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1/12 Porsche 917 and it's not MFH


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This will be my first WIP on here and also my first attempt at detailing up a die cast, it’s going to be a slow one too, summers around the corner and the wife has a large list of jobs around the garden and house. Just a warning.

As I said in another thread on the Discussion board, I have always loved the 917 and particularly the JW Engineering run Gulf team, predictable I know but after seeing the movie Le Mans who couldn’t love the blue and orange cars?

 

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I used to be a dyed in the wool aircraft modeller but turned to building cars in 1/12th scale a couple of years ago and my aim is to try and produce a collection of models of cars that I saw race in the 70’s, or if I didn’t see the car then cars driven by drivers I had seen or met in that period. Having stated that, I never saw a 917 in action 😞 until the Festival of Speed a few years ago and I never saw Jo Siffert in action (mores the pity) but I did see Brian Redman drive in period, and I did go to the cinema in 1971/72 to see Le Mans!

 

With that bit of background, on to the model. I just can’t justify to myself, let alone my wife, spending north of £500 for the MFH kit. I know it would be a superb product but now I’m getting old I don’t have quite the patience to slog on with that type of model, so I’ve also given up on ever buying or building a Pocher kit!

 

I like the opportunity to detail and improve the old Tamiya F1 kits, this is my effort with a Ferrari flat 12 from Laudas 312T

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So wanting a 917 I thought that a 1/12 die cast might produce a good kerb side model with a few detail tweeks to please my modellers eye and give me some build satisfaction.

Now diecasts of this size are not so cheap either, around £200 but a few weeks ago I happened upon an eBay sale of a CMR 1/12 Porsche 917, it was a buy it now or best offer and I put in a lower offer and it was accepted, so for £70 I had a slightly damaged 917, it was the #20 Gulf le Mans car, famed in film by Steve McQueen.

I know nothing about CMR but it looked the part and not costing me a fortune meant it could be taken apart relatively painlessly, so here’s what I got.

 

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Now I got some helpful comments in my first thread, thanks @klubman01 and @Schwarz-Brot . The model is quite well finished but is typical diecast with some too large details.

 

So a list of modifications I have so far is -

 

1)      the main problem is the model does not have the roof mounted, rearward facing vent –

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This going to require some scratch building and will therefore entail some degree of a repaint. Not overly happy about that, I was hoping to avoid that as there seems to be no aftermarket decal sheet in 1/12th scale.

2) the model doesn’t have holes for the electric cut out switch pull on the left side behind the door and there is a corresponding hole on the right but I’m not sure what that is. There are transfers indicating these on the model but they don’t cut it for me.

3) add detail around the exposed gearbox/back axle, these can be improved, add oil piping and maybe replace some of the chassis strut work with more in scale brass tube? Detail the suspension.

4) rear deck flip up spoilers are too “up in the air” for the race setting and are missing the adjustable legs at the rear.

aa89e9a0-7c83-4ced-b277-8f5ead0ca2d2.jpg

 

5) interior detailing can be improved with wiring to the ignition boxes on the firewall, piping to the extinguisher, better seat belts, additional fuse box on the n/s under the dash, detailing the dash panel, add interior mirror etc.

6) finesse the wiper arm assembly.

7) modify the racing number lights to the correct pattern

😎 put wrinkled clear plastic over the headlights and tape them for  headlamp protectors rather than just the model’s black decal.

9) Improve and finesse the brakes and wheels.

10) make the exterior paintwork less “diecast”, as suggested by @Schwarz-Brot this may just be emphasising shut lines and toning down the shininess, I’m looking for suggestions here.

 

I’m hoping others may have more ideas as we go forward as I’m no subject matter expert and only a very novice car builder.

 

Last thing before I end this introduction – do I make the race car or the movie car? There are subtle differences.

 

All comments and ideas welcome.

 

Dave

Edited by Coors54
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There you go. I don't know too much about the 917. But that won't stop me following your thread and throwing in my opinion from time to time.

I mentioned it on the other thread - the wiper is much too thick for my liking. I think you should do something about that. Maybe there's an aftermarket piece to get, or maybe you can even scratch it. From the engine picture above I'd say it is possible.

Happy building!

 

Jan

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I have been trawling the internet and buying a couple of books both for background to the 1970 race and the film but mainly for detailing information, I got a copy of Ian Wagstaffs Porsche 917 Autobiography of 917-023 as a birthday present (knockout book) and bought Steve McQueen Le Mans in the Rear View Mirror by Don Nunley and Marshall Terrill for a bargain price (amazing background story to making the film and filled with photo’s that are not car enthusiast type but very evocative).

I have found the most amazing French forum (http://forum-auto.caradisiac.com/automobile-pratique/modelisme-modeles-reduits/sujet8495-11305.htm ) for small diecasts with a Porsche 917 section running to over 600 pages with loads of period photos and comparisons with models, these guys know their 917’s! Google translate helps as my schoolboy and holiday French would not keep up.

 

Okay, enough stalling, let’s get on with some modelling and justify a WIP entry.

I started by stripping the model down, the body is held on the chassis by 9 small self tap screws

12ccb22b-fa12-46b0-9c00-8ef4433a628e.jpg 

Once removed the body and chassis can be separated, the brake ducting to the front brakes pulls out of the ducts and you have two assemblies

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I decided to completely strip the body first so getting a piece of foam to rest on to avoid damage to the paintwork I inverted it to expose the way the parts are attached to the shell

 

All the transparencies and engine cover etc are secured by peened over posts in the casting, these will require drilling off. Before doing that I detached all the other external parts, light covers, lights and racing number lights and put them into containers so they don’t get lost.

 

Grabbing my trusty Bosch electric screwdriver with drill attachment I drilled off the peened over posts

 

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The rear engine deck came out quite easily but the screens had a little adhesive as well but with gentle persuasion from a scalpel come out undamaged, phew.

 

So with everything removed from the shell we have –

d8330d53-7c0c-4466-a54e-231d146e5cd4.jpg

 

More next time.

 

Dave

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Evening all, hope you are all keeping well and managing to do some modelling and not kill the children.

 

Stage 2 of my racing car strip down turns to the rolling chassis, this is more familiar territory as it is mostly injection moulded plastic, held together with a few screws, lots of heat turned over pins and a bit of liquid poly!

 

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I trimmed the top off the pins and managed to separate the front suspension upright and wheel, take out the dash panel and steering wheel and then separate the two main chassis components, all without breaking anything. The Chinese assemblers didn’t use much glue!

 

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Once I had taken everything apart I was left with a board full of bits.

 

I have been struck by how similar the breakdown of parts is to the 1/24 Fujimi kit, if you have built that then this is just the same but bigger and heavier.

The finesse of the mouldings isn’t quite up to Fujimi standards but some details have surprised me, the dashboard for example –

 

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See all those switch labels – just like the real thing but virtually invisible in the assembled model.

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The ignition boxes on the bulkhead are also well defined and will really pop with some added wiring and paint.

 

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Engine and gear box will get some new fasteners and a bit of wiring.

 

So that’s the strip down so just like Car SOS the next stage is to start repairing and building, I plan to work from the bottom up so the chassis pan will get a work over and some paint, see you then.

 

Dave

 

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Evening all, I hope you are being alert and keeping safe.

 

Not a huge amount to report this evening as I’ve been busy cleaning up the plastic mouldings, particularly the chassis tubing which has some good seams on it. I understand the MFH kit has similar problems so I’m in good company! I’ve cut some of the bracing off at the rear which I’ll replace with brass tubing that’s more in scale when things start going back together.

 

Now for anyone who’s remotely interested in racing Porsches, a visit to Gunnar Racings website www.gunnarracing.com or their YouTube channel is a must and an excellent way to spend an afternoon or three.

 

The reason I’m referencing them is that they have a series of videos following the restoration on chassis number 917-021 and video number 10 of the series shows the floor pan which to my surprise is as flat as a pancake and mirrors pretty much what the model is like. I shouldn’t be surprised, the Fujimi 1/24 kit is the same but it seems wrong to have a race car with a flat bottom plate and no aerodynamic ducting or features.

 

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This is the Porsche full size wind tunnel model - flat eh?

 

Anyway the real thing is a 4mm sheet of Nomex composite honeycomb very similar to the stuff I have used when putting flooring into real aircraft, but we used thicker stuff than 4mm!

 

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This is bonded to the spaceframe chassis by strips of fibre glass – nothing else! Quoting the Gunnar website this is a little weak – no kidding! The guys who drove these things in anger have gone up even more in my estimation.

 

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Pics are from the Gunnar website and used for illustrative purposes.

 

The videos also give an insight into how abused these cars have been over the years and the accident repairs and modifications done were expedient for the time and not expert restorations as is happening now. The chassis number confusion by swapping ID plates back in the day is also something that makes your head spin.

 

So, modelling, I have scrapped off the moulded trade marks and lettering,

 

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scuffed the surface with some coarse sandpaper to give a bit of texture and given it a very rough hand painted coat of dark grey to match that put on by the factory when new. The holes in the base will get covered by “glass fibre” patches when the car is finally re assembled.

 

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Having done this I realise I should have scored a line in the chassis plate from the wheel arch back to indicate the side pod being separate from the floor plate, job for tomorrow.

That’s all for today, not much I know, hopefully have something a bit meatier tomorrow.

 

Dave

Edited by Coors54
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You shouldn't really be surprised by the flat floor of the car.  Underbody aerodynamics, indeed aero of any sort, was barely understood in 1970.  The 1969 version of the 917 had a reputation for being extremely wayward at high speeds.  So much so that the factory drivers usually preferred the less powerful 908 as their weapon of choice.  It was only in late '69, during a test session at Zeltweg in Austria, that the significance of downforce was recognised, and led, ultimately, to the shape of the 917 that you are working on, and turned it into such a formidable racing car.

 

For more info regarding the JW Porsches, and the aero test at Zeltweg, may I recommend "Racing in the rain" by the late John Horsman.  A thoroughly informative, and thoroughly entertaining read which covers not just his time with the 917, but all of his fascinating career.

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1 hour ago, klubman01 said:

For more info regarding the JW Porsches, and the aero test at Zeltweg, may I recommend "Racing in the rain" by the late John Horsman.  A thoroughly informative, and thoroughly entertaining read which covers not just his time with the 917, but all of his fascinating career

I would love to get a copy but they are fetching silly money at the moment along with John Wyers " The Certain Sound", £250 a copy not being unreasonable. Motoring books certainly do increase in value so much more than most aviation titles.

 

There are several accounts of how the 917 was tamed by aerodynamics, just depends on whether you are German or British as to who you believe. I was also surprised to see Ermano Coughi, famous as Nikki Laudas mechanic at Ferrari and Brabham in the 70's, was on the JW team at this time and helped make the experimental tail at Zeltweg.

 

Having been around at this time of nascent aerodynamics in cars I certainly shouldn't have been surprised by the flat bottom but it's just how flat and featureless it is! And for the younger members on here it does serve as a reminder that cars were so much simpler not so very long ago.

 

Dave

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Nice project ! I'm very happy to see another modeller giving some "TLC" to a diecast model.

 

There is 1 manufacturer (that I know of) that makes decals in 1/12 scale. He does this set for your model. It costs $56 :

 

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The manufacturer is pattos place, located in Australia : http://members.optusnet.com.au/pattosplace/home.html

 

If you want / need to detail the interior I highly recommend self-adhesive aluminium tape.

 

Sincerely

 

Pascal

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2 hours ago, Coors54 said:

I would love to get a copy but they are fetching silly money at the moment along with John Wyers " The Certain Sound", £250 a copy not being unreasonable. Motoring books certainly do increase in value so much more than most aviation titles.

 

 

Bl00dy hell. I've got both of those books. That's daft. If you can get them (I'm sure I've seen both books a lot cheaper at Race Retro this year) they are well worth a look. Racing in the Rain is one of my Desert Island Books.

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3 hours ago, Pascal said:

There is 1 manufacturer (that I know of) that makes decals in 1/12 scale. He does this set for your model. It costs $56 :

Thanks Pascal, that certainly does look the ticket. I'll keep that up my sleeve for later in the build, he's got quite a range hasn't he?

 

Glad to hear @klubman01, that you can vouch for the quality, small batch printing to order can give variable results, how is the colour opacity? 

 

Dave

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  • 2 weeks later...

Greetings fellow plastic bashers, life got in the way a little last week so I didn’t have time to do any updates and had little time at the bench. Things have eased off slightly so my time has been spent trying to improve the visible areas of the engine and gearbox.

Firstly the gearbox, a reminder of what I started with –

 

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It’s not a bad representation of the box and transaxle but can be improved on, firstly the two large holes in the top of the box were blanked and filled. Then all the small lumps depicting bolts were removed with a scalpel ready to be replaced by items from Meng, these are injection moulded bolts in various sizes, head on one side, thread and nut/washer on the other. I find them a more cost effective option to genuine scale hardware and easy to fix in place.

 

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Once this is done the box was given a coat of dark grey and washed with Tamiya smoke.

 

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Next on the list was the distributor, this can just be seen so I drilled out the lead fittings, cut some red wire to length and super-glued into the hole then slipped a short length of heat shrink tubing over to represent the leads rubber cap, this was shrunk into place by carefully wafting the whole thing over a candle flame. I had previously painted the cap and replaced the retaining nuts to the distributor body.

The wiring will be run under the induction funnel moulding forward so can’t be seen once it leaves the cap.

 

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I added a starter motor from an old Tamiya F1 build below the gear change selector, this will have some wiring attached.

Next job is to matt coat this to get rid of the shine and do some highlights to give it a metallic sheen.

 

I’ve also been making the roof air vent, I found an old 1/24 Merlin in the scrap box (one I didn’t use in a Mosquito) and the curvature of the supercharger intake looked right for my purpose so I modified it with sanding and cutting and got this –

 

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I think it will do, more trial fitting yet.

 

That's about it for now, I have just received a parcel from BBK in the Netherlands which should contain some bits for this build so maybe wheels next.

 

Dave

Edited by Coors54
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The only thing to watch out for with Patto's decals is that they aren't designed for any specific kit (I think they are basically designed to fit his own slot car bodies in 1/24 or 1/32) I had no end of trouble getting the Gulf decals onto the Airfix 1/32 917, and only persisted because of the faff of masking at the small scale. Don't get me wrong -- I love his decals, and the range you can get, but they are better when the scheme you're modelling is made up of multiple separate elements spread over a solid colour base. In the  larger scale, I think masking is the way to go for the blue and orange, so you're really only looking for logos race numbers, which are probably easier to get...

 

Speaking of books that have got expensive,I have a copy of "Porsche 917: Archives and Works Catalogue 1968 - 1975" which I picked up for £40, now found on Amazon for £1200... If there's anything you'd like me to look up or scan from it, just let me know!

 

best,

M.

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1 hour ago, cosmosman said:

Hi, have you tried looking in your local library for the "Racing in the Rain". I've checked and our local one has a copy. Worth a look. You could do a request from another library.

Crikey, I haven't been into a library since I moved from the Midlands in 2006!

It's a good thought though, question is, are they open during the current nastiness? Methinks probably not.

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Good morning to all from a sunny Cornwall, I've been trying to excavate a trench to lay a power cable to our log cabin but it's been too hot to do that in the middle of the day so I'm up at 6 and managing to get a few feet dug (its virtually all slate shale, ruddy hard work!) which has allowed me a bit of time at the bench on the Porsche.

I'm still concentrating on the back end and slowly getting parts back together, yesterday was detailing the brake calipers -

 

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Before at the bottom. 

 

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Pipe union drilled and added so I can add the brake pipe later. I've not gone too mad on these as very little is seen once the wheels are on, I have suggested the disc vents by careful painting, those will be visible in later pictures I'm sure.

 

Todays session was spent modifying and detailing the drive shafts and couplings -

 

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Forgive the slightly out of focus phone shot, the unmodified shaft is at the top (I hope that's obvious!), I've added bolts to all the couplings, punched discs of plastic card to represent the ends to the universal joint cruciform and thinned one end of the shaft to depict the sliding shaft joint at the wheel end. Once painted and washed it looked like this -

 

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I think that looks a bit more convincing, and then it and the discs were test fitted -

 

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I've also detailed the exhaust manifolds with welds and painted and fitted them -

 

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Mustn't forget to add the starter motor wiring....

 

I'm fairly pleased with how this is going so far and now things are being put back on it will soon start looking like a car again.

 

Have a good day all and stay safe.

 

Dave

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2 hours ago, klubman01 said:

How did you reproduce the welds on the exhaust system?

Thanks Trevor, the welds are beads of Krystal Klear that I texture with a syringe needle to simulate the weld "wave" pattern when they're nearly dry, I used them on my Ferrari 312T first and it's pretty effective .

 

Dave

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Morning from a dull and windy corner of Cornwall, seems like Day 2,356 of lockdown but we're maintaining momentum on our 1/12 Car SOS rebuild of my diecast Porsche 917 from CMR/Minichamps.

As in the TV series of Car SOS, I've sent out my virtual equivalent of Tim Shaw to procure some bits to help in the rebuild, he's come back with some Firestone tyre decals from BBK in the Netherlands and rummaged around in the parts bins at the back of the garage and come up with some parts from my own long ago Tamiya 1/12 F1 builds plus a couple of glue bombs bought off the Bay a while ago, these are going to donate some suspension fittings.

So the main work has been done on the rear suspension -

 

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I have shortened a couple of Tamiya Bilstein shocks from a Lotus 78, added some scratch build upper mounts, Tamiya lower mount and upper radius rod, the lower rod is from the kit but repositioned in a more proto typical place. Peeking out at the back you can just see the gear change rod replaced by brass tube and also part of the scratch built roll bar.

 

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Roll bar link made from brass tube, a Shapeways printed eye end and Tamiya lower link.

 

Hopefully this looks a bit more prototypical and will tame the 917's power! So all painted up -

 

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Ignore the blue wire, I haven't fitted the new coils yet.

 

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And a quick reminder of what I started with -

 

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It's progress I think, as always comments and critique welcome.

 

Tune in next time for another episode of 1/12 Car SOS.....

 

Fuzz aka Dave

 

 

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