Lola T-70 Mk III

[Scale-Master]

Never can be too careful...

[Scale-Master]

I reworked the headlight covers and added the seals & fasteners. They are just sitting loose on the body.

[Scale-Master]

I mostly planned a way from the start to connect/disconnect the electrical for the lights in the removable hood assembly to the rest of the car. I found some easy-lock nine-pin connectors that would work and made one from brass with magnets so it should be easy to connect after the hood is installed to the body. I'll detail them later.

[Scale-Master]

I made decals for the printing on the gas struts for the doors (based on the struts I copied the physical dimensions from off one of our real cars).

[Deathtrap]

I guess that is the beauty of doing a big scale model, adding in these small details. It makes the model come to life. I love it.
I may have missed it, but I'm guessing these struts are self made too. Did you manage to give then some friction to hold the doors open? If so, how did you do that?

[Scale-Master]

Yes, the struts are scratch-built too and they create the friction that keeps the doors open.
It's just a case of making them fit well.
Check out post #82 in this thread to see the raw parts and construction.

[Scale-Master]

The rest of the car has been modified so much that when I revisited the front of the chassis I realized it needed to be reworked to match. When I first converted it from right to left hand drive (back in June of 2019) I used a "stock" configuration. But since the brakes and clutch systems have been upgraded, including the masters, it didn't fit the theme of the rest of the car anymore. Truly a victim of progress.
I removed all the metal rivets that I made back then (except two that I temporarily used for alignment) and fabricated a new upper plate with a cleaner look that still followed the same style. I went with ¼ inch diameter rivets instead of 3/8 inch.

[Scale-Master]

I used the kit reflectors and lenses for the headlights, but I drilled out the reflectors and added halogen light bulbs. Steel and clear plastic for the bulbs.

More work was done to the back side of the headlights for the electrical connectors. They are made of brass and styrene. They will get lightly weathered when the inside of the hood does.

The loom for the light wiring was made the same way as the one for the engine. It takes 18 inches of armature wire to wrap one inch of the loom.

The pigtails are just fastening features for the offshoots for each light assembly.

It's tighter under there than I expected so I had to be careful how I routed the loom. The driver's side headlight is connected here.

The lower driving lights have been turned into parking lights/turn indicators. The front section that supports them had to be reworked to accommodate some other changes I made too; still a little finish work to do on that. Those lights are connected here.

[Scale-Master]

The tail lights got the same treatment as the headlights except I made the bulbs from thin clear tubing that was sealed on the ends with clear gloss. Since the lenses are molded in clear I used Tamiya lacquers to tint them.

I added details to the housings as well to accept the wiring/plugs.

[Scale-Master]

First part of a new subassembly… A few hours of machine work; slow going using 1/32 inch end mill. Now for some hand finish work.

[Scale-Master]

This inset sets the angles for the mirror panels. It's made up of six pieces.

[Scale-Master]

I made the mounting brackets from aluminum. I've found in real life these things work best when they are firmly mounted to a rigid part of the car. They should be mounted as high and forward as possible, but not too close to the (semi-flexible Lexan in this case) windshield. As great as these are for rear and side views they do clip a bit of the top off what can be seen out the front. (You get used to it… Like having sun visors permanently down.) I cut deep grooves into the roll bar for strength, and a welded-in look.

[Scale-Master]

Originally I made the mirror faces for the fender units out of chrome Mylar, but being as large as they are, I later thought they needed more depth...

So I made new ones from stainless steel while I was making the Wink panels. (Mylar is literally 1000 times easier to work with.) But the results are an improvement. Sometimes the reflection is hard for the camera to capture too.


The mirror housings are painted the same color as the body will be.

[Scale-Master]

At least with stainless and aluminum tight tolerances can be held. The mirrors hold all these parts together by friction.

I added the pebble texture. And a decal I made too…

[Deathtrap]

I'm not sure if I figured it our yet... but is that the rear view mirror? It looks cool, but alien as well