1964 Econoline

In primer

MR TOM SCHRY

Doors and their hinges look great!  Open the doors, turn up the stereo, and let the party begin!

tjs

 

8 track player with 5 band equalizer and appropriate era home cabinet speakers ready to blow doors back off!

Doors and their hinges look great!  Open the doors, turn up the stereo, and let the party begin!

tjs

Reworked door hinges. Work great and hinges  are very close to scale size. The will need some tweaking for size and shape once I get all the layers of paint on but that will be relatively easy.

Well after a brief intermission it is back to work on this.

Nice pair of late 60s/early 70s, cheap, made in Japan (when made in Japan still meant cheap) resonated side pipes and the whole three scale feet of exhaust pipe that hooks directly to the headers. No mufflers were harmed in the manufacturing of the exhaust system on the real thing nor model.

Well...

Ummmm...

About those doors...

While sanding in prep for primer I managed to snap not one, but two of those little receiver rings off. I barely touched them and BING gone. The Lindberg plastic is apparently far more brittle than I realized.

So

Everything has come off (pictures eventually) and I am starting all over with folded over thin styrene sheet as the receiver and fine wire as the post. On the plus side this method results in a much more scale and accurate depiction of the hinges. The bad part remains to be confirmed but I suspect they will not stand up to repeated opening and closing very well so it may end up with permanently open doors. That wouldn't be horrible since it can still be seen closed on the drivers side and the interior is really the star of the show for the passenger side anyway. 

I also need to get some coats of buildable primer on it to make sure I can get the slight curves of the transitions in the body creases correct. By using such thin material I sort of restricted myself to how much shaping I can do. If the primer fails I will try a very thin skim of filler putty for shaping. If that fails then I will build the doors all over again but with styrene of the next thickness up. If that doesn't cut it that will be the final nail in the coffin for closing doors since when open you cant see the outer skin anyway.

I will eventually win one way or the other. 

Thanks everybody!

I have doors. The hinges are a tad ovescale but they are more to hang the doors on in the open position so it isn't too obvious. The closing part of the deal is just a bonus. Once all black you will hardly see then anyway.

The doors were made by skinning over the cut out resin parts with very thin styrene and the hinges are the Lindbergh kit parts for the front doors of the Dodge. 

They fit better than the pictures make them look and will need some tweaking after paint anyway. The doors are not wrinkled like they look here that is a trick of the smudged marker ink and the resin showing through the styrene.

This is how it will be displayed. The inside of these doors was really easy to model since the structure was covered with paneling and the latch mech is all hidden. The outer lips are all scale thickness.

Lookin' very cool.

Wow! Love the build! Love the swivel seats too.

Pawel

I like this project a lot - and not only because I'm a "van man" myself - my first car was the "square" VW bus, and my second car is a fourth generation VW bus - I have owned it for 20 years now, let's see if I can make it more...

This project is so cool because you are modelling something you know very well - and many modellers miss the fact that knowing your subject well is the foundation for a good model - much more than fancy paints, airbrush skill or tons of aftermarket.

Good luck with your build and have a nice day

Paweł

 

About 25% of my projects are things I know very well from experience with the subject or something at least very similar. The other 75% will get about 2 hours of research time for every hour spent on the actual build. I actually enjoy the research as much as the building. Every once in a while I will just build something with no reaserch at all but that is just to take a rest before my next round of intensive internet searching.  

MR TOM SCHRY

PERFECT!  Oh, bring back the 70's and put Boston on the stereo!

tjs

 

I will add a Boston 8-track for you. Although "Don't look back" is not a good theme song for this build!

I like this project a lot - and not only because I'm a "van man" myself - my first car was the "square" VW bus, and my second car is a fourth generation VW bus - I have owned it for 20 years now, let's see if I can make it more...

This project is so cool because you are modelling something you know very well - and many modellers miss the fact that knowing your subject well is the foundation for a good model - much more than fancy paints, airbrush skill or tons of aftermarket.

Good luck with your build and have a nice day

Paweł

PERFECT!  Oh, bring back the 70's and put Boston on the stereo!

tjs

Front end dropped a tad more so stance is finally right. By today's standards it looks extreme but was pretty normal back then.

Paneling, and decorations ready. Some will be paper and some decals. This will be my first venture into printing my own decals.

The posters are all accurate to what I had except the Cooper one. I had a promo poster for his Vancouver 1975 concert but there do not seem to be any pictures of it and I had to go with close enough. The small ones will be 8-track tape labels. The only concession I made to accuracy is the inclusion of the two model magazine covers as neither existed back then and I wasn't building models at that point in my life. Besides, I don't think I could post the real magazines I had back then here anyway!

Yes it truly was a child of the seventies. Just look at that paneling!

MR TOM SCHRY

WOW!  Those new tires,wheels, & hub caps look great on it.  That interior looks so cool too.  I agree about needing to drop the nose a bit more to achieve that proper stance.

tjs

 

The wheels and caps are the same but now they are not lost in the huge tires. Still not decided if going with the while lettering out or just the blackwalls. The real thing had very faded white letter on the little that remained of the poor old tires so that may be a third option. 

The stance was perfect untilI lined up the floor with the door opening and lost just a hair of drop in the front. Going to have to cut and reposition the leaf springs to get what I need but that is no big deal.

WOW!  Those new tires,wheels, & hub caps look great on it.  That interior looks so cool too.  I agree about needing to drop the nose a bit more to achieve that proper stance.

tjs

Yeah:

    I had a 68 Chevy van. Strange in that it was a work-family vehicle that the kids painted smileys all over. When I bought it ,mechanically and interior wise it was great. The paint was just Deep red primer!

Quick mockup to make sure everything fits. About a 1/4 inch taken off the bar stool height so nobody bumps their head!

Much more appropreate sized tires swapped for the balloon things had on at first. Need to drop the nose about anothe 2 scale inces though. 

Opened up and padded dash removed. Resin isn't so hard to work with and my trepidation at the task was misplaced.

lurch

That  is looking great Tcoat. I remember those days.  I loved those old vans. You are doing an excellent job replicating the details. I once owned a 66 GMC van. Like you I wish I still had it.

 

It is fun just how many people across a couple of forums had a sixties van of one make or another. With the number of people that have said they had one I am actually sort of surprised that this era of vans is, and always has been, almost completely ignored by the mainstream manufactures. They pumped out many different versions of the '70s vans since they were the bigger part of the craze while us poor early adaptors went without.

That  is looking great Tcoat. I remember those days.  I loved those old vans. You are doing an excellent job replicating the details. I once owned a 66 GMC van. Like you I wish I still had it.

I have a body!

I need to find some slightly smaller tires. These just look like balloons. The chassis needed some considerable rework as the body is about 3/8 inch shorter than the Lindberg kit.

MR TOM SCHRY

Tcoat, Gloss black paint scheme and side pipes!  Am I back in 1975 living the dream?

tjs

 

It was truly a creature of the '70s. The side pipes are going to be a challenge since they were cheap "Made in Japan" (remember it was the 70s) things that no kit has ever duplicated and will have to be scratch built from memory. The lucky part is that they were not exactly complex. 

Tcoat, Gloss black paint scheme and side pipes!  Am I back in 1975 living the dream?

tjs

If accurate, the latter models should ship with at least two extra. rebuilt tranmissions

After much disscussion on another forum it has been determined that the dash as molded includes a pad along the top and golve box that mine did not have. In my van the dash was just steel painted a semi gloss black with the panel around the instruments, ash tray and flat govebox door in white. The padded glove box will ruin the symmentry of the white no matter how I paint it so it has to go. 

I have never worked with resin parts before so have no idea how hard it would be to remove it. Is there a good way to sand/grind/crape or otherwise flatten it out? Don't want to ruin it in the name of accuracy but it just will look wrong as is!

Tanker-Builder

Hi ; It looks like you are definitey on the right path here, Good job so far!

 

Pretty happy with it so far as it fits my memory of 45 years ago pretty good. Never thought I would ever be scratch building a 1/25 scale bar stool though!

MR TOM SCHRY

MAN!  I love that stance of that van.  It just looks so TOUGH!

tjs

 

Wait until it gets the high gloss black Econoline body on it!

Oh and side pipes.