Williams FW07 restore and conversion

[evilbob]

I remember sitting up late when I was 9 years old, watching Alan Jones racing to become the first Australia Formula One World Champion since Jack Brabham in the 60s. I got one of these kits of this about a year later and my dad and I built it, probably botching it in the process. Some years later, having trashed the first model, I bought another and tried again. The remains of this attempt have been with me ever since. About 10 years ago I bought a new kit and have been meaning to tackle it and do it some justice.



I'm also going to try to restore my teenaged attempt, converting it to an FW07b in the process. This was the actual version of the car Jones drove in the 1980 season, not the original FW07 of the kit. The differences are subtle - the fins on the sidepods are gone and replaced by rounded edges, and the sideplates on the rear spoiler are larger, as well as a couple of other changes. I already have the Studio 27 decals for the 1980 car. I'm going to build the new kit pretty stock (since I can't bear the idea of my 10 thumbs cutting up a pristine kit), modelling the car Clay Regazzoni drove to Williams first ever GP victory in the 1979 British Grand Prix at Silverstone, also the great Swiss driver's last win before his 1980 crash that ended his F1 career. My dad's Australian and my mum's Swiss, so this is a neat salute to my heritage.



From experience, this kit has a issue with the fit of the cowling on the sidepods - the rear section doesn't fit flush with the front sections. This seems to be due to the rear of the underside being a little too high, and the relative thickness of the two parts. I'm going to try and make this look a little better with some sanding and putty.





While removing paint from the front wheels I broke off the stub axle which on closer inspection had broken before and been badly glued on. Broken stub axles have long been a bane of my modelling experience! I'm attempting to replace this one with some brass tubing and if it works may have to replace the other one as well, since there is a suspicious glue joint in there. The B model appears to have had 3-spoked front wheels, but changing that's beyond me and who's going to spot the difference? The old tyres have come up pretty well with some emery boards to get the mould seams off.





The venerable Ford DFV Cosworth. How many of these did I build back in the day - every F1 kit in the early 80s had one, apart from the Renaults and Ferraris. Still debating whether I should get some detailing parts for the engine - some of the fuel injector parts are pretty ragged. Unfortunately, the only Australian website that lists detail parts is out of stock...



Once I get the old kit cleaned up a bit, I'll pull out the new kit and start building that alongside...

[chris24]

Great project, looking forward !

[Shunter2402]

Look forward to this, a big favorite of mine and i hope to see a #27

[da_ashman]

Great project! Looking forward to more! Great to see Riccardo take the win last night!!!

[evilbob]

Progress has been slow! The B model has a different placement of the oil cooler radiator, so I needed to make a new mount for that. There's also a scoop on the engine cover to direct air - this still needs some cleaing up.






The exhausts are 4 pieces each, which tends to look pretty dodgy. I've tried to smooth this out and make it look a bit cleaner.



The MHF detail parts have arrived, so the paint is drying on those. I bought the Lotus 79 trumpets and injectors, along with some mesh intake covers - these should help make this a little more realistic.