Topolino

[Zbuckster]

I got my Double Dragster kits yesterday and I can't wait to do something with one of them. Well why does the old man have this in Street Rod Forum? I am goint ot try and build this one as a street rod that looks like an old altered class drag car, or not. I am also thinking of trying to build it full fendered. I will experiment with some fenders and see where it ends up.

So for sure we have this kit.



I am going to use this Ross Gibson Late model Hemi as an engine.



There will be lot's of tire on the back. Iam thinking the tires from the Tweedy Pie or the Revell Willys Coupe.

I have the body kinda mocked up waiting on it to lead me to the next step.



Not much to start with but I wanted to get after it. LOL Thanks for looking all comments and Questions are welcome.
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Racecar spelled backwards is still racecaR.

[Geezerman]

Be interesting to see what you can come up with for fenders.
Did you get two Hemis in this kit? And yet bought another resin one for your build?
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Clay Gratz
DPMCC
Shark's Realm
Rustbucket Brigade
http://public.fotki.com/drasticplasticsmcc/1/clay_gratz/

[Zbuckster]

I didn't buy the Hemi for this build. I have a large collection of RG engines and decided to use one on this build. The kit engines are race engines. I wanted to build a street driven car so needed things like a water pump, altenator, etc. The RG engine had those things on it. Also the RG engine has a Torqueflite 727 transmission and the kit engines use an old in and out box. I think. It is some type of simple race style trans anyway. I say that based on the age of the kit. I know this kit came out the frist time before 1965. I can say that because I went in the Army in 1965 and had already built the kit before then.

I took some pictures of my fender experiments Iam going to upload them now and post.
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Racecar spelled backwards is still racecaR.

[Zbuckster]

Ok here are what some of the full fender experiments looked like.

The first is a fenders from a 1929 Model A pickup truck.



Then a set of Ala Kart fenders.



Then a set of fenders from a 1927 Model T.



And then the winner, I think, A set of fenders from the Revell 1932 3 window coupe.



I like this one for a number of reasons. I like the forward rake the body has. The body naturally channels down over the fenders. The interior floor pan, seat and door panels look easy to cut and fit. Plus the work at the rear will be fairly easy.

door panels



floor pan and seat.



Here is what it looks like from the rear.



So this is where we are at this morning. Iam going to build the engine first and then move on to the car. Iam thinking that I may not go the pro street look with this car. Maybe a large tire on all 4 corners. Make it look like a home made turn taker. We'll see where we end up later on.
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Racecar spelled backwards is still racecaR.

[Zbuckster]

I forgot to say. If you want to see more of the fender experiments, front and rear shots, you can go to my off site account.

http://public.fotki.com/zbuckster/model_car_build_up/topolino/
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Racecar spelled backwards is still racecaR.

[Geezerman]

Yeah, 32 with that rake looks col !!!!
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Clay Gratz
DPMCC
Shark's Realm
Rustbucket Brigade
http://public.fotki.com/drasticplasticsmcc/1/clay_gratz/

[nagasaki]

mate , i have to follow this one to the end. any colour in mind?
john
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overkill is just the begining....

[Ryan]

I love it! The corner carver would be a neat twist and really outside the box for a little fiat. Awesome engine! I always wondered how that particular hemi went together.

You could sand the edges of the fenders to to eliminate that little edge that runs the length of them.
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Ryan

The GunKenstein!
http://public.fotki.com/73OldsOmega/

[Shark]

outside of the box for sure. has a interesting look. i like it.
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“Hooper, starboard ya idiot!” “Ain’t ya watchin’ it?” – Robert Shaw (Quint)- Jaws

[Zbuckster]

Thought I had better check in with the latest on this one.

I want to start by saying thank you to those following along. I was looking for things to keep this moving in the right direction. I wanted this car to have the touches of a today's style street rod but still have the nostaliga look of a Topolino. So some of things I wanted to incorperate were, Rack and Pioion steering, Mustang II style front end with adjustable coil overs. In the rear I wanted independent suspension, 4 wheel disc brakes. For the Wheel and tire I wanted to have a moderen look without going to a bandaid tire. Sorry guys I am still not ready to ride that wagon. That's when I discovered this kit.



It gave me all I was looking for, plus a few other things. Here is the chassis mocked up.



So I got all I was looking for plus, the frame is a new design style. Like you would buy from the aftermarket. It also has a hidden master cylinder. The next plus was the fenders fit it perfect. The wheels are like a modern Halibrand knock off. 20 inch in the rear and 17's up front. The 20's are a little large but that's what's out there right now, so we are gonna go with it. Plus the tires are not all the bandaidish.



So all that gets us back to a mockup that looks like this.



So I stuck everything together with Handi-Tak, much more accurate for the mockup. Then it ended up looking like this this.





I got this far on the RG Hemi.



Again this is today's stuff. The Hemi is a 514 inch crate motor so it's aluminum headed. The Hilborn style injection isn't real it is Digital. I will be building fuel rails and such for that later.



The Torquflite 727 transmission makes it all pretty long. I am not sure it's gonna fit. I looked around in the junk yard and found a scatter shield for a Chevy and a 3650 style Tremec Transmission. So we might go that way to shorten things up, or because a 6 speed would make this thing a lot more fun. 6TH gear is .50 to 1 so we can put a good gear in the back and still make the Hot Rod Power Tour. A real high gear cruiser. If it is still to big then I will be looking for a different powerplant.



So that's where it is all at. I still need things like a dash and some seats, steering column and do dah stuff. Thanks for looking in. All comments and questions are welcome.
_________________
Racecar spelled backwards is still racecaR.

[nagasaki]

neat consept buck,love the chassis,
waiting for more
john
_________________
overkill is just the begining....

[Zbuckster]

I bet you guys thought I gave up on this one. No way small person. Over the last week I have been working on finishing the Judge and still working out the bugs on this one.
I am sure you know how it goes when you are doing design work. It seems that every turn brings a new problem to be worked out. I will show you where I am now and explain how I got there. I am sure there is much more to be done before primer hits this one.

I had to change the back of the frame on the Phamton Vicky kit. It wouldn't let the body come down far enough in the very rear. I trimed a section off the floor board and then put it back on at an angle. Then I had to move the rear cross member ahead about 1/8 inch. so it ended up looking like this.



When I tried a power train mockup there was no way the Torqueflight transmission was going to fit. I am even having my doubts about the Ross Gibson Hemi at this point. I know they are 1/24 TH scale but man that thing is big. Anyway I dug around in the junk yard and came up with a 3650 series Tremec trans. This is the 6 speed that is used it Vipers, Vettes and Mustangs. Also found a lakewood scattershield. Put both of them in the bleach to remove the chrome and ended up with this.





Then to get it into the chassis I had to move the crossmember back 5/16 of an inch. After doing that I found the Lakewood scattershield was to big to go between the cross bars, so I found a smaller bellhousing and painted it red to replicate the Lakewood scattershield.



This at least let me get the engine and trans into the frame rails and settled into place.

This was the next problem. I thought it would look neat to have the altenator hanging out one side and the power steering pump hanging out the other. Again. noway small person. They were hitting the fenders.



So I cut them both off the front cover and then found a small altenator that would fit tucked in down low.



I one quick slice of the Exacto Knife we now have manual steering. It could be a bear with the weight of the hemi up front, but we will live with it.

Ok next problem was getting the hood off the valve covers.



Also the oil pan seems to hang down pretty low. I decided to get out the Handi-Tak and do another full mockup. That way I could check the oil pan clearence and fit the hood at the same time.

That got me to here. You can see how I trimed the hood. I wanted to keep as much of it there as I could.



That didn't work so I ended up triming the rest away.



One more photo. This one shows the view from the front during the mockup. I love it.



So now I know the engine will fit, have a tranny that will work and have the stance set. Now I can go back to doing the body work. I need to get it ti fit a little better in the rear around the fenders. If things go right I will have the Judge finished today and then I can go full speed on this one.

Thanks for looking in. All comments and questions are welcome.
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Racecar spelled backwards is still racecaR.

[nagasaki]

glad it's not me trying to get everything sorted out. it would have been put back in it's box several times by now. it's funny,but the more i put it back in its box the more i get flash's of things that may work.
keep going buck
john
_________________
overkill is just the begining....

[Zbuckster]

Thanks John. I want this car to be as close to drivable as I can get it. I feel that way about most of my builds. I want to put everything on it that a real car would have.

AStarted to polish the injector tubes. I wanted to get them all set on the engine so I could cut the hood.



Ater doinking with it some it came to me these are just nopt right. Way to tall. The front injector tubes stuck up as high as the roof.



So it was back to the ferrell assorment to see what was there. It turned out that the biggest one fit ove the injector on the manifold perfect. They are way shorter and look bettter than the white metal cast ones.



As you can see the body is in working primer. Here is what I did on the rear end. Where the body meets the fenders.

Before


After


I know the body work needs to be done but you get the idea.

I needed to get the headlight thing worked out. Figured since it was a street legal car they would be nice to have. Here are 2 ideas I decided not to use.






The final way I went was like option 2 but with a smaller headlight. To start the interior I built a back firewall. Here is the rough fit.



Then got a 32 dashboard cut down and fitted.



Door panels from the Revell 32 Ford 3 window fit great. Had to heat and flatten them a little in the back. Had to shorten them by about 5'16 but the door cracks line up perfect.



Got the body work finished and the body,fenders,hood and nose sanded and into white primer to be painted.



The decided that a car like this should have a rollbar. I was going to put a full cage in it but there just wasn't room. Here's the rollbar and junk yard seats.



Finished roolbar



Then as a tease here is the nose in final color.



Then just before I took the body and fenders into the paint booth. I decided this car needs a recessed license plate. So I added one. Oh well a little more body work to do.



So that's it for now. I will update again in a couple days. Any comments and questions are welcome. Thanks for looking in.

If you want to see more detailed pictures on how this is going look at my off site gallery.

http://public.fotki.com/zbuckster/model_car_build_up/topolino/
_________________
Racecar spelled backwards is still racecaR.

[nagasaki]

mate,i am a fan of your builds, you do lovely work. i want to see some colour on this beasty.
john
_________________
overkill is just the begining....