Terrible 360 Modena fit problems

I just spent the better part of an hour trying to fit the side windows of a Tamiya Ferrari Modena to the body. I'm still pulling my hair out over this.

There are huge gaps between the side windows and body. Basically, the window is curved a bit more than the mounting area on the body, so either the front fits flush with the body but the rear has a gap, or vice versa.

The model I'm using is the yellow version. I was under the impression that the fit problem was fixed in this version. Has it really been fixed? Did anyone else encounter problems with this?

This has been a problem with many of the Modena kits. You need to sand the edges of the side glass so that it fits without pressure, they will break. Or you can cut the door part of the window away from the quarter window, but you will have to make a trim piece for the roof that is made onto the door window. Maybe ZoomZoom can post a pic of what he did. My windows went in with a good bit of pressure but they are okay.:)

I'm using white glue and I think a bit of pressure will break the seal. When you say sand the window, do you mean sand the areas outside the black window trim area? That's quite a lot of excess!

do you mean sand the areas outside the black window trim area? That's quite a lot of excess!

It's the only way to reduce the size of the window, even if you lose all the raised trim area, you can paint it back on with black paint.

I'm a little lost now.. do I sand off the window trim, or the flat area surrounding the window trim?

BTW I was wondering how the Renaissance trans kits get past this problem. Do they use flat acetate for windows? I could do that quite easily too, I think.

You have several choices. One is to sand the outside edges of the window on the top surface-don't sand the rear quarter glass where the lip overlaps the rear fender just behind the door-it fits on top of the body, lining up with the lower window trim molded to the body at the bottom edge of the side window, then you glue the area above it on the pillar, and then the rest is supposed to fit up to the small pins molded near the window openings inside the body. Canopy glue-Formula 560 is the best-or 5 minute epoxy would be much better to hold it in place than white glue which simply has zero strength under any pressure.

You can also sand/scrape the body in the same area. I broke my side glass in half trying to fit it. I gave up and cut the door glass away completely, the quarter glass fit okay. I then took a small piece of Evergreen or Plastruct styrene (find the tiny strips at a good hobby shop-they have many shapes-I used hexagonal but round or half round would work, the size is most important) and glued it to the window opening on the body to replace the missing trim that's molded to the window glass. Sorry, I don't have any detail shots to make it easier.

The upside is that this makes the interior much easier to see.

I have a later red Modena where the side glass fits a lot better, but not perfectly. Dunno what their problem is. The Spider glass and the whole kit is perfect.

Good luck!

Do they use flat acetate for windows?

Yes, they do.:)

Thanks for the help. I'll be using acetate.. Seems a lot easier to work with. I've also noticed that if I leave 1 window open, the other window can be seen easily from the inside.

While this isn't really that bad, the problem is Tamiya's window part doesn't sit flush with the door, it looks like it's stuck to the upper body frame and floating above the actual door.