BUILDING A 1/8TH SCALE DONOVAN 417

This is one of those projects you start, and dive into big time, then you realize it’s going to take a lot more time than you thought it would.

So it kind of stalled out and got put on the back shelf for years.

Then came the news that NNL West is going to have a theme that includes large scale! Hey, I’ve got a large scale project sitting on the back shelf. I pulled the motor out and realized that I had all the construction photos for it as well. Maybe I should say “re-construction” photos? A good model car buddy of mine had sent me this motor in the mail a few years ago. He had already built the rare, resin-cast motor/tranny but knew I was looking for one and felt that I would take the motor and build it up bigger and better. I hope he can see that I’m putting a lot of effort into making that happen.

The first thing I needed to do was break the motor down, but it was glued together super strong! After stripping it of all the detail parts and bolts I ran the motor under a water faucet, sealed it in a zip lock plastic bag and threw it in the freezer! A week later I was digging in the freezer looking for something to eat and I knocked it off the top shelf! It crashed onto our very hard slate floor (never put slate in a kitchen; it breaks anything you drop), and popped into several pieces! I got it out of the bag and was able to wedge a large hobby knife blade into the few pieces that were still holding together and pop them apart! Now I had a good base to work with, but had to strip the paint off the pieces.