An eBay find and sold missing one mud flap. Other than that it looked fairly sound, with mods only confined to the chassis. Nice to see on arrival that the seller had found and attached the errant mud flap. Bonus!
First thing to do was whip off the body and check it over.
Obvious issues were:
a) the driver was correctly on the right for this version - but the instrument panel was on the left.
b) both sets of side windows were coming away along the bottom edges and up the windscreen pillars
c) the windscreen was becoming detached at one corner
d) at the same corner the screen and sideglass was slightly fogged, presumably from a previous attempt to secure them
e) one wiper was missing
f) both the front and rear spoilers were coming loose
g) the fog and spotlight array was detached
Tackled in the above order:
a) the interior tray was gently prised away from the body and the driver and navigators head, arms and torso were then 'popped' from underneath. (I know it is modelled after a right hand drive car but I just couldn't live with the Navigator sat behind the instrument panel while the driver had no gauges!) Fortunately the figures weren't stuck in. However, the steering wheel and binnacle were. These were gently prised out as a unit by inserting a small jewellers screwdriver into a gap, then twisting it.
The top half of the crew were glued back into their new positions, with the driver now behind the instrument panel on the left. Approximately 1/8" had to be trimmed from the steering wheel assembly to make way for the boss below the instruments and it too was glued in place. All this was done using GS Hypo Cement. oh - and the handbrake was realigned to match the new driving position.
b/c/d) All glazing was carefully edged away from the body to allow 'Glue & Glaze' adhesive to be wicked in. When fully set the fogging from a previous owners attempts to fix the issue was polished out using 'The Treatment' modellers wax. Fortunately the glass was just hazed, not damaged.
e) The single remaining wiper was removed. Happily it was used to complete the '33 Export' version I bought some time ago, which was missing this very wiper!
At this point the interior was reinstalled, using a good bead of GS Hypo Cement.
f) The rear spoiler was barely hanging on by a thread and was eased from the main body using a craft knife blade. The locating pins were undamaged so the spoiler's mounting surfaces were shaved smooth using the same blade, then it was reinstalled using the clear GS cement sparingly. The front spoiler was very firmly attached at one end, so the loose end was prised away sufficiently to get the GS's needle applicator in behind it. It was then allowed to spring back into its correct position and left to one side to set.
g) The fog/spotlight bar was tidied up at the back. Removing traces of old cement revealed the bases of the original mounting points, which were drilled out to accept fine brass rod, two short sections being superglued in to take the place of the previous plastic studs. The broken off studs were drilled out of the mounting holes in the body and the repaired unit pushed into place. Currently the lightbar is a
tight push fit to allow removal for racing, although it may get superglued in place at some point.
Finally a triple zero sable brush and Humbrol enamels were used to spot in some of the previous owners race damage.
Apart from the driver/navigator swap, none of the other work is obvious. It all contributes to a tidier, more solid, bodyshell though - and at least
I know it's been sorted
At the moment all that's been done to the chassis is to make sure it runs and remount the rear wheels flush with the body sides. It wasn't until I took this photo that I realised how dirty the alloy wheels were though, so some more work is required there.