AWB Fun with Seaton's Shaker

[papajohn97]

This is a project I’ve been procrastinating on starting for a few years. I had major surgery three weeks ago and am finally feeling good enough to take X-Acto knife in hand and build again (two weeks since the last Vicodin so my wife says I can play with sharp knives, drills, saws and airplane glue again).  I am also very happy to be alive and the last thing I fear these days is botching up a model build in WIP public view. I’ve also been inspired by all the wonderful classic super stock drag builds being posted lately by M W Elky and others here and would like to join in on the fun.

This is the car I want to recreate and my hope is to accurately shift the body 7” rearward (.28” scale) relative to the chassis while maintaining close to the stock wheelbase. I read this 7” shift while maintaining a stock WB description on the HAMB (it was on the internet so it must be true!) so short of a verifiable reference, I’m going to go with it. Car Craft magazine featured a two page article about this car in their Dec 1965 issue, if anyone has a copy, I would love to know if it supports this 7” body/ chassis shift as well as if there are any photos of the interior or under carriage in the article.

I'm starting with this Revell 1/25 kit:

I plunged into cutting out the four wheel openings from the body using a jeweler’s saw, X-Acto knife, .030” drill and Dymo tape for a cutting guide. I drilled out each of the two corners to act as a strain relief for bending after each vertical cut is sawed and the horizontal cut scored with the knife against the Dymo tape.

I also had to cut each of the two wheel well shapes out of the engine to allow repositioning them forward to correspond with the new front wheel cut out positions.

Then I tackled the front wheel well cut-outs:

So here’s the final parts cut from the body (I haven't yet removed the .28" section from each of the front fender cut-outs):

Here's an eyeball check of the wheel wells shifted forward, hoping it look's close enough to the B&W photo of the actual car above (may to adjust the rear cut-out some?):

Here's a view below with the fender cut-outs taped forward and the chassis shifted forward to roughly match. I will have to trim .28" from the front of the chassis and add .28" to the rear.  I also plan to shift the engine mounts on the chassis by .28" rearwards so that the engine remains in the stock position relative to the firewall.

I purchased Yesteryear decals and a resin Hilborne injection manifold and velocity stacks from Speed City for the 396 BBC supplied in the Revell kit along with a resin automatic (the internet tells me they used a GM Turbo Hydramatic 400 on this car, the Revell kit engine block comes with a manual):

I'm hoping to re-install the four wheel cut-outs and engine bay wheel wells onto this body using additional cut and shaped Evergreen sheet styrene as gap fillers and hopefully minimize use of putty.  I only have acrylic-based Vallejo putty and Tamiya one-part tube putty at the moment and am wondering if I should resort too one of the two-part epoxy or polyester fillers - suggestions?

Looking forward to making progress on this cool chassis-twisting wild ride in the coming days....

Cheers, John

Edited April 19, 2023 by papajohn97
corrected spelling of "putty"

[Altered Ego]

papajohn97, glad you have joined in on this fun.  This is looking great so far.  I am taking notes on this one.  I was going to cheat and use the upcoming Round 2 Chevelle AWB body and try to mate it to the Revell Z-16 chassis.  Keep up the good work, I will be following along.

[Len Woodruff]

Really nice job on the body cuts. That'show I used to do it back in the 60's.

I see you have a Turbo 400 trans. GM didn't introduce them until late 68.

My guess is he had a Power Glide or B&M Hydro. 

Maybe the Hot Rod article has more info on the Trans.

I am sure this will be a fantastic build.

[papajohn97]

Thanks for the transmission feedback Len. Half the fun of doing these parts-bashing vintage drag car builds is the fun of researching and learning new things. I just noticed on some of the period photos of this car and my decal sheet a reference to “Hydro by Tom Nell” - which gave me an additional clue that I overlooked as to what type of automatic transmission was in this car.

Unless there were two ‘Tom Nell’s’ involved in mid-60’s drag racing, I believe the Tom Nell painted on Seaton’s car was a Pontiac engineer who was deeply involved in modifying the first GM TH400’s for racing in 1964 - 65 (TH400’s were first available on Caddies and Pontiacs in ‘64 followed by Chevrolet in ‘65):

https://www.motortrend.com/features/hppp-1209-pioneers-of-the-pontiac-v8/amp/

This article implies that Tom Nell was helping Arnie Beswick on tuning the TH400 for drag racing during the period of this ‘64-‘65 Seaton’s Shaker.  Pete Seaton’s dad was a big shot at GM which may have given Seaton some inside access to back-door GM tech help during this GM race ban period (or Seaton/ Heinelt just connected with Nell at the drag strip?).

I  have a 1/25 resin B&M Hydro with a Chevy bell housing and could also order a resin 1/25 PowerGlide but based on the “Hydro by Tom Nell” decal, I think I might just stay with the TH400 for this build. I’m a ways from starting the engine/ trans subassembly and am happy to be corrected on this with a better reference or a photo showing what trans was used (maybe they started with a Powerglide in ‘64 and switched over to the TH400 in ‘65?). Much thanks for the feedback!

[papajohn97]

I made progress today on re-installing the four wheel openings on the body for the 7” forward shift. I bonded strips of .015” thick Evergreen styrene inside the body along each square cut-out profile to give the remounted wheel cut-outs and filler styrene something to engage with for bonding other than butt joining everything together:

 

I then bonded each wheel opening back onto the body checking a few distances between the pieces and the front door edges to try to get symmetrical between right and left sides:

As tedious as this was to do (about 4 hours work), I’m hoping this method will minimize putty gap filling and sanding….we’ll see! I’m happy with the look of this shift, especially the front wheel wells. It always bugged me that AMT did not adjust the front wheels/ wheel wells on their AWB  “funny car” kits such as the Mustang and Chevelle. If this build works out, I’ve got a ‘66 Nova kit which I’d love to try this on to build that cool red Dick Harrell/ Nickey Chevrolet Injected AWB car.

Edited April 21, 2023 by papajohn97
Added missing word

[wallyk 50]

16 hours ago, Len Woodruff said:

Really nice job on the body cuts. That'show I used to do it back in the 60's.

I see you have a Turbo 400 trans. GM didn't introduce them until late 68.

My guess is he had a Power Glide or B&M Hydro. 

Maybe the Hot Rod article has more info on the Trans.

I am sure this will be a fantastic build.

Th400 was introduced in 1964 (late) in Buicks and Cadillacs, and later in the year in the rest of GM products.

 

[afx]

Nice work thus far.

[Straightliner59]

10 hours ago, papajohn97 said:

I made progress today on re-installing the four wheel openings on the body for the 7” forward shift. I bonded strips of .015” thick Evergreen styrene inside the body along each square cut-out profile to give the remounted wheel cut-outs and filler styrene something to engage with for bonding other than butt joining everything together:

 

 

I then bonded each wheel opening back onto the body checking a few distances between the pieces and the front door edges to try to get symmetrical between right and left sides:

 

 

 

 

 

As tedious as this was to do (about 4 hours work), I’m hoping this method will minimize putty gap filling and sanding….we’ll see! I’m happy with the look of this shift, especially the front wheel wells. It always bugged me that AMT did not adjust the front wheels/ wheel wells on their AWB  “funny car” kits such as the Mustang and Chevelle. If this build works out, I’ve got a ‘66 Nova kit which I’d love to try this on to build that cool red Dick Harrell/ Nickey Chevrolet Injected AWB car.

Very nicely done! There's not a better way to do that, that I'm aware of, and it's pretty easy. Especially the part where you don't have to re-create a body line!?

[TarheelRick]

That is some really nice work on those wheel wells. Looking forward to updates.

[catpack68]

Really nice work so far John! Looking forward to the next update?

[papajohn97]

I decided to dissect out the radiator from the front bulkhead and bond the bulkhead to the body, making sure that the chromed headlight/ grill part fully seats and is positioned correctly relative to the front edge of the body:

There was no radiator in the actual car and I’ve cleaned up the cut and removed radiator features from this part since the photo was taken.

I moved the two engine mounts rear wards by .28” (7” at 1/25):

The photo above also shows that I cut .28” off of the front of the chassis to clear the front bumper/ grill/ bulkhead.

I also had to cut .28” off the notch that the interior tube bears against to allow the chassis to shift forward by the .28”:

I bonded sheet styrene to the rear of the interior tub to replace the back seat. Once this is fully cured, I’ll cut the back and seat portion of the rear seat off from the tub so that the chassis can shift forwards .28” relative to the body + interior tub:

And finally, I took a leap of faith and applied Tamiya putty to the four wheel opening repositioning seams:

I’ve never been crazy about this Tamiya putty filler and have been using Vallejo acrylic gap/ seam filler on all my planes/ tanks/ ships lately which is easier to work with and excess can be whipped off with IPA. I decided not to use the acrylic putty here because it’s much softer and I was worried that it might  react with lacquer based primer and paints. I’m going to give this Tamiya putty a few days to fully cure before attempting to sand this down, hoping I don’t regret this choice of putty….??

I hope to re-position and bond the two inner wheel wells to the body engine bay next and then get going on clean-up and dry-fitting of the chassis/ engine/ interior components. I’ve learned it’s best to solve all the assembly ,and fit issues before even priming any parts.

Edited April 21, 2023 by papajohn97
Added content

[M W Elky]

John, I hope you’re doing well as are health is paramount I’ve had some issues myself , made major dietary changes so I can stay healthy and away from doctors, and pharmaceuticals . Your build looks great I’ve never had any issues with the tamyia putty I usuals make spreaders out of sheet styrene. This will cut down on how much sanding you need to do. There were 2 versions of the car as the first one was rolled in a match race with the ramchargers at Detroit drag way . I think the car craft article might be on the rebuild car . At this time they switched from the Howards wheels to crager s/s . The rebuild car also had gold bumpers I sure wish I’d moved the front wheels on the one I built forward . I’ll be following along with you. Mike 

[papajohn97]

Thanks Mike. I’ve been incredibly healthy for nearly 70 years and was diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer in Feb, so I guess I was overdo for something! My doc performed a “robotic assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy” on me on April 3 and I’m recovering pretty well despite the usual side effects. My amazing wife, our family, my dog and my scale modeling hobby have really helped me get through these tough weeks. And my wife says I’m not allowed to die until I finish the +250 unbuilt model kits in the garage so I better get heathy and back to work!

Thanks for the clarification on the different appearances of Seaton’s car in the various photos online, makes sense. I plan to build the initial car with the Howard slotted wheels and what looks like an aluminum front bumper. With the weather finally drying out and warming up on the West coast, I’m suddenly  wanting to start a bunch of drag car builds (I.e.; my interest in your Harrell Nova ). Thanks, John

[R. Thorne]

Excellent wip pictures and narration.  Looking forward to more posts and progress reports.  Sorry, but my ocd kicked in.  That’s a razor saw, not jewelers saw.  I assume you lay the putty on heavy to not worry about shrinkage, but looks like a lot of sanding.  Very glad you are recuperating nicely.  

[Tortuga Kustomz]

Awesome work so far, i like the way you move you fender openings...

[papajohn97]

Thanks Ron for the saw name correction! I love my Tamiya razor saws, they must be +12 years old and they still work great!

Today’s update:

Sanded out the putty patches on all four wheel openings down to 800 grit, will test primer once my engine bay wheel well fixes are done:

Bonded the two engine bay wheel wells back into the body and shifted them .28” forward to coincide with the new front wheel openings (still need to add fill-in styrene between these wells and the firewall):

Removed the four speed kit transmission and bonded the resin TH-400 automatic into place with CA:

This TH-400 automatic is significantly larger than the kit manual transmission so I cut away material around the front of the transmission hump in the interior tub. I’ll box in this opening with sheet styrene, hopefully a larger partial conical piece, once I rough out the final position of the engine in the chassis/ body assembly:

In roughly checking the rear slick tire fit in the chassis/ body assembly, it looks like I’m going to need to enlarge the front portion of the two rear wheel wells on the chassis in order to better center the rear wheels in the new openings as well as to clear the chassis with these larger tires. I’m planning on using AMT M&H pie crust slicks on this car, my favorite period slicks and they still appeared to be used on some of the photos of this car, other photos seem to show wider more modern (lower pressure?) slicks. When were M&H pie crust slicks phased out of use in drag racing anyways? ‘65?

cheers, John

ps - I’m walking my dog one mile each day now so I’m making progress on my medical recovery!

Edited April 24, 2023 by papajohn97
Grammer, spelling

[papajohn97]

A few minutes left before I knock off for the day, I decided to box in the remaining two gaps between the engine bay wheel wells and the firewall with .040” sheet styrene so that I can prime the body tomorrow to check my putty job:

[Altered Ego]

The phase out of the M&H pie crust slicks to the Goodyear wrinkle walls started around mid-year 65 and throughout 66.  The best example of this is the 65 Dick Landy Coronet.  Notice in pictures of this car that Landy had American Racing wheels mounting the M&H slicks and used Cragar SS wheels with the wrinkle wall Goodyears.  Realistically, as many things changed on these cars during the 65 season, the rear slicks were included in this.

[Rattlecan Dan]

Fantastic work being done so far. Good luck and keep up the good work.

[papajohn97]

I've made some progress at fitting that big resin TH-400 trans into this chassis:

I plan to make my own headers using solder wire, should be fun going around the engine mounts and such:

 

I boxed-in a new transmission tunnel within the interior tub using .020" thick Evergreen styrene to cover up the larger opening I had to make to clear this large resin transmission:

And then I fixed the two rear wheel wells on the chassis to allow more room for the larger rear tires:

On the subject of reference materials, I splurged on eBay for a rare original copy of Car Craft Magazine Dec 1965 with included an excellent article on this car.  I'd love to post the article but don't want too violate any copyright laws so I'll just note the following things I learned and were able to confirm:

• They described the car as a "match car", not to NHRA A/FX rules I assume, although the photos of the car in the article have "A/FX" on the rear roof column on each side.
• A three-speed Turbo-Hydromatic transmission was used in this car.
• They included a floor shifter which allowed manual selection of each of the three speeds or an auto drive option (at 6500 rpm!).
• No front brakes, no radiator.  They included a 5 gal water tank in the trunk with a small electric water pump that allowed them too cool the engine between runs 
• Very little modifications to the stock chassis (positraction and uneven coil springs to counteract the crazy torque).  The body was shifted rearwards 7" (maintaining the stock wheel base) and lifted 1" (which I'm probably not going to worry about).
• They used a full-sized Chevy sedan differential with 4.56 gears, I'll probably just use the stock Chevelle diff.
• The car/ decals label it a '396' but in actuality,  it's a prototype 427 that Seaton was able to get from GM
• They used a Hilborn FI intended for a Ford 427 and jerry-rigged an adapter manifold.  I have a resin BBC Hilborn FI manifold that I think I'll still use but I might add two four hole plates between each of the two lines of four bosses on the resin manifold and the metal velocity stocks  too try to mimic the appearance of the actual BBC-to Ford Hilborn FI set-up.
• A 3 gal Moon fuel tank was mounted in front of the engine.
• Interior was gutted for racing (fiberglass driver's seat, no passenger or back seat, stock inner side panels but all hardware removed, stock dash and steering wheel with tach mounted on. column, roll bar and five point racing harness).
• Exhaust headers are individual 2" ID tubing, each 40" long, no collector.
• Oil pan was 3" deeper (need to add .12")

Cheers, John

Edited April 26, 2023 by papajohn97
spelling, deleted extra pics

[R. Thorne]

Nice work.  Send me some of your energy/enthusiasm. 

[Scott8950]

Great progress so far ? here is a picture I  saved awhile back for my build.

[Ian McLaren]

On 4/20/2023 at 5:53 AM, Len Woodruff said:

Really nice job on the body cuts. That'show I used to do it back in the 60's.

I see you have a Turbo 400 trans. GM didn't introduce them until late 68.

My guess is he had a Power Glide or B&M Hydro. 

Maybe the Hot Rod article has more info on the Trans.

I am sure this will be a fantastic build.

I'm not sure your introduction date on the TH400 is correct. It was first used iin 65 in Buick and Olds and the other divisions in 66. My 67 Caprice 427 car had one from the showroom floor ( In Canada as least).  The TH400 found its way into race cars very quickly because of its three speeds and apparent strength. That being said the B&M is also quite likley.

[papajohn97]

Hi Ian, the Car Craft reference I cited above stated that the transmission used in this car was a Turbo Hydramatic modified by Tom Nell (a GM guy). Other references I’ve seen state that the first TH released by GM was a TH400 offered in ‘64 Caddies. 

[M W Elky]

8 hours ago, papajohn97 said:

Hi Ian, the Car Craft reference I cited above stated that the transmission used in this car was a Turbo Hydramatic modified by Tom Nell (a GM guy). Other references I’ve seen state that the first TH released by GM was a TH400 offered in ‘64 Caddies. 

Hi John, l think the TH400 was also the transmission of choice for DickJessie’s MR.Unswitchable and Arnie Beswick’s mystery tornado super charged gto