'65 Chevelle Modified Production--FINISHED Pics 10/7

[Snake45]

Here's another refugee from my infamous Shelf of Doom. Started this five or six years ago as part of a Group Build elsewhere. Was making great progress and then the paint job went sideways and onto the SOD it went.

The general concept is a low-buck Modified Production racer somewhere in the 1969-72 timeframe. In those days, when a 4-7 year old car was an OLD car, a Chevelle wagon would have been a cheap starting point. The idea is to build it as close to out of the box as I can stand, but there are a few changes I just have to make.

Here's a set-together mockup just to check out rolling stock and stance. Looks about right. I'll be using the kit Cragars on the front (even though they're too deep for front wheels), not sure about Cragars or steel wheels for the rear but am leaning towards black steelies in keeping with the low-buck theme.

The almost-finished interior. I need to find or make a nice Hurst T-handle shifter. Yeah, I know it's got automatic pedals but I don't care. The kit tranny is a 4-speed. I detailed the dash using a 1965 Chevelle showroom brochure.

Engine in progress. I laminated some styrene to deep-sump the oil pan. Intake manifold was found hiding in the parts box. Dunno what it's from, but I had to do some filing to get it to fit the small-block.

Basic engine painted.

Finished engine. The air cleaners are to hide the flat, undetailed carb tops. I might find some better carbs if the mood strikes me at some point. Modified the kit headers with mounting flanges and tubing collectors. Yeah, they're not perfect but they look better than the kit parts. Had to do a certain amount of filing and finagling on the chassis to get the engine to drop in with the headers attached. Life is full of little tradeoffs.

So that's basically where I am at the moment. The body is completely prepped and has been painted once but I didn't like it. I was going for the look of a $39.95 Earl Schieb paintjob, or perhaps maybe something painted in a 2-car garage using truck fleet colors, and thought a solid (not metallic) dark blue would look good for that. The primer looked great and then I shot it with either Walmart or Krylon solid dark blue and it looked horrible, even for a cheap paint job, but luckily the paint came RIGHT off with rubbing alcohol. Now I'm thinking of going a slightly different way with it, but still something that won't require rubbing out (which I do NOT want to do with all this body's lines and sharp edges).

I'm hoping that posting these pics here will shame myself into actually kicking this hot mess through the goal posts in the foreseeable future. Thanks for looking, and stay tuned....

Edited October 8, 2014 by Snake45

[shift13]

This build looks great. I love that interior. But I had to giggle at the engine. I guess the factory forgot you can only notch an oil pan not the whole block lol. But your detail work is great

[Truck parts]

Nice job

[1 bad55 stan]

I really like the wheel choice,and how it sits,Your header work is a big improvement on the kit ones,good stuff!!!

[Snake45]

Finished the old paint job strip cleanup, and then laid on a fresh coat of primer. This is my beloved cheap Walmart Color Place Gray Primer, one fast, slightly wet coat. The stuff covers great, dries very smooth, and so far has stood up to every paint I've thrown at it. One of the last true bargains available in this world. All it will need at this point will be spot-sanding of any dust with #800, that's how smooth it is.

You might notice I've scribed out the door lines, and it doesn't show up much in these pics but I ran a black wash in there before the primer went on. The door lines are DONE and will require no further attention. I've found that putting the wash in before paint results in far more realistic panel lines than doing it after paint.

[Snake45]

Paint on—two coats of Model Master Nassau Blue. I bought this paint for another project and then didn't like the color for that after I tested it. But it does seem reasonably close to '65 Chevy Nassau blue for this project. It'll do.

I think I might like the Cragars on the rear better than the open wheels. Opinions solicited on this point—black open wheels or Cragars?

[AC Norton]

to nicely accent your metallic blue, I would run a dulled silver open wheel on the rear,,,but better still, lots of racers in that era used open vette rallys, for their many varying sizes, and they were everywhere to be had. I can recall many chevy stocker, super stocker, and m/prod cars having this look. the cragars are great, and typical of course, but the rallys do look tough on a 7 to 10 inch slick. just a thought....the ace.. sent a PM as well......

Edited September 21, 2014 by AC Norton

[w451973]

Looks good.

[slusher]

Super nice..

[Snake45]

to nicely accent your metallic blue, I would run a dulled silver open wheel on the rear,,,but better still, lots of racers in that era used open vette rallys, for their many varying sizes, and they were everywhere to be had. I can recall many chevy stocker, super stocker, and m/prod cars having this look. the cragars are great, and typical of course, but the rallys do look tough on a 7 to 10 inch slick. just a thought....the ace.. sent a PM as well......

I only have one set of open Rallys, from a '70 LT1 Vette, and I'm not using them on this. Dunno what I'm saving them for but I'll know it when I see it.

When I get it finished, I'll take pics of it with both the Cragars and the black opens on the rear, and see what spins my windmill...

BTW, I ran open Rallys all round on a '69 Camaro for most of the 1990s. The car's gone but I still have the wheels in the garage.

Edited September 21, 2014 by Snake45

[Snake45]

Almost forgot to show this. Kit instructions tell you to glue the headers on after the engine is in the chassis, finagling them up from below. Didn't want to do that so I hit the A-arms with a file until I could just barely wiggle the engine in place with the headers mounted. Not much meat left there but hey, it's a shelf model, not a contest entry. If I ever want underside detail, I'll put it on a chassis from the Revell '66 Chevelle.

Spent about two hours this morning scratchbuilding a Hurst-ish shifter and boot out of sheet and rod styrene. Here's what it looked like before painting.

And here it is painted. Makes a bold “fashion statement” in this otherwise stark, factory-stock and out-of-the-box interior, dontcha think? BTW, took photos at every step of making this thing and can do a Tutorial if anyone's interested. Go on, beg me.

[o-man]

Great job on the shifter

[Truck parts]

That's a cool build.

[Speedfreak]

VERY cool! That looks different than the 327 in my '67 Sport Coupe

[Snake45]

Finally got around to doing the last thing I've been dreading on this model, namely, shooting some red primer to show areas of rust repair. Ironically, Model Master Rust paint plays the role of Red Oxide Primer. In addition to the areas behind the rear wheels (where my '65 Buick Special rusted through), I had originally planned to shoot the top of the wheel opening and a small part of the rocker panel on the left side, and the entire wheel opening and entire rocker panel on the right side. But I wussed out and only did what's shown. I can always go back and add more. Should I? Looking at it, I think the right side, with part of the rocker panel in primer, tells the rust repair story better than the left. Oh well, I think I'll just drive on through for the moment. I can shoot more primer on it sometime in the future if the mood moves me.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the thing, I've got a choice of hood bumps. Eventually I'll make my own but for now I'm gonna drive on with one of these two. By removing the bogus air cleaners, I can use this scoop, which I found in the parts box. I have no idea what it's from but it's molded in orange and I think it's a Monogram part. I would probably paint this satin black, or perhaps primer gray.

The other choice is this one, cut from the hood of the AMT '72 Nova “Old Pro” and reshaped with a file and turned around. This one would be painted satin black and carry either a Holley Carbs decal or a Weiand Manifold decal from the Chevelle wagon kit (both decals are too large to use on the other scoop). If I go with this one I could top the carbs with a couple of velocity stacks. What do you think, which should I use?

[Truck parts]

That is a great build !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Snake45]

Decided about the hood bump. This morning I cut that '72 Nova scoop down to a scale 7" and painted it black. It'll get some kind of decal--Holley Carbs, prolly, to brighten it up. Eventually I'll scratchbuild a lump to my liking but this will do for now.

Got the headliner touched up, the inner fenders and radiator support painted black, and the chrome trim started (windshield, vent window and rear wagon window frames). Emblems, door handles and other fine chrome trim will be done at or after final assembly. Narrowed the wheels a little so they're not rubbing on the rear fenders. Next "big" job to do is select and apply some speed parts decals to the rear window. I think most of them will come from the Revell '68 Firebird.

I think the finish line is finally in sight on this thing....

[Snake45]

Have been dreading this job, too—finding, selecting, and then applying some appropriate decals. These came from the '65 Chevelle Wagon, the Revell '68 Firebird, an old AMT '68 Shelby GT500, and a “mystery sheet” from AMT that had some flames and some good speed stuff.

I did two smart things here. First, I put the glass in the body and lightly scribed around the rear window openings so when I applied the decals, I'd know exactly where the “borders” were. Second, I made paper pattern of both sides of the rear glass, and then I cut out my selected decals and was able to play with them on the window drawings to find a workable and attractive arrangement of them. If I hadn't done both these things, decaling this hot mess would have been a nightmare.

This all took me about 3 hours to do.

No in-progress “set together” pics this time. They'd look too much like the finished model. A guy's gotta retain some surprises. I think the next pics of this thing I post will be the finished model shots. Maybe tomorrow, maybe Friday, maybe this weekend—we'll just have to see.

[Mackvision]

Snake, diggin' this build,personally, I would go with the "steelies" on the back,gives much more of a "on a budget" "run what ya' brung" feel to the car no? I have restored an AMT 55' Nomad gluebomb from my youth that is very similar (sorry for the crappy pics,there was a smudge on the camera lense)...............................Mark

[Snake45]

Snake, diggin' this build,personally, I would go with the "steelies" on the back,gives much more of a "on a budget" "run what ya' brung" feel to the car no? I have restored an AMT 55' Nomad gluebomb from my youth that is very similar (sorry for the crappy pics,there was a smudge on the camera lense)...............................Mark

Very cool, Mack! I built something similar when I was a kid, but that model's long gone...I think I do still have parts of the body shell, though. I DO still have this one, which I kind-of converted to a Sedan Delivery. I think your Nomad and my SD would be into the Gasser class.

[Robberbaron]

Really diggin' this one, Snake. Even though some would say this kit is kinda stone age, I've always really liked it. Built one back when I was in high school, and have a couple more in my stash. Really like the down and dirty style on this one.

Think I'd leave the primer as is. It's just enough to indicate that there was some bodywork done. I've learned from experience that it's easy to overdo an effect like this, and I think it currently looks just right.

Also, good call on picking the lump from the Nova kit. It's a little more brutal than that forward facing scoop. To me it works better with the whole style of the car.

[Snake45]

A friend suggested I paint the carpets black, for contrast and to break up the monotony of the all-tan interior. I said that wouldn't work, a tan-gut car would have come with tan carpets and they wouldn't have re-carpeted this low-buck hot mess, but I did like the idea of some contrast on the floors. So I painted them with a different, slightly darker and much flatter shade of tan, then lightly dry-brushed some Leather (brown) and Aircraft Cockpit Black (very dark gray/black) on it where you'd expect most of the “foot traffic.” It looked a touch harsh to me so I dry-brushed the flat tan again over the Leather and black till I got it about where I wanted it. While I was at it, I painted the baseplate of the shifter silver, which looks a little better, and gave the shifter handle another coat of Testor Silver which really smoothed it up. I think the guts of this thing are finished.

Made and installed side windows, and lettered them up a little for an authentic look. Okay, the NEXT pics of this thing will be the finished shots. Should be able to git er done Monday, I hope.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/1003/Snake45/Model%20Cars/TRods/AMT23T16_zps93bb19dc.jpg

[Ira]

Great Decaling!

[slusher]

Looking good Snake..

[chunkypeanutbutter]

If it's not too late, I'd love to see how you made that shifter.