Aoshima Pajero conversion

[nugundam93]

Am planning to do this 1/24 Aoshima Mitsubishi Pajero conversion from the flare fender type to the blister fender type, and as a mini-me for our 1:1. Thanks to jzx100 for getting me to start this thread

I know this thread will take a long time, since I've started on this project years ago and it's been an on-and-off thing for me, though I hope this picks up once things are done with my postgrad stuff.

First off, here's some pics of the 1:1



and here's the base 1:24 kit


First step is to shave off the sides of the lower body. Fortunately, the backside of the lower body is thick.


And since the kit's rims were 15" and of a different design, i filled in the holes with 2-part epoxy, sanded it flush, then drilled holes, carved it up and enlarged the rims (used some plastic sheets to do so) to resemble the 1:1's 16" rims. I'll just think of a way to add the 6 bolts later. Once all that's done, I'll be recasting this for a total of 5 copies (4 + 1 spare)






Of course, since the rims won't fit inside the tires now, i had to carve out some rubber off the tires.



I'll post the other pics later or tomorrow...my 'net seems to be wonky at the moment...

[generationx]

Good conversion work!

[nugundam93]

thanks generationx!

On to more pics...

So I also needed to cut the 3rd-row glass since the 1:1 had the 2-pc sliding glass (which, based on experience, gets your stuff stolen easily, ugh). Started off by marking the glass edges so i'd know where to cut it off from the rest of the glass canopy, then trimmed them off using the back of a sharp hobby knife.





Annoyingly though, when I was separating the sunroof's plastic as i'll be sealing it off as the 1:1 did not have a sunroof, I cracked the front windshield area and had to get a replacement from aoshima.


Built the chassis and interior close to as-is, with the exception of "wood" trim on the door handle surround and dash panels, two-tone leather trim, and the removal of the 4wd gear lever since the 1:1 was only 4x2 (FR). Fortunately for me, way back I swapped out the stock 3rd-row side-facing bench seats with a friend's 3rd-row front-facing seats and now the kit's 3rd-row seats were accurate...LOL!

[nugundam93]

And on to the body...

I originally made the conversion using epoxyclay putty but wasn't happy with how the paintjob turned out, so a soak in 99% alcohol took care of the paintjob...and made the epoxyclay turn soft like jelly. Unfortunately, those pics were on my dead hard drive so the pics you'll be seeing here are from my 2nd attempt, this time using tamiya putty. In some of the pics you'll see the front doors masked off so that it won't get affected when I do the putty work. The hoodscoop though was still made using epoxyclay putty as it isn't as fragile as tamiya putty when carving it up.




In retrospect, I shouldn't have shaved off the door handles - I should've cut them off for future use. Now i had to carve out a portion of the bodywork so that I can put in recast door handles from a tamiya pajero and also for the left-side fuel filler door. Also had to carve out the holes on the front fenders for the turn signals, and fortunately, the recast from a fujimi lancer evo VI fit the bill nicely (fun fact...the blister fender pajero and the CP lancer share the same turn signal actually). If you'll also notice in one pic, one of the pillars seem odd...because it is. i accidentally broke off one of the pillars during handling so i had to make do with a trimmed-off toothpick.





And here's the donors, with oyumaru stuck onto them to copy the needed parts lol.

[nugundam93]

Had to redo the raised roof strips as well after the alcohol soak, and removing the old ones also made it easier to finally level the sunroof gap. Roof strips were made of thin plastic card.


And here it is after the 1st coat of urethane primer...and it's on the 1:1's hood. Thought I'd shoot primer on it as I was painting the 1:1's bumpers due to tons of scratches, mostly arguments with our gate.



Wetsanding with 1500grit showed some imperfections in the surface and they had to be puttied-up.



And here it is after another primer application.

[nugundam93]

And here it is with a silver urethane basecoat. Ran into trouble after the 1st silver mistcoat as the AB started spitting out paint - turns out, i didn't clean it that well after the last session. Everything went OK after that.



The details on the door handles though disappeared, so i'm thinking i'll just scribe the outlines of the handles on the doors, carve the handles off and recast new ones and attach them only after all the painting.

Also started working on the interior details, like the grab handles on both the front (C-shaped) and middle row (D-shaped) where 2 of these will be glued into one piece, and modify the 3-spoke steering wheel into an airbag-equipped 4-spoke steering wheel.




The 1:24's grille also had 3 horizontal bars while the 1:1's only had 2, so I cut them off and glued back 2 of those bars and used a plastic sheet card as backing.

[jzx100]

Maannn you got some GREAT skillz. When you told me about your idea I didn't picture it to be this perfect. I just love the attention to each and every detail you put into it and the level of accuracy. Starting from the changes you made to the third row glass, the roof, the shifter to everything are so precise. The quality of your body work is outstanding and that hood scoop is just crazy man. Your pajero will probably make my one look like crap . Nice job bro, real nice.

You should work for Lexus coz you know their tagline right? Before it was 'Pursuit of perfection' and now its 'Engineering the impossible'. You got both of the qualities in you.

[nugundam93]

Thanks bro. Didn't wanna settle for "this'll do" since this is the mini-me to the 1:1 lol

[jzx100]

Originally Posted by nugundam93

Thanks bro. Didn't wanna settle for "this'll do" since this is the mini-me to the 1:1 lol

The Pajero in the first two pics is your ride? The color is quite rare and unique.

I didn't settle for "this'll do" with my Supra project either but with my Pajero project "anything will do" to make it look right lol. I wanna see if I can actually make a quality model which can stand up against tamiya/aoshima pajeros using a toy which was never meant to be a model in the first place.

Waiting for new updates.

[nugundam93]

yup it is. 1st pic is from a mitsubishi club meet, 2nd pic is while waiting to enter a resort, along with friends from a nissan x-trail club. this kind of green is a color for the later 4x2 models. the 4x4 ones had a darker shade of metallic green.

i've only sanded down the body today, some portions had reacted with the paint and had a wrinkly effect, and i'm checking if i can sand them down or if i'll need putty. and i won't forget to take pics

[nugundam93]

well these are what showed up after sanding...





hopefully, i'll be able to spray some silver again tomorrow, then let it dry for a few days then shoot the metallic green.

[HondaSan72]

Mind-blowing build!! Great job!!

[jzx100]

I agree ^, mind blowing stuff you got goin on man.

[jzx100]

Originally Posted by nugundam93

yup it is. 1st pic is from a mitsubishi club meet, 2nd pic is while waiting to enter a resort, along with friends from a nissan x-trail club. this kind of green is a color for the later 4x2 models. the 4x4 ones had a darker shade of metallic green.

i've only sanded down the body today, some portions had reacted with the paint and had a wrinkly effect, and i'm checking if i can sand them down or if i'll need putty. and i won't forget to take pics

oh ok.. that's why the color seemed rare to me. The pajeros I have driven were all V6 4x4, can't recall driving a 4x2 model. Is it like the 2.7 liter 4 cylinder Land Cruiser Prado power and acceleration wise? As for the Prado I found the power pretty decent for city runs and light off roading too.

Anyway, waiting to see some new updates.

[nugundam93]

Originally Posted by jzx100

oh ok.. that's why the color seemed rare to me. The pajeros I have driven were all V6 4x4, can't recall driving a 4x2 model. Is it like the 2.7 liter 4 cylinder Land Cruiser Prado power and acceleration wise? As for the Prado I found the power pretty decent for city runs and light off roading too.

Anyway, waiting to see some new updates.

some of the early flare-fender pajeros they sold in the philippines did have the 3.0 V6 gas engine, but an overwhelming majority were 2.5 I-4 diesels. the later model blister-type ones though had the 2.8 I-4 diesels, and eventually had the 4x2 models (had we bought a pajero a year earlier, we could still have gotten one of the last remaining 4x4 models). i've driven a landcruiser prado (J120) which had the 3.0L diesel, and it pulls harder than the pajero's 2.8. then again, the prado's price here is twice that of the pajero's, so comparisons are apples to oranges

anyway, back on topic... i'll try to post pics later. the tamiya spraywork compressor decided to spray in spurts and spit grease while i was painting a 1/32 die-cast porsche 918 and when i had it checked at my local tamiya dealer, turns out one of the bellows on its pump was torn, and that the gearbox was kaput. fortunately it was a quick fix, and i've just started spraying again. laid the final primer coat, then i'll spray the few silver mistcoats later this afternoon.