Porsche 356 C: intro and engine

I managed to get my hands on a copy of Fujimi's excellent 356 C.



This kit, which was apparently designed for the European market, has a very high level of detail compared to some of the curbside kits of Japanese sedans promulgated by Fujimi, Aoshima, Hasegawa and others.

I got started on the motor, which was one of the 4-cam, roller-bearing devices cooked up by Ernst Fuhrmann. The kit even includes a molding of the crank, rods and pistons, which I will paint and display rather than bury inside the crankcase. Interestingly it shows that the cylinders are offset by half the bore, and each rod has its own crank journal; like the 911 motor, rods are not paired on a journal. Unlike the 911, which has a full complement of 7 main bearings (plus an 8th in front of the timing chains), this one appears to have only three.



It will look good next to the other Porsche twin-plug heads in the collection (908 and 917). The 356 motor used two 4-cylinder distributors; I've got a pair of 4-cylinder distributors from Morgan Automotive Detail which should work well.



What a complex little motor! At 1:1 it was said to require 120 hours to assemble, with at least 8 hours just to set the timing of the 4 cams and two distributors. At 1/24, Fujimi has provided lots of very fine detail, and a few pictures will illustrate this.



The basic engine block, barrels and heads, with carbs, fan and belt drive, is about 30 parts.



By the way the fan shroud has to go on before the carbs ... just because I did it backwards doesn't mean that is the right way.



Adding to the complexity, it appears that the distributor drive housing goes on over the belt drive, so changing a belt means removing the distributors ... is this offset between the crank and generator/fan a last throwback to the lowly Beetle? There is not much else in common between the two besides the flat-four layout.

Decals meant to mimic the wire mesh on the air filters were dry and cracked. Alternate plans may be needed. Perhaps the built-up crank will push me to make a small diorama with a garage bench and some tools.



I hate closeups like this, because they show every little flaw. But the screwups, like the broken fan belt or the visible seam running down the side of the cylinder heads and barrels, are essentially invisible to the naked eye. The picture does show, however, the shaft drive from the exhaust cam to the inlet cam; separately there is a shaft angling horizontally out from the bottom of the crankcase to the exhaust cam. All of this was joined by bevel gears, and setting the timing involved some complex approach to rotating the bevel gears relative to their drive shafts in minute amounts. All this, of course, after assembling the Hirth roller bearing crank.

I am now letting the glue for the distributor caps, from Morgan Automotive Detail, set on the distributor bodies from the Fujimi kit. The wiring looks complex but there are lots of pictures online illustrating the routing.





Four cams, two distributors and eight spark plugs, all to extract 130 hp from a two litre motor with four cylinders.



 Realising that some builders may want to display the motor, the kit comes with a motor stand. In order to make this realistic, the transmission (which stays in the car) has a clutch throw-out bearing and fork, and the engine comes with a flywheel and ring gear. No clutch, however ...

The kit will make the 356 B or C; I'll go for the C, which had 4-wheel disc brakes, and save the VW-style rims and drum brakes for the spare parts bin.

BRE 240 Z: Compete, finally (#2 for 2018)

The home renovations are ongoing and I am stuck in a small rental unit where it's not really nice to be spray painting, especially in the dead of winter, because there is no ventilation and because there is a bunch of neighbours. So the LN 8000 is on hold as I wait to get back into my home with the paint booth and exhaust fan. Meanwhile I have been scrounging for things to do.



Last described in May 2017, the BRE 240 Z and its partner, the 510, have been ongoing since December 2015. The 510 is complete but the 240 Z was missing final assembly and a repair for a snapped rear hub. So no spray painting was required to complete this, the second kit for 2018.



A few challenges for others to be aware of: the stance is too high, the copyright molded into the trunk floor is visible through the rear window, and the hood hinges are fussy.



Still missing: the front bumper which is either buried in my spare parts boxes in storage, or was not included in the kit.



Like the 510, the 240 Z is a very detailed kit but with some fussy bits. Beginners will find them a challenge but they will reward a patient, experienced builder. The oil filter plumbing is a nice touch and it makes sense to wire the motors, but some of the body panels feature odd fits, and the Z's hood hinge setup reminds me of the extraordinarily complex linkage for the rear deck in the Revell 904.



Nonetheless these are excellent kits that replicate an important part of US racing history. I suspect the LN 8000 will wind up with red and white livery, and maybe with a number 46 on the doors. Stay tuned!

LN 8000 Crew Cab: More second car deck progress

Moving right along with support structures for the upper deck.



In front, I decided to glue sections of H-beam to the firewall and assume the structure continues through the cab above the transmission, with supporting structure down to the truck frame. The alternative was going to be a structure ahead of the front bumper, but this was going to have to be wide enough to allow the hood to tilt open, and would be wider than any other portion of the vehicle.



So the structure is just ahead of the front door hinges, which required notching the fenders in the body as well as in the hood. A triangular brace is still missing.



In back, a pair of braces are in place. An additional brace may be needed. This is all built up from 0.250" H-beam, 6" at scale.

On the upper deck, I am also missing a railing and structure around the tire rack, and will also look for some form of diamond plate deck.

I am pleased with the scratch building so far. It all lines up and the mitred cuts are all pretty decent. Stay tuned!

LN 8000 Crew Cab: second car deck progress

The lower car deck has been shortened to make room for the crew cab, mainly by cutting out most of the vertical storage lockers. 



The upper deck is more or less complete. Next will be some struts to support the upper deck at the rear, through the lower deck, and at the front, through the bumper. This structure will need to be wide enough to allow the hood to tilt.



The bottle of Micro Kristal Klear is to balance things, as the upper deck is not glued in yet.



Stay tuned! As I am still renting it may be difficult to get any painting done beyond the dashboard and interior which will largely be brush work.

LN 8000 Crew Cab: Mocking up the second car deck

As mentioned in an earlier post, I had two concerns about this kit: any decent racing team will include two or more cars, and have a team of more than two people. The crew cab fixes the second problem.

To allow for a second car, the upper car deck structure has been roughed out, using the spare tire rack from the kit.



As I have chosen to keep the wheelbase intact, the extra length of the crew cab will require shortening the vertical lockers behind the cab. The upper deck will be supported by a structure within what is left of the vertical lockers, and by beams reaching down to the front bumper either side of the hood.



The pictures show that my paper plan was pretty close but that the upper deck needs to be raised slightly. This is because the cab sits higher on the chassis than I had assumed. This does not seem to be related to any mistakes on my part in assembling the cab and interior, or the cab mounts to the chassis. Nonetheless there seems to be a lot of space showing between the cab floor and the chassis rails.



The drawing also shows a potential approach to tilting the upper platform for getting the car on and off the upper deck. This is still undecided. Stay tuned!

Auto Show 2018

Being retired, I can head off to the Auto Show mid-week and beat the crowds. Better yet, the Offspring (a.k.a. my son) was able to take a week-day off work to accompany me.



There was the usual ocean of non-descript family sedans and SUVs, which we skipped over. The big news was electrics and hybrids; I had a 'conversation' with one vendor wherein I challenged him on electric range in a cold climate, where not only are chemical reactions in batteries slowed way down, but energy requirements are increased substantially due to defrosting, heating, lights and wipers, not to mention nice to have stuff, like heated steering wheels and seats. We agreed to disagree ... when I switch on the electrically heated windscreen (one of the greatest inventions known to mankind, by the way) on my V60, I can hear the alternator start to load up the engine until the engine management system can dial in a bit more fuel. So while battery R&D is moving quickly, I suspect it will be a very long time before these are viable in a typical Canadian winter, especially if, like me, you park on the street and never know if you'll be able to plug it in.

Moving on to the petrol-head stuff, there was little new. Porsche showed a "wagon" version of the Panamera, and Mercedes got brave and showed a C300 wagon. Volvo unveiled the XC40, a new compact SUV looking like a cross between a Range Rover Evoque and a RAV 4. It felt like an appliance store.

At the high end, the Rolls Royce stand was sober, as usual. The Lamborghini stand was colourful, also as usual.



The Ferrari stand had a couple of hotter versions of existing cars; the McLaren stand had an awesome paint job. Wow.



There was little new on the Aston Martin stand, and the only Bentley Continental on show was the convertible -- unfortunate as the coupe is one of my all-time favourite shapes. I include a picture of a coupe from a previous year; what a luscious but understated shape. Still unbeatable. I am assuming it is still in production.



Among the few surprises was a non-rusty, first-generation Honda Civic. A late first-gen version, judging by the Federalised bumpers, this one had the Hondamatic and must have been particularly sluggish. Puny compared to the modern Mini, I remember thinking they were big compared to the original Mini back in the 1970's when I was gainfully employed trying to keep these things on the road before they dissolved in the salt bath we still run on our highways.



Another interesting car was the Mazda Cosmo 110 S, the first rotary Mazda built. Never exported to North America, it was a very clean shape for 1967.





In the hot rod section, there was a lovely Chevy Belair, very tastefully done with a blown V8 of some description hiding neatly under the hood, with no scoops or apertures to mar the pudgy shape. Fat tires, lowered suspension and a 3" exhaust pipe poking out under the rear fender were really well done. Classic! Probably the highlight of the show.





In the wretched excess department, I'll skip over the Bugatti Veyron with a suitcase full of cash on the floor and move on to the monster Lambo with a claimed 3,000 horsepower. True or not, I don't know, but I sure appreciated them leaving the rear bodywork off.



There was also a bunch of  'drift cars' and a few of those ridiculous things on hydraulic struts. You gotta admire the craftsmanship in the paint and trim, but you also gotta ask: why?



Why?



Why?



For the mechanically inclined, the cutaway Ford Ecoboost V6 was interesting. Last year I mentioned the trend to incorporating exhaust manifolds inside cylinder heads, with the turbo bolted directly to a single exhaust port. The Ford takes this to an extreme with the turbo at one end of the head, meaning gas from the third cylinder has a lot longer to go before getting to the turbo than from the first. The ultimate in siamesed heads ... makes you wonder why they are bothering with 4 valve heads. Better breathing? Not likely. I guess the upside is minimising underhood clutter due to complex manifolding, and keeping as much heat and pressure as possible internal to the turbo. Exhaust cam timing is probably aiding and abetting things here. RIP sexy exhaust manifolding ...





So there you have it. My vote for Best in Show was the tastefully hot-rodded 1951 Chevrolet Belair Fleetline Deluxe. My son's pick was the Honda CB650 motorcycle with an inline 4, a throwback to the '60s and the classic Japanese mid-weights.



And in this era of #MeToo, it is worth pointing out that while the ladies in the major manufacturer's stands were both knowledgeable and dressed reasonably soberly, the hot rod section still featured babes shrink-wrapped in small swatches of spandex. Someone didn't get the memo, apparently. Sad.

LN 8000 Crew Cab and F600 COE

Mill City Replicas has re-released their '53 Ford F600 cab-over-engine (COE) resin kit. Looks well done and it also looks like a crew cab could be built by sacrificing an F100 cab (from an AMT or other kit).



However my LN 8000 crew cab is coming along nicely if slowly, so the COE will sit on the shelf for now.





The plan is to cut up the race car carrier to fit without a change in wheelbase. This would result in shorter or non-existent lockers; I am also considering building an upper deck that could take a second car. The upper deck would extend over the cab; the COE being shorter but taller, the LN 8000 is probably a better choice for this type of modification.



Stay tuned. Putty is going on, slowly, in multiple coats to cover up the space between the cabs.

LN 8000 Crew Cab: Initial planning

Those of you with an interest in oddball trucks will recall the transporters used by Grand Prix teams in the '50s and '60s. Of course there is the mythical Mercedes 300 transporter, but on a more mundane level one finds the typical Fiat transporter used to carry three Ferraris, boxes of spares and a crew of 5 or 6. Click here for a classic photo of this iconic race team circa 1957. 

There are 1/18 diecast models of this, which change hands for ridiculous prices; the closest you can get today at 1/25 is AMT's Ford LN 8000.

Now the LN 8000 has a few flaws. It can only carry one car; the semi-circular dip in the ramp, which is meant to trap the front wheel, is not realistic; and it only has seats for two.

As a solution for the number of seats, I was inspired by a 1953 F600 crew cab (click here and scroll down). I figured I could use Jimmy Flintstone's F100 crew cab as a replacement for the LN 8000 cab. However the F100 is too narrow to cover the big Diesel or the wider front axle in the LN 8000, and the fenders don't fit the larger truck tires. So a lot of cutting would be needed.





So an alternate approach was required. I decided to build up a crew cab LN 8000. It seems someone once made a resin crew cab body for the LN 8000, but I couldn't find any, so it was off to the chopping block once I'd acquired a second LN 8000 cab as donor.

I learned from the '53 COE project that you can graft on a second cab in one of two ways, either back to front or back to back. After a lot of planning, it seemed to me that back to back would work best.



In spite of it all being nice and square, there are still enough shallow angles to make the cuts challenging. First I cut the back off the 'rear' cab, and glued that cab, back to back, to the 'front' cab to maintain some structural integrity. Then I cut off the fenders and windscreen of the rear cab before grafting on the back panel removed in the first step. I left the back of the front cab in place as a partition, and again to ensure it has some strength. 



Right now it's got suicide rear doors but that is easily fixed.

The rough cut looks good on the standard length chassis. Next will be lots of cleanup (putty and sanding) and building the interiors. Plans for the car carrier portions are in the works and will be revealed in due course. Stay tuned!