For those building Tamiya cars with the Ford Cosworth V8, there is no fuel injector “Christmas tree” for the fuel lines. I considered making them, but I realized that if you just paired fuel lines under either side of the electrical box and ran the ends to the injector horns, no one will notice! Shhhh, mum’s the word. Mum. Mum…
BTW Greg, did your kit come with the decal on top of the electrical box? I had to make one for my Tyrrell.
Yes, it did come with the black wires (wire, actually). I was surprised and impressed. I also don’t have the hang of getting the wires where I want them, even though the Tamiya-supplied black wire is isulated stranded wire so it stays where put reasonably well.
Your question led me to confirm what the wire is. Conductor wire is stranded and approx .008-.010" dia. The OD of the insulation is about .020" dia. It was challenging to strip, BTW! I’ve been searching for something like it but best I’ve found so far is Miniatronics 30 gauge which is what I used for the yellow wire. (white wire painted yellow with MRP paint. The MRP flexes well with the wire, no cracking or splitting)
You had mentioned the ‘Christmas Tree’ in a previous post and I’ve been scratching my head wondering where mine is, so I’m glad you posted this, G.
Yes, included with the decal sheet on the Tamiya 79 Lotus Martini. I also have a set of aftermarket decals I’ll be using, they do not include the sticker decal.
You decals look good. I keep procrastinating learning how to print decals, and am a bit envious of you folk who do!
Greg,
Kynar 30 gauge wire is available in yellow too, which is what I’m using for the Tyrrell’s electrical and brake lines. You can see it connected to the electrical box in this pic:
They also make great ejection seat pull loops too - just wind a spiral of thin tape along a length, paint black, remove tape, et voila!
I noticed the 30 gauge Kynar wire is hard to find in black, but I found some large spools on Amazon. They are commonly available in “party packs” consisting of small spools of white, yellow, blue, and red. I have also seen green Kynar wire.
The “Christmas tree” I referred to are the 8 ports that are on the fuel injector barrel, which is the cylindrical thing under the electrical box. There are 2 segments with 4 ports each, set at 90 degrees from one another. The two segments stagger the ports so that when viewed from the ends, the ports are 45 degrees to each other. This is new stuff for me too, as I have not studied it until recently. I dimly recall an article in a 1970s era magazine (Scale Modeler?) where the author described running his fuel lines as I intend to. But being a middle school kid at the time, I had no idea what he was talking about. I’ll dig up the 1/12 Tyrrell’s instructions to show what it looks like.
G,
First, you are a very organized builder! I should learn. [:)]
Thanks for all the ideas about wire. I recently bought one of the “Party-packs” (ha!) you refer to from Amazon in 30 gauge. It is both larger and doesn’t hold bends as well as Miniatronics 30 gauge (which I had). My yellow ordered directly from Miniatronics finally arrived, now that I don’t need it.
What a cool idea about the ejection seat pull loops!
I found a couple sources for insulated wire smaller than 30 gauge on line, I may or may not order some one day.
Thanks for explaining more about the ‘Christmas tree’. I’d like to see the detail from the Tyrell instrutions if you get around to it, and I’m still not 100% clear.
Thanks for taking the time to pass along all this info to me, G. [Y]
Hey Real G! Looks like you’re ready for final assembly and looking very sharp.
Greg,
OK here are the instruction sheets from Tamiya’s Tyrrell P34 in 1/12 (left) and 1/20 (right).
On the 1/12 instructions, parts C3 & C4 make up the fuel injector “Christmas tree”. On the 1/20 instructions, part A26 has them molded integrally without the ports. I am too lazy to precisely drill 8 holes 45 degrees apart, so I figured paired fuel lines on each side of the cylinder banks would suffice.
Notice how the fuel lines tuck in along the sides of the electrical box, and route under the fuel injection plate.
Keavdog,
Sorry for posting a non-GB project (I am trying to get it done before the end of the month). I’ll get onto the Brabham soon! When I took the photo of the Tyrrell’s parts, I thought about the scene in Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” where Pink is stoned and is arranging everything in his apartment on the floor. [:|]
Decided to take a break from the engine assembly and paint and decal the body. As you can see the 99T used just camel yellow paint. Indycals were used instead of the old kit decals. They worked well. Cut away the carrier film as close to the color as possible. There is some visible film that I will minimize. I have a detail set for the mirrors.
Ive been modeling for about 3 years. This is my first group build. The work you guys have posted here have been stunning and inspirational for me. I love F1 and this has been fun.
Thanks for looking
your friend,
Paul
Wow Paul that looks fantastic!
Agreed, excellent work Paul. My third year models were most certainly glue bombs!
That’s exactly what I was thinking!
Those blue Indycals over the Camel Yellow are eye-catching for sure, Paul. Nice work! [Y]
I’m always curious about clear coats. Did you use one over the top of the decals, and if so, what?
G,
Your post with the 1/12 and 1/24 instructions straightened me out, thanks!!! My 1/24 Lotus Christmas tree parts look to be an exact match with your (1/24th) Tyrell.
I get what you plan to do with poking the fuel lines in the sides of A26… makes perfect sense now.
It sure is fun having people to help me through my curiousities building this F1 kit. (and mooching off of your research [:)])
The 1/12 instructions do not look like Tamiya, but I don’t know of another 1/12 Tyrell kit. Whose is it?
This is what I used over the decals.
Greg,
The 1/12 kit is indeed Tamiya and of similar (1970s) vintage. Although to be fair, the 1/20 kit I’m working on is a later issue with additional parts to model a 1977 car versus a 1976 one. Fujimi makes a fairly new kit of the 1977 “slug car” version of the P34. It is quite different from the 1976 cars, with a full cowling and oil coolers moved to the front spoiler.
Team Tyrrell constantly worked at tweaking the steering geometry, and in 1977 ended up having to move the wheels out from behind the front spoiler, which negated the drag reduction of hiding them from the airstream. Goodyear, who made the special small front tires, neglected development during 1977. There have been allegations Ferrari paid Goodyear NOT to make improvements to the tires, but who knows what went on in the back rooms. After the 1977 season, the FIA banned six wheel cars so that sealed the P34’s fate.
Thanks, Paul. I think it worked very well.
Oddly, I was just reading a ‘top clear coats for modeling’ page the other day, and this was right at the top, if not #1.
I’ll be. Wonder what’s with the German language in the instructions? I’m surprised I didn’t stumble across the 1/12 Tamiya kit in my web searches.
The 1/24 Tamiya Lotus I’m building is sort of a test run to finally break open one of my bigger scale car kits.
That’s exciting news Greg! Especially seeing how nice your kit is coming along.
Thank you, John!
BTW, G, I forgot to mention I enjoyed your info re the history of the 6-wheeled Tyrell. Interesting stuff. Didn’t know that 6 wheels were banned. That explains the now we see it, now we don’t. Bet it was fun to watch them racing.
Greg, many years ago, while the Tyrell 6 wheelers were racing I heard rumors that the governing body of F1 was receiving cinsiderable complaints from its competitors. The three main complaints were (1) an unfair advantage regarding aerodynamics, (2) another unfair advantage during wet racing as the first tires would channel away most the water and the second set would have a mostly dry track meaning better handling, (3) last was the concern of the cost and complexity of the configuration making it difficult for other manufacturers to afford to stay competitive.
That in turn created a consipiricy when Goodyear would not spend the money to develop the front tires better for the car. That really limited the success of the car and its development. Some said it was the F1 governing bodys way of evening up the field. Eventually they just banned the set-up.
Time for an update!
First and foremost, Jarrod had a really good 24th birthday party. All told there were around 15 other people here to celebrate with him. That made him happy which makes me very happy. I got him another egg armor model because he really liked the egg tiger he built.
This weekend we are going to our friends to help them build a cement paver patio. I guess that means my modeling time will be cut short for a couple days. I don’t mind as we will be together with friends and family. I’m also grateful to be healthy enough to be moving brick pavers and the day is suppose to be wonderful; partly cloudy and upper 70’s.
Back to the Auto Union, much like my initial brainstorming for the internal body details my idea for the perforated edge trim under the removable body panels has not gone to plan either. The first attempt was with thin brass but punching the drill bit through it caused the brass to bend and buckle. I also found it difficult to keep a consistent spacing and straight line of hole because the bit wanted to walk on the brass while I was drilling. I know the bits are very sharp so it wasn’t that. Then I decided to try it with very thin sheet plastic (not strong enough to support the tight drilling tolerances). Next was the tooling lead, but nothing worked to my satisfaction. Then I remembered the aluminum sheet I found at the home improvement store. It was the same sheet I used to make the Marsden mat for my British SAS jeep, brilliant!
It has the holes pre-drilled and the aluminum was moldable / workable to cut / file / and bend into a facsimile of what I was after. The next challenge was trying to add the part to the kit as the kit seams and ridges beneath the body did not provide an even or straight surface. Thank goodness for small precision hobby files! The photos below are a work in progress, the time invested in those small perforated parts is considerable. While not “perfect” is is close enough for me.
I also began more work on the radiator and oil cooler. Now that I know how the scratch built internal body panels will fit it gives me the dimensions I needed for adding more scratch items. The oil cooler had semi-fine brass screen fitted while the radiator used part of a kitchen strainer screen. The plastic fitting head was added to the oil cooler in a previous update but I used solid brass rod for the second part of the fitting. They will eventually tie into locations on the car.
I finally made a commitment on how to fit the rear axle to the engine while simultaneously adding the leading suspension arm through the body, etc. I simply decided to use some wire snippers (pliers) to cut the kit axle in half. Once filed down I pulled a hollow brass rod from my spares that fits snug over the it axle. According to my measurements the brass sleeve will slide over the kit axle and still fit within the body. By cutting the sleeves to a specific length I can rest assured the wheel hubs will be a near perfect 90 degree angle from the chassis thus automatically provide a four wheel alignment, yippie!
Engine with half of axle screwed into transaxle
Read wheel hub and axle assembly
photo of engine, axle assy and brass sleeves
Other than finishing up the perforated holes inside the body it is nearly ready for paint (it’s about time, right?)
Till next time be safe, make smart decision, live, laugh, and love well, and model something…
Ben / DRUMS01
Sounds like Jarrod had a good time. A birthday with plastic is always a good one.
Nice work on the axles. This is going to be one of those builds that’s too pretty to paint!
Thanks John…
You know what time it is, it’s update time!
First was a step forward, then a step backward. I was satisfied with the fit and details so I began painting the chassis and inside body panels. Looking at period photos it is difficult to tell if the chassis is silver to gray. To show a little variation I decided to paint it a neutral gray and later dry brush the interior panels with silver to bring out the details.
Here the chassis has been painted along with antique gold for the radiator and light ghost gray for the body of the oil cooler. Once again, looking at photos, the back facing of the wheel appears to be a black/brown mix along with a chrome or polished brake vent. The back of the wheel was a Vallejo pre-mixed color and the chrome brake vent was painted with a chrome Molotow marker.
Some photos show the oil tank to be the same color as the foot box below it while others show it more of a polished metal and the foot box more the body color. The small tank in front of the oil tank was painted similar to some photos, in brass. The cap for the small tank is a combination of PE and thin solder.
Everything was going well until I added the engine to the chassis. When applying the screws to the motor mounts and into the chassis I found that the screws would not bite or tap into the chassis. My solution was to use extruded aluminum rod cut to length to fit the screw hole and motor mount, like a guide pin. After some CA cement the engine was firmly attached to the chassis.
That was great except I did not have a third hand to simultaneously insert the shifting rod when installing the engine. Of course the shifting rod is exactly the same full length as the distance between the transmission and gear selector box, leaving no room to manipulate into place. I was able to use debonder to remove the transmission knuckle and then fish the shifting linkage from the gear box, through a hole under the fuel tank, under the axle boot, and into the transmission shifting knuckle. The final step was to add the knuckle back to the transaxle.
Meanwhile, when finishing the inside body panels I found that by adding the spines and ribs inside that I also made it so I could not remove the dash sub-assembly (crap!). I guess that means I will have to detail paint the dash while it is in the car. It will be a little more difficult but it can be done.
So now that the engine is attached to the frame and the body panels inside the body I tried to test fit everything (again) only to find that the tight tolerances around the rear axles and transaxle along with the internal body parts would not allow me to fit the body to the chassis. Once I removed the partial axels I could manipulate the back of the body into place but then the front would make contact with the radiator. Likewise, when trying the front first I could fit the front behind the radiator but then the transaxle would not fit under the bodywork. The solution was to tear out the radiators detailed fittings I previously added which then provided a tight but acceptable fit of the body to the chassis. I will have to rebuild the top of the radiator once the body and chassis are one piece.
Here is the chassis with some additional bits added, like the fuel line, etc. Regarding the seam in the fuel tank; it will not be seen once the body is attached to the frame so I didn’t bother filling it. The second photo shows the addition of the front brake lines. The lines were made from the jewelry plastic tubing shown in a previous update along with the metal fitting which also came from the Hobby Lobby crafts and beads department.
It’s time to paint the body of the car. After some searching here were my choices: (left) Krylon Aluminum silver (center) Testors German Silver (right) Tamiya silver lacquer. I am going to use the Krylon aluminum silver as it better reflects the non-metallic or non-metal flake color of the real cars.
Since today is near 100% humidity I’ll most likely wait for the weekend to paint the body. Well, it’s nearing the home stretch and I am looking forward to seeing it together. Please feel free to share your thoughts or ideas that might further improve the build. Take care and thanks for looking.
Ben / DRUMS01
That’s coming along great Ben. It already looks like a million bucks! [:D]