Revell Channelled '29 Ford Roadster

Several years ago, when I was just getting back into modeling, I mocked up a channeled ’29 Ford Roadster hot rod in Photoshop. I used an image of a black highboy I found on the web and cut, paste and colorized until I got the image I liked. The picture has stuck with me despite the fact I never got around to building it.



With the release of the Revell ’29 Ford Roadster with its channeled option the need to build something like the “’Lil Red Roadster” hit me once again, especially since Revell’s channeled version had quite a few things about it that I thought needed changing, especially the enormous ground clearance. So, with the greatest apologies to Tim Boyd, whose image I have stolen, here’s a before and after Photoshop mockup showing a very crude lowering job. All I did was “cut out” the wheels and ground line from the rest of the car’s image and then lowered everything around the wheels – it’s the same thing I did to make the original ‘Lil Red Roadster.



As you can see there’s a bit more rake than the LRR but otherwise the lowering isn’t too far off. For reference I noted the fact that the top of the rear tire now sits just at the upper body molding.



So I then measured the distance between the original position of the rear tire and the raised position. This would be the amount I would need to increase the Z at the rear of the Revell kit frame. It worked out to about .152 inches. Allowing for the kerf on my Zona zaw of about .003 inches I could use some .156 x .080 inch styrene strip and insert additional height to the factory Z (fig. 1 and 2). Then, to reinforce the new joint I inserted some of the same material across the frame to increase the glue area (fig. 3). After the usual sanding and shaping (fig. 4) I added some .010 inch strip on either side of the joint to finish it out and add a little more reinforcement (fig. 5).



It’s now standard operating procedure to cut the wheel well panels from the interior sides if you contemplate any sort of modification to the Revell ‘29 kit. So I did that before removing additional material from the wheel well panels to accommodate the raised Z on the frame.



To lower the front end I reversed the front cross member and cut 3 leaves from the front spring. I decided that I wanted a more traditional rear suspension to go with the general retro-funk of the LRR so I installed a rear crossmember and spring from a Revellogram ’37 Ford Panel Truck which has been mercilessly raided over the years for its parts. The rear axle will be removed and I’ll be using the kit axle instead.



That’s it so far. I still haven’t gotten it up on its wheels so I don’t know how low I’ve gotten it, or whether the stance bears any resemblance to either mockups. One ,thing is clear already and that is that I must use the tires that came with the kit. They are perfect for this type of build. For the rear wheels I probably will switch out to some deep dish reversed steelies as shown in the picture above. Those are 9” 60’s stock car wheels from Plastic Performance Parts.

I still haven’t decided whether to stick with the flathead in the original ‘Lil Red Roadster image or to use the kit nailhead. I’m leaning towards the flattie, but then I have to decide to keep it fairly crude as in the LRR mockup, or maybe make it a bit more nicely turned out with finned heads, etc. Once I get it up on its wheels I have no doubt that the ‘Lil Red Roadster will let me know what’s right.

Thanks for lookin’,
B.

Great start as usual Bern, can not wait to see this one take shape.

These are becoming quite a popular kit, especially what I've seen on the US forums, nice work so far Bern

Nice work and good pics of the process.

It’s been over a year since I touched this project. Frankly I found getting a decent stance out of the channeled variant of the Revell Ford ’29-A Roadster a bit frustrating, and just when I started to tame it, it “stopped speaking to me”, so I set it aside. Some 7 or 8 completed projects later, while I wait for the decal paper for my ’56 Oval VW Bug project to arrive, I decided to look it over. To my surprise I’d forgotten just how much progress I had made on it when I stopped. I only did one post so I hadn’t done an update post. Updates often help me focus on where I’m at in a project and what needs to be done. So when I cracked open the box this morning I was pleased to see I had done quite a bit of important sub-assembly work, to such a degree that all that was left was paint and final assembly. Even some of the paint had been done.

So today I .did the rest of the paint work and then took some photos of the status of things as I resume this stalled build. The chassis and front suspension were completed last year so I painted the chassis Duplicolor Gloss Black and the floor panels Testors Metalizer Titanium. The interior is the stock kit interior with the exception of the windshield and dashboard. I wanted to save them for the highboy version so I chopped and modified an AMT ’29 Ford Roadster Ala-Kart piece to fit. This was another detail completed last year which today got painted gloss black and Krylon Chrome. It’ll get a photo-etch instrument panel. The kit seat and interior panels were painted today in Testors Acryl Leather textured to look somewhat weathered. The wheels and tires are from the kit but I didn’t think Buick finned brake drums were in keeping with the build concept so I had modified them to take simple ’40 Ford backing plates. Like the original concept drawing, they’re finished in gloss black. The Ford Flathead V8 is a Revell piece from my stash, probably from a ’40 Ford Standard. I kept the stock heads but finished them in Testors Metalizer Steel to resemble Ford high compression aluminum “Denver” truck heads, a popular cheapo hop up in the early 50’s for hot rodders on a budget. The intake manifold is a twin carb Edelbrock-style piece from a Revell ’40 Ford Street Rod Coupe kit. It will get high-flow exhaust manifolds taken from the same kit. The rest of the exhaust system will be adapted from the basic Revell ’29 Ford kit. The kit firewall is gloss black and I stripped the kit’s chrome grill shell and finished it in Duplicolor Flash Red to match the bodywork.

I had gone so far as to color sand and polish out the main body last year. In the ensuing period it had picked up a a few nicks and thin spots so I shot a light coat of Flash Red and gave it two coats of Duplicolor Clear Gloss today. After a few days to cure and harden I’ll give it a final polish. The rear suspension is still somewhat up in the air. I landed up pinching the ’37 Ford rear axle for another project. I’ll decide in the next day or two whether to use the kit’s modern Ford rear end or snag a banjo unit from another ’37 Ford kit. But really, I’m pretty much down to final assembly. Hopefully the stance will cooperate and I’ll land up with something resembling the Lil’ Red Roadster…

Thanx for lookin’,
B.

Damn

Thanx!

I’m pretty close to done. The chassis and motor are completed and glued together. The interior is largely finished. The most critical part seems to have been getting the body to sit right on the frame after the engine swap. I think I got it. Lights and detailing are still to do, but I’m probably max 2-3 hours of bench time away now. Here are snaps.

Thanx for lookin’,
B.

Really cool roadster, period perfect that is!

Thanx Darryl.

Getting a proper channeled stance on the Revell '29 A Fords seems to require constant tweaking to get them to look right. The stretched wheelbase of the Revell '29 A chassis used for the channeled version is an immediate handicap. In retrospect I wish I had considered moving back the front crossmember. But in thinking about it further I realized this would have required moving the center crossmember as well. At which point the only real advantage of the kit frame, given the modern rear suspension setup and insufficiently deep z-job, would have been the curved front horns. Better perhaps to take the AMT frame rails and scratch build the rest of it!

In any case, looking at it mocked up and pretty near completion I realized it would benefit from moving the grille shell back. So I got out the Dremel and shaved the front crossmember face. Not a huge difference but it seems to help. Here's a comparison picture. Letter A is the old position, B the one with the shaved crossmember face. Unfortunately the camera angles are not identical but you can see that the grille shell has been moved back about 1/3 of the diameter of the brake backing plate. Because of the chassis rake the grille shell sits slightly higher, in line with the cowl edge.

Looks good.