Talladega Body and Wheel Final Assembly
This page will cover adjusting and attaching the wheels and the final body assembly.
1. Paint and decal your wheels to your liking. To adjust the ride
height and to make sure the car sits level from side to side, .I usually drill
out the mounting hole in the wheel back. Find a drill bit the same size as
the hole and simply insert and while running the drill, put pressure in one
direction. This will give you the result shown on the right. Test
fit the wheels with the body on the chassis as you may not need to do this with
all the wheels. On some of the Talladegas I have built the rears do not
need to be drilled. On this particular one I need to drill one of the rear
wheels to adjust the height on the right rear. The fronts always need to
be lowered just a touch.
2. Glue the rear wheels on and prop the rear of the car up so it
is level. Make sure both wheels are making contact with the ground and
that they are straight. Let the wheels dry completely before moving to the
front.
3. When the back is dry move to the front. Again, glue the wheels
in place and prop the front of the car up making sure it is sitting level from
side to side and that the wheels are both sitting level on the ground. Up
front there isn't a lot of room under the car so I typically use different
combinations of coins to get the desired height..
4. A better shot of the coins holding up the front of the car.
This one took a quarter and a nickel.
5. After the wheels are dry pop that body back off of the chassis and
finish touching up the paint and adding the final pieces. Here I have done
the window trim with a silver Sharpie, gave the grills a flat wash and installed
them, installed the glass, and hit the door handle covers and hood pins with a
silver gel pen.
6. Out back the rear glass is in and the rear bumper is attached..
7. Although it isn't 100% correct for a car from this era, I add some
12 gauge wire insulation to the bars surrounding the driver to simulate
padding. Cars around this time had black tape wrapped around the bars for
padding so to be more accurate you could duplicate that by using thin pieces of
black tape to wrap around the bars.
8. There she is all assembled. All that is left are the
decals....
9. Finished product after decaling and a coat of Future.