Pocher Ferrari Testarossa rebuild and upgrade

[rjfk2002]

Replacing all the molted nuts with real ones makes a world of difference. Will you paint the lines on the cam cover silver? Also are those valves metal or just well painted? Looks like polished metal to me

[larchiefeng]

Thanks Rich, it is a lot of tedious work to cut off all the molded bolt heads off to replace them with the brass but, it really makes a difference. The hardest part of the process is to get the drill centered on the cut off bolt head and drill them out with pin vise. I'll paint the lines silver if that's the way it is supposed to be, I haven't noticed one way or another yet. Lastly, they are just painted red plastic valve covers.

[Codger]

. The hardest part of the process is to get the drill centered on the cut off bolt head and drill them out with pin vise.

An easier way I've found to help this problem is a hot pin.

Holding with a small vise grip, I heat a T-pin in a candle flame. Then touch the pin to the spot you want the hole. Makes a nice starter hole for very thin drill bits in a pin vise. Continue to heat and make the starter holes as you go. Then drill all out at once easily.

For any sized hole in plastic I use this method; it's very precise for locating without the bit walking on you...

[Pouln]

What a difference those brass replacements make.

Turning into a beautiful engine, Wayne.

Is all that and the PE part of the Stephane's upgrade set?

[larchiefeng]

Thanks for the tip Mr. C but, my biggest problem is putting the bit or whatever I use the find the center on the center. I'm afraid that if I used a hot pin on something 1mm to 2mm wide I'd be off center and then have a melted starting point. It's a good tip though.

Poul, yes everything so, far is from his upgrade set with a couple of exceptions. I used regular brass bolts in a couple of spots where the studs with buts were provided but, other than that it's all part of the upgrade set.

[larchiefeng]

As my Mercedes starts to get more and more complete the TR is starting to get more and more on the radar screen. My plan for the interior is going to be mainly black leather with possibly some light gray or charcoal pieces and I found this as the accent color to give this a pop of color along with the red engine. I'm planning on using this orange in some strategic places and enough to liven up the interior.

[rjfk2002]

Putting some orange in there will be a striking looking combo! Will you be adding leather to the seats? The orange seems a natural candidate for door insets and piping. The matte black paint job is incredible btw!

[Pascal]

Very nice project and great progress.

If you want some more PE sets for the Pocher Ferraris, take a look at tremonia.org

[larchiefeng]

Thanks for the info Pascal. I'm on a bit of a hiatus on both of my builds right now. I'm doing a lot of work outside and rebuilding the workshop in the garage. I'm pretty much completely redoing the whole layout while the weather is nice. I'm building two new long workbenches so, I'll have three, one on each wall. Additionally, I'm building a 4' X 8' rolling work table that fits under one of the benches. Finally I'm insulating and drywalling the walls so I can be able to work out there on bigger stuff in the winter.

When I'm done with the garage project I'll finish the Mercedes and get back on the Ferrari. But for now, it's nice being outside and enjoying the nice weather. None of my model building projects are done, they're just on vacation.

[larchiefeng]

Well, like I said on the Mercedes thread, I'm going to go back and do some work on this guy for a while. I see a couple of things on the engine braided lines that I want to fix and also go back to the engine and finish adding the detail where I left off. There are a number of other upgrades that I would like to make but, I need to wait a while. I'd like to replace some of the suspension cage and engine area with some brass pieces to beef it up for the bigger wheels and heavier engine. I basically need to pull all of the parts out and spread things out to see the best way to proceed. The main thing that, I need to do is figure out where I'm at and, what should be the first thing I need to work on and come up with a plan.

Any further updates on the future proposed build will probably be here.

[Pouln]

As you know, I have a spider waiting to get the treatment, so I'm still very interested in what you are doing to this black guy.

[larchiefeng]

I still hope to do some lighting but, I think that I might scale it back some. I have other plans to add more detail but, I need to wait for something to arrive before I can go forward with it. I won't say any more than this at the moment. In the meantime, today has been a day of nothing but research. I am going to continue on with the detailing of the engine with the transkit so, there should be some movement on this, this week.

[larchiefeng]

Today, I did the final polishing of the Mercedes and put it in my big display case until spring when I can finish the display base and cover. After I cleaned off the bench and table, I started working on the rear suspension and the wider F40 wheels and tires to make sure that they fit without having to cut the body. It's a good fit and no body modification is needed. I'm taking apart both front and rear suspension and cleaning up the molding seam lines and painting the shocks, calipers, rotors and control arms. I intend to add some brass bolts for details and paint the engine cradle prior to installing the engine. I have most of the engine details done but, I'm waiting on some parts to finish. I'll post some pictures tomorrow or the next day.

[larchiefeng]

The first thing I did was to put the rear suspension/engine cradle inside the body with the F40 tires and wheels mounted to see if I needed to do any alterations to the body. Fortunately, everything fits without any modifications.

 

Here's the front and rear suspension assemblies before disassembly

Here is the front assembly with the broken ball joint and it's pretty dirty

It was just a little more than broken off the spindle

Glued, drilled and pinned back together

Since the Pocher plastic is really ABS I decided to use the "as seen on TV" Bondic UV cured resin to make sure the ball stays on the spindle

So, with the spindle repair out of the way, I took apart the front suspension first in order to clean up the seam lines and paint the parts. Here's the whole thing taken apart.

Here is one side sanded and painted with the brass bolts in place of the molded bolt heads. The seams and a lot of the areas on the mold lines are pretty sunken and when sanding I realized that I would have to use filler just to get it cleaned up and for the amount of work compared to what you'll actually see, it wan't worth the effort. So, just a little paint and some metal bolts are the extent of it here

I don't know if I'm going to be able to get the shocks taken apart since they required a special tool to assemble. It's one thing that I don't have since this was purchased as an assembled kit. I'm going to have to think about this for a while. In the meantime, I'm painting the rest of the parts and I will post some pictures of it all painted and reassembled. Then, it will be on to the rear section.

[Pouln]

Good save of the ballhead, Wayne. The bolt heads on the suspension parts are a nice addition.

[larchiefeng]

Thanks Poul. I've got most of the front suspension taken apart and painted now. I'm a little stalled at the moment waiting on the PE brake rotors from Tremonia. I'm taking apart the rear suspension and painting it now. Hopefully, I'll have it back together before I have to set it all aside again for my next new BIG build. I'm waiting on a lot of parts to arrive from all over before I start on it. The big item has finally arrived in the USA and I hope to get it next week so, I can open the thread. Here's a little more of a tease, it's going to be a dual build with another Britmodeller builder. We're each going to build the same car with mostly the same parts. The only difference will be, mine is going to start as a completed car that has to be taken apart and his is a new kit. Stay tuned.

[larchiefeng]

I realize that this part of the build isn't very sexy and somewhat boring but, it's part of it. I made my little special tool for taking the springs apart out of an old butter knife that, I had used as a previous special tool. So, now it's a dual purpose tool. It's the notch that I needed to compress the spring to get the shocks apart. 

 

 

 

Here's the shocks apart for painting.

 

 

Here's the whole front suspension assembly back together. I'm still waiting on the PE brake rotors before I finish this up but, today I'm checking the wheels positions and ride height to see what needs to be done.

 

 

The front suspension is screwed in place and the rear is setting there but, it's in the correct location. You can see the big gap between the top of the front tires and the bottom of the wheel well.

 

 

Not good! I'm using the F40 wheels and tires so, I need to put the stock wheels and tires back on the front and see if it's that or something else. As I put this all back together I realized just how toy like this part of the car really is. Especially the steering rod and all the pop in balls that connect the spindles to the control arms etc. I suppose that this a direct result of the heavier die cast bodies of these later kits as compared to the Pocher Classics. Other than adding some color under here I'm not sure that it's worth the effort without the benefit of a major transkit.

 

 

The rear by comparison sits just like I wanted it. The tires clear and the little gap will close down some when the engine and rear body panels go on so, it's fine.

 

 

Here's a shot of the whole car with most of the panels mocked up on it. I'm going to have to add the interior with the dash and the bottom floor pan to see if lowering the entire suspension into the body will affect the steering wheel or anything else before I go cutting anything out.

 

 

Well time to take a break and think about it while I go outside and wax a real car. Will come back later this afternoon and try a few things and see what I can do to lower the ride stance.

[Pouln]

Every change leads to new challenges. It keeps life of the Pocher builder interesting. You would get bored if everything works in one go.

Interesting tool you made to compress the springs. Will keep this for my rebuild.

Got to finish my AR first though and I'm having a bit of a time issue currently.

[larchiefeng]

I managed to get the ride height to sit correctly when I put the interior tub in. I have no idea what the problem was but, it self corrected and now it sits like I want.

 

 

This is where I'm going to leave this for a little while. I'm still waiting on a couple of parts to show up and the big package for my main build actually arrived today. So, i will be going through it and taking some pictures and seeing just all that is in there. I should be opening the new build in the next day or so. I need to discuss how this is going to go first.

[Pouln]

Looks very smart. The semi matt black becomes her very well.

[larchiefeng]

Thanks Poul. Like I've hinting at here in this thread, I finally received all the parts for the F40 build. This includes the Autograph transkit and my plan for the TR has been to use some of the parts from that transkit as a template for scratch built parts on this build. The F40 will be the main build, for obvious reasons but, as I fabricate or come up with parts from that build, I will continue to update this build. 

The other cool thing about that build will be that Rich and I are each going to an F40 build with the same transkit! It's going to be a lot of fun for us to build and share the experience together!

[Pouln]

The big autograph transkit. Well, that will keep you busy for a while.

Must have costed you an arm (or two).

I hope you will keep us informed on all joys, progress and possibly also suffering.

Lots of luck with that beast.

 

 

[larchiefeng]

Only one arm! lol I will definitely keep you abreast on the progress and no doubt there will be some pain and suffering! I really think that what I discover in the F40 transkit and build will help make this a better build too. I expect to have a few revelations that will translate to progress here along the way.