1971 Plymouth Roadrunner 440

My new project is converting the Fast & Furious Dom's '71 GTX into a '71 Roadrunner. I plan on a 440 powered, 3-speed automatic shifting, bench seat car painted with Testors Green Go aka Sassy Grass Green with a black interior. I plan on using a bench seat from my parts box, column mounted automatic shifter, and the kit wheels and wide tires from Dom's GTX. Let's see what I can do with this...




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Love the fuselage styled Mopars and looking forward to seeing what you do with the Plymouth.

Thanks Chris!

I have never done this before. I'm changing the seat pattern on a Jo-Han bench seat from a long departed '68 Plymouth Fury Patrol Car. The Fury seat has no pattern to it at all and I'm cutting up the bucket seats to get the GTX pattern only took a few minutes. So now I have to get the seat patterns down to the size of the Fury seat. I saved the head rests and will cut them down for the Fury seat. I drew a line on the center of the seat back so I can slice it into two seat backs for a 2-door.




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Using my Dremel, I hollowed out the seating surfaces for the new inserts. I added the new seating surfaces and filled the edges with Bondo Glazing & Spot Putty. I'll sand this when the putty has set and dried.




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I fitted a piece of sheet styrene to the interior, but more sanding will be required. The plastic interior tub is much thicker than the sheet styrene I'm using and the seat will need to be raised slightly so it doesn't rock back and forth. My patch will need to be blended into the tub further.




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Nicely done Mike ... now comes the fun part ... sand - prime - touch up (repeat a million times).  Take your time so you don't loose that hard-earned pleat design in your bench seat.  Suggest you also fill the seam line at the top of the seat where the back joins the front.

Nice patch on the console delete operation, Are you going to go pistol-grip floor shifter (which looks great with the bench) or column shift (if automatic) to go with the low-option muscle car look?  Both will suite your design well.  

   

Clever idea on the seats. I never liked the early 70s bucket seats with the integrated headrests. They always looked so ungainly. Your bench seat look way better.

Thanks Chris and Dave!

Spanky 19 wrote:Nicely done Mike ... now comes the fun part ... sand - prime - touch up (repeat a million times).  Take your time so you don't loose that hard-earned pleat design in your bench seat.  Suggest you also  fill the seam line at the top of the seat where the back joins the front.

Nice patch on the console delete operation,  Are you going to go pistol-grip floor shifter (which looks great with the bench) or column shift (if automatic) to go with the low-option muscle car look?  Both will suite your design well.  

   

I know! I'll probably be putting that part of the build off for a while! I am going with a column mounted shifter. I should mount a tachometer somewhere in the interior. This will be a "Day 2" low option muscle car when it is completed.

I have been looking at the engine in this kit and it has a hole in the oil filter. I covered the hole with a piece of rounded styrene. The hole might not be seen once the model is assembled, but I know that the hole is there and covered. I have also been sanding the trunk lid to remove the mounts for the rear spoiler that I am not going to use.




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I have been looking at Sassy Grass Green '71 Roadrunners on Google Images and pictures of Roadrunners with painted bumpers are starting to appeal to me. I have a '71 GTX and a '71 Satellite on the shelf without the painted bumpers and painting the bumpers will give me a different "Fuselage" body style. I clipped the front and rear bumpers from the chrome sprue and covered them with Easy-Off Oven Cleaner and the chrome disappeared in 10 minutes. Now to paint them and the rest of the body parts!




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I sprayed the chassis and the interior bottom with Tamiya Grey Surface Primer and the body, hood, engine, valances and exhaust system with Tamiya White Surface Primer. I decided to leave the front and rear bumpers in oven cleaner a while longer to be sure that all of the plating and undercoat was removed. They have been removed from the cleaner and washed and will be primered when they are dry.




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I have spent the last two days (a few minutes here and there) removing the GTX from the grille. The GTX scripts where removed from the body rather easily, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to attempt removing the script from the grille. I used a No. 11 blade, an angle blade and a pick to remove the scripts. It's not perfect, but it does look decent and it will be painted flat black. The wheels have been cleaned and now to painted them with Alclad II Gloss Black Base followed by Alclad II Chrome. Then to paint the wheel centers with Tamiya TS-29 Semi Gloss Black.




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I held off long enough and I started painting today. I painted the wheels with Alclad II Gloss Black and then I painted them with Alclad II Chrome with my Badger 150 airbrush. The wheel centers will be painted with Tamiya TS-29 Semi Gloss Black. Then I painted and detailed the disc brakes. I spent some time on the bench seat and added headrests using the tops of the bucket seat headrests.




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While the paintbooth was up and running, I painted a few more parts including the engine, front and rear bumpers and the body. I noticed some mold lines on the front fenders and I removed those and reprimered the body which produced a large paint run. I used a piece of paper towel to stop the run and in the back of my mind I heard, "Don't!", but it was too late and I made a mess out of the primer. I'll sand the primer and then I'll paint the body later.




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I finished the chassis this afternoon. I found a set of extended shocks from the Revell '68 Charger kit. I cut them down to fit and painted them red for contrast. The rear wheels and tires are a very tight fit!




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Looks like one of the rear tires is going the wrong way.

Dave from Pleasanton wrote:Looks like one of the rear tires is going the wrong way.

Yeah, I noticed that. Sometthing else to correct!

mrmike wrote:

Dave from Pleasanton wrote:Looks like one of the rear tires is going the wrong way.

Yeah, I noticed that.  Sometthing else to correct!

I spent several minutes looking at the front and rear tires and they are all the same side tires. I figure that once the body is on, they can't be seen so it wouldn't matter.

I'm never a fan of the directional tread. I never know which way they should point and which side they should go on. However, instead of your intelligent solution (can't see it anyway) I stew about it.  

Dave from Pleasanton wrote:I'm never a fan of the directional tread. I never know which way they should point and which side they should go on. However, instead of your intelligent solution (can't see it anyway) I stew about it.  

If you must stew about it, then stew! I had looked at the tread and they all went in the same direction. I usually notice these things and I thought I had one of the tires on backwards. I looked it over and it wasn't wrong or right. It is just another of Revell USA's flubups.

This afternoon, I wired the engine, added exhaust manifolds, heater hoses and decals. I need to add an ignition coil. Then I painted the bench seat, steering column, radiator, dash and the body.




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This is coming along very nicely!

Thanks Chris! I am a little irritated that the decal on the air cleaner is not whole like it thought it was the last time I had looked at it. Arrgh!

Well, chock up another screw up to Revell. I went and looked at the decal sheet and the decals don't fit the hood since they are a little on the short side. Then I looked at decal no. 6 and then I went to the instruction sheet and there is no mention of no. 6 decals or decals for the caliphers. I wonder what the decals and the instruction sheet for the Revell of Germany kit looks like. I heard that the decal sheet is bigger!

I painted the dash and the radiator. The radiator has be detailed and the dash is next.




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I finished the interior for now. I still want to add a tachometer to the dash. The engine and drive shaft has been installed and the chassis is complete.




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I wanted to add a tachometer and I had a PE tach from Detail Master that I thought would fit the bill. It was a scale 5 inches in diameter and the more I thought about it, the more I thought that it was too large. I used a spare tach that came in the Revell Foose '67 Coronet kit and I detailed that to my liking and installed it. While I was at it, I made an ignition coil and installed that as well. Then I detailed the grille with Tamiya X-11 Chrome Silver for the headlight buckes and Tamiya XF-1 Flat Black for the grille itself.




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Mike, you are really doing this Road Runner justice!

Thanks Chris! I keep finding little details I want to add and I know I should start foiling the body!

I went and finished the grille and front valance with lights and prepped the rear valance for additional stripes coming down from the taillights.




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I masked off the rear bumper and valance and then I painted them with Tamiya TS-29 Semi Gloss Black. And, I couldn't resist doing a mockup. I'm liking this!




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thats a really vibrant colour!

It's one of my favorite '70s Mopar colors. It was a solid color back then and today it has a lot of pearl in it.

Nice one Mike. Love the colour but then I always liked Sublime Green

Thanks Al! I hate to disappoint you, but Sub-Lime Green is slightly lighter in shade. Green-Go (Dodge name) or Sassy Grass Green (Plymouth) is a darker green that I had used. Either way, it's an awesome shade of green!

One of the things I neglected to do was a split in the seat back. I removed the seat from the interior, got out the razor saw and started hacking away at the seat back. This is a combination of measuring and eyeball engineering. It came out fairly good, but the cuts were off slightly. I cut the seatbacks far enough to insert two pieces of 0.20 sheet styrene side-by-side with a slight gap between them. Hopefully, when the seat is painted, the errors of my cuts will not be seen.




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Since I had wet sanded the paint and I burned through several areas, I thought it would be best to paint the entire car instead of trying to touchup all the spots.




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It has been a while since I have actually worked on the '71 Roadrunner. I have been trying to decide if I should strip the lousy paint job or sand it. Tonight I chose to sand it. After sanding, I gave the body a bath and it looks 100% better! Tomorrow, I will sand the hood so it will match the body and then wash it. Then, when everything is dry, I will repaint the body and hood.




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I sanded the hood yesterday and I am heading to the kitchen sink for a good scrubbing with Dawn Dish Detergent and warm water. When this has dried, a repaint in in order with Model Master Green Go.




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It has been almost two weeks since I last worked on this Roadrunner. I decided to give it another bath this time in prep for paint. The Chassis and the interior have been finished and are ready for assembly.




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I like the work on the interior

Thanks Dirk!  The interior front seat was something I had never tried before and it came out ok.  It could be better, but experience and time would help.

Another coat of Model Master Green Go and this can is done! So much orange peel that I think was from the lack of pressure inside the can and I even warmed the can up! These old cans from Testors/Model Master are lousy!!!




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Another hurdle has been cleared! Foiling is done! It sucks when you have to add Metal Foil Adhesive before you have to add your Bare Metal Foil.




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I added my license plate to the rear bumper and in the process of doing so, I broke the joint between the bumper and valance panel. A little glue and hopefully I have the correct angle and it is correct. I painted the taillights with Tamiya X-27 Clear Red and Tamiya XF-2 Flat White. I added the radiator and detailed the engine compartment. The interior has been painted and ready for the glass to be installed.




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I installed the chassis into the body and added my heater hoses. This took me some finagling as the chassis didn't want to move forward like it should. I think the issue was the engine fan and the radiator were hitting each other.




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Looking good, I like the work you did to the seat

The seat is one of those things I had never done before. It came out ok, but next time it should be better.