AWB Fun with Seaton's Shaker

[Mr. Metallic]

Digging this project. Your mods are well executed.

With regards to the Tamiya filler, you should be fine, but you may find after primer that you need another small application. I use 2 part filler for all my bodywork, and then use Tamiya filler for any tiny imperfection after primer. I've found no matter how long I wait the Tamiya always shrinks a little except for minor scratches and very shallow depressions.

[papajohn97]

Progress over the last few days:

Sanded out to 800 grit and primed the puttied body using Mr. Finishing Surfacer 1500 white primer (nice stuff). It’s not perfect but should pass the “viewing at 18” test and hoping the final red-orange on the lower body + decals will camouflage remaining defects:

I added a .28” extension at the rear of the chassis using Evergreen .040” styrene:

I then attacked the two bumper guards on both front and rear bumpers (after removing the chrome with oven cleaner) using an X-acto knife and sanding sticks. Not an easy task!:

I puttied the damage where I could and then sanded and primed both bumpers:

I found a fiberglass type driver’s racing seat in my spare parts box which I hope to include in the interior tub along with a scratch-built roll bar, hydro shifter and column mounted tach. I also think I need to tackle the headers and the modification and dry-fitting of the Hilborn FI and stacks so I can rough-out the cut on the hood before diving into painting of the body and sub assemblies. Going slow on this one but still having fun!

[Scott8950]

Nice job

[Straightliner59]

Beautiful work, all around! Wheelwells look excellent!

[dragcarz]

Great work! Looks beautiful! I normally sant the primer down allowing it to fill small imperfections, then re-prime the areas of the body work. I sometimes have to do this a couple times but the end result is worth it.

[papajohn97]

Finally got back on this one after being distracted by a 1/35 Miniart M3 Lee with full interior tank kit I’m doing simultaneously (little risk of parts mix-up!).

I mounted front and rear axles/ suspensions with a .18” hike up in the rear and a .20” in the front, total eyeball estimate based on 1:1 photos. I used a lot of Evergreen rods and tubes to make these changes:

Here’s a rough reality check with the body/chassis balanced on some wheel/ tires:

I’m planning on using some slotted wheels from Fireball Resins I purchased a few years ago and will paint these with black base coat and Alclad aluminum. The rear wheels came with extended center hubs which I had to drill out and replace with styrene rod to simulate the flush axle ends. Here’s a shot of the wheels with driver’s fiberglass seat I’m planning to use:

I’m starting to rough-out how I’m thinking of modeling the weird Hilborn FI set-up on this car. The Car Craft reference that I wrote about in a previous post stated that Seaton adapted a Hilborn FI manifold for a 427 Ford to the BBC but then another reference I just received, Super Stock & Drag Illustrated magazine (Oct ‘65), stated Seaton adapted two Hilborn FI’s  intended for 4 cyl. Offenhauser Indy engines….maybe they tried both? I’m not going to sweat absolute accuracy and will just try to approximate the set-up shown in the photo in Scott8950’s post above by adding two four/hole manifold plates and short cylindrical extensions around the velocity stacks above the BBC Hilborn FI resin manifold that I have.

Other than a little priming here and there, Im going to keep assembling unpainted parts/ subassemblies before doing any serious painting. Nothing worse than having to modify painted parts!

John

[noname]

Really enjoying this. Great subject.

[M W Elky]

12 hours ago, papajohn97 said:

Finally got back on this one after being distracted by a 1/35 Miniart M3 Lee with full interior tank kit I’m doing simultaneously (little risk of parts mix-up!).

I mounted front and rear axles/ suspensions with a .18” hike up in the rear and a .20” in the front, total eyeball estimate based on 1:1 photos. I used a lot of Evergreen rods and tubes to make these changes:

Here’s a rough reality check with the body/chassis balanced on some wheel/ tires:

I’m planning on using some slotted wheels from Fireball Resins I purchased a few years ago and will paint these with black base coat and Alclad aluminum. The rear wheels came with extended center hubs which I had to drill out and replace with styrene rod to simulate the flush axle ends. Here’s a shot of the wheels with driver’s fiberglass seat I’m planning to use:

I’m starting to rough-out how I’m thinking of modeling the weird Hilborn FI set-up on this car. The Car Craft reference that I wrote about in a previous post stated that Seaton adapted a Hilborn FI manifold for a 427 Ford to the BBC but then another reference I just received, Super Stock & Drag Illustrated magazine (Oct ‘65), stated Seaton adapted two Hilborn FI’s  intended for 4 cyl. Offenhauser Indy engines….maybe they tried both? I’m not going to sweat absolute accuracy and will just try to approximate the set-up shown in the photo in Scott8950’s post above by adding two four/hole manifold plates and short cylindrical extensions around the velocity stacks above the BBC Hilborn FI resin manifold that I have.

Other than a little priming here and there, Im going to keep assembling unpainted parts/ subassemblies before doing any serious painting. Nothing worse than having to modify painted parts!

John

John, I don’t know if you can still get them or find a set on line somewhere, but modelhaus made the Howard’s wheels 

[papajohn97]

Thanks Mike. Like other drag cars at the time, they raced on a variety of wheels on this car. The triangular slotted Howard’s mags were on several of the pics I’ve seen and unfortunately with the closure of Modelhaus they are now likely unobtainium. I decided to use these Fireball oval slotted wheels because they are close to a few of the photos I have and I prefer the look over the triangular slots. I hope to apply a unpolished light magnesium/ dark worn aluminum Alclad which should contrast nicely with the white & orangery-red two-tone.

[papajohn97]

A little progress today….

I finished roughing out the weird Hilborn FI set-up and checked the rough appearance with the engine/ chassis/ body….looks about right?

I then started the mods on the oil pan to deepen it by 3” (.12” scale) by sectioning it with a razor saw and then bonding three .04” thick Evergreen styrene sheets. I’ll flush out the sides of these bonded sheets after an overnight cure:

I’m planning on using a Detail Master aluminum distributor on this engine and so I drilled out a .062” hole in at the rear of the FI manifold and block;:

The next big mod is to scratch build the headers which my Car Craft magazine reference describes as 2” tubing, 40” long, individual tubes with no collector. I’m planning on using 2 mm diameter solder wire and will need to make a header plate  out of styrene sheet with holes for the tubes spaced at the 4.84” (.194” scale) cylinder spacing. I made similar headers for an Arnie Beswick ‘64 GTO a few years back:

It doesn’t appear from reference photos that these individual tube headers on Seaton’s car extended out to the outer edge of the body like on this GTO, I’m hoping I can approximate how long they were based on the 40” length (1.6” at scale), these GTO headers look closer to +2” long. I did similar scratch-built headers for a ‘65 Chevelle A/FX build but with collectors:

Scratch-building headers can be a laborious time-consuming trial & error effort so bear with me if I disappear for a while. Making them symmetrical is the hardest part. Thanks for following along!

John

 

 

 

Edited May 5, 2023 by papajohn97
Deleted unneeded photos

[johnny rocket]

Great build cant wait for the next update.

[dragcarz]

I’m loving you work! It’s gonna look great when finished.

[papajohn97]

Trimmed and sanded the sides of the styrene sheets added to the deeper oil pan:

Made some progress on roughing out the headers:

I’ll  drill out the ends before priming and painting these. I will have to place these over the upper A arms on the chassis before assembling them to the engine block. The plugs are below these headers so I’ll need to finesse some wiring holes at the bottom of the heads to block area, not totally accurate but you won’t be able to see the plug end once the engine + headers are assembled to the chassis. Making these headers took about 3-4 hours of trial and error scratch building. They’re not pretty but they’ll be good enough once I airbrush them with Tamiya XF-1 or XF-84 (my favorite these days for exhausts). John

 

[Scott8950]

This is coming along nicely.

[papajohn97]

Made a few more little parts, scratch-built a Hilborn fuel pump (probably not to scale but roughed out totally by eye, intended for mounting in front of the block) using Evergreen styrene rod and sheet:

Scratch-built a fuel line routing block using Evergreen sheet styrene and a resin fitting to hang off of the left side of the FI manifold:

Drilled out right .016” holes on the inside of each intake tube on the manifold to install fuel lines later:

I would have liked to drill out two axial holes running down the base of each of the two rows of four tower inlets on this resin manifold to allow running wire down each row for butterfly axles but I was afraid of turning this delicate resin part into Swiss cheese as well as well as the near impossibility of keeping the drill centered thru each tower. Maybe I can bond short pieces of wire between each tower later to simulate these butterfly control axles?

I primed all the little parts as well as the chassis and interior tub:

The roll bar shown above was out of my spares box but I had to widen it by .20” by splicing in some .08” Evergreen rod so that it would adequately span the interior tub.

It’s supposed to finally warm up to the 70’s to low 80’s here on the So. Cal. coast over the next few days so I hope to finally be putting some colors on these parts. This is mostly a “done by eyeball” build but so far it’s still pretty simple and fun (compared to the crazy over-engineered tank model I’ll building in parallel). Thanks for viewing my slow progress! John

[TransAmMike]

First off John, glad your health issue is improved.  Don't know how I missed this one.  The subjuct car has always intrigued me especially as a former '66 Chevelle owner and drag racer. 

Your work so far is amazing to me.  All that cutting, piecing together and finishing would drive me nuts.

Anyway, I'll stay tuned and look forward to the finished product.

Stay healthy!!

Mike

[Scott8950]

Great job on the fabricated parts.

[R. Thorne]

Again, great job and persistence.  Thought you might like some motivation.  From the Blast from the Past drag racing group.

[papajohn97]

Punched out a hole in the hood for the FI velocity stacks to protrude:

[papajohn97]

Lots of airbrushing today:

I put a few coats of Scalefinishes Chevrolet Arctic White basecoat on the upper surfaces of the body. I need to knock-down the gloss of the Tamiya Semi-Gloss Black (X-18) on the chassis and driver’s seat, it’s amazing how much this paint can vary in sheen from bottle to bottle. I’ll use Dullcote or Vallejo Satin (my favorite lately).

Tomorrow I hope to mask the upper white on the body and basecoat airbrush the red-orange. I’m thinking of mixing some combination of these two Scalefinishes basecoat paints I have in my paint collection:

I would just use the Poppy Red but I have a Gas Ronda Thunderbolt already painted this color and I’d like this Seaton car to be a slightly different color (redder?). Color period photos of this car (actually two cars?) are all over the place in hue but most of them appear in the reddish orange range. I welcome any thoughts or if someone happens to know the actual color they used. John

[papajohn97]

Today I masked and airbrushed the reddish-orange onto the lower sides of the body:

I mixed three parts of the Poppy Red with one part of Regal Red - It look about right to me for what I was aiming for although who knows how it will look with clear coat applied? I failed to spray a few plastic spoons with the white and orange paint to allow testing with a new clear coat I’m thinking of using. I usually spray Tamiya TS-13 Lacquer over Scalefinishes base paints but I’m thinking of trying this Mr. Color UV Cut Super Clear which I’ve read is easier on decals:

Scalefinishes website says their base coats are not compatible with Mr. Color Self-Leveling thinner but I was planning on using their standard thinner to thin this clearcoat. Let me know if anyone’s tried this stuff over Scalefinishes  basecoat. John

Edited May 16, 2023 by papajohn97
Content correction

[Pierre Rivard]

Wow John, such inspiring work. I just took a class in body alteration techniques.

Awesome, awesome build in so many ways.

Where did you get the elbow line fittings?

[papajohn97]

Thanks Pierre, you’re a very talented builder so your compliments made my day!

I bought these resin elbow fittings a few years back to use on some 1/20 F1 builds, I think I ordered them from Hobby Link Japan (HLJ.com) and they are manufactured by Top Studio:

In checking both HLJ and one US dealer, Scale Pro Shop, it looks like they’re all out of stock. BNA in Australia has some and you can order them thru their eBay listings. BNA is an excellent shop, they don’t gouge and shipping is amazingly affordable and prompt.

Edited May 16, 2023 by papajohn97
Added last paragraph

[papajohn97]

I airbrushed several plastic spoons & knives with the Scalefinishes base paint as well as some Alclad Chrome over black lacquer to test the Mr. Color clear coat, will give them an extra day to cure before I test the CC. I may apply a few scrap decals onto the spoons and knives to verify that the Mr. Color doesn’t react with them. 

While waiting for my spoons to dry/ cure, I did a little work on wiring the engine and finishing up the interior:

 

I noticed in the reference magazine engine photos that, like most other BBC’s, the plug wires are routed over the valve covers and between the header tubes which I won’t be able to do until after I mount the headers to the engine (which I have to do while installing the engine into the chassis! Warning!: Finger and tweezer gymnastics job ahead!!!). Sounds like a good situation to dry-fit test first?

Edited May 18, 2023 by papajohn97
Added content

[Scott8950]

Great looking interior, i can't wait to see this car finished.