ICM Opel Admiral--it's been a while since I last updated this:

[Art Anderson]

Lots of preliminary work to this project! Let's start with the engine: Opel, having been bought up by General Motors at the depths of Germany's economic troubles in 1929, introduced the Admiral as their entry into Germany's luxury car market. While the chassis uses a lot of Buick layout, with its X-member frame, much of it was pure Chevrolet--the Dubonnet "knee-action" front suspension, and with Admiral coming in 1937, Opel used the then-new Chevrolet 216cid inline 6 (built in Flint MI, shipped to Germany!). Here is the kit engine as built straight from the kit:

Note the very shallow pan--I suspect ICM had the same problem I have here, a distinct lack of information as to just how the bottom of the engine and chassis looked (I've found just two images online of the rolling chassis, one black & white photo, and a color cutaway illustration of the complete car, both showing only upper surfaces). So, I decided to take matters into my own hands, work at least somewhat logically, to give the engine/transmission the look if not perfectly accurate:

Due to necessary clearances for the front suspension and tie rod, I really could not deepen the forward part of the oil pan very much, but I could add a sump to the rear of it, which I did with bits of sheet styrene and CA glue (my go-to for work like this a lot), as well as the "neck" at the rear of the oil pan covering the rear main bearing. In addition, I added, a bottom side to what should be the bell housing, again something ICM omitted, by laminating some thick sheet styrene together, and simply whittling that out with Xacto knife, needle files and sandpaper:

More in the following installment!

Art

[Art Anderson]

ICM, unfortunately, put a huge (1/8" diameter) ejector pin right in the middle of the Chevrolet valve cover, which obliterated the crossing of the raised cross rib and dual front-to-rear ribs in the valve cover, so that just had to be fixed. Using a digital caliper, I found that the molded on ribs are just a gnat's whisker narrower than 20-thousandths of an inch, but there was a nasty depressed round area from that ejector pin--so a little bit of .015" Evergreen styrene strip stock got the call, cut it down to size, and use gap-filling CA glue to mount it, fill in the gaps around the edges. Next I made up a small flat sanding stick using a piece of basswood (from my local model RR store) with some 400-grit sandpaper glued to it with CA and then cut to the edges of the wood stick with an Xacto knife. This was used to sand away the raised ribs in the center of the valve cover, and sand the little Evergreen "filler and its surrounding CA glue flat.

A few years ago, I needed a jig, or form to lay Styrene rod stock in, so that it could be sanded to half-round shape, by milling a Vee groove into a 3/8" square brass bar. With help from a friend who stayed much more awake in HS math than I did (sine, cosine and tangent stuff--remember trying to learn that??) I got the depth correct for making several sizes of styrene half round from rod stock, so this was fairly easy, just lay the rod into the appropriate groove, take that same sanding stick described above, and wet sand to get half-round. Here's the result:

Art

[Art Anderson]

On to the body shell!

Knowing a bit about 30's, even 40's cars, with their bolted on fenders, the Opel needed to have fender "welting" added to the body shell--again, styrene rod stock got the call. In addition, while this kit is very precisely tooled, all of the panel lines left a bit to be desired, precise they were, but too shallow to escape being obliterated by even a fine paint job they were as well, so my Xacto razor saw (I use Xacto's razor saw blades here, as they are far thinner than a Zona Saw!) got the call.

In addition, this is a multipiece body, shades of Revell of 1956-1960 or so (but so very much more precisely tooled!), which builds up on the floor pan (hey, it's an open car, a Kabriolet!). Considering that I want this car to represent what it is, Opel's entry into the German luxury car market, I figured that it had a highly finished body shell--no exposed primer on the underneath surfaces, but body color all over. That meant that the body shell, once built and proofed out, had to be painted UPSIDE DOWN on my paint stand! This entailed also remounting the body right side up after the first paintwork was completely dry, and airbrushing the upper sides of the body once more, to get a deep, even coat of Tamiya Racing White:

On to the last segment!

Art

[Art Anderson]

The taillights presented another "big challenge"! They are small, as you can see in this picture, had to have mold parting lines polished off, painted, and then foiled with Stoplight Red metallic added to create the lenses!

I simply drilled out the bottom side (mating surface to the rear fenders) of the taillight housings, mounted them on toothpicks with CA glue, then primed and painted them. Once dry, I foiled what have to be the smallest parts I've ever applied BMF to. One foiled, the other one not yet as of this pic:

OK, enough for today!

Art

[Guest]

Sweet!

[bobthehobbyguy]

Very nice. Cool idea for the jig for making the half round tubibg.

[DynoMight]

Great job! Engine looks a lot better!

[Art Anderson]

Very nice. Cool idea for the jig for making the half round tubibg.

The idea for that jig came from the late Lee Baker, of Chattanooga TN about 1995 or so. The first ones I made were cut on a radial arm saw in hard maple blocks, by setting the saw blade at a 45-degree angle. While those worked well for larger strips of styrene, particularly square stock, to make right triangular cross section strips for scratchbuilt louvers, in order to make something fine enough to work with .020" rod or strip stock meant using metal.

Art

[Art Anderson]

OK, enough of my faux pas a week or two ago, this is in the correct thread now! I'll backtrack to the picture I took once the kit chassis was assembled, just to show the changes that have been completed since:

Now, the chassis is completed! I didn't like the fact that ICM left the rear of the engine just hanging in midair, supported only by the kit driveshaft, so I made a rear (transmission) engine mount. On the actual car the rear mounts follow what was pretty much GM practice, with a pair of engine mounts extending inward from the frame rails to the sides of the transmission housing, but some problems exist there. First, there are lightening holes right where those mounts would attach, and second, there are almost NO good reference pictures of the chassis which show just what those mounts even look like (Just 3 I've found showing the chassis, even the GM cutaway illustration doesn't give any really usable information, given the angle of the illustration!), so I made a simply crossmember, with reinforcement on the top side, and used a simple brass pin on the bottom of the transmission that locks into a corresponding hole in that crossmember. Second, there are a pair of channel section braces just forward of where the rear legs of the X-member attach to the inside of the side rails--ICM didn't capture those either. They were pretty easy to make: Three strips of Evergreen, the channel flanges made from .015" thick styrene, and once glued up, a bit of carving, filing and sanding stick work, just shaping their ends and gluing into place.

Last, I added the brake and clutch pedal arms to a home-made cross shaft, which also has an actuating bellcrank on the inner end that serves to engage/disengage the clutch, and inserted that assembly through a drilled hole in the frame.

Now it's really starting to come together--next up on the chassis is to add the fuel line and brake lines, which fortunately are pretty much the only lines that show on the frame itself--the electric wiring harness is almost completely within the bodywork, as the battery is mounted underneath the front seat, with virtually no wiring visible in the engine bay save for the generator harness, starter cable and ignition wiring.

Art