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1966 Ford Fairlane GTA

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  • #16
    There has always been a lot of talk about what a Ford engine compartment is painted and then the chassis. Pretty much acknowledge the engine compartment is a satin black. In fact before it was discontinued many thought PPG DP40 epoxy black primer was the closest one could get to the right sheen. Chassis after 1969 we know were pretty much slop grey meaning Ford took left over paints and mixed it along with their primer, thought red oxide, then sprayed the cars. My 68 Mustang is definitely red oxide in original condition with some light overspray of the body color. My 68 Cougar is more a dark grey but it was built at a different Ford plant and they were known to vary. My 65 F100 was definitely red oxide under the bed and floor pan of the cab. Engine compartment satin black came down the back of the firewall and created a black/red oxide interface at the front edge of the floor pan. Gloss black wasn't used on really anything except some small parts and those parts were actually dipped in the paint and then hung to dry leaving paint runs visible.

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    • #17
      GTA: Opening Doors and Chassis Work

      I attempted to dull down the chassis based on your input with some Dull Coat. I think my can is about out and it didn't really dull it down very much. I need to get some more.

      I didn't have much work time today, but did get a little over an hour in the shop and about the same amount of time reviewing videos on YouTube on how to open up model doors and add hinges. I hadn't done this since 1971 so it was time for a refresher before I screwed up an out-of-production model.

      I used the method that has you gradually scraping out the seam with the back side of a sharp #11 blade. I augmented this with my very fine MicroMark razor saw. The saw's kerf is only 0.005". It was tricky cutting the vent pane away from the roof, and I thought I might lose it, but it did work. I came out of the lines a couple of times and filled the minor scratches with Tamiya fine putty.

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      I have a lot of work left on this part since the interior needs to be separated and door jambs have to be created to fill in all the open spaces.

      I painted the exhaust pipes a home mix of gray and flat aluminum to make a "steel" facsimile. I then masked the pipes and sprayed the mufflers with Tamiya rattle can bare metal.

      I installed the pipes and then CA'd the rear into position. It was time to connect the engine, but the drive shaft was too long. Way too long! I re-checked to make sure I didn't install the leaf springs backwards since the rear is not centered and if I got them backwards, it could account for the poor drive shaft fit. But, after checking, it seems I did it correctly. Furthermore, the mounting holes were not the same size front to back and varied side to side. Also the shock mounts were inside and towards the front.

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      I measured the overage and cut the drive shaft at the transition point and removed the excess piece. I wanted to re-attach the two parts together using a piece of 0.032" brass rod. I drilled the universal joint piece with a carbide drill successfully, but broke the drill in the long end. When you have a chunk of carbide stuck in a hole, you're basically out of luck. It was time for plan B. Plan B was to make a new shaft out of aluminum tube of the same size. I narrowed the plastic parts so they would slip inside the tube. Here's the new assembly being fitted. I haven't glued the parts in yet. That will come tomorrow.

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      I kind of like how the real metal tubing looks, but it's not very prototypical. I also shot the entire chasis with Dull Coat since I was told that Ford never finished the engine compartment with gloss black.

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      • #18
        GTA: Opening Doors and Chassis Work cont.

        Again a short work session.

        Got the engine glued into the chassis. In the attempt to get the transmission's tab keyed into the trans support beam, the engine/transmission joint gave way and I had to reglue that and wait for it to dry. I touched up the exhaust system in the mean time.

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        I then got back to work on the body. I cut out the inner door. First I took time to locate the inner panels relation to the out door and marked the outer door. The inner and outer doors do not exactly overlap on car door since you have a door jamb in between. I had a little booboo the needed some filler and did so. BTW: the few scratches on the outer body filled nicely and shouldn't be noticeable. Even real cars have filler applied at the factory before painting... at least they used to.

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        The inner door panel sits almost vertically, but the outer door has curves and turns inward near the bottom so there needs to be a shim to fill the empty space that would be occupied by the lower sill part of the interior piece. I added a piece of plastic scrap to fill this space. The end spaces will be fill with the jamb pieces on both the door and the body.

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        Here's the door test fit together.

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        Then I had to start building the hinges. My first attempt is a little too wide. I've reviewed videos on this and most folks use styrene tubes to hold the hinge wires. My first attempt uses brass tube with a 1/32" i.d. to match the 1/32" brass wire. It'll take a few attempts to get them exactly right. Persistence pays off. Since I'm going to be epoxying the hinge into the door, whether I use brass or styrene doesn't make a difference.

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        • #19
          GTA: Radiator and Hinges

          Happy Wednesday!

          spent most of the afternoor with Apple Support figuring out how to import the Photos library from my wifes 8 year-old MacBook to her brand new MacBook Air, and how to get my MacBook Pro to be able to run Windows. The Book Camp Assistant kept crashing and we couldn't figure it out. That left to about an hour in the shop.

          First I attached the radiator plate, connected the lower heater hose and installed the upper one. The fender walls were too wide apart and I had to enlarge the slots on the radiator piece to get it to nest in properly. It will need some touch up painting. The apparent "dirt" on the engine bay is what happened when I used an old can of Dull Coat. Does a nice weathering job... if I was interested in weathering said bay. Part of that top surface gets painted body color. It doesn't look so gross in normal viewing distance.

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          I will attempt to add some heater hoses too. I checked out a walk-around video on YouTube offered by TBM3fan that nicely documented a beautifully restored 66 GTA. I was able to pause the playback and make focused screen shots of various images including the heater hose locations. I was also able to get some great shots of the interior that's going to very valuable in detailing the car. It's been almost 50 years since I sat in that car and frankly, don't remember very much about it. Here's an example of how those pics turned out.

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          Got back to the hinges. Made a second set that was a little better than the first, but the geometry was wrong. The legs that connect to the body, can't be on the same level as those in the doors. They have to extend a bit downward toward the door skin since the mounting point on the door is a bit elevated due to a pad of medium CA to level out the mounting surface.

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          This led to the 3rd attempt which is more workable. It's not perfect yet, but it may work. The door sites at the proper attitude and swings fully outward.

          I had to cut a couple of minor slots in the inner door panel to give some clearance to those large loops. I'm wondering if the loops need to be a bit smaller and that would move the hinge closer to the door's edge. I might try that which would be attempt number 4.

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          • #20
            GTA: Hinges, bloody Hinges

            Woke up thinking about a crazy idea of making true scale hood hinges. I did a Google search to find good images of them and found pictures of the actual hinges for the 66 Fairlane (also Mustang).

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            I downloaded images of front and back and put them into Illustrator and traced over them. I don't have actual sizes of the hinges. A neighbor has just restored-upgraded a 64 Galxie 500 and I might ask to measure his. After drawing the image, I needed to figure out how the darn thing works. It's not as simple as it seems.

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            The hinges are a parallelogram like a scissors jack. I found a video on adjusting old Ford hood hinges and watched the action when they operate. The side arms move away from each other with the big spring between adding counter tension to offset the hood's weight. I copied and pasted a bunch of copies of three different sizes and the smallest one seems to be close to what a 1:25 hinge will be.

            That all being said, I'm really not sure if I can a) make two, b) make them workable, c) attach it to the car, and d) have it actually close the hood correctly. I'm going to try, but not spend very much time on it. There's a reason why modeler's don't usually make scale hinges for model cars.

            Back to the door hinges.

            The 3rd version hinge's loops were much too big which led to version 4, 5 & finally 6. I got 6 as good as I was going to get it. I found that the thick plastic doors and body sides were interferring with each other so I thinned them both and carefully trimmed a little bit of the door edge. I decided to use plastic tubes to hold the body side hinge mounts for eash of gluing them in place.

            Versions 4 and 5 had smaller loops, but the drop I bent in the wire was too severe and it pushed the door away from the body.

            This view shows the smaller loops and the correct drop.

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            And here's a vertical shot showing the rest of the geometry. With the newly designed, smaller-looped hinges fit closer to the door's edge and I didn't need those relief cuts so I filled them with some styrene stock.

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            The inner panel needs relief under the dash area to clear those plastic hinge holders. I'll do that on Monday. So happy Friday and great weekend.

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            • #21
              GTA: The Interior (Part A)

              With the hinges attached at both ends I had to fit the rest of the inner pieces to the hinges. I had to cut some clearance notches in the kick panel on the left side, and later, after fitting the dashboard, found that it too would need relief.

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              With all the fitting complete I needed to close up the door's gaps with jambs front and back. I used thin 0.010" styrene I traced the internal curvature using a compass with the point tracing the curve and the pencil to draw the curve on the styrene. This method is a good way to trace oddball curves onto sheets to fit things. I learned this trick many, many years ago working a summer job at a stainless steel sheet metal plant in 1970.
              After gluing the rough shaped sheet into place, I let it dry and then trimmed it close with a sharp #11 and then filed and sanded it to a perfect fit.

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              Here was the trimmed jamb in place on the lack and hinge ends. I went back and filled the remaining gaps with Tamiya filler although I think this might be overkill.

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              t was time to paint the interior pieces and I did so with Tamiya semi-gloss black which nicely simulates the sheen of leather. After it dried I went back and picked out some of the shiny details with Vallejo "real metal" silver. I used some Tamiya clear red to paint the door handle reflector.

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              • #22
                GTA: The Interior (Part B)

                For the instrument panel I attempted to do some metal foiling. I'm not too good at this and this is the first car I've ever attempted using Bare Metal Foil. At first I cut the strips, lifted the end and peeled it off the backing paper to promptly see the stuff curl all over itself and become a mess. After I added the foil to the bottom strip on the dash that I decided to read the instructions since there must be a better way. There was! You lift one edge and and attach a slip of paper to it, then you lift the other end of the strip and attach another piece of paper. Then you lift the foil from the both ends while keeping some tension and Voila, you can keep it from curling.

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                The dash came out just ok. The instrument cluster was hard to bring out any details since the relief was very shallow, and the foil could have been better.... much better.

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                The door sides also have chrome shiny trim. And now that I look at this picture...

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                I realize that I put the chrome on the wrong part of the door and will have to fix that.

                The chrome is a bit of a hassle. I need practice. I picked the separate door to try first. Doing the rest of the interior will be harder since it will be done at an oblique angle.

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                To make matters worse. In working to remove the excess foil I took off a lot of black paint that I'll now have to hand paint back to a semblance of decency.

                Tomorrow, I'll strip the incorrect foil and get it right. As I went along it did get easier to get the foil on better. I will also try to do the rest of the interior. I may end up painting the striping. I've used old-style drafting inking pens to do fine striping on models. These are the kinds that have two springy blades ending in very sharp points where the distance between them is adjusted with a vernier screw.

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                • #23
                  GTA: Door Trim

                  Back to work on the door trim. After stripping Monday's foil, I touched up all the places where I scraped off the paint. The touch up ruined the beautiful initital air brushed semi-gloss black. But, I was able to get the foil into the right trim on the door. I'm not 100% satisfied with the foil's appearance, but it's going to have to work.

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                  I then added some trim to the venta-pane window insuides. The outside will have to wait until the outside is finished since I would have to mask the chrome and woud assuradly remove the trim with the tape when unmasking.

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                  The door doesn't look as rough in person as it does in these pictures. It does look pretty rough. Next time, I might just painting the trim with Vallejo Real Metal using a fine pointed brush. The enlargement is huge... and shows everything.

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                  • #24
                    GTA: Seat Trim/Heater Hoses

                    Finally getting the hang of putting on the foil. I did the chrome seat bands and am pleased with the results. It was an easier install and I took my time.

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                    I painted the carpeting a Tamiya medium gray, but it will need some flat spray since the paint has a little bit of sheen.

                    I opened the relief holes in the under-dash side wall to better clear the door hinges.

                    I then decided to add some heater hoses. I used some small guage electric hookup wire. I didn't have any more black so I took a Sharpied and 'painted' the red wire black. After installation I went back over it with some Tamiya Rubber Black. It's a great color since it's a black with just a hit of gray in it. I used a #50 drill to make the holes in the water pump, intake manifold and then the firewall. I used a tiny 0.010 carbide bit as a starter hole so the "bigger" drill went where I wanted it to.

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                    I still have to install the battery and I'll probably put in some battery cables too. Secondary wiring is such a small gauge that when you do it in 1:24 you'd barely see it. I'm sure some guys add them too, but this engine bay is getting busy enough.

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                    • #25
                      And Now for Something Completely Different..(part A)

                      I didn't want to hijack Gun's thread so I'm going to add the bits about Scale Reproductions, Inc. on my thread. My point was that SRI, my local hobby shop, is one of the most nicely stocked stores I've ever seen in my 64 years of building models. With the demise of privately owned hobby shops occurring with alarming frequency all over the country, having a store like SRI in Louisville, KY is something to rave about. Owned and operated by Brian Bunger, a great scale modeler in his own right, and a staff of knowledgable folks handling trains, RC and Plastics, it never ceases to amaze that if it's a new listing in Fine Scale Modeling, it's also sitting in SRI.

                      So I said I'd take some pictures to back up my words. After looking at these you all can comment on whether or not I'm telling it the right way.

                      Let's start with the first of two paint rows. This row has Testor paint for Poly RC car bodies, and the full Tamiya line with all their listed bottle colors and sprays. Beyond that is brass and metal stock, followed by tools, and lastly every kind of CA and CA applicator imaginable.

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                      On the back side of this row is another paint row. This one has all the Vallejo, Model Master, Acurate Paint lines, plus odds and ends, brushes and glues for plastics.

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                      Facing this paint row is the aircraft row. Notice on this row, there's still more paint with A-K Interactive Pigments and metalizers.

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                      On the back side of the air craft row is the armor row.

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                      Facing the armor row is cars, trucks, SciFi and ships.

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                      In the back end cap of the paint row is finishing materials for RC plane construction.

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                      • #26
                        And Now for Something Completely Different..(part B)

                        More on SRI. On the front end caps of these two rows are new release air craft and armor. At the checkout counter, there's another pile of new releases.

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                        Lastly, there are four nice display cabinets which show expert work. These two are done by an artist Don Conley on loan from his wife. I am assuming he's passed... Their 1:32 kits done beautifully on excellent display stands.

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                        So... that's just SRI's plastic department. Their RC department is equally impressive as is their train department. Trains are basically HO and N. O'scale is handled by another store in town, Roundhouse Trains.

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                        • #27
                          GTA: Interior Install

                          I found another great broadside of my original car. The date was Memorial Day 1967 in Muskegon, MI State Park.

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                          The kit has chrome steel wheels, but my car had hubcabs. My car and the kit have red-line wide-oval tires.

                          Had a very short work session today since we took the grandkids to see Coco. If you haven't seen it, it's another Pixar masterpiece. Even without a plot, dialog or music, the art and creativity is worth the price of admisision. At times it was breathtaking.

                          I glued the seats and inner panels to the floor after adding another coat of gray, a coat of Dull Coat and a brush coat of Tamiya Flat Clear, to try and dull down the shine on the gray. For some reason it's still showing a sheen.

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                          My LHS clued me into another great product. It's called Liquid Chrome and it's produced by Chartpak. It's a 1mm tip and lays down an alcohol-based liquid metal that's truly reflective and smooth like metal, not like pigmented paint. It's as bright and smooth as the foil without the wrinkles. I touched up some of the door panel trim with it, used it on the reamining trim on the driver's side rear, and then tried it on the edging on the console. The center of the console is brushed metal, but the edges are polished. It's not a good use for foil. I did it backwards, trying to the marker on the edges before painting the center, but I wanted to see how it looked and it looks great. If you haven't tried it, I would highly recomment it. It's so bright that I would suggest it would be terrific on aircraft oleo strut cylinders instead of wrapping with foil, which at times is very difficult depending on how and when the scissors links are installed.

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                          I painted the outer sections with the semi-gloss black (by brush) and then did the trim with the chrome pen. It's hard to catch the reflecitivity in the picture, but believe me, it's really terrific.

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                          More work tomorrow.

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                          • #28
                            Now thats a model shop!!! Back in the 90s opening a model shop like that was my dream for when I retired from the Marine Corps.

                            I could go broke real quick if that place was local.

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                            • #29
                              Originally posted by Builder 2010 View Post

                              I glued the seats and inner panels to the floor after adding another coat of gray, a coat of Dull Coat and a brush coat of Tamiya Flat Clear, to try and dull down the shine on the gray. For some reason it's still showing a sheen.

                              [ATTACH]45049[/ATTACH]
                              .
                              The problem may be the same as touching up a paint job in 1:1 scale. The over coat fills in the irregularities of the original satin finish giving you an almost gloss look. The more coats you apply the smoother (and more reflective) the finish becomes. Why its so easy to see where walls have been patched

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                              • #30
                                I am not a model builder but I just get more and more impressed by the skills you guys display.
                                “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
                                Mark Twain

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