Sunday, June 21, 2015

T'rantula rides again!

The T in T'rantula doesn't stand for Tesla because even though it's a green machine there is nothing environmentally friendly about this gas-guzzling monster.
The model went together fairly easily and all the parts fit with a minimum of flash to be removed. The above photo shows it up on its wheels awaiting the engine and windshield.
The double-blower engine is the most prominent feature of this model, so I thought I should add ignition wires to the distributor since that part was front and centre. The kit's distributor unit is made of two parts: a body and cap. I discarded the cap and drilled out the body to accept the wires. 
The wires are some leftovers from packages I bought from Model Car Garage a number of years ago. I used red and black because I didn't have enough left of either colour, so I went with 4 red and 4 black. The wires were bundled together and glued into the distributor body with some medium thickness super-glue.
Some holes were drilled in the engine to accept the wires - the positioning is all guess work, nothing prototypical or accurate. They're held in place with some Krystal Klear.
Jumping ahead a bit, you can see how that side of the engine looks when the whole thing is seated in the body.
I did the same procedure on the other side. There's nothing fancy about this engine. Other than ignition wires, there weren't any other after market details added. The only detailing was merely painting various components. Ok, well, the ends of the exhaust pipes were drilled to open them up.
You can sort of make out the opened up exhaust pipes in this view from the back. There's also a packed-up drag chute glued to the back of the cab.
The kit comes with a deployed drag chute - that's it in the photo above with an N-scale figure. It might make an interesting passenger shelter for a streetcar turn-around. Although, now that I see it, it might be better in HO than N.

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