sico24

I'd love to see that front view photo! In the old days, pit/paddock access was so easy.................................. Yes I did get the Haynes Manual. It was very useful too - especially the chapter "Anatomy of the Lotus 49". More colour photos than Michael Oliver as well although the Chassis by Chassis was maybe not as detailed. Again, it's a good idea to see if it can be bought cheaper than list price (I think I got mine on ebay) Simon

Wonderful photo Chris - were you there? I think this was Chassis 49/R5 if it was Race of Champions 1968. It was actually the first race appearance of this car on 17th March 1968 according to Michael Oliver. BUT although it was in Lotus John Player colours, it was still a Lotus 49 at this point. It retired from the race (driveshaft yoke) and then was rebuilt as prototype 49B and then scored 'an easy win' at Monaco on 26th May. I can strongly recommend Michael Oliver's book, especially if you can get it at a reasonable price. I also used internet sources and photos to help such as

Re Black badges; This is from lotuselan.net (https://lotuselan.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=23875&start=) "We spoke with Graham Arnold at Lotus Owners Gathering (something or other) where he was the main speaker for the event. May have been LOG 14 or who knows. I have been to more then 20 of those events and the numbers run into each other after a while. Anyways, I have posted before that he told me and a few others that were there, and I don;t recall who they were so i cannot contact them for verification, that one day he noticed that he was running out of badges. So he just put out a few bids for the replacement. The cheapest one that came back was for a black badge. Now, Arnolds words as I recall were something like, "so i told the old man that they were cheaper to boot, and of course he really liked that". I have told this many times and every time i do , I still get arguments that the badges were something special. Maybe we can finally put this one to rest." This completely backs up the story that I heard from Graham Arnold too (might even have been the same meeting). Simon

Thanks - it was a great project and I really enjoyed doing it. Without Michael Oliver's wonderful book I couldn't have done it, although that did encourage OCD at times!

A few more..

Some detailed views

Hi All I have put the photos from my Tamiya Lotus 49B build in the work in progress forum. So now here are the photos of the finished car!

I think that's everything, so I'll give you a taster of the finished model (more photos in the completed forum). All in all I think it took me about 9 months to do. I used Tamiya spray paints for the large areas (Red and White) and airbrushed Humbrol enamel for other parts (engine, gold stripe on body, radiator, exhausts etc). I hope you enjoyed the build - please let me know if you have any thoughts. On to the next kit...... a 1969 Tamiya Matra MS11 bought yesterday.

Finally I needed a Black Badge to go on the nose. The kit only comes with a yellow one, so once again I fouind a pitcture of the correct black one in the interweb, reduced it and then laminated it. There were also some black badges on Lotuis production cars (e.g. I had one on my 1968 Europa S2) and the myth is that these were made to commemorate the death of Jim Clark. However, I went to a Lotus show around 2000 and heard Graham Arnold (ex Lotus Sales Director) say that this was not true - they just changed the design and needed to use them up before the next order.

Interior Like on my Lotus 49, I used an old leather glove for the seat. On the 49, there were quilted padded sides to the cockpit so I hand-stitched (I don't have a sewing machine) some lines to represent the quilting lines. I also did the wires behind the dashboard as they can be seen through the 'slot' windscreen. And the gearknob had a yellow top and the yellow Lotus decal was added to the steering wheel centre

Side water pipe Again, as in the Lotus 49 I used some 5/32 inch aluminium tubing for the water pipe that runs on the side of the tub. But it also had to be fitted very carefully into the nosecone as the gaps are much smaller than the 49 (and the suspension is different). So thisis how it ended up.

Exhaust pipes The exhaust manifolds and pipes on the 49B were black instead of the white of the 49. Again you can see the water pumps and oil filter etc on the sides of the bottom of the engine

Rear of the Body Tub Just like on my Lotus 49 build I needed to put the brake lines on the back of the tub. There are no photos in the book for this in the Lotus 49B so I just replicated those for the 49 as shown in this photo; To get this You can also see the channels at the bottom of the tub in this view

Brake Discs (rotors) and Calipers The brake discs are slightly different on the 49B so again I used some parts from the 72 kit. Also, like my previous build on the Lotus 49, I had to build the other half of the calipers as the kit only comes with one half. These are available but again cost money, so I built my own from plasticard.

So that's all the major changes needed. But there are some others too; Wheels The wheels for the 49B were different to the 49. Once again the kit had the old wheels so I needed to change them. The perfect solution would have been to buy the correct ones online but they are very expensive (over £50 I think) although good quality. So I decided to modify the originals by including the inner bolt ring from the Lotus 72 wheels (the actual wheels were completely the wrong size). I carefully separated these and the g;lued them into the original wheels; Result; It's not ideal (as the inner profile hasn't changed as it should) but for the cost it's Ok and actually looks better on the model than this photo

11. Front nosecone is in two halves. The nosecone on the 49B Mark III was separated into an upper and lower half for easy access. You can see this here in MIchael Oliver's book; So I needed to cut a zig-zag line as shown in the picture. I wasn't sure how I was going to do this as I had had trouble cutting lines with a Dremel before (it melts the plastic and is too wide). I went into Wonderland Models in Edinburgh and the guy there was really helpful and recommended these Tamiya tiny saws that are 0.1mm wide These were just the job, but it took AGES to actually cut both sides in the correct lines (zig-zags aren't easy!). But the final results were pretty good I think

10. Oil tank and pipes The oil tank needed to mounted on top of the new Hewland gearbox - it was tricky to get it exactly right. Also, there were no oil pipes coming from the oil tank (and there was an extra filler that shouldn't have been there). Therefore I made two unions to mount on top of the tank and then connected these to some clear 1.5mm soft plastic tubing. The pipes then ran under the injectors to the front of the engine to unions and then into the body.

9. Water pipes and expansion tank The expansion tank was a slightly different shape on the 49B and the metal water pipes went to both heads. Therefore I filed the expansion tank from the kit and also got two pieces of rubber tubing and sprayed them steel colour and joined them. I put a hole in the left hand head to match that in the right hand head already there.

8. Electronics in the 'V' of the engine Originally on the Lotus 49, the electronics were mounted on top of the gearbox behind the engine, and this was carried over by Tamiya from the 49 kit, even though the electronics were mounted in the 'V' of the engine in the 49B. Luckily the Lotus 72 had a electronics box (with distributor) that was very similar so I just had to alter this slightly rather than scratchbuild it. The expansion tank on the right of the engine is wrong and I replaced it see step 10)

7. Increased size of front fairings The 49B had larger front fairings forward of the upper wishbones and, as well as the air ducts on the top of the nose, had NACA ducts in the sides of the nose. Also there were increased size of front wing mountings. These are shown in the book; So I used Milliput to form the fairings (judged by eye) and also the front wing mountings. Then I cut the NACA ducts in the sde and also used plasticard to cover the gaps in the sides (as the nosecone in the kit is based on a Lotus 49)

6. Swept forward upper wishbones (rockers) I struggled how to deal with this! You can see in the picture from Michael Oliver's book that they are definitely swept forward, although the lower arms seem still to be perpendicualar to the body (so it would chage the caster to help steering?) In the end I decided to cut the original upper wishbones in half and join the inner halves to the outer halves from the Lotus 72 kit, and then glue the upright original mounting points (the 'dishes' at the ends shown on the right of the photos) back on. Then cover everything with chrome foil. I was reasonably happy with the results in the circumstances - if anyone has done it better please let me know!

In the previous post you can also see the modified water pump etc on either side of the engine. These were a combination of the kit parts, some bits from the Lotus 72 and scratch built parts. They are subtly different from those I built for the Lotus 49 project but seem to work OK. The starter is also easy to see, and the actuator rod (?) - this was the only bit where I guessed a little as I didn't have any really clear photos of that part so apologies if it not entirely right. There is also a modified gearchange shaft on the right of the picture (made from thin solid rod) which then attached to the remote change part of the Hewland gearbox at the rear of the box.

5. Lower rear radius arm mounting points As the rear radius arms are further forward, the radius arms must be extended. I did this by adding in some extra spare plastic of the right diameter and then covering in the chrome foil and then re-attaching the eyes that allow the radious arm to be joined to the suspension (original on left, modified on right) Then these were mounted in the channel discussed in the last post. I had to make the mounting brackets (in the channel) out of plasticard

4. Bottom of tub has recessed channels Unfortunately, this is where the missing photos from the corrupted memory card would have helped. I got some plastic 8mm channel; I then cut approximately 5mm off of the bottom of the sides of the body tub, and 8mm off the sides of the bottom panel of the tub (I hope that makes sense). This is because the channels are shallower when seen from the side that when viewed from the bottom. This was extremely time consuming to get right, but I managed and then filled the joins. I only have completed photos available but you can see bottom view with the water pipes (for which I bought 2.5mm aluminium tubing and some 2mm mesh tubing).

2. Exhaust Mountings - see previous post 3. Upper rear suspension (shock absorber) mounting points are much more substantial in the kit (which is from a Lotus 49). See below for the real version from the book; So I had to measure where the mounting points were and the scratch build the square sectioned beam from plasticard, sprue and cover it with "Bare-Metal" chrome foil. Notice also there is a new lower wishbone mounting bracket (you can just see it on the rear view picture from the book in the previous picture). I had to scratch built that and also modify the wishbones very slightly (only finished photo is available);