Pocher Ferrari Testarossa rebuild and upgrade

[larchiefeng]

This was a little Christmas present to me that I picked up on eBay fairly cheap. The idea was to strip it down and see what can be done with a diecast Pocher. This isn't nearly as popular as the F-40 but it was about 1/10 of the cost. I decided that one way to fix it up is to detail the engine and interior since, it's a convertible. I haven't abandoned the Mercedes or the Ferrari 250 GT I'm waiting on the paint before going any further with each. I started with this.

Missing parts on the engine

These really are the cheap seats, I think the seats in a 1/24 model are heavier than these things. I think I'm going to try and cover them with leather for practice before I do the Merc.

You can see with the seats gone just how toy like the interior looks, this is going to need some work since it's going to be so visible. Fortunately its big!

Here's an example of some missing parts and why the front hood panel was so wobbly. You can see on each hinge, all the short horizontal rods with balls on the end are missing the vertical rods like on the other side of each hinge, oops!

The left front wheel was practically falling off so, I had to take all the tires and wheels off and check the suspension to see what was broken or missing. Hard to see anything but the upper ball joint out of the upper a-arm here

But, the lower ball joint had broken off that you can see here is missing

Time to start taking this thing apart

All the main assemblies are done and it only took about 45 minutes. This was about as easy as it gets and I did it all without any kind of instruction sheet. It just basically unscrewed but, there were a few places where the guy had glued some things together.

For the most part the engine came apart fairly easy but, it did have more things glued on but, it was old glue. So, I just worked it slower and eventually it came loose with just a few broken pins inside.

I'll need to clean it all up and start with the upgrade set to detail the engine and here is one of the upgrade sets

Here is the other

So now I need to get busy chiseling off all the plastic bolt heads and cleaning up any excess glue and drilling holes for wiring and rods etc. You can see why I needed the entire engine disassembled in order to do all this work. It makes it easier to get to everything. Tomorrow, I should be able to make some headway on the engine.

[Mpfiend]

Looks to be an interesting Project Wayne,

I'll look forward to see where this goes.

Keith.

[larchiefeng]

This should be a fairly easy project to build given the size of everything and anything that I do to it will be an improvement. My biggest issue is deciding whether or not to paint the die cast body or not. The only part that isn't metal is the windshield frame and it has yellowed. I really want to change the color because this white is so boring but, I can't figure out what color to paint it that is different from the rest of the Testarossa's. That, and what color would look good on it. On the color, I'm open for suggestions.

[Mpfiend]

How about something like this?

http://www.autogespot.com/ferrari-458-spider-spotted-in-remarkable-color

Keith

[Mickd]

Good shout on the colour there Kieth

[Codger]

Carry on Wayne. Looks like you and Keith are carrying the Pocher banner until I jump back in!

[larchiefeng]

That's an interesting color for sure and it would definitely go with a black, gray or even possibly a light tan interior. I looked at about every color yesterday and I tried to envision each on the Testarossa's body. What I need is one of those programs that allows you to take a picture of the car and change the colors on it so you see what each looks like. After looking at all the reds, blues, yellows, silvers, blacks etc. I was somewhat disappointed that nothing jumped out at me as "that's the one". I know that the white is boring on this so, I've been kind of on one of two different tracks with the color. First, I could simply save myself a lot of time and trouble and shoot a coat of clear pearl over the white but, that somehow just doesn't really work for me. Second, I've been looking at the new matte black Aventador and I thought it might look good in that color with some sort of accent color. I saw a picture of an Aventador done like that a few months ago and I really liked it. In fact I liked it so much I've thought about getting one just do it that way but, I already have a brand new in the box orange one and I can't justify getting another one unless I traded or sold it. More currently, Brian's Mustang build kinda got me thinking about the color again although, I wouldn't do the red stripes down the middle. The racing stripes are really more of a muscle or racing car thing not, so much an exotic car thing. Not to say that I haven't seen it before but, if there is another color accent it would have to be more subtle. The last thing is the wheels, I don't think that they would cut it on the car if it's matte black. That color would demand a more aggressive tire and wheel combination in order to get the full effect. The only problem with that is where do I come up with those in 1/8 scale? I guess it's time to quit talking about it and get started on the engine today. I first need to go to the post office and see if any more of the interior upgrades are here yet. I'm not looking forward to going out, it's around 30 degrees outside with some snow on the ground and the wind is blowing at a steady 20 mph bringing the temperature down into the low 20's with wind chill. Brr, more later today.

C, I just saw your post. I don't think that this car really can be considered a true Pocher other than in name only. It's kinda like Ferrari purists don't consider any Ferrari a true Ferrari unless it has 12 cylinders. We'll do what we can until you're back on the bench. Hang in there and get well soon!

Edited December 26, 2015 by larchiefeng

[larchiefeng]

Crazy day today! The temp got down to 11 degrees with wind chill and the 20 mph winds finally knocked the power out at around 1:00 pm. Fortunately, I have a generator and I was able to keep working but all the cable and internet was down for hours. With all that I was running out of gas for the generator and left around 5:30 to go see if there was any power on at the gas station in town; negative on that. When I got home I saw smoke pouring off the back deck where the generator was running and then the dog house it sits in was on fire! At the same time the power came back on and I shut the generator down and put the fire out. Talk about timing!

Anyway, before all that happened I did make some progress on the engine. Here you can see the removal of a piece of the engine and some of the sloppy glue work.

The chisel blade is real handy if you buy kits and take them apart or just as a general purpose blade.

Here you can see some of the broken locating pins and the mess of the old glue

This will mostly be covered and new PE ob the intake gaskets as well as every bolt head will be removed and drilled out and replaced with brass bolts. I'm just trying to get some flat surfaces here and sand it all down.

You can see better the broken locating pins which, doesn't bother me because I'll sand them flat and drill them out. I usually start with a very small bit so I can better locate the center of what I'm drilling then, I drill it out with the actual size that I'm using for new rod.

Here's the engine block halves before

And after drilling and using brass rod for new pins

There really aren't any coherent instructions for the upgrade set, it's more like a bunch of written stuff, a bunch of pictures of the actual engine and couple of pages of the model engine done. There are NO step by step instructions. There are a lot of pages of actual Ferrari exploded parts diagrams and one sheet with very tiny pictures that show the kit instructions as they relate to the bags of parts they give you. I finally figured out that each bag is labeled by the kit part number so, everything in that bag goes on that part. Not too difficult but, definitely not for a beginner. Hardly for me but, I'll figure it all out. So here we have each bag with it's corresponding part. Mind you I still have to shave all the bolt heads off and drill out all the holes and paint the parts before I can even put these parts on.

So, this is where I left off before the big adventure and it's where it will stay for tonight. The cable and internet is still going up and down so, I wanted to get this posted before it goes down again or the power goes out again. It's so cold and windy with the windows rattling I feel like I'm on one of those TV shows in Alaska! Hopefully, more tomorrow.

[Codger]

Wayne you are once again about to create a big-scale silk purse from something far less. You are again showing us advanced techniques, expensive upgrades (which few if any spend for and reveal) and smart fixes for someone else's 'junk' model. You did the same with the three Benz kits you brought us and their modifications loaded with aftermarket and fabricated parts. Besides being highly skilled, you are prolific. Now you have three WIPs posted at once, even a 'small' one for those fans. I know how time consuming it is to photo and compose post after post loaded with how-to's and and eye-candy but can't imagine doing it for three models at once. You have become very much like Roy who sadly, has apparently moved on.

Here, only three of us have seen fit to comment on and support your work. Seeking discussion, questions, feedback and help has been my sole reason for posting and I'm certain yours, as well as the very few interested big-scale commenters - never accolades.

I personally hope you don't tire of the great work you're doing and giving the few us the benefit of your efforts. My work will continue when I'm rid of this health plague I'm in and I further hope Keith, Ian and a few others continue as well. It's a shame to lose Roy but I fear we have.

Thanks from a fan and let's continue in his example.

[macgregor]

I'm in watching this unfold with interest, got an old sows ear 1/12 Monogram one to build if I ever find a replacement windscreen for it, so I will be keen to see the detail you get in here. I can totally see what Codger is getting at here, threads about cars just don't get the views or the interest like wingy things, which is really sad. I love big scale cars but I also build other things & you can learn so much by viewing other genres, how to create different effects, weather etc, they all cross over at some point. How many nice builds do you often see of gloss finished aircraft let down by not knowing to get a good finish? ............... Lots to learn from cars builders I'd say.

Mac

[rjfk2002]

I hope you got your power back! I'm excited to follow this build. I built this kit 20ish years ago and recall the OOB build being toyish. In your hands, however, it will be quite a piece of art. The dash has a lot of angles and curves are you planning on covering that in leather too? There is also a lot of missing plumbing and wiring from the engine area. There is a ton of stuff that you can do with this kit.

[larchiefeng]

Thank guys, I appreciate the comments and encouragement.

Mac, what I did was just start searching for the missing parts I needed on ebay and contacted my friends to see if they had any spare parts. On this car I got the side mirrors from Scott Harv on eBay, a bunch of small misc parts from Paul Koo, and the upgrade kits from Scaledetails on eBay, and of course the car on eBay. I know this sounds a little pricey but, I just sold some other kits and bought this car and what I needed to fix it with some of that money so, it really wasn't any money out of my pocket; I just traded 4 kits for one and some extra money.

Rich, I don't know what I'm going to do with the dash yet, I really haven't got that far yet. I'm focusing on the engine now and when it's done I'm going back to the Mercedes and little Ferrari for a bit. I'm really stuck on what to do about the color and or paint for this one. Because the engine cover opens to the firewall I doubt that I'll do much in the way of plumbing if it doesn't show, no sense in wasting time on something that won't be seen.

So, today's offering shows the holes are drilled out on all the engine block and everything you see here has been painted. First up are the engine block halves drilled and painted.

Here we see on half done with the bolts in the center and studs with nuts on the exhaust gaskets. I know the block looks sloppy and scarred up but when the trans axle goes on it disappears.

Jumping ahead, here are the main engine pieces on the bottom end are all done except the oil sump studs and nuts where you can see the open holes. The studs and nuts are one piece but are cast on a "Christmas tree" of brass and need to be cut off and filed down after being cut. The brass squeezes and leaves a bit of flat spot or oblong shaft that needs to be filed round again. Frankly, it's tough on the back and eyes hunching over this and drilling and cleaning up the small parts you can not hold on to very well. One side.

The other side

Here's where we'll leave it for tonight. Tomorrow, I'll finish the sump pan studs and nuts and then glue it all together. Then I can start on the top end. Here you can see how the studs and nuts are cast on the tree in the bag.

[Mpfiend]

Here, only three of us have seen fit to comment on and support your work. Seeking discussion, questions, feedback and help has been my sole reason for posting and I'm certain yours, as well as the very few interested big-scale commenters - never accolades.

I personally hope you don't tire of the great work you're doing and giving the few us the benefit of your efforts. My work will continue when I'm rid of this health plague I'm in and I further hope Keith, Ian and a few others continue as well. It's a shame to lose Roy but I fear we have.

Thanks from a fan and let's continue in his example.

Mr C,

Very well said, but have no fear, I am in for the long haul with these Pocher kits, I have definitely been bitten by the "bug", in fact I have just taken delivery of a fourth kit now, the Bugatti Suprofile. so I now have two Bugatti's and the Rolls Royce Torpedo to build once My Mercedes is complete.

Best Wishes for the New Year to you all.

Keith.

[Codger]

Mr C,

Very well said, but have no fear, I am in for the long haul with these Pocher kits, I have definitely been bitten by the "bug", in fact I have just taken delivery of a fourth kit now, the Bugatti Suprofile. so I now have two Bugatti's and the Rolls Royce Torpedo to build once My Mercedes is complete.

Best Wishes for the New Year to you all.

Keith.

That's great news for Pocher fans. You and Wayne are building a concours full of classics!

[larchiefeng]

So, this is where I left off last night.

As near as I can figure these are oil cooler lines and holes had to be drilled in the block to add these parts since there was no fittings for them. The brass ferrels didn't fit very well on the braided hose and so they were lightly crimped on one end to the hose and half way onto a piece of styrene rod.

Other than the oil filter and a few decals and couple of small details the bottom end is done. The instructions or what passes for instructions says to cut off the spark plugs, the rods sticking out the side, but I don't see any provisions to replace them and have the plug wires connect. I'll have to figure that out when I get the top end done. Today the replacement metal upgrade parts came and man they're heavy. I bet the box weighed over a pound.

A little more tomorrow, I have to do some things and I need to mask off the 250 for trim work. So here is the day's results.

Hopefully more tomorrow, time permitting.

[larchiefeng]

So, with the bottom end pretty much done I'm, moving to the top end. Here is a test fit of the metal parts from the upgrade two kit to make sure the intake holes are fitting the manifolds.

Top and bottom together. The top end is complete as it goes with gaskets and bolts. The oil filter stem broke off so I had to add a piece of rod and drill a hole in the oil filter bracket, next to the braided lines in the middle. Because the inside of the filter would show I decided to cut out a circle and slip it over the oil filter stem. On the decal sheet it called out the oil filter to be white for the decal in the foreground. The kit instructions calls out the filter as being red, the reference pictures show a black oil filter on the engine. I painted it white and put the decal on it and most of the color on the decal washed away making it pretty much illegible. The metal upgrade kit has a metal oil filter in it so, I'm going to hunt through my spare decal sheets and see if I have another decal for an oil filter.

This is the trans axle housing and if you look closely you can see on the filter screen there is one rivet head and on the other end there is a hole for another one but, when I was drilling out the 0.05 mm hole the tip of the drill bit broke off in the hole. My fingers are just too big to try and place a half a mm head of a rivet on there and glue it without making a complete mess of it so, one rivet it is since I can't get the piece out.

None of this is glued, I just have it mocked up to check fit and to see what needs to cleaned up and adjusted for when it does get glued in place.

There a bunch of brass bolts that go into the center fuel injection piece along with a brass line that comes out of each of the distributor cap looking things there in the middle. All of that had to be drilled out and is ready to go. I'm going to do some washes on the all this white metal to tone it down some but, getting all the fitting comes first.

Here we have a side view to kind of get an idea of just how many brass bolts there are. You can also see the smudged decal on the oil filter.

So then after you do all this detail work you put the air intake over it all and cover it up! Perfect, plus most of this hunk of white metal needs to be painted. I think everything gets painted except the hose clamps which, I can leave the bare metal. Kind of makes you wonder why they bothered to cast this part. The plug wire need to be cut off the spark plug boots and replaced with red wire. Unfortunately, the square red boots aren't included in the kit which the instructions show as part of the kit so, I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do about that. I do know that I'll be contacting the company that made this and asking a few pointed questions regarding some missing pieces and what some of the parts are for since there is zero reference showing placement; and that the instructions leave a lot to be desired. I mean, I've figured out most of it but, there are just some things I can't figure out without a at least a hint. I also need to find out what's up with the decals and if I need to spray the sheets with clear to seal the ink or what? BTW, when I get to the valve covers all the bolts you see that are red here all need to be cut off, drilled out and replaced with brass.

[Codger]

Pocher never dreamed this lump could look so good...

[larchiefeng]

Thanks, it still has a long way to go though. Today, I'm setting it aside for a while and getting back to the Mercedes.

[rjfk2002]

How is the quality of the white metal parts? From the photos it looks pretty good - shiny and without flaking. I wasn't sure if that was how they came out of the box or if you did some prep work. I agree with you on the air intake seems strange to be in metal versus plastic. Looks great so far!

[larchiefeng]

As you know, I bought this used but, the paint is fine on all the metal parts. Having said that, let me add a small disclaimer here. First off the windshield frame is plastic and has yellowed some and all the metal paint is good but, no where near perfect. Even though it is passable it does have that orange peel kind of finish where it feels kind of smooth but you can still feel some roughness or bumps under the finish. On my Mercedes I spent an inordinate amount of time to get rid of that and have a perfect smooth shiny surface. As a matter of fact I just posted a bunch of body pics tonight of the Merc as an example of what I'm talking about. You can spend hours and days on a paint job it just depends on what you're satisfied with. Obviously, I'm a little obsessed and went way overboard but, it's done and in the end I'm happy with it, and that's all that matters.

[Pouln]

Wayne, I can't believe that you take this on next to the Merc. I cannot begin to imagine how much work it is to build a make records and then upload it all here.

Funny, but I am on the same track with this one. I bought exactly the same last summer together with a red coupe for a fair price.

I have the scale details upgrade (not the metal engine parts). I sourced it many years ago to augment the testarossa engine kit that I have waiting.

Someday when I have more time on my hand I will take them apart and rebuild them. I think I will put the extra engine (upgraded) next to it.

Anyways, be sure I will be following you on this one.

Thanks for sharing.

[larchiefeng]

I spent some time on the valve covers cutting all the bolt heads off and drilling out each to accept the brass stud/nut combo. I also drilled out the spark plugs to fit a piece of brass rod in the block for the plug boots to fit on since, all the plastic ones broke off. I also painted the valve covers red after drilling everything out. Tomorrow I will cut each boot off the kit wires and drill each out for the new red plug wires. I forgot to take pictures today as this whole process was time consuming but, I will post picture tomorrow along with further progress on the engine.

[larchiefeng]

Here are the promised pictures of the valve covers. After I looked at them today I realized that the paint had a couple of problems do, I sanded down some of the scratch marks on the covers and re-painted them. So, I am letting them dry today and I'm moving on to the other builds. I know it's hard to see here but, there were scratches and the edges didn't have enough coverage. So, I sanded them down and the second picture is the re-painted version. That is one thing with lacquer, one coat doesn't fill in flaws like the heavier enamel will.

This is still lacquer but, two coats after sanding down.

Let those dry and I'm ready to add the 32 brass bolt/studs and attach to the block. Here are the plug boots with the brass rod in them to attach to the block, Since I'm going to have to cut the black rubber wires off each boot and drill a hole where the old wire was and the new red wire goes the brass rod will give me something to hold onto while cutting and drill holes in rubber.

Here is the side of the block that had to be drilled out for the brass rod on the plug wire boots. Looks sloppy but, neatness doesn't count here, it will all be covered up. The only thing that matters is the hole being the right diameter.

Here we are before I decided that I needed to re-paint but, it's where we're going along with the brass bolts.

I've lost count on how many holes I've drilled and how many drill bits I've broken doing so but, the holes are into the hundreds and the bits are into double digits. Each hole had to be drilled at least three times, first with as small a bit as possible to get the hole centered and then the next size to actually get a hole drilled and a third time to try and get the actual size and sometimes a fourth time to ream out the hole a little. Most of the broken bits were the very small as I was putting the bit on to center and exerting just a little pressure, and off it would snap and disappear. These valve covers were particularly difficult in trying to cut off the old bolt heads that were mostly sunken and not easily reached or completely cut off. I had to go back with a drill bit the size of the larger sunken recess and sort of mill out the hole. So, the valve covers alone probably took at least three hours to get drilled and cleaned up. This is a lot of work on an engine that will be somewhat hidden; I'm going to have to set the car on a mirror just to see all the brass bolts. At least I know they're there.

[larchiefeng]

No, this build isn't dead, it's just been sort of back burnered while I work on the Mercedes. And over the next week or two I will probably start sanding down the body for a color change to either gloss black, matte black or a bright yellow; anything but white. In response to a question on my other thread about the tires and wheels for this build, I'm posting a picture of some wheels I picked up. These are RC car wheels and neither set will fit as is but, the centers would work if I can either make some outer wheels or cut up a set of Pocher wheels and swap out the centers. I've been kicking around buying a lathe for a while and I've found a used SL-1000 Unimat lathe close to my place for $375 but, it doesn't have anything to go with it. I've been pricing lathes and the price isn't too bad and it's not too far from my house so, I can go look at it before I buy it. Besides machining lots of small parts like Vontrips, I've always wanted to be able to make some nice aluminum wheels, or at least the outer portions. Anyway, I digress, the picture is what I bought from eBay in the RC car section and you can see how they match up against the Pocher wheels, they don't. They are 1/8 and 1/10 scale; the one on the left is 1/8 but it's way bigger than the Ferrari wheel and the one on the right is the 1/10 scale wheel. I measured my wheels before I bought either set and took a chance but, no luck. Then, that's when I started thing about cutting out the Pocher centers and swapping them with one of the centers of the RC wheels. Then taking it a step further is when I started seriously thinking about machining my own outer wheels and cutting up the cheap RC wheels for the centers. There are tons of custom wheels for RC cars out there so, finding different styles is no problem. As I said earlier in this build, the one thing that really needed changing was the the ugly factory wheels on the Testarossa.

So, when I tried to upload the photo of the wheels Photobucket crashed and I can't login to Photobucket at all on either computer. It keeps crashing the system, when I can get back in I'll post the picture, sorry guys.

Edited February 17, 2016 by larchiefeng

[larchiefeng]

http://rs1383.pbsrc.com/albums/ah304/larchiefeng/IMG_4086_zps1jckycwh.jpg?w=480&h=480&fit=clip

Because now, my computer crashed again this is the only way I could upload the picture of the wheels. Apparently, I have a bigger problem I need to deal with on the PC, it doesn't recognize the SSD boot drive. So, I've got to deal with that before I go to the doctor tomorrow. Thursday, I'm going to look at the lathe and probably bring it home for less than he's asking on eBay. Dealing directly there will be no commission to pay and we'll both get a good deal. Maybe, the wheels are closer than I thought. That would inspire me to spend more time on this guy.

Edited February 17, 2016 by larchiefeng