Collected all my courage and started cutting. Fist major modifications - cut off front hood, bottoms, fronts and rear sides of door openings. I left some material at the bottom of front window pillars as connection points to chassis. I had to place wind shield window in place to support fragile pillars for now. Fit of rear of body shell to new chassis is far from perfect, but better than I've expected. Rear wheel arcs are pretty much in place, sides of engine bay seems to fit as well. At present rear body shell seats a bit high. I think it's partially caused by defect pointed out by other modelers already, that sides of body shell need to be lower. I will have to add material to bottom of body shell sides and also remove a bit of material from the top of engine bay walls. Dashboard doesn't fit well, but also does not seem to obstruct any other parts from fitting. I just need to come up with the way to modify it for better fit in that new place.
Next two major areas of concern are front hood and engine bay. Front structure front racing car seems to be just too long. Hood does not connect to pillars and wind shield window and there is a gap of about 2mm. I think I should be able to eliminate it by shortening and reshaping of front structure and removing some material from insides of the hood. There is no space to place top part faking of engine bay from the kit. I will cut it to 2 pieces, removing everything behind rear firewall, except for rear window pillars. Fit of modified parts will be problematic and I will have to find a way to mate new chassis with that modified part. Another "surgery" with involve engine cover. I plan to cut off central part, integrated with body shell at present. Then mate it with plastic windows and cut extra material, so it would act as proper removable engine bay cover. Cutting of diffuser part from kit's floor is in the plan as well at some point.
Don't know yet, if my plan for this conversion will work out in the end, but approach I've selected seems to be workable so far.
Next two major areas of concern are front hood and engine bay. Front structure front racing car seems to be just too long. Hood does not connect to pillars and wind shield window and there is a gap of about 2mm. I think I should be able to eliminate it by shortening and reshaping of front structure and removing some material from insides of the hood. There is no space to place top part faking of engine bay from the kit. I will cut it to 2 pieces, removing everything behind rear firewall, except for rear window pillars. Fit of modified parts will be problematic and I will have to find a way to mate new chassis with that modified part. Another "surgery" with involve engine cover. I plan to cut off central part, integrated with body shell at present. Then mate it with plastic windows and cut extra material, so it would act as proper removable engine bay cover. Cutting of diffuser part from kit's floor is in the plan as well at some point.
Don't know yet, if my plan for this conversion will work out in the end, but approach I've selected seems to be workable so far.
That does look like it was a slow process and one of concern. Turned out well and i have to say you are a braver man that I.
ReplyDeleteNot slow at all. That's results from last night. About 3 hours of work. Btw, bravery does not necessary guarantee success :)
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