1:8 McLaren Honda MP4/4

[ajdavison2]

must compliment you on your attention to detail Alex. Are you a surgeon? I don't think the guy that cracked my chest did as clean of work.

Haha you flatter me sir. It's going well, but not without it's issues (the tyre, some chewed screws, wires etc).. But on the other hand I like the imperfections.

[ajdavison2]

must compliment you on your attention to detail Alex. Are you a surgeon? I don't think the guy that cracked my chest did as clean of work.

Haha you flatter me sir, unfortunately not as evidenced by my balls ups with tyres and bits of wire poking out etc.

Anyway back to this issue, and onto stage 49. Parts supplied with this issue were: From top left to top right, connectors, throttle cable bracket, throttle link middle, throttle link right, throttle link left, front right brake line, front left brake line, rear right brake line, rear left brake line, hose C (bottom left) & cable tie tape (bottom right).


Stupidly none of these parts are actually used in this stage. Feels like another frustrating way to extend the length of the subscription.

Parts required from previous stages were:
- Heat exchanger (Stage 10)
- Body mount brackets A x 4, body mount brackets B x 2 & underbody middle assembly(Stage 47)
- Underbody rear assembly, heat shield sticker section B, tailpipe endplates (L and R) & tailpipe endplate parts (L and R) (Stage 48)

First up the brake lines were inked (not pictured)

Stage 49.1 was applying the heat shield sticker to the heat exchanger and trimming where necessary. See below for the before and after photos.




Following this, stage 49.2 was attaching the tailpipe parts to the respective tailpipe endplates, firstly the paint was scraped off and the parts were glued on. Care was taken to ensure the right and left parts were glued onto the correct corresponding endplates.


Next up, 49.3 (called joining the underbody middle and rear, even though no such thing takes place haha). For this stage, the brackets A x 4 were screwed onto the underbody middle. See before below:


And after:



Likewise the brackets B x 2 were screwed onto the underbody rear.


49.4 was the fitting of the heat exchanger. This was a little tricky as it involved locating pins into holes that were covered with heat shield sticker. Managed to do it by rubbing my thumb over the area and looking for the indentations in the light.This was glued in place onto the underbody middle.



Finally for this stage, 49.5 was the fitting of the exhaust tailpipe sub assemblies to the underbody rear. This was done by gluing them, care was taken as they not only had a left and right sub assembly, there was also a left and right of each assembly. So there was only one right way to get them in, even though they fitted in multiple orientations (if that makes sense).



And that's it for this stage. I thought the underbody itself was quite interesting from an aero standpoint so I took some more photos of it and the diffuser. Make of it what you will




And some of the underbody rear and middle together.



A point to note, which wasn't very clear in the instructions. You'll notice there's a black line between the 2 halves where the heat shield stickers are a mill or two shy (I think on the underbody rear). The photos of the finished model in the magazine seem to indicate that the underbody parts are designed to be separated if desired, so my plan is to use left over heat shield stickering and fill the gap on the underbody rear. This will basically be trimming a 1mm strip and sticking it vertically to the tiny lip where the 2 underbody halves meet. This will make more sense when I actually get round to doing it.

Anyway that's it for this update. Thanks for reading as usual, if there's anything else you want to see just let me know. The next update might not be for a while as I'm working away from home at the minute, so finding time is a bit tricky. But as it will be issue 15, I'll be doing my 5 issue round up to show the overall model progress to date. I know right, I can barely contain my excitement either.

Cheers,

Alex.

[strad]

Alex;
I'm sure some out here are waiting with almost as much anticipation as you to see the final screw go into place.

[ajdavison2]

Hi guys, back again for another update. At least I'm managing to be somewhat consistent in these weird and unusual times. Been going at this for a year now, only realised that as it would have been Senna's 60th this weekend, and I started this blog on his birthday last year. How time flies eh... probably the only photos of a disassembled F1 car we'll be getting anytime soon as well haha.

Anyway this series of updates will be covering issue 15, which is predominately the assembly of the engine and a few ancillaries.

First up, stage 50 - Assembly of the engine 2. Parts supplied with this issue were: Left & right manifold intake base (top row), left & right cam cover base (middle row) and left & right upper engine block (bottom row).


Parts required from previous stages were:
- Plug caps & engine block assembly (stage 7), there's photos of these coming up later in the post to jog your memory.

Firstly 50.1-50.2, mounting the manifold bases. Now immediately this was frustrating as it involved disassembling the engine block. The reason that this was so annoying was that a) it was pointless to assemble it in the first place, and yet another example of the issues just being prolonged for the sake of it. b) when I assembled it the first time it was very difficult to get the screws in and they ended up getting chewed and therefore difficult to unscrew, and re-screw. I'll come back to this later.


Next up the cam cover bases were glued to the engine block, as straight forward as it sounds. Pictured below with one side done for comparison.




Following this the manifold bases were glued onto this sub assembly.



This was repeated for the right hand side:



Next up 50.3 the upper engine block (L & R) were screwed to the engine block.
Before:


After:


Again, this was straight forward enough. Care was taken to get the right holes aligned, the screws on the left hand side went in perpendicularly, but the right hand side went in at a slight angle (this was by design by the way according to the instructions).

Following this the engine front and rear were both screwed back onto the engine block sub assembly. A nut was also added to to the assembly for the engine block front. I think this is to attach it to the monocoque assembly at a later stage.
Before:


After:


And then the front and rear portions were screwed back on. Now here, I've taken the liberty of showing you how badly damaged the screws were. It got to a point where it was impossible to screw them with a screwdriver due to how badly messed up the heads were, so I used some needle pliers to manually twist them as best I could. This worked, but it was impossible not to leave scratches on the metalwork of the front and rear blocks.


No harm no foul though, I just touched up the metal work with a bit of paint. I can't imagine it'll be very visible anyway once the engine, monocoque and gearbox are all attached together.


Next up, 50.4, fitting the plug caps. First up, the cam covers were replaced. Same issue as the front and rear blocks re: screws, but not to the same extent.
Before:


After:


Before I show photos of the plug cap to engine block assembly, I just wanted to show some photos of the caps themselves, I didn't notice when I got them ages ago that they've actually got text on. I've tried to show this the best I can. Not relevant to the building process or anything, just another little detail that I find interesting that it has been replicated.
Photo 1, just to show the size and scale:


Detail photos:



These were then glued onto the engine block, helpfully covering the chewed up screws as well on the cam covers.


And another photo of the detail:


And that's it for this stage. I'll be continuing with this over the coming week or 2, up to stage 53.

Cheers,

Alex

[strad]

WOW! Really Nice.
I am very familiar with the use of cheap screws that even with the use of high quality screwdrivers you cannot avoid chewing up the heads. Good job of fixing that up and like you say most will probably hidden. About the only thing a guy can do is the moment it starts to be really tight or hard just stop and find some higher quality matching screws.
I'm lucky in that I have a close by retailer that if it has threads they carry it. I turned to them for some small screws on a Mercedes. The supplied ones were black anodized so I just had to give them a dusting of black spray paint.
Once again, great work. It's always harder than it looks.

[ajdavison2]

WOW! Really Nice.
I am very familiar with the use of cheap screws that even with the use of high quality screwdrivers you cannot avoid chewing up the heads. Good job of fixing that up and like you say most will probably hidden. About the only thing a guy can do is the moment it starts to be really tight or hard just stop and find some higher quality matching screws.
I'm lucky in that I have a close by retailer that if it has threads they carry it. I turned to them for some small screws on a Mercedes. The supplied ones were black anodized so I just had to give them a dusting of black spray paint.
Once again, great work. It's always harder than it looks.

Cheers Strad, it's been a recurring problem on several of the screws. I actually a decent set of precision screw drivers when I started the kit so I'm inclined to agree with you that it's likely just the screws. I wouldn't know anywhere where I'm from to get higher quality versions of exactly the same types of screws. Trouble with just going until it was tight was that the screws were biting when there was still about half of the length protruding. I'll take it on a case by case basis, if they're likely to be hidden (Spoiler alert in the next step I'm posting, some of them are haha) then I won't be too fussed, and I'll just try and mitigate the damage to surrounding areas as I did with the paint above. If they're going to be very visible, or needs to come off I'll invest in a small tapping tool from somewhere and enlarge the holes where needed. That's my plan of attack going forward.

[strad]

That's my plan of attack going forward.

Good Idea! If you can find a small enough tap.

[ajdavison2]

Hi everyone, back for another update, this week i'll be doing stage 51, assembling the engine 3.

Parts supplied with this stage were: left and right upper manifold intakes (top left), [note these were asymmetrical], left and right lower engine block sides (bottom left), left and right lower manifold intakes (top right).


Parts required from previous stages were:
- Plenum chamber (Stage 07)
- Left radiator housing (Stage 30)
- Wire A (last used Stage 44)
- Gearbox assembly, hose C & sprue of connector(Stage 49)
- Engine block assembly (Stage 50)

First up, stage 51.1, attaching the left and right lower engine block sides. No issues here, they were simply screwed on and the screws were cooperating fine this time.
before:


After:



Next up, 51.2: adding the manifold intakes. Now the process for this stage was, I thought a bit convoluted. The lower intake manifolds were dry fitted to the engine block, then the plenum and upper intake manifolds were temporarily taped together, this sub assembly was dry fitted onto the engine block and manifold lower sub assembly, before being removed. The manifold lower intakes were then glued to the block, and the taped sub assembly was glued to the block assembly via the lower portions of the upper intake manifolds, then the tape and plenum was removed. Feels to me like a stage could've been missed out here simply by gluing the upper and lower manifold intakes together, and gluing this assembly to the block, lining up the plenum as the glue dries. Same end result though.

So, firstly the lower intake manifold was glued to the engine block. (I've skipped the dry fitting stages obviously). Shown below with one side left off for comparison.


And the temporary plenum/upper intake manifold sub assembly.




And with the upper intake manifolds attached (after the taped plenum had been removed)



Next up, 51.3, fitting the connector to the radiator housing. This was simply glued to the end of the hose on the radiator housing, care was taken to ensure that it was the right way around.


Next, 51.4, attaching the hose to the radiator. Now this part I just totally misread the instructions and cut the hose too short. Ooops. Not a big deal though, just cut another make up length and glued them together, care was taken to only glue them on the edges, so as to not obstruct the wire being fed through. See below for a photo of the cut lengths, you can see the break line in the longer length of hose, just under 130 on my ruler. Also needed was a shorter length of hose, and a length of wire.


The shorter length of wire was slid onto the connector on the oil tank. Found it odd that no adhesive was used, but it was quite a snug fit so I'm assuming it's by design. I'll glue it if I find it coming loose.


Next up, the wire was fed into the hose and then this was also slid onto a connector on the oil tank (again it was dry fitted, will glue if it starts to come loose.) This was fed down the length of the gearbox, underneath the radiator.



The end was trimmed so it didn't overhang the end of the gearbox (not pictured.)

And that's it for today. Not a very huge update I know. As the model nears completion (in the next 5 issues, so still 5 month) the updates will become more about the fine details such as these.

Thanks for reading.

Alex.

[strad]

Thanks Alex

[ajdavison2]

Hi Guys, back with the next part of pack 15. This week I'll be covering stage 52, assembly of the engine 4.

Parts supplied with this stage were: right and left water pumps (top), lower engine cover (middle) & oil pump (bottom).


Parts required from previous stages were:
- Alternator & alternator belt (Stage 07)
- Left and right rear brake lines (Stage 49)
- Engine block assembly & gearbox assembly (Stage 51)

First up, 52.1 & 2 - attaching the water and oil pumps. These were simply glued into place, and they also covered some of the areas I repaired due to the issues with the screws previously mentioned, so at least that worked out well. You can see where I've touched up the paintwork on the before shot below.
Before:


After:


Next up, the oil pump was screwed to the engine block assembly, happily no issues with the screws here.



Next, 52.3 - attaching the lower engine cover. First up a nut was slotted into the hole visible on the photo below., as it is close to the clutch I'm assuming it will be needed to fix the engine block assembly to the gearbox assembly.


Next the lower engine cover was screwed to the engine block assembly. Another nice touch is the detail on the bottom of the cover, even though it's not 'significant' detail as it's just ridges basically, it could easily of just been a flat piece as this will obviously be face down when mounted to the floor, and therefore not visible.


Following this, 52.4 - attaching the alternator belt and alternator. I've pictured them below just to refresh your memories as it was a while ago that they were supplied.


First up, the alternator was glued to the engine block. There is a small peg this sits on so it was easy enough.


Next, the belt was glued to the block and the alternator.


Finally for this stage, 52.5 - attaching the rear brake lines. These could only go in a specific orientation, I.e. there was a separate left/right line and each line had a front/rear. care was taken to position these correctly, with the top section directly on top of the screw in the wishbone assembly. Note the holes for the brake wires are facing inwards (I used this as a final quality control check to make sure I had them on the correct sides).



And that's it for this week, thanks for reading. I've got one more update from this stage, plus the 5 issue summary of the model progress next week.

Cheers,

Alex

[strad]

I think at this point we are all anxious to see the finished product...Especially you.

[ajdavison2]

I think at this point we are all anxious to see the finished product...Especially you.

Yeah you could say that, I'm actually really excited to get the Malboro decals on, I think it'll really finish it off.

[ajdavison2]

Hi everyone, back again for the final update of issue 15 & the 5 issue progress summary.

So onto stage 53: Assembly of the engine part 5. Parts supplied with this issue were: Header tank 1-4 (top left to bottom left), Left engine mounting plate (top right), left plug cover (middle right), right plug cover (bottom right). Note the difference between the left and right plug cover, the left has a small rounded indentation.


Parts needed from previous stages were:
- Monocoque assembly (Stage 31)
- Hose A (Stage 34)
- Front brake lines (Stage 49)
- Engine block assembly (Stage 52)

Firstly, 53.1 was the attaching of the plug covers to the engine block. These were simply glued into place, not difficult but fiddly trying not to get glue on the plug caps.
Before:


After:


Next up, 53.2 was to assemble the header tank. The paint was scraped from the relevant areas and then the parts glued together. Too fiddly to get intermediate photos of the assembly, but here's various of the finished one. Care was taken to ensure the small projections lined up correctly.






Lastly for this stage, 53.3 was to connect the front brake lines and hoses to the monocoque. Firstly, 2 80mm lengths of hose were cut and glued into the holes on the front brake lines.


Next up, the front brake line sub assemblies were glued onto the right and left front corners respectively. Was a little bit awkward as they were positioned upside down as opposed to the rear brake lines. Care was taken to ensure they were fitted straight.





And that's it for this stage.

Now for the summary of progress, I've included a 300mm ruler to give an idea of the scale:
Exploded:






Semi-built:





Assembled (not screwed or glued, just placed):










And that's it for this update, and the summaries until it's finished. Got another 5 issues left so I'll take photos when it's assembled and then some more when I've put the decals on. Thanks for reading, as usual if you want to see anything in more detail just let me know.

Cheers,

Alex

[ajdavison2]

Hi guys, back with another update. They're teeny tiny ones for this issue as it's a lot of fine details to do with the engine, as I imagine it will be the same until I get the parts for the bodywork as I'm yet to do things like the steering wheel, and connecting various hoses and wires etc. Anyway hope you enjoy.

So, over the next couple weeks I'll be covering issue 16. First up, stage 54 - Assembling the engine part 6. Parts supplied with this stage were: Pop off valve rear (top left), pop off valve middle (middle left), pop off valve front (bottom left), O-ring air chamber (top right), throttle body upper (middle right) & throttle body lower (bottom right).


Parts needed from previous stages were:
- Throttle links L, M and R (Stage 49)
- Plenum chamber (Stage 51)
- Engine block assembly (Stage 53)

First up, 54.1, the pop off valve was assembled. The parts were slid together in the below order:


They were then secured with a screw, care was taken to ensure the teeth lined up correctly. The incorrect assembly is shown below:


And the correct assembly:


Following this the throttle body upper was glued to the pop off valve assembly.



Next up, 54.2 - attaching the throttle links and plenum chamber. Below is a photo of the throttle links to show the difference between the left and right.


First up the plenum chamber was placed onto the engine block assembly and the right throttle link was slid into the gap between the plenum chamber and the intake manifold. This was glued in place, with care taken to only glue the vertical surface of the throttle link so that it would not adhere to the intake manifold.
Before:


After:



Once the glue had dried the plenum assembly was removed from the engine block and the throttle link middle was glued to the throttle link right, care was taken to ensure it was as straight as possible.




Next up the plenum chamber was replaced onto the engine block and the left throttle link was glued in the same way as the right, with the same care taken to only glue the vertical surface of the link to allow removal of the plenum chamber assembly.





For 54.3, once the glue had dried the plenum chamber was removed and the O-ring air chamber was slid onto the assembly. Shown below partially on to show that it can only go on one way, as you can see from the indentations on the plenum chamber and protrusions on the O-ring air chamber.


Following this, the pop off valve assembly was placed onto the plenum chamber assembly, shown below in the interim stage so you can see how it attaches.




And then the throttle body lower was screwed to this assembly to secure it. There is some play in this assembly between the throttle body/pop off valve assembly & the plenum chamber assembly, which is by design according to the magazine as it allows some play when attaching the pipes.



And that's it for this week folks. Next time will be in a similar vein, detailing the assembly of the heat/oil heat exchanger and the fixing of the brake lines to the suspension members (very fiddly and rage inducing FYI)

Thanks for reading,

Alex.

[ajdavison2]

Hey everyone, hope you're all managing the COVID-19 situation as best as possible. Anyway I'm back again with the next part of issue 16. This week is another short & fiddly update, and I'll be covering stage 55, assembling the oil/water heat exchanger and fitting the brake lines.

So, parts supplied with stage 55 were: Oil/water heat exchanger outside (top left), oil/water heat exchanger inside (bottom left), right engine mounting plate (top right), oil/water heat exchanger upper joint (middle right) & oil/water heat exchanger lower joint (bottom middle).


Parts needed from previous stages were:
- Cable tie tape (Stage 49)
- Gearbox assembly (Stage 52)
- Monocoque assembly (Stage 53)

First up, 55.1, assembly of the oil/water heat exchanger. Firstly the parts were scraped of paint and then the outside/inside was glued together, followed by the upper and lower joints.





Next, 55.2, attaching the rear brake lines. Firstly, I had to cut the cable tie tape to the required sizes, 8No 20mm x 1mm strips. As you can imagine this was quite awkward to do, got myself a new craft blade to stop them fraying.



Next, the rear upper wishbones were marked so get the tape at equal spacing, I did this by slightly nicking it with my knife, this didn't matter as I'd be putting the tape over the top of it.
The brake line was pulled tight enough so as not to leave any slack between the gearbox and the first cable tie point, but not so tight that it pulled it out of the gearbox. This was then 'tied' with a strip of the cable tie tape, really fiddly to do, the tape itself is very adhesive so was difficult to not stick it to itself and end up ripping it, anyway I managed to feed it through with a set of tweezers and a cotton bud, and managed to 'lap' the tape on the bottom so it looks slightly neater.



The brake line was then pulled tight again to the 2nd cable tie point, care was taken to ensure it was tight enough to not leave any slack, but not so tight that it pulled the initial tie off. The 2nd cable tie tape was then applied in the same way as the first. Following this the end of the line was trimmed so as to avoid too much excess, and then it was glued into the hole on the brake line T piece with a tiny amount of glue, so as to avoid any leakage and messy overspill.




This was then repeated for the other side, I'm happy with the neatness and symmetry of the lines.



The same process was then done for the front brake lines, except this time they were fed from the brake line T pieces into the chassis, the lines were tied to the front lower wishbones and fed into the holes in the chassis. Points to note were that the lines were fed into the chassis with each wheel turned to it's outer most steering limit, so that when the steering is turned, it won't pull the brake lines out of the chassis. Another weird point I thought, was that the brake lines were just fed into the chassis and left there, I.e. they were fitted dry, no adhesive and were not fitted onto any peg or protrusion in the way basically every other hose and cable on the model is. Weird little detail, they might get attached onto something at a later stage in the model but for now... seems a little unfinished considering the crazy amount of detail that has went into the rest of the model.




And to show the steering mechanism in action, whilst not pulling the brake lines out of the chassis, please see the attached GIF, which I'm quite proud of haha.


And that's it for this week, updates may or may not be a bit more sporadic as I'm back at work following our sites re-opening after COVID-19.

Thanks for reading,

Alex