Thank you.

I've just had the notification that my next delivery is on the way. Unfortunately I am going to have to hold off on working on those for a bit as they will make it really awkward to remove the engine. I am also spending time back on my Terminator now that I have all the parts up-to-date again.

I plan on removing the engine and weathering it first. I have seen Adam savage weather his, but in my opinion he has overdone the metal effects. He leaves practically none of the blue paint.

I will be adding the Cadillac logo in red, then protecting some of the colour and adding some metal and rust effects, notably around the exhausts, then adding some oil and grime around the engine.

OK, let's get on with this.

My next delivery has arrived. This delivery expands the floor pan and chassis.

As I have prepared to weather the engine, this has been removed from the chassis front.



The first stage is easy, with only two clips to be attached to the underside.



This is mirrored on the other side of the transmission tunnel.



The second stage this delivery is the floor pan extension.



This will get screwed to the front floor pan with six screws.



I have now connected the floor pan to the previous stage. Having removed the engine, I will have to disconnect it later, replace the engine, and reattach it. Therefore there are some of the pipes that I am not connecting to the engine yet.







These two connectors then go at the rear, and will allow brake lines to connect through the transmission tunnel.



The longest one goes on this connector, then gets fed up the tunnel. I only used fuse wire in the ends of these pipes, the central section will be invisible inside the tunnel. For the areas inside the tunnel, I taped the pipe to the tunnel wall. This will not show due to the outer cover, but removes the possibility of them being snagged on the drive shaft later.



Further along, it gets passed through the clip and on further to the engine. This connection will be covered later, once I replace the engine.





This is repeated with the shorter tube. The longer tube goes around the engine, through the gap between engine and gearbox to the distribution valve. The shorter tube travels along the same side as the valve.



With both tubes installed, the central cover goes on.



The driveshaft. The main shaft is in two pieces, then there are the two universal joints (UJ's) made of two extra pieces and four screws each.



Join the two halves of the driveshaft. It will be possible to place this so that the screws are uppermost, although I am not sure how much will be visible with the final covers in place.



The first stage of constructing the UJs is screwing the cross pieces into the ends.



The UJs are then screwed into the driveshaft in the same manner. The one thing I noticed at this point was that there was significantly more movement in one direction than in the other. This system would not actually work as a functional UJ as movement in the driveshaft due to suspension travel would cause the UJ to lock.

Once the driveshaft is finished to this state, it is put aside for another delivery. I presume we will connect it when we work on the rear axle.



Final stage for this delivery. The rear frame.



The battery box frame fits in the rear frame. The two prongs fit in cut-outs in the underside.







Now this is where the delivery instructions end. Having said that, it is easy to work out which screws are required to attach the rear frame to the floor pan. This is one long vehicle. As long as the Barris Batmobile, I'd say. Enjoy.

That chassis is looking really long now,have you found a big space to display it

Al

I have stripped down my engine and have started painting it. Still nothing really to show at the moment, but I have just received my magnetic licence plates from Mike Lane and wanted to show you.



The left hand set (Slime dripping down) is from the original film.
Top plate is the front plate from the film.
Next is the rear plate from the film, note the attachments on top, rather than the bottom.
Third is an aged plate - possibly from the up-coming GB3.
Finally, the plate issued to the car off the set.

The right hand plates (Ooze flowing up) are from the second film.

They all look great, and are an improvement on my original EM plate which only had the black edging lines on two sides - as if the plate had been cut wrongly from a sheet. However, the Mike Lane plates are entirely flat, none of the raised detail of the EM product.

Nice work on the manifolds.

Mark

Superb work on those manifolds... It's really looking great.

So here is the next update.

With the engine now fixed back in the floor, it's time to add the next set of parts.





We start by adding parts for the rear suspension, and finalising the rear floor and wheel wells.



The first three parts are screwed together like this and form part of the rear suspension. Care will need to be taken when placing the rear floor, or these parts will catch on the rear frame that I have already installed.



The beam is then screwed to the underside of the floor plate.



The floor plate is then turned over and the wheel arches are screwed on. The arches are handed, and labelled, but make sure you are aligning the flat edge as the front of the vehicle.



The plate is then screwed to the rear of the existing floor. I closed the two suspension parts and fed them through the frame.. The rear floor is then screwed to the rear of the existing floor.



so we now get a real indication of how long this beast is going to get.




EDIT: Take care with the rear suspension parts. The two 'rods' have a slight angle to them. I did not notice that I had one angled slightly to the rear and one angled slightly forward - the angle is not great, and as I did not see a call-out in the instructions I assumed they were straight. They should be angled back slightly. I found this out to my cost when I installed the rear suspension and broke the one angled forward.



Not happy, not going to pay £40 for another copy of the issue just for a single piece of plastic worth a few pence. I'm going to try superglue to start, but if (when) that fails, I'll probably get some brass rod and hand drill it into the main part of the rod and use that.

Next up we work on the front engine bay wall, fit the radiator to it, and add the horns.



firstly, the main beam gets two additions, possibly supports for the front.



The next two parts make the junction box



Which go together like this.



and then attached here on the main beam.



The side components are added to the beam. These will complete the enclosure when placed with the front wheel arches.





The next three parts are for the first of two horns. This gets installed on the main beam.







The second horn is made pretty much the same, and is installed below the first one.



The radiator is then screwed to the main beam, and that finishes this pack as I will install the pipe with another pack.

Now we finish off the engine bay with the rear wall.



The first two parts are the blower unit, and are quite complex to get together properly. I had some trouble getting them to fit properly. Although there is a key on the spindle and a corresponding shape to the hole, the shape of the parts means that they don't interact until they are almost home.





and this is screwed to the firewall.



The power brake reservoir is made of three pieces, and then screwed to the firewall from the back.







The windscreen washer motor is made from two pieces and attached to the firewall.





One of the pipes goes between the brake fluid distributor under the engine to the reservoir, so this is installed on the distributor now.



At this point, the rear firewall is installed. The steering column goes through a hole in the firewall, and two pipes are then connected





The long pipe from the carburettor at the top front of the engine, which has not been connected up to now, is connected to a nipple on the firewall. The pipe from the brake fluid distributor goes to the fluid reservoir.



The last steps for this pack are a couple of tie rods, going from the firewall to the top of the wheel arches, and consist of two rods and two connectors.



The rods have a screw thread on one end, and this is screwed into the connectors so that the screw thread is protruding into the length of the connector like this.



These are then inserted into the firewall, and the connectors screwed to the top of the arches.





That finishes off this pack. I have the next three packs, but am holding off on those as the next two packs are the exhaust systems, and the final pack is the rear axle and differential. I am currently waiting for some hot metal effect paints that I want to put on the exhaust joints. I will also probably be putting some of my previously used rust on one of the silencer boxes to represent one of them being an old unit and the other having been moderately recently replaced.

You're not wrong, Mark!



That's an underbed box she's siting on, and a 40" screen in the background. I was hoping to use the box to store her when I'm not working on her, but I'm going to have to think again on that one.