Porsche 962-003, Le Mans 1986

[Pascal]

Started this project in may 2015, progress has been very slow.

The goal is to build the Rothmans 962 that won Le Mans in 1986 :

The Hasegawa / Revell kit :

And the to-do list :

* Short tail to long tail.

* Modification of the backside of the chassis (if someone has reference pictures of this part, they're very welcome !)

* Modification of the NACA ducts behind the cockpit.

* Filling the oval exhaust holes and making new ones as seen on the Le Mans 962's.

* Changing the high drag nose to a low drag nose.

If possible I would like to lower the bottom of the windscreen, and fill the resulting gap on the top with plasticard. With some luck this gap / plasticard will be covered by the windscreen decal. Or maybe there are some vacuform windscreens available ?

Here we go. The first thing I did was cut off the thin strip - that holds the lights - at the back of the short tail. The fins came next. A piece of plasticard was used to lengthen the backside, the NACA duct covers were sanded and the holes were filled :

It looks a bit rough, but after a couple of filling and sanding sessions it will be a lot better. The NACA holes were filled with CA and flour, the brown stuff at the back is Motip filler.

The big NACA duct needs to be moved to the front. In this blurry picture the duct has been cut out :

The hole was filled with a piece of plasticard :

The sides have been enlarged, the back got another strip of plasticard to make it longer :

I'll wait for the longtail decals to come in to decide the correct length of the backside

This part is from the Tamiya 956, it's missing in the short tail 962 kits :

I made a new one from plasticard, it will be a little bigger then the one from the 956 :

The backside of the chassis will get a lot of modifications. I cut away some plastic to make the plate rectangular :

The hump was cut from the plate. This plate is horizontally in the Revell kit, it needs to run diagonally upwards like the plate from the 956 :

The hump needs to be enlarged. I started with the sides, these were made from plasticard :

These parts will be made to fit together :

Later on the plastic tubes that hold the wheels will be removed and an axle will be made from metal rod. This axle will run through the hump.

After my first modifications, the body still had the too big wheel openings and the very pronounced bump over the wheel openings :

I glued a 1 x 1 mm strip in the wheelopening and sanded the bump. It's now 2 - 3 mm lower :

These pictures show (I hope) the difference between the orgininal and the modified bump :

Compared to the unmodified body of a second kit :

The "inverted spade" shape of the nose has been sanded flat :

A lot of work was done to get the right shape of the hump of the underside. It's not finished, more filling and sanding is needed :

Did some work on the interior. Out of the box, it looks like this :

I cut out the plastic radiators, these will be replaced with PE sheet :

I glued 2 small parts and now it looks like this :

I added a plastic strip to the front end to give it more height and used my Dremel to remove the triangular part between the seats :

A new triangular part was made from plasticard :

Looks a lot better then the original :

But after a test fit of the drivers seat, the part is almost completely hidden :

This is the first step in correcting the to rounded inner side of the front fenders.

I've traced the line with a pencil. The line is to rounded / curved and should run almost straight :

I cut away some plastic and bended the remaining plastic towards the inside :

The holes were filled and sanded, then a coat of primer was added followed by more sanding :

More filling, shaping and sanding :

The holes for the exhausts got some attention. Before :

After :

This was all I did from may till august 2015. Since then the project is on hold. I'm still looking for a replacement windscreen, because the one from the Hasegawa / Revell kit is to small.

A vacform windscreen would be nice, but a windscreen from a Tamiya 956 would also be a good alternative, or maybe I can use the clearparts from a BRM slot car 962 ?

Contacted Hobbyco in the UK to order the clearparts sprue from the Tamiya 956 kit, but no response sofar.

If someone has a 956 windscreen (or a vacform windscreen) for sale, I would love to hear from you.

I am also in need of a chassis plate from the Tamiya 962 kit, that plate will be used for another project. If you have a spare 962 chassis plate (a damaged one from a build kit is fine), please contact me.

Feel free to comment.

Sincerely

Pascal

[keefr22]

Some very neat work there Pascal, & really comprehensive info on the many changes needed between two cars that with a quick glance look pretty much the same! I hope you can get hold of the windscreen you need as I'm looking forward to seeing this one progress!

Keith

[Jake Moon]

Goodness, that's some phenomenal scratchwork! Your work especially around front fenders is remarkable.

[Pascal]

Thanks for the replies.

I ordered the clear parts of the Tamiya Porsche 956 from Time Tunnel Models. Some more surgery will be required to fit the bigger windscreen and side windows.

Parts should arrive in 4 to 6 weeks.

[Hugh Jampton]

Pascal your attention to detail and preparation work is incredibly impressive, as Keith said previously, the cars do look so similar, I bet you've spent many hours studying up?

Regards

John

[shood23]

Looks great pascal, completely different direction from myself but looks so much better. Can't wait to see more

Shaun

[Rob de Bie]

Hi Pascal, that is fantastic work you're doing! It's the first time I see someone correcting the front wheel fenders, and changing the nose shape. Excellent and inspiring!

Years ago I did approximately the same, when I tried to build an IMSA 962 (http://robdebie.home.xs4all.nl/models/962b.htm). Like you I started with the Hasegawa model, but later I found out that this model isn't very suited for an accurately shaped IMSA 962. The problem is that the Hasegawa and Tamiya 962C models have tall rear wheel fenders for tall and narrow 19" rear wheels/tires. If you put a Hasegawa or Tamiya 962C next to a Tamiya 956, you will see the difference. The IMSA 962 had 16" rears, and therefore did not have the tall wheel fenders. The 956 rear body would be a better starting point for an IMSA 962 conversion. I stopped my conversion.

As far as I can see, the 962C Langheck (not Kurzheck) did not run 19" rears at Le Mans. I just looked at some photos, and the rears look like 956 rear wheels to me, 16" or so. So you're basically making the same mistake that I made. I don't want to spoil your fun, but rather share my experiences.

Rob

Edited July 23, 2016 by Rob de Bie

[Pascal]

Thanks for the replies.

Hi Rob, I'm very happy to see you here ! Your IMSA 962 website is what started my 962 adventure. I wanted to build a colourful 962 and the bright red ones that I found on your website were / are exactly what I was looking for.

Since the discovery of your website, I've ordered a couple of resin kits to build both IMSA 962's driven by Bob Akin :

* M&S Hobbies Porsche 962 IMSA short tail

* M&S Hobbies Porsche 962 IMSA long tail

I even found the PE parts from Harald Weber

The plan is to build both Akin cars in 1/24th scale, and build the Akin long tail in 1/18th scale. An 1/18th scale Löwenbrau 962 is also in the pipeline. (Got the 1/18the scale decals, they weren't cheap )

The Hasegawa / Revell 962's will be build as the Rothmans Le Mans long tail and the Mizuno short tail.

As for this project (the Rothmans Le Mans 962), I'm using aftermarket rear tires that are just a fraction bigger (after a lot of sanding) then the front tires. With those new rear tires and the removal of 3 mm's from the top of real wheel fenders, the car should look OK. To get the shape of the rear fenders correct I've used the decals for the long tail 962 (I think they are from Studio 27).

Love to hear more feedback from you Rob

Sincerely

Pascal

Edited July 25, 2016 by Pascal

[Rob de Bie]

Thanks for the replies.

Hi Rob, I'm very happy to see you here ! Your IMSA 962 website is what started my 962 adventure. I wanted to build a colourful 962 and the bright red ones that I found on your website were / are exactly what I was looking for.

[snip]

As for this project (the Rothmans Le Mans 962), I'm using aftermarket rear tires that are just a fraction bigger (after a lot of sanding) then the front tires. With those new rear tires and the removal of 3 mm's from the top of real wheel fenders, the car should look OK. To get the shape of the rear fenders correct I've used the decals for the long tail 962 (I think they are from Studio 27).

Hi Pascal,

First of all I'm glad that you did not take my comments the wrong way! And it's nice to hear that my old webpage inspired you :-) Like you I think the red Akin 962 is still one of the best 962 liveries.

It has been quite a few years since I worked on 956 and 962 models, therefore my knowledge is a bit rusty. Recently I 'rediscovered' my own Akin 962 webpages, I hadn't read them in quite a while. I must admit that the 'models and accessories' page is difficult to digest, a ton of information and just a few concrete recommendations. I was tired after reading it :-)

I'm still looking for confirmation in my books of the LM 85 and 86 tire size for the works team. If you lower the rear fenders of the Hasegawa 962, you should be OK shapewise. For the rest everything looks alright to me. The tunnel geometry is a bit of a guess, you hardly ever see good photos of that part. Maybe one general comment about the tunnels. I've been to classic Group-C races at Spa for some 10 years now, and quite often I noted that the tunnels of most cars looked rather different than the Tamiya models. My best guess is that the tunnel geometry was often considered secret and not shared with Tamiya or Hasegawa or Heller/Airfix.

Another interesting 956 / 962 underbody detail is the 'Delle' between the front wheels. Only the Tamiya 962 has it. The 962s that I checked (when on jacks) nearly all had the Delle, as far as I remember. But I don't think the Delle was part of the LM low drag package, so the Hasegawa model is correct in that detail. Here's a photo of a Joest Blaupunkt 962 car's Delle:

Regarding the M&S resin 962s, did you buy this version too? It disappeared years ago from their website, and I always regretted not ordering it in time.

Here's a heavily modified Joest 962 that I fancy a bit at the moment.

More photos from the Spa Classic 2016 here:

http://robdebie.home.xs4all.nl/various/spa2016-05-14.htm

Rob

[Pascal]

Thank for the reply and the link Rob. Those are great photos !

Yes, I have that version from M&S Hobbies, it's the IMSA long tail body. I will use that one to build the first Bob Akin 962.102, it will also serve as "3D reference material" for the 1/18th scale model.

But I've found a problem with the M&S Hobbies body : on your webpage you mention that the right door inlet for the radiator is shallow when compared to the left door inlet. But that is not on the model, hope I can fix that with some plasticard.

If you have any photos of both 962's owned by Bob Akin, I would LOVE to hear from you.

Pascal

[Rob de Bie]

Here's an example where the Tamiya tunnels are pretty much correct in shape, as far as I can see. However, the inside of the engine cover has a lot more details than the model. It's 956-003 in 2014. I think (hope) that the metal floor panel with the engine cooling air slots was partly disconnected, because I can see the waterpump in the second photo.

I cannot guarantee that the car is 100% original, for example the monocoque looked very strange, like someone had used Scotchbrite to sand it dull.

Rob

[Rob de Bie]

Thank for the reply and the link Rob. Those are great photos !

Yes, I have that version from M&S Hobbies, it's the IMSA long tail body. I will use that one to build the first Bob Akin 962.102, it will also serve as "3D reference material" for the 1/18th scale model.

But I've found a problem with the M&S Hobbies body : on your webpage you mention that the right door inlet for the radiator is shallow when compared to the left door inlet. But that is not on the model, hope I can fix that with some plasticard.

If you have any photos of both 962's owned by Bob Akin, I would LOVE to hear from you.

Pascal

The door inlet question is a difficult one! I never completely cracked it. So don't be too quick to change the model. It could also depend on the date of the photo. But if you decide to change it, I guess you will do a good job, considering the other body changes that you made :-)

All Akin 962 photos that I have are on the website. I did not search for more during the last 10 years, so probably there are more to be found on the internet.

Rob