 hour race. I see that there is another gentleman on the board that started his a while back, but I’m going to post my build up too.

I wanted to get the most tedious portion of the project out of the way first. The seats.

KA Models provide some resin cast seats that have far too many bumps and wrinkles to represent a fairly new seat the GT40. The first thing I did was take down all the high ridges with small Dremel cutting tool. I still left some in but the seat doesn’t look 50 years old anymore. Next I drilled the small location holes a little deeper for all 228 grommets. After that I used the Dremel and a 3/16 inch ball cutter to add a recess to each grommet location. Then I drew a line vertically between each hole with a 3/32 inch ball cutter to give it more depth. Finished it all up with sanding sticks and then shot them with Tamiya Matt Black spray. Don’t forget to remove any mold release agents.

The installation of the grommets started out to be very cumbersome so I had to figure out a way to do it a bit faster. The grommets come mounted on a sheet and are all self adhesive. The following is a little tutorial for anyone who plans on using the KA Models detail set.

Here are the seats after the rework, clean up and paint.

First, you will need a sharp toothpick, pointed tweezers and another blunt ended toothpick.

Start by peeling back enough of the thick clear film to expose three rows of grommets and cut that portion of protective sheet away with scissors. Bend the coated sheet with the grommets on, in order to lift the edge of one off the sheet. Use the tweezers to remove that grommet. Keep cutting portions of the protective film away to expose three more rows as you finish.

You can transfer the grommet down to the seat with the tweezers and use the pointed end of the toothpick in the grommet hole to align it in place. After it’s aligned, use the tweezers again to hold the grommet down and lift the toothpick away.

Tamp down the grommet with the blunt ended toothpick. After all the grommets are in place I shot the entire seat with Tamiya Semi-Gloss Clear. This seals in the grommets and cuts down on the ultra bright chrome look they have.

Well after about four total hours, and the help of the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club playing in the background to keep me motivated, here’s the results.

It’s really not that bad once you find a rhythm.

I hope the car looks a little like this when it's done.

Edited March 4, 2011 by JHDrew

[Bobdude]

Thanks for the seat tutorial.Makes doing my seats alot easier.

[Pete J.]

Nice job but here is a point of interest for you. Trumpeter did not make the seats right for a Mark II. Those are seats from a Mark I. Here is a photo of the seats from the gold car when it was being restored at Holman Moody in 2000. The car as it stands now is a Mark IIB with twin carbs but the interior would be unchanged. It is unlikely that anyone at a contest would know the difference, so I wouldn't be afraid to leave them alone.

[JHDrew]

This kit has a bunch of flaws. I'm not going to do a total correction to it. I just want to do a clean build with what I have.

Thanks for the input.

Jim

Nice job but here is a point of interest for you. Trumpeter did not make the seats right for a Mark II. Those are seats from a Mark I. Here is a photo of the seats from the gold car when it was being restored at Holman Moody in 2000. The car as it stands now is a Mark IIB with twin carbs but the interior would be unchanged. It is unlikely that anyone at a contest would know the difference, so I wouldn't be afraid to leave them alone.

[Cato]

Jim,

Your building skills are such that you will quickly see that the KA set is mostly trash, too expensive and far more work to correct than it's worth. The work you did on the seat shapes is an example. The grommets are also too big for scale effect.

You will tear your hair out with the gauge bezels and shift gate and find that the exhaust and engine pulleys are useless. You can do much better yourself. The brakes are unseen as is most of the detail the way Trump engineered the car. The shape however is magnificent.

I followed 4 or 5 other builds with this set where the builders either did their own details (not using the KA stuff they bought) or gave up the whole project because of it. My own build avoided that and was very satisfactory with a lot of improvements.

You're right to do the best you can rather than shoot for a 100% recreation of !016. The fuel pumps and many details Trump did for 1046 are wrong for 1016 anyway. Best luck and keep posting.

[JHDrew]

Cato,

Thanks for the input on the KA detai set. Kept wishing the grommets were smaller during the install

I bought the KA kit when it first came out. I also had a feeling there were going to be issues with it.

I will do what I can with it and of couse bail out where needed. I will continue to post the corrections & work arounds

There is plenty of potential to make a great display piece. Contest piece? No way unless you rebuild most of it.

Jim,

Your building skills are such that you will quickly see that the KA set is mostly trash, too expensive and far more work to correct than it's worth. The work you did on the seat shapes is an example. The grommets are also too big for scale effect.

You will tear your hair out with the gauge bezels and shift gate and find that the exhaust and engine pulleys are useless. You can do much better yourself. The brakes are unseen as is most of the detail the way Trump engineered the car. The shape however is magnificent.

I followed 4 or 5 other builds with this set where the builders either did their own details (not using the KA stuff they bought) or gave up the whole project because of it. My own build avoided that and was very satisfactory with a lot of improvements.

You're right to do the best you can rather than shoot for a 100% recreation of !016. The fuel pumps and many details Trump did for 1046 are wrong for 1016 anyway. Best luck and keep posting.

[Len Woodruff]

Good to see a post from you Jim. Been a long time. Looking foward to you making a Silk Purse from a Sows ear!

[Pete J.]

Here is another, don' know if it will help. It is the current state of the gold car as a Mark IIB with twin carbs and high rise manifold. These were taken in 2000.

[JHDrew]

Thanks Pete

Any reference shot is appreciated.

Have a great weekend.

Jim

Here is another, don' know if it will help. It is the current state of the gold car as a Mark IIB with twin carbs and high rise manifold. These were taken in 2000.

[JHDrew]

I worked some on the dashboard. The KA detail photo-etch dials are designed to be attached to the front of the kit dashboard after removing the kit bezels.. I decided that this didn't look that great. My plan is to drill out the kit dash openings inside the bezels and then afix the PE from behind. This will give the gages more depth. The back side of the dash needs to be thinned some after making the holes.

I made the mistake of thinking I would use the PE to replace the dash air vents. News Flash! Don't bother. Unfortunatley I removed the kit air vents and had to fabricate my own out of sheet plastic. I would just leave the kit ones in place or clean them up a bit if I had it to do over.

Here are the dash and the new air vents I made. It's ready for the black paint. More to follow next week on that.

I also painted the wheels. I used Alclad II pale gold overall and fogged in Alclad steel in the center area. After that I did a light fog of Alclad Polished Aluminum on the outside edge. Still have to add the blue line decal and I am waiting on some proper size Good Year logos to show up in the mail for the tires.

Renaissance of France offers a spare tire in resin. I used Tamiya Matt Black and a wash of Testors German Interior Black and then clear coated it with Tamiya Matt Clear. It's all one piece so things have to be masked. I shaved away the black portion where the blue line goes with the back side of a broken tipped Xacto blade and then hand painted the blue line on the exposed light colored resin.

Hope you are enjoying the build.

Until next week...

Jim

Edited May 10, 2011 by JHDrew

[Cato]

Do you intend to hinge the nose to tilt so the spare can be seen? If so, you have to hinge the cover also (like where the kit dummy hinges are). That's the only way the nose opened-you had to undo the two hood pins and lift the cover, then tilt the nose forward. Very good luck if you do that and please post it here.

[JHDrew]

The whole nose tilts as part of the kit already. As far as making the spare tire cover hinges work, I have not decided yet but probably. You can see the spare either way you open it.

At LeMans, during a pit stop, the pit crew were required to open the cover, pull the spare out, set it on the ground and then put it back in. Pretty screwy procedure.

Do you intend to hinge the nose to tilt so the spare can be seen? If so, you have to hinge the cover also (like where the kit dummy hinges are). That's the only way the nose opened-you had to undo the two hood pins and lift the cover, then tilt the nose forward. Very good luck if you do that and please post it here.

[Cato]

The whole nose tilts as part of the kit already. As far as making the spare tire cover hinges work, I have not decided yet but probably. You can see the spare either way you open it.

At LeMans, during a pit stop, the pit crew were required to open the cover, pull the spare out, set it on the ground and then put it back in. Pretty screwy procedure.

They also required two suitcase boxes---on Prototypes. FIA= French Idiot Authorities.

Yes the nose is supposed to tilt but I found that the inner fenders and front of chassis pan prohibited that. The slots did not 'travel' on the pins to raise the back high enough. Anxious to see your solution. I display mine with the fenders down and occasionally with the cover off.

As designed, you also can't pull a wheel (as Trump designed the attachment) to show your brake and suspension detail. You will have to scratch your own rotor, pins and threaded knockoff ear.

[JHDrew]

Sorry it's been awhile since I have updated this build. Been super busy at work and life threw a few curve balls at me.

So, I have had a chance to do some more work and as I was looking over the kit engine vs. the real one I was overcome with the need to fix it So I decided to update it a bit and at leaste make it look closer to the original but still have the ability to easily install it in the kit. I completely redid the entire back half of the transmission. The end cover was replaced with a scratch built version since it was all wrong. I filled the inside of the transmission with epoxy putty before gluing it together. I ground away all the excess plastic on it in order to give the top & sides more roundness and depth. Added epoxy putty to the underside and revised all the fin work with plastic strip cut to fit. The axle connection needed to be rounded. I also added the starter motor mounting connection with epoxy putty. I also replaced the exposed starter gear. The backside and lower outside of the heads were filled with epoxy putty and then sculpted to more resemble the real ones but still accept the kit pipes. I added flanges to the oil pan and front plate. The intake manifold was modifed with the Dremel and epoxy putty as well. A lot of Evergreen hex rod was used to simulate bolt heads as well as some that I had on hand from Grandt Line. There's more there that I did but I will let the pictures do the talking.

I needed to show the before priming pics along with the primered ones so you can see the amount of work that went into this. It's still way off from the real engine but it will still look much better in the kit. As my friend Randy Derr tells me. You just can't help yourself but it's good to know that it's only a disorder not a disease.

Enjoy the pictures

[Cato]

Jim,

Your gearbox and exhaust ports look very well.

You need to scribe the parting lines at the rear of the block for the head/intake/block mating surfaces which look like this:

Sadly, none of this is visible in place except maybe the exhaust ports.

Edited May 10, 2011 by Cato

[JHDrew]

Sadly a lot of the details I added will not be seen but I can't seem to help myself. There's therapy.

Thanks Cato

[Cato]

Sadly a lot of the details I added will not be seen but I can't seem to help myself. There's therapy.

Thanks Cato

Understood and have at it. Please post more as it happens.

[JHDrew]

I had a few hours to kill tonight so I decided to replace what Trumpeter called a carburator. Four pieces of aluminum tube, plastic stock and epoxy putty plus the end pieces of the the kit part and well it's a start.

[Tumbler75]

Jim, this is lookin' great! I like the amount of attention you are putting into the detail of this car. Looks 150% better. Keep up the great work!

[djway3474]

I am so glad I did not start mine when I first purchased it. I am carefully watching your build to learn what to watch for. Luckily I purchased the KA set from somewhere in the orient so I only paid half of what some places get for that thing and won't mind as much not using much of it.

Love the detail on the trans. Do you mind sharing detail photos you go by?

Keep up the great work.

Thanks

DJ

[JHDrew]

DJ

I've loaded some of the detail shots on my Fotki page. A lot of what I use is in Dave Friedman's book "Shelby's GT40's".

[djway3474]

Thanks for the link to the pictures. I have been searching off and on for years for GT40 picts and have never found any as good as some you have.

Thanks again

DJ