Progress is rolling on with the GT-R and I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel with this project, even though it is several years further down the line then I planned. All of the alterations to the engine bay have been done, including the repairs to the cracked filler around the bulkhead. This has now been primered and painted in the body colour along with the underside of the floorpan. Luckily, there was just enough paint left in the rattle-can for me to re-paint these areas via the airbrush.
Once the chassis section was finished, I moved onto painting the engine, exhaust system parts and engine bay components. Everything was given a couple coats of Alclad primer prior to painting the items in their relevant colours. I first airbrushed the whole engine with Vallejo metallic black as the base colour for the main block. Next I hand brushed the rest of the individual areas in the various colours I had chosen for the engine. Some parts i was not happy with how they looked, so I then re-painted them a different colour to improve the look. The exhaust system was brush painted with steel colour with the centre box painted in gunmetal.
Once the engine painting was finished, it was glued in position followed by the exhaust system parts underneath.The turned aluminium rear muffler had the inner surface painted blue, then the back of the opening painted black to make it look like the dark inside of the real thing. The engine bay items were now all fitted after they had been painted, just leaving the hose from the radiator to the engine block to be done. The one from the engine set was too small to fit this engine, so the main hose section was cut off and a new one fabricated from some plastic rod. After several attempts, I got a new shaped hose to fit and the two parts were joined together then fitted inside the engine bay.
I next test fitted the body and interior to make sure there was no problems of fitment since the engine was fitted. Over the past few days, I had been thinking about gluing the bonnet in the open position rather than having it opening and closing. The hinges still needed some adjustment for the bonnet to shut properly, so this swathed me in the direction of gluing it in the open position permanently.
Now we come up to the current stage of the project. These photos were taken a couple of nights ago once the final assembly had finished. The roof liner needed a littler repair done to the panel I had inserted in the glazing section. I also made a couple of sun visors to finish off the lining and cover the two locating pin holes at the front. So once the glazing was glued in place, the visors, interior mirror and wipers were all glued in place. The rear light clusters were also glued back in place after giving them a clean up and replacing the Bare Metal Foil on the backs of them.
Now that the hinges were glued in the open position, they were both painted black before fitting the body back in place. The final things I did to the body before fitting it was to re-paint the badges on the rear and side of the body. As soon as they were dry, the body was fitted and the bonnet placed onto the hinges. I am still wondering whether to glue it on, or leave it loose in case I need to remove it for some reason later down the line.
All that needs to be done now is finish off some detail painting and add the front light lenses. The model will then have some of my printed number plates added to finish her off. My R32 is almost finished, finally after all these years. The next post on this project will be of the finished model in a few days time.
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