1951 Chevy by Papa - FINISHED - AMT

[Papa]

Taking a break from rigging the C.W. Morgan with this car kit I’ve had in my stash for a while. The dragster engine is almost complete. 

[CDW]

A ‘51 Chevy was my first car, passed down from grandpa who bought it new. A six cylinder with Powerglide transmission, it was anything but a dragster. You couldn’t spin the tires on takeoff if your life depended on it, but it ran strong once you got it moving. 😊

Great model, looking forward to following along.

 

[Papa]

In the early 1960's I had a 52 Plymouth sedan that my parents purchased from an uncle. It looked a lot like the Chevy. I seem to remember that they only paid $25 for it but that seems ridiculous now.  I had to cover the holes in the floor with plywood. Anyway, it lasted until I finished college and it even made a round trip from Massachusetts to Washington, DC where i had a 3 month summer job with the DoD.  I purchased the Chevy kit planning on making a custom car version. Eventually I realized that such a job was way beyond my skill set. So it's "out of the box"  Dragster version.

 

Papa

[Papa]

Finished engine.  I am going to drill holes in the ends of the exhaust pipes or paint them black to simulate holes.

[Papa]

Next stage of the Chevy build. The blue is actually white  🤷‍♂️

[Papa]

She is coming together. I had to remove the pipes in order to mount the engine and then thin down some of the pipes and the frame to get them to fit. A few hours of test fitting and some super glue and you wouldn’t know I cheated 

[Egilman]

36 minutes ago, Papa said:

She is coming together. I had to remove the pipes in order to mount the engine and then thin down some of the pipes and the frame to get them to fit. A few hours of test fitting and some super glue and you wouldn’t know I cheated 

 

Not cheating,

 

That 235ci Stovebolt 6 had to be custom fitted into a dropped chassis.. All the straight header pipes had to be "massaged" to fit without striking the ground...

 

Fitting that it had to be duplicated on a model...

[Egilman]

So this is a dragster version, a custom built car in it's own right... The engine is a 235 ci Blue Flame Special, Specially built for the Corvette's from '53 to '55 when coupled with the powerglide automatic transmission... it was one of the first high output engines... (for the early '50's that is)  also one of the first muscle car engines... 150 hp @ 4200 rpm, 223 ftlb of torque at 2400 rpm.... It would burn any tire mounted to the 3.73 ratio posi-traction rear end...

 

That was the car and engine that gave the powerglide transmission it's reputation in the drag strip community during the 1950's-'60's...

Edited April 27, 2023 by Egilman

[Papa]

13 hours ago, Egilman said:

Fitting that it had to be duplicated on a model.

Thanks. As a kid in the 50s i knew almost nothing about cars except the outside.  I could name almost every make model and year during that time. But under the hood 🤷‍♂️. Never knew it was called a “stove bolt”

[Papa]

Ready to add 2 radiator hoses and then the body. We are leaving Florida on May 3rd so it will probably be a week before I get back to it. All in all I think this is a poor kit. Too much flash, very few positive attachment points and poorly fitting parts

[mtaylor]

Have safe trip home.   AMT was known for certain "quality issues" as I recall.  Just took extra time and patience to build the model.

[CDW]

 

2 hours ago, Papa said:

All in all I think this is a poor kit. Too much flash, very few positive attachment points and poorly fitting parts

This kit was first introduced a LONG time ago, sometime in the 70's I believe. The molds have a lot of mileage on them. I think you're doing a great job on this old kit. Keep up the good work. 

[Papa]

On 5/2/2023 at 8:04 PM, CDW said:

I think you're doing a great job on this old kit. Keep up the good work

Thanks.  It has been a challenge 

[popeye the sailor]

this is likely a reproduction from Round 2 models.........the molds they are using are the old molds.  MPC was another company that had some poor model kits.   the mold seams and pin marks are terrible!  I've got a small stash of these kits amassed at the time being.  it blows me away that you have the L6 engine!  I've got the Monogram 59 & 60 Chevy Bal Air,  and NEITHER of them came with the stock engine!  I had to order a pair from Shapeways.

   Atlantis is another company that sprung up in the past few years.......they bought up some of the old molds too.  nice to see the nostalgic kits again.........but they should have revamped the molds before using them  

 

I should show you what I'm doing to a 57 Chrysler 300............OH, the evil in it all!    swell job on the model by way!!!!! 👍

Edited May 4, 2023 by popeye the sailor

[CDW]

Never owned one myself, but my favorite '51 Chevy was the fastback model. You could buy these for a song when I was a teen. But I never learned to appreciate cars like these until the 80's and 90's. By then they had become much harder to find.

 

 

[Canute]

One of my uncles had one of these in silver. We called it the Silver Bullet, Lone Ranger fans that we were.😄

[CDW]

As a teen, I appreciated the huge back seats in the old cars back then. Those seats got heavy usage when taking your date to the submarine races.🙂

[popeye the sailor]

submarine races?  how do you know who's ahead  

[Egilman]

4 hours ago, popeye the sailor said:

how do you know who's ahead

You had to have a feel for it.... But you both knew when the ol' snorkel came up... {chuckle} (plenty of room to maneuver for the deep dive)

[Papa]

I decided to scrape off all of the moulded on "chrome" trim.  It is a time consuming task but i think it will provide a classic custom look.  The body is sitting on the frame just for the photo. The rear wheel openings had to be enlarged for the slicks but fortunately the outline of the new opening was moulded into the body on the inside of the fenders.  The instructions make no mention of this and I only discovered it by accident after I started cutting out plastic!

[mtaylor]

That is going to be one sharp looking rod.  As I recall, AMT did that cut-out molding on a lot of their cars that had slicks as an option.

[popeye the sailor]

some models are scored to show how much to remove for the wheel wells.  if it doesn't,  it's a scratch builder's dream    good idea to remove the chrome trim.......it was considered extra weight on the drag strip!   

[Papa]

I was unhappy with the engine compartment, so i took it apart for better painting and positioning.  The engine was canted a bit toward the left.  Not too noticeable but I was obsessing over it! And the wheel well pieces were not positioned correctly. So progress has been set back a tad.

i was using CA glue for assembly so for the most part things popped apart easily. I did need de-bonder on a few joints.  The brittleness on the CA also led to other parts popping off.  I am switching to solvent glue to put stuff back together.  It is a slower process which is a good thing as i have a tendency to rush things.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Papa

[popeye the sailor]

I use Testor's for plastic.....only in isolated cases will I use something else.  I've heard that in time CA becomes brittle and breaks apart easily.....of course most of the time.  models aren't moved around too much.  cleaning and packing is usually the OMG time   for drag,  the wells around the engine compartment are modified to some degree.......usually to allow more room for the exhaust.

 

no harm nor foul in auto racing   

[mtaylor]

Many racers from very early one cut out the wheel wells and fiddled with other sheet metal bits to get the engine and headers to fit.  Not something one would want drive in the rain as the water would short things out.

[Papa]

Current progress. 

[Papa]

A coat of primer to see where i need to touch up the plastic filler. 

[Papa]

She is finished.  The kit had some flame decals and some sponsors stuff but i think i like the clean look. 

[mtaylor]

Nice work.  Looks the part of a gasser from the era.

[Egilman]

Definitely the look of a late '60's gasser.... (now where is the 120 octane)

 

Well done..

Edited May 29, 2023 by Egilman