De arching the Revell Mk2 Escort to make a standard road car

[onethritysecond]

35 minutes ago, Bonhoff said:

Nice work

 

Reason why one axle is weedier than the other is that they are two different axles....

 

AFAIK the Lotus used what was called a "Salisbury" axle which was also fitted to the Escort road car - The rally car used what was called an "Atlas" axle which was a different beast altogether usually seen on 3.0L Capri's.

 

Rocker cover looks like an aftermarket type.

 

KR's

 

IanJ

The Tamiya kit is a Lotus 7 series 2 which used the engine and gearbox from the early 60s consul classic so I would guess that the back axle came from a similar source - certainly it looks like the one I had on my Anglia! - so should be pretty close to a road going escort one I would think?

Rocker cover is a Cosworth one, who I think modded the Ford engine for Lotus at that time. The basic shape will be correct once the ribs have been removed and the filler will need moving to the front to clear the large air filter mk2 escorts had.

cheers

Chris

[Alan R]

Hi All,

I might be wrong, but as far as I know, the Escort used a version of the 'Kent' series engine, which was a cross-flow engine, whereas the 1500 cc engine in the Lotus 7 was the old Cortina unit where induction and exhaust ports were on the same side of the engine.

I had a 'J' plate 1100 escort, and I'm sure it was a cross flow engine.
 

Of course, as I said above, I may be wrong...

 

Cheers,

Alan.

[onethritysecond]

15 minutes ago, Alan R said:

Hi All,

I might be wrong, but as far as I know, the Escort used a version of the 'Kent' series engine, which was a cross-flow engine, whereas the 1500 cc engine in the Lotus 7 was the old Cortina unit where induction and exhaust ports were on the same side of the engine.

I had a 'J' plate 1100 escort, and I'm sure it was a cross flow engine.
 

Of course, as I said above, I may be wrong...

 

Cheers,

Alan.

Hi Alan, You are not wrong! I am converting the pre crossflow kent from the Lotus 7 into a crossflow Kent - the bottom end is basicaly the same (enough for modelling purposes anyway!) and am making up new inlet and exhaust manifolds, carb, air filter etc. The sump also had to be reversed from the Cortina/Classic orientation to match the escort one.

cheers

Chris

Edited February 1, 2021 by onethritysecond
spelling

[malpaso]

Building the Tamiya 7 at the moment and I think it may be a 1500 cosworth as it has front disk brakes.  Also the rear axle is from a Standard 10 so may not look anything like a Ford part?

This is useful resource:

http://www.lotus7register.co.uk/ser2page.htm

[onethritysecond]

19 minutes ago, malpaso said:

Building the Tamiya 7 at the moment and I think it may be a 1500 cosworth as it has front disk brakes.  Also the rear axle is from a Standard 10 so may not look anything like a Ford part?

This is useful resource:

http://www.lotus7register.co.uk/ser2page.htm

That's a very interesting link and it certainly looks like the Tamiya has the 1500 5 bearing pre crossflow kent engine built by Cosworth.

Also interesting about the back axle - as a life long Standard/Triumph owner I knew the remote change was from a Herald but didn't realise that the back axle was from a Standard 10. For this project I have partly been using the Airfix 1/32nd scale Mk1 Escort as a point of reference and, whilst not absolutely identical, the Ford axle is certainly close enough to the Standard 10 one for it to be usable, and definitely closer than the rally one supplied in the Revell kit.

Chris

[onethritysecond]

So some tangible progress this week, albeit slow!

 

Scratch-built an exhaust manifold. These were rough cast iron so I have tried to simulate that by soaking in liquid cement and stippling with an old tooth brush, hopefully will look ok when painted several shades of rust! Word of warning though - I built it in a wooden jig and managed to glue it to the wood doing this and took some careful work to get it out in one piece! Not had too much luck with the inlet manifold yet but have now found some good images on the net so will try and do that this week. Problem is most available images are for hot escorts, either factory built or owner modified so images of anything from a base model is hard to find.

 

 

Meantime have moved on to trying to get the stance right for a road car.

Wheels are Motobitz and need the plastic centre cap of the base model cars adding so I drilled straight through with a 3/32nd inch drill and fitted some Evergreen 3/32nd tube (later to be drilled out larger with a 1/16th drill) - these form the centre caps and also function as the axles.

 

 

As I am sure has been noted before the fit and quality of the Revell Escort is pretty poor but the rear axle is one time when this worked to my advantage - the mounting posts for the rear axle are too long for the standard kit and if untrimmed leave a gap between the leaf spring and the chassis.

 

 

This allowed me to position the axle in pretty much the right place by trimming the blocks off the leaf spring and shimming the posts. You can see in the above picture that Revell have left areas to be filled in at the back of the arches and behind the diff. On the other hand, the holes in front of the diff I had to create to enable some kind of back seat to be fitted.

 

 

Axle shimmed into place (needs tidying up) and started to fill in the voids. Also notably missing is the standard petrol tank which should be on the boot floor - will knock something up for that. Eventually I will get up the nerve to cut out the diff and fit the one from the Lotus 7.

 

Front end was a whole different ball game as the kit parts are weedy and very loose fitting - after taking this picture I managed to break one of the struts and had to sleeve it back together. Deliberately broke the other one so that could be beefed up as well. Took much messing around to get everything in the right place but it wasn't all Revell's fault as it was at this stage that I discovered that my front arches weren't actually both in the same place! 

 

 

Note that the right hand front wheel had to be moved back a couple of millimetres to sit correctly in the arch, really should have spotted that earlier! Doesn't matter on a model but I wouldn't want to drive a full size car set up like that! Steering rack yet to be sorted.

 

 

Stance now as correct as it is going to be - internet images show standard cars as having the bottom of the centre cap broadly level with the bottom of the sill - close enough!

 

This week I hope to do the inlet manifold/carb/air filter and any other under bonnet stuff, petrol tank, exhaust and maybe fit the Lotus 7 diff. Really what I am doing is putting off the creation of the standard road car interior, which I am not looking forward to!

 

Chris

[onethritysecond]

Set myself quite a bit to get done this week and despite (or maybe because of) working from home managed to get a lot of it done!

 

Took the plunge and cut out the Revell diff and fitted the one from the Lotus 7. The Escort has a two piece prop shaft with a sliding joint rather than a universal joint at the gearbox end so it was relatively simple to extend the lotus one to reach the gearbox.

Like most of the kit's steering components the steering rack was useless so created my own using tube and the gaiters/arms from an old Airfix 1/32nd kit (possibly e type?). Steering has been made non working for strength. Parts from smaller scale kits can often look finer detailed when used with 1/24th.

 

 

Also did a lot of scratch building or conversion of small parts for the engine bay.

 

 

From left to right and top to bottom: 

Cosworth ribs removed from rocker box and filler re-positioned to the correct place for a crossflow. Managed to re-use the original filler cap

Cooling fan - actually from a 1/32nd Airfix mk1 Escort but actually looks the right size when in place!

Air filter

Fuel tank bottom

Windscreen washer fluid bottle

Brake master cylinder/reservoir (no servo on the 1100 and drums all round)

Inlet manifold and vague interpretation of the (Autolite?) carburettor

Lastly ignition coil in progress

 

Here is a mock up (using Bluetac and scrap plastic) of how the engine bay looks, minus the coil.

 

 

The fire wall on the kit is different to the road car's (although may well be correct for rally cars?) so had to carve some away to fit the master cylinder  and washer bottle. Coil will go on the little white strip on the inner wing and I have put plastic angles on the chassis rails for the anti-roll bar to mount to as nothing existed on the kit.

Have also started converting the 4 bolt strut tops to the correct 3 bolt pattern.

The rally car's radiator is meant to mount on the lugs below the plastic strips but on the road car it is much nearer the engine so I will make something up for that and then make the top and bottom hoses then I will call it done and start painting things.

 

Will start on the exhaust system this week and then really must press on with a road car interior!

 

Chris

 

[onethritysecond]

This week's progress on the Escort:

 

Started with the exhaust - found some galvanised wire in the garage, which was easier to bend into shape than trying to do plastic rod - and, being galvanised, has the advantage of looking very exhaust pipe like!

The kit exhaust features a single oval silencer under the boot whereas the road cars have an oval silencer ahead of the axle and a second, round one, under the boot so I recycled the kit one as the front box and made a back box out of plastic tube, with a bit of brass small bore tubing as the tail piece.

 

 

At the top of the picture can be seen the kit's radiator with a bottom tank added.

 

As mentioned previously, the road car's radiator is further back than the kits and there is a steel panel that fills the gap between it and the slam panel. While I was moving it I decided to add the various holes and reinforcing ribbing to the slam panel.

 

 

I have also removed the mounts for the kit's strut brace and noticed that there is meant to be some kind of black box on the bulkhead - not sure what this is meant to be but am guessing at some kind of fusebox so have created a generic fusebox to go there. The trouble with starting to add detail is that you keep noticing more and more detail and it's hard to know when to stop!

 

Nothing makes you feel more like you are actually making some progress with a model than doing some painting! My 'go to' paint for chassis/engine components etc is Citadel Chaos Black but I don't know whether anyone else has noticed but this has suddenly become 'unobtanium' with some jokers asking £45 a can for it! Luckily I had enough left to coat all the parts I had ready and added details with the usual Humbrol/Revell etc paints. I did the engine block Humbrol gunmetal metalcote as I remember the engine in my Anglia was unpainted cast iron so am assuming the Escort was the same. Things like the air filter, rocker cover and sump were left Chaos black .

 

 

Near side - scratch-built Lucas alternator and starter in place plus scratch-built exhaust manifold and air filter.

 

 

Off side - modified oil and fuel pumps plus scratch-built inlet manifold and something representing a carburettor! Fan came from a 1/32nd Airfix mk 1 escort but looks about right. Also only realised after gluing the inlet manifold on that the hole for the distributer was too upright for a crossflow so had to pull it off again and plug and re-drill the hole. Not sure if I am going to add plug leads (although I have drilled the head just in case) as drilling distributers is a right pain and unless you can get something suitably thin (plug leads are about 8mm so scale out at about 1/3rd of a mm!) that will stay in place and won't break it maybe more trouble than it is worth! Have some 1/24th "ignition lead" wire coming so I shall see what that looks like.

 

 

In the engine bay - engine bay has had a coat of Ford Bermuda Blue, which, apart from Diamond white, was the only 1976 escort colour in stock at Halfords when I went there last summer.

 

Lastly this week I have forced myself to start on a road car interior. The only thing from the resin shell that I bought that I have been able to use is the RHD dashboard - and this is too narrow with no obvious means of attachment once I had cut the centre console off so I took the easy way out and cut the ends off of the kit's dashboard and glued them on so at least it can be attached. Kit's steering column is perfectly ok (as are the door cards) but I am going to have to make a road car style steering wheel I think.

 

Rear seat was next, which I have cut from thick plasticard (having ages ago cut out the floor pan to enable rear seats to be fitted) and used Evergreen 1mm half round strip to fashion the pleats.

 

It was only by the time that I got to the right hand side of the back rest that I worked out that the best technique was not to bend them over as I went but to leave them all long and, when the glue was set, to heat them up with my wife's hair dryer so they wilted over and then glue them all at once.

 

 

They can then be clamped down whilst gluing before being trimmed off.

 

 

The areas between the ribs need to be 'plumped up' - I tried plain plastciard on the cushion but it doesn't look comfy enough, not sure what to do but I have some 'greenstuff' putty from a Warhammer type shop which I am going to experiment with.

 

Also got to do some front seats, again, haven't worked out how I am going to do that but something usually turns up!

 

Chris

[keefr22]

That's a good update, the puny little engine is looking really good and makes a nice change from a 2 litre BDA in an Escort model! And those seats are looking really good, great idea on making them!

 

It always surprises me the range of 1970's and 80's paints that Halfords and Hycote still make - there must be a massive classic car touch up paint market!!

 

Keith

[onethritysecond]

4 hours ago, keefr22 said:

That's a good update, the puny little engine is looking really good and makes a nice change from a 2 litre BDA in an Escort model! And those seats are looking really good, great idea on making them!

 

It always surprises me the range of 1970's and 80's paints that Halfords and Hycote still make - there must be a massive classic car touch up paint market!!

 

Keith

Hi Kieth,

I think the reason some of these 70s colours (also noticed BL Pageant Blue, Russet brown and Tartan Red plus Ford Daytona Yellow and I think Purple Velvet metallic!) are still in demand is not so much for classic cars (although that is a bonus) but because they are good strong basic colours for non car related projects and crafts. As long as there is the demand Holts etc will probably keep on making them!

Chris

[onethritysecond]

Got the rear seats finished, plumped up a bit with some Warhammer greenstuff putty - not too bad to use and certainly had more success with it than I have been having milliput recently (my fault, keeping getting the mix wrong!).

 

 

Also started on the front seats by cutting up the kit's rally seat odd bits of plastic and adding half round as before. I am only going to make one then take a mould of it and cast another as I can't facing doing it twice!

 

Also returned to the body work - rally car is lacking in the standard petrol filler so I tried to make my own but then discovered that Motobitz make a 3d printed one for the Bellkits Mk 1 escort so ended up using that. I drilled a hole and countersunk it so it sits flush with the bodywork without falling through. 

 

 

I wanted to rub down the wing again, it wasn't that I slipped with the drill - honest!

 

Also made a full width bumper to replace the kit's quarter bumpers from various bits of plastic strip and shaped it up, putting in recesses for the indicators.One of the reasons I am doing a base model car is that the bumpers are not chromed on those so finish doesn't need to be perfect! I have also put mounting blocks onto the bodyshell.

 

 

I have taken delivery of what is meant to be 1/24th scale ignition leads wire so knocked up a distributor  - not convinced so far...

 

 

I have done a trial fitting to the engine but really not keen as they look way over scale and dominate the engine bay.

 

 

Unless I can come up with a more scale looking solution I think I may go without - what do you think? What would you do?

 

We've had some good spraying days recently so I have got some Bermuda blue on the bodyshell, which I am leaving for a bit before polishing - photos next time.

 

Next I hope to get at least one front seat made and the rest of the interior done so I can start bolting it all together - I've enjoyed doing this one but it has taken a lot longer than I intended because of getting side tracked into making an engine and I have a bunch of other projects I want to get on with!

[Malc2]

Those seats have come out really well, great job!

Agree on the ign wires, real HT leads are between 8 and 10mm diameter, so in 1/24 should be between 0.3 and 0.4mm.

You may be lucky and find some copper wire in electric cable that is the right diameter, or your local Hobbycraft centre may have some fine aluminium wire in the jewellery section the right diameter?

If you know a BT engineer, or find one doing some work at an exchange box on the pavement (as you do.....) they use pretty fine wire in a multitude of colours.

 

M.

 

[onethritysecond]

16 minutes ago, Malc2 said:

Those seats have come out really well, great job!

Agree on the ign wires, real HT leads are between 8 and 10mm diameter, so in 1/24 should be between 0.3 and 0.4mm.

You may be lucky and find some copper wire in electric cable that is the right diameter, or your local Hobbycraft centre may have some fine aluminium wire in the jewellery section the right diameter?

If you know a BT engineer, or find one doing some work at an exchange box on the pavement (as you do.....) they use pretty fine wire in a multitude of colours.

 

M.

 

Yes I am going to have to raid my electronics box! Got some thin single care wire but it tends to kink rather than flow nicely and the old stand by of guitar strings are way too stiff.

Chris

[silver911]

This place is a treasure trove for ultra thin wires.......https://www.componentshop.co.uk/cable/ultra-thin-connecting-wire.html

 

Dealt with them a number of times...excellent service

 

Ron

[keefr22]

Really like that rear seat, very neat work!

 

Have you thought about trying to do a four door conversion in the future, I've thought about giving it a go with a spare shell I have, but so many more things to get to first! 

 

Keith

[johnlambert]

1 hour ago, silver911 said:

This place is a treasure trove for ultra thin wires.......https://www.componentshop.co.uk/cable/ultra-thin-connecting-wire.html

 

Dealt with them a number of times...excellent service

 

Ron

I've only used them once but found the service was very good.

 

The Escort is looking very good.  I remember the seat fabric in my dad's Mk2 Escort Popular Plus was a very thin, not very nice nylon-type material.  Although it was still miles better than vinyl upholstery.

[onethritysecond]

55 minutes ago, keefr22 said:

Really like that rear seat, very neat work!

 

Have you thought about trying to do a four door conversion in the future, I've thought about giving it a go with a spare shell I have, but so many more things to get to first! 

 

Keith

Hi Keith,

Back when I was specialising 1/32nd scale I would have taken a mould at this stage (before final painting) to allow me to use casts as a basis for four door and estate versions but I don't have the quantities of silicone available these days and 1/24th cars take quite a lot! The amount of work the arches took I am not going to do another one from scratch, although I am contemplating doing a similar thing with a Bellkits Mk1 escort.

Chris

[onethritysecond]

19 minutes ago, johnlambert said:

I've only used them once but found the service was very good.

 

The Escort is looking very good.  I remember the seat fabric in my dad's Mk2 Escort Popular Plus was a very thin, not very nice nylon-type material.  Although it was still miles better than vinyl upholstery.

The draylon etc type interiors don't survive as well as vinyl, especially on the top of the back seat where the sun hits it and they end up disintegrating (had a Dolomite like that once). I much prefer vinyl, my current real Triumph has an Ambla interior, which is a soft vinyl that does a pretty good impression of leather but doesn't crack up with old age. Does still burn the back of your legs though in the summer!

Chris

[johnlambert]

5 minutes ago, onethritysecond said:

The draylon etc type interiors don't survive as well as vinyl, especially on the top of the back seat where the sun hits it and they end up disintegrating (had a Dolomite like that once). I much prefer vinyl, my current real Triumph has an Ambla interior, which is a soft vinyl that does a pretty good impression of leather but doesn't crack up with old age. Does still burn the back of your legs though in the summer!

Chris

As a small child I was definitely more concerned about my legs sticking to the seats and getting burnt.  I can't remember which car it was that did that, It might have been dad's Mk1 Escort that preceded the Mk2, or it might have been my grandfather's Austin Maxi.

[onethritysecond]

Slow but steady progress on the Escort this week.

Finished the master for the front seat and took a mould and created a few casts. Realised it has been probably 10 years since I last made a silicone mould and it wasn't the best but worked well enough.

 

Also took the opportunity to mould the rear seats as I intend to do the same thing to a Bellkits Mk1 Escort at some point. Door cards also painted, although I may weather these up a bit later.

 

Bumpers and grill have been painted and front indicators added.

 

 

Body has been polished and while I had my polishing head on (which isn't often) I also did the resin MGB GT shell in the background, which has been on the back burner for a while.

 

Did a quick trial fit of the body on the chassis

 

 

Was too tempting not to! Starting to feel like the end is in sight!

Window rubbers etc still to be done and there is some variation over the years and models as to how much of the side window area is satin black. As the Factory manual I was using for reference was for 1976 I will be going with that (hence why I put the Ford letters on the boot lid, which was only done on early versions) and on the base model it is pretty limited so just needs tyre black rubbers and the quarter light in satin.

 

Since this picture I have removed the ignition leads as I feel it looks better with none rather than obviously over scale ones but I am still messing about with various bits of wire etc so they may reappear!

 

This week I will do the remaining body painting (door handles, badges, rubbers etc) but unfortunately the Escort boot badge transfer in the kit is white and it should be black so will probably be left off.

I will also get the majority of the interior assembled and will try and create some sort of dials for the instrument panel using bits from the kit and Photoshop but also need to make a road going steering wheel and handbrake. Oh and number plates and mirrors- maybe the end isn't as near as I first thought....

 

 

 

 

 

[keefr22]

That looks good, nice to see a bog standard road car for a change! And those front seats are great! 

 

I do like Bermuda Blue - lovely colour!

 

That BGT shell is nice too - is that 1/32?

 

Keith

[johnlambert]

That's great work, I'm also a fan of Bermuda Blue.  I hope you can find some more scale ignition leads as I think they make a nice addition to a model engine.

[onethritysecond]

1 hour ago, keefr22 said:

That looks good, nice to see a bog standard road car for a change! And those front seats are great! 

 

I do like Bermuda Blue - lovely colour!

 

That BGT shell is nice too - is that 1/32?

 

Keith

Hi Keith,

Yes it suits the escort very well and the modern Halfords acrylic sprays give a better finish out of the can compared to the cellulose tartan red on the MGB GT.

Years ago I converted a 1/32nd Airfix MGB roadster to a GT using a butchered DB5 roof (rear window was just right) and used to market resin copies as transkits for the Airfix - most of them ended up being used for slot racing.

The GT in the picture is a 1/24th that somebody has done the same thing for the Aoshima roadster that I picked up off of Ebay but is a bit distorted and didn't come with any windows so I having to make my own.

Chris

Edited March 7, 2021 by onethritysecond
clarification

[Tcoat]

On 3/7/2021 at 8:02 AM, onethritysecond said:

Since this picture I have removed the ignition leads as I feel it looks better with none rather than obviously over scale ones but I am still messing about with various bits of wire etc so they may reappear!

 

Quite the task you took on!

 

My go to ignition wire material for 1/24  is the small wires found in most telephone cables. They are almost perfect for the scale, easy to work with and usually easy to find in a junk box around the house. As a bonus they come in several different colours!

 

 

Edited March 9, 2021 by Tcoat

[onethritysecond]

Not too much rapid progress but nearly all done now.

 

Picked up this Detail Master distributor kit:

 

 

The wire for the leads looks to be ideal and it comes with alternate heads for 4, 6 & 8 cylinder engines. Unfortunately because the distributor has to be big enough to take the 8 cylinder cap it is a bit big looking with the 4 cylinder cap in but I am sure I can use bits of it to make something up and the photo etch bits will be useful.

 

Interior finished and painted

 

 

Dashboard was rescued from the resin bodyshell but is pretty crude - luckily having a black interior hides a lot!

Instruments were copied from a period sales brochure, tweaked in Photoshop and printed out. A piece of clear packaging was cut to put the 'glass' in.

Steering column is from the kit and the steering wheel was scratch built.

 

Body window rubbers, door handles etc painted and the tail lights are in.

 

 

It is was almost at the stage where a few more evenings would see it all together and finished - that is until I made the mistake of deciding to tidy up my work bench (I am the first to admit I am a messy worker) and somehow managed to lose the door mirrors! Going through all the bins hasn't turned them up so I am a bit stuck! Remembering that Italeri have re-issued the Escort I have emailed them in the hope that I can buy a pair off them but otherwise will have to try and makes some I guess.