There was a good 1/4"
gap between the upper body and its mating surface on the
chassis/fender unit so drastic action was called for.
As you can imagine I was more than a bit nervous about
using a heavy duty C-clamp on my nice shiny paint job,
even with the added foam pads I acquired from some shelves
ordered from a glass cutter's shop. I figured tube cement
would create a nice strong bond and left it 24 hours to
dry, just to be sure.
However, not a damn thing
happened as you can see! Bollocks!! The body sides didn't
even come close to contacting the glued surfaces. This
calls for even more drastic action:
The elaborate wood &
rubber band contraption held the body down whilst the
C-clamps held the sides tightly in place. Not taking any
chances this time I used epoxy. Araldite is good stuff,
in spite of the fact that when mixed it looks like the
contents of one's nasal passages during a particularly
bad sinus cold.
It was at this point that I figured it was all going to
go horribly pear shaped and it was with trembling hands
that I took the clamps off a day later, but apart from
a couple of minor scuffs in the paint that were easily
polished out, it worked just fine. Wheww!!
The moulded-on starter
was ground off, the gaping hole filled with Milliput and
a better starter from the spares box (yes, I have a car
spares box now!) was added. I cut the horrible fan belt
away from the pulleys, cleaned up the bottom two and scratchbuilt
a new one for the alternator with the tiny fan taken from
a Detail Master p/e set. Using a tip from "Scale
Auto Modeler", I stuck two pieces of masking tape
together to form a double thickness and then cut a thin
strip from this for the fan belt which was painted flat
black and super glued in place. Quick, easy and far superior
to the mutant fan belt in the kit. Me like. Good. Ugg.
Above
left & right: Again showing its age, AMT had
the metal axle going right across as in the left picture.
I epoxied this in place and cut out the middle part with
the trusty ol' Dremel. This is the custom dropped axle
and was originally a chrome piece but I stripped the chrome
off and painted it gloss black to match the rest of the
suspension components.
Left:
Horrible kit tie rod/brace vs. the new bits made
from .040" plastic rod.
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