AMT 51 Chevy convertible customdone

[Johnt671]

I'm taking a break from my Chaparral build and doing this one.

I normally do my builds as street and strip or street hot rod but the custom version of this one looks so slick I'm going to do it this way.

I'm using this motor rather than the six because I want to do a late 20's early 30's hot rod with a six.

I stripped the trim off the body and opened the rear wheel openings like the box shows.

Playing around.

I need a day with no rain so I can start painting.

Edited August 3, 2017 by Johnt671

[misterNNL]

Ice to see someone actually building this kit.I see very few of these finished  on display anywhere.Also be sure to keep us in the loop when that six cyl powered hot rod makes it to your bench.

[espo]

I like the Custom Grill & Bumper treatment shown on the box. The only thing that stands out as odd on this kit is the windshield area, it just seems very thick. I agree it would be nice to see one of these done right.

[Johnt671]

It finally stopped raining for a while so I got to do some painting. The Testors gloss white paint is junk, and I threw it in the garbage. Now I have to strip the door panels, but I came up with a new paint scheme for the interior that I think will look nicer then my plan.

This is the body color.

Primed the body, and found it needed more sanding. Maybe some color tomorrow if the rain holds off.

 

Edited May 29, 2017 by Johnt671

[Johnt671]

Seeing how the color looks.

Seeing how the interior looks.

Test fitting the motor

The front sits to high. I'm going to change to the lowering kingpins.

[Johnt671]

The lowering kingpins makes it lower in front. Much better.

Working on the interior.

 

 

[alan barton]

I built this model years ago and yes, the windshield posts do look thick.  A reasonably easy fix is to carefully saw the windshield in half and spent an hour or two with a file and gently file it down until it is a perfect fit in the windshield opening rather than behind it.  I have done this on a few notoriously thick local fibreglass aftermarket bodies and it makes a massive difference.  It is easier to do it with the kit glass than to cut new stuff from acetate as it is very difficult to invisibly glue the thinner stuff when mounted in this manner.

 

Love the colour - it looks stunning.  Mine is the old Testor's metallic blue with white seats - sort of like brothers from a different mother!

 

Cheers

Alan

[Johnt671]

Thanks fort the tip Alan. That sounds like it would be way beyond my skills though.

I got to paint the body and get a couple of outside pictures.

The hood has three coats on wet look clear on it.

It really looks like a car now.

[Tom Geiger]

Looking good!

John, make sure to test fit the inner fenders and heater tubes... I've been told those make the whole front end hard to assemble.

[espo]

The custom grill looks great. 

[DumpyDan]

Nice, haven't see one of these built in a real long time

[KWT]

Looking great... The end result is gonna be cool.

[Johnt671]

A little progress, interior done.

Big steps backwards. I've been working on mounting the motor, and found a set of headers that would work, or so I thought. I had to get the motor lower in the frame because the outlet for the headers were too high in the frame. So I lowered the motor and used a little heat to bend the headers a little, then realized the headers weren't going to work plus the motor was so low that the generator was hitting the inner fender so I had to raise the motor back up again. I found a pair of stock 283 exhaust manifolds that were a good fit, plus the motor height wouldn't matter, and a fan and pulley assembly that mounted the generator mounted hi;gher than the one one I had. As I sat back in relief the the problems were solved I saw that I had worked around the front fender area that I rubbed the paint off of the edge of the fender. Now I need to do a few more coats of paint.

[Curt]

I think we have all been there, John. 

[Johnt671]

Looking good!

John, make sure to test fit the inner fenders and heater tubes... I've been told those make the whole front end hard to assemble.

Nice, haven't see one of these built in a real long time

Looking great... The end result is gonna be cool.

Thanks for the comments. The body is in brake fluid now, and I'm working on the the other issues.

Tom, I think I have the inner fenders worked out. I put the interior on the frame without gluing it in and then glued the inner fenders and the radiator together and let it dry. Several test fits look like this will work out. Now I can glue the tubes to the radiator and glue the firewall end in when I glue the interior in. Thanks for the heads up!

[PARTSMARTY]

Looks very cool !!!

[Johnt671]

Looks very cool !!!

Thanks. I think I've got the glitches worked out now. The body is stripped and ready to prime and repaint. I'm working on that now.

The frame is pretty much done, just some touch up. I even work out an OK exhaust system.

The motor is all in. I'm glad I went to a different pulley system because the tubes in the front compartments would have interfered with the first set up.

[Johnt671]

Repainted and almost done. I need to do a little touch op on the body because my hands aren't so steady anymore.

I used Molotow chrome markers on the chrome instead of BMF,

Need some touch up in here too.

Grill and bumper on.

Three coats of Future on the paint, applied carefully so it didn't get on the chrome and dull it.

I think the next set of pictures will be when it's done.

 

[Wagoneer81]

SWEET!  That is looking really nice!  I had completely forgotten that this kit even existed.  Problem solved, though!  I just ordered one, after finding and scrolling through this post. Thanks for sharing!

[Davewilly]

Looking Pretty Good!

[Johnt671]

Looking Pretty Good!

Thanks. I got to do the touch up she needed today so I'll have finished pictures soon.

[Johnt671]

Sadly the build pictures are gone. This one is done now and when I figure out what I' I'm going to do I'll post the pictures.

[Johnt671]

I'm going to try and post a picture through the forums host to see if it will work for me.

[Johnt671]

Great, it works and is easy to do. I'm back in business. I got an e- mail from photobucket telling me how to down load my pictures from them to save on my computer. Next I'll see if that works and maybe I can save a few of my build threads that way. Now I'll get some finished pictures of this one to post in the done section.

[Johnt671]

I'm posting pictures in the under glass section now. Thanks to all who posted comments and looked at the build.