# Fireball Roberts - Number 22



## Rusty_S85 (Apr 7, 2018)

Couple photos I took from the week worth of prep work I did on the 312 Y8 engine. I put a coat of semi gloss clear over the engine itself. Will take a brush and paint the carb a aluminum color, will also paint the oil fill and breather red and black and affix it as well as the oil filter before I place the Thunderbird Special decal and spray a final coat of semi gloss clear.

The starter will be cleared separate and glued at a later date. I don't want the bell housing and transmission to be semi gloss they should be a matte color to be proper.


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## Rusty_S85 (Apr 7, 2018)

So I got another kit in the mail today, I got another Fireball Roberts 57 Ford as I wanted to buy some decals to build another nascar race car. Also allows me to rob the supercharger belt from this kit while waiting for the replacement from that guy on fb that is sending me his.

Now the only question I have to decide on is which way to go with this other kit. My choices for race cars are as follows.

#11 Junior Johnson
#12 Ralph Moody
#22 Ralph Moody
#92 Jerry Unser
#98 Marvin Panch
#99 Paul Goldsmith

I also have to figure out the color as Ive seen for example #99 painted all white as well as what appears to be an off white with a white two tone.


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## Milton Fox Racing (May 27, 2014)

If your taking votes I would go for the #92 Unser car. :cheers2:


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## Rusty_S85 (Apr 7, 2018)

Milton Fox Racing said:


> If your taking votes I would go for the #92 Unser car. :cheers2:


Of course I don't mind votes. I did see a couple photos one of a kit and one old color photo at Daytona Beach of #92 looks like the car is painted like Fireball Robert`s 57 Ford with the two tone but his is Blue with white two tone vs Red with White.

Ive seriously been leaning towards #92 cause of the blue and white two tone.

Nice thing though is that is on sheet #1 of the decals and sheet 1 comes with #22 Fireball Roberts, #22 Ralph Moody, #92 Jerry Unser, and #98 Marvin Panch. So I could always build the others later on if I want to get real crazy lol.


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## Milton Fox Racing (May 27, 2014)

Sound like a plan! :thumbsup:

The blue two tone is why I picked Unsers car, too.


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## Rusty_S85 (Apr 7, 2018)

Milton Fox Racing said:


> Sound like a plan! :thumbsup:
> 
> The blue two tone is why I picked Unsers car, too.


Think I am going to do his car cause I did some reading last night I didn't know he used that car for Pikes Peak. That seems gives a unique nature to it as it was a stock car for nascar as well as running at Pikes Peak.

Another thing I need to look into are tires. Over at Mikes Decals they have a Goodyear tire for 57 - 59 but yet all the photos I see looks like they were running regular old biasply tires like you would see on street cars. I need to hit up some more knowledgeable people to see if those tires would be right cause if so I might as well order them and the rims for both my 57 Chevy Black Widow that I just got in yesterday as well as my two 57 Ford Fairlane`s I have.


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## Rusty_S85 (Apr 7, 2018)

Well found out that Good Year didn't make a racing tire till '59. So the 57-59 Good Year tire is not exactly historically correct for 57 and 58. Unless you are building a 57-58 year model race car being raced in 1959.

Aside from that I got the Thunderbird Special decals on the valve covers, I also painted and cleared the oil fill tube and installed it. I also painted the belt assemblies and the dist and coil. I am thinking of using my Zap Medium CA glue to glue the spark plug boots onto my dist then use a drop of the CA to glue the plug wires in place into the boot. This should make it way easier on me than trying to drill the dist out.

If I have no issues I should be assembling the motor Saturday as tomorrow after work I am going to clear my engine a final time to seal in the decals. Then its on to detail painting. Aluminum color for the carb, gun metal for the transmission, a flat black rubber color for the transmission mount.


I am also torn on #98. Part of me wants to build a museum piece like my Fireball Roberts is. Yet the other part of me wants to build a diorama of the color photo below of Jerry racing at Pikes Peak.


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## Rusty_S85 (Apr 7, 2018)

Was a pain in the rear but I got my 8 black spark plug wires and 1 brown coil wire installed in the kit supplied dist. I had to use a larger bit and drill the middle out and glue in a bundle. Now the question is once I start assembling if the wires are going to be long enough to route properly. I made them roughly 2 inches in length.


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## Milton Fox Racing (May 27, 2014)

Make sure you get the right firing order! :cheers2:


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## Rusty_S85 (Apr 7, 2018)

Milton Fox Racing said:


> Make sure you get the right firing order! :cheers2:


Yep I got the firing order. #1 is on the back side of the dist passenger side. I am going to let the CA glue dry over knight then I'm going to try and bend the wires nearly 90* at the terminal nubs to gain a bit of length so I can run the wires behind the head then behind and under the exhaust manifolds.


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## smoke14 (Aug 16, 2009)

Rusty_S85 said:


> Well found out that Good Year didn't make a racing tire till '59. So the 57-59 Good Year tire is not exactly historically correct for 57 and 58. Unless you are building a 57-58 year model race car being raced in 1959.
> 
> Aside from that I got the Thunderbird Special decals on the valve covers, I also painted and cleared the oil fill tube and installed it. I also painted the belt assemblies and the dist and coil. I am thinking of using my Zap Medium CA glue to glue the spark plug boots onto my dist then use a drop of the CA to glue the plug wires in place into the boot. This should make it way easier on me than trying to drill the dist out.
> 
> ...


Do it like Jerry at Pikes Peak :thumbsup: Man those guys risked life and limb doing that crazy race back then, not a lick of safety devices to save them going zoooom over the edge...

That pic looks like the old ones I have from my great uncle Tommy with those rounded edges, like you got from the processor back in the day, where did you get that?

And great work!! I'm a huge fan of Jerry/NASCAR/Pikes Peak and you buddy :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:


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## Rusty_S85 (Apr 7, 2018)

smoke14 said:


> Do it like Jerry at Pikes Peak :thumbsup: Man those guys risked life and limb doing that crazy race back then, not a lick of safety devices to save them going zoooom over the edge...
> 
> That pic looks like the old ones I have from my great uncle Tommy with those rounded edges, like you got from the processor back in the day, where did you get that?
> 
> And great work!! I'm a huge fan of Jerry/NASCAR/Pikes Peak and you buddy :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:


The photo I found online when I was doing searching for color photos of the 1957 Fairlanes with the numbers 22 Ralph Moody, 92 Jerry Unser, 98 Marvin Panch, 11 Junior Johnson, 12 Ralph Moody, and 99 Paul Goldsmith. I wanted to see which would be the easiest for me to duplicate and looked different color wise than #22 Fireball Roberts. That's when I found that photo and said I think I am going to do that build.

Now I need to order 57 Ford Sheet 1 from Mikes Decals to get the decals for Jerry Unser`s car.


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## Rusty_S85 (Apr 7, 2018)

Couple pics of my engine after doing the final semi gloss clear coat to seal the valve cover decals in. I'm currently waiting for the dist to dry, I thought the ca glue was dry enough but routing the plug wires caused the dist to become loose so I put more CA and now letting the dist sit and cure a bit longer. Will update with a photo of the engine as of now since I haven't took a photo yet.

~Update~

New photo added. Transmission painted, starter installed, oil filter installed, carb painted, dist installed, sparkplug wires routed in proper 1-5-4-8-6-3-7-2. Just doing final shaping of the wires before a drop of CA glue to hold them all in place.


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## Rusty_S85 (Apr 7, 2018)

Had to put the engine on hold. Didn't have any flat black paint to detail the belts. So I had to order from Hobbylinc since they are the only ones I know of that sells Tamiya in 3/4 oz bottles. So I wont get on the engine till the weekend after next.

In any case I can work on the rest of the car and prep it to the point of getting ready for assembly. I'm also waiting for the Zero Paints 2K clear to come back into stock. Don't want to paint the body till I get the clear so I can place decals and spray the clear with limited exposure to dust.


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## Rusty_S85 (Apr 7, 2018)

I am quickly running out of things to paint. So today since I cant finish my engine I decided to do some detail painting since I noticed my chassis once I glued a lot of the chassis together that it just looked bland. Everything was just painted black and looked like it was sprayed as one piece.

So I pulled out my 2/0 brush and got my Tamiya X10 and X18 along with my Vallejo Metallic Air Steel colors to do my detail painting.

I painted cast iron/steel parts in X10 Gun Metal for the cast iron look. I followed up painting steel components in the Vallejo Steel to get a nice color contrast. I also followed up with the X18 semi gloss black to touch up any where I got color I didn't want it at.

I also placed the decal on the seat for the cloth insert. I am going to clear coat over everything with my Tamiya Semi Gloss clear that I sprayed my engine with. Might have to see how the detail painting looks might be too shiny and I will have to go over it with colors again. The seat I am contemplating getting some Tamiya flat clear to brush over the decal area to dull it down to look like cloth.


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## Rusty_S85 (Apr 7, 2018)

And the last two photos that didn't seem to attach to my previous post.

Another thing I forgot to mention is I looked at my AMT Firestone Deluxe Champion tire set I have. I got it for the wide white wall for my '56 Fairlane build. It also came with '60s small white wall as well. I looked on the back side and it has the firestone markings and some white writing on it. I am tempted to use some rubber colored paint to paint the narrow white wall in and put those tires on this kit reversed. Its a shame AMT doesn't sell the Firestone Deluxe Champion Tire`s in black wall.


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## Rusty_S85 (Apr 7, 2018)

Received a package at lunch today which turned out to be my Zero Paints airbrush cleaner, Zero Paints 2K Diamond Clear clear coat system, my 3mm Tamiya masking tape for curves, and my small bottle of XF85 Rubber black.

So not more than 30 minutes ago I painted the air hoses and the belts and let them dry. While at it I also painted the chrome supercharger assembly by coloring the bracketry in semi gloss black, the fuel pump and supercharger itself in steel, and what I believe to be fuel hoses from the fuel pump to the supercharger I painted rubber black.

I will attach some photos but one of the flash photos showed me I need to go over my supercharger again with more steel paint as chrome is bleeding through in some areas.


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## Rusty_S85 (Apr 7, 2018)

Got quite a bit done today. I sprayed the roof and trunk with some Tamiya gloss white was hard to get coverage with my airbrush but I got it down good except for the part where I thought it was cured enough to do some light masking and it wasn't. So now I have a couple places on the trunk to sand down finger prints. The curve pf the trunk is the worse, good fingerprint that absorbed some dry black paint from my finger and my finger nail sunk in. I am thinking of light sanding then dabbing some of the thinned white paint to fill in and smooth out.

Aside from that I got lot of the interior finished and the chassis is about 90% completed. I still need to pull the outer rim halves off the tires to touch up the edge before I glue the wheels together. I am currently using the kit tires as the AMT tires I have doesn't seem to fit the wheels right. Might be able to CA glue it all together but I have to wait and see.


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## Milton Fox Racing (May 27, 2014)

Can you put a sponsor decal over the spots? :lurk5:


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## Rusty_S85 (Apr 7, 2018)

Milton Fox Racing said:


> Can you put a sponsor decal over the spots? :lurk5:


I thought of that, but the only decal that I have that goes on the trunk is a red 22 number.

I took some thinned white Tamiya that I thinned for spraying, I dabbled it in to fill it in and I got it sanded smooth. Shame that the color didn't match. Brushing the paint resulted in a color change from spraying.

I think I got it fully smoothed out sanding wise might sand a bit more on it after work this week to prep it for spraying after work later in the week. If it doesn't seem to be coming out right, I was informed the use of 91% isopropyl alcohol will remove acrylic paint. I might try to remove the paint.

I also have my back up Fireball Roberts kit for doing the diorama build. I could always rob the body out of that and use my seam scraper to prep that body and primer it in grey (I used white primer this time and it was a pita trying to see where I was spraying the paint to get a nice even color) and use that for this kit. I can always salvage this current body for use in a matte finish diorama of Jerry Unser`s car at Pikes Peak. I'm sure putting sandy dirt on the trunk and back of the car would help to hide the defect in the trunk.

I guess that's the beauty of this kit only costing $11. I could always buy this kit again and just bin this body and use my second kit I currently have for spare parts if I have to. Wont loose sleep over $11 if its going to take more time to fix it.


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## Milton Fox Racing (May 27, 2014)

The last part of weathering in a few runs sounds like a good plan. :cheers2:

Can you detach the trunk and work on it individually?


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## Rusty_S85 (Apr 7, 2018)

Milton Fox Racing said:


> The last part of weathering in a few runs sounds like a good plan. :cheers2:
> 
> Can you detach the trunk and work on it individually?


Be hard to do that. Would probably damage the rest of the finish trying to cut the trunk loose.


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## aussiemuscle308 (Dec 2, 2014)

looks amazing so far


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## Rusty_S85 (Apr 7, 2018)

aussiemuscle308 said:


> looks amazing so far


Thanks.

I just been using a extra fine sanding stick to go over and try and put a sheen on the body to see if my sanding is smooth. I think I am going to let it ride since the 22 decal goes in the center of the trunk so should lay down smooth. I will just put the clear on a bit heavier so if it is not smooth I can sand it and buff it out.


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## Rusty_S85 (Apr 7, 2018)

I got the body sprayed with some gloss white today. I didn't do the roof I just did the trunk and the body side to try and blend it in. I need to find out how I can slow the dry time of this Tamiya acrylic as its spraying like over spray. Had to hold the brush wide open and just pour the paint on to get it wet so it would lay down without the sandpaper texture.

Came out good though. Roof isn't as shiny but I will be clear coating the whole body post decal with some Diamond Clear 2K clear coat system that having a hardener should slow the dry time considerably to allow it to be sprayed wet easily.

The trunk came out great how every. I had to look real close to see a little flat spot in the trunk curve area from sanding but the sheen I have now it is not noticeable without really getting close and looking. Which means I doubt I could enter this into any kind of model show cause I am sure they go over models with a fine tooth comb.


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## Rusty_S85 (Apr 7, 2018)

Masked off the car as simply as I could since I am using an Airbrush I can use it slowly for pin point detail to avoid over spray. Sad thing is worked great till the trigger started to stick and splatter paint on me and it got some red paint splattered past the 3mm Tamiya masking tape onto the trunk. Seems like the trunk is the problem area since no decals really go there.

I did try wiping the red splatter off with a paper towel with some Tamiya thinner on it, started to smear the red but the slick glossy white started to feel sticky under the towel so I said no more. I am just going to use my extra fine sanding stick to sand the red splatter off. Shouldn't go through the white paint but anything is possible since the trunk is giving me so much trouble.

Only other thing is I will try to paint the rocker panel where I noticed after I picked up that the red is a bit thin in this area. So hopefully the thin red can be brushed in this area without no problem. Was thin out of the bottle doing the rims and I thinned it down more for spraying.

Aside from that I have to let the paint flow out might have to sand some parts of the red as I got some paint build up in some areas that might not present a smooth finish.


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## Rusty_S85 (Apr 7, 2018)

Talk about some crappy paint. I don't see why people praise Tamiya. The red came out great but removal of the masking tape, Tamiya masking tape I should say, left glue all on the white. Trying to remove the glue oh you are starting from scratch is what the tape said, white paint came off down to plastic leaving a crater that cant be filled in as brushing the white paint is a completely different color than spraying.

I was using sanding stick to try and sand it smooth enough to spray the white yet again. Stick slipped off and hit edge wise on the red and put a dent in it. This has got to be the shittiest paint ive ever seen. I think id have better luck getting the other body junking this one and buying some Duplicolor red and Duplicolor white automotive paint. That at least dries with a hard finish that isn't soft.

I brushed some white on to try and build it up. started to soften the under laying paint so I will try to hit it with some sand paper and keep doing this till I smooth out where the glue is still at. Might be able to salvage this with some work.


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## Rusty_S85 (Apr 7, 2018)

Think I was able to salvage the body. Wont know till I finish my detail painting with a brush since I will never use this Tamiya masking tape again especially on Tamiya paint since it caused me extra work I might not be able to hide with the 2K Diamond Clear.

None the less below are some photos of the body from detail painting I did tonight. Still need to go over it some more in both red and white to square up where I can to get better lines as well as to fix some areas such as a fingerprint that I cant see but showed up on the flash photograph

I also enclosed a photo of the area I mentioned where there is a finger print that should smooth out with some extra fine sanding stick. It also shows the line the Tamiya masking tape left which I cant really sand without harming areas around so I hope I can work with the 2K clear to blend this area in to hide this screw up. Worse case I toss this body and rob the decals and body from the other kit. I already did my seam removal of the second body so if I have to I can prime and start painting it.


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## Milton Fox Racing (May 27, 2014)

Even with knowing where the issues are and you focusing in on them - I doubt if I would have noticed them otherwise, but I know those kinds of things bug me too. In just knowing they are there.

:cheers2:


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## Rusty_S85 (Apr 7, 2018)

Milton Fox Racing said:


> Even with knowing where the issues are and you focusing in on them - I doubt if I would have noticed them otherwise, but I know those kinds of things bug me too. In just knowing they are there.
> 
> :cheers2:


Yep probably wouldn't notice it if I didn't say anything. Its just for me I know its there and it will bug me. But I think I will just push through and do it as good as I can. This is after all my first kit I built in some 15 plus years. None of my previous kits looked like this, closest one is my old Richard Petty`s Superbird which I need to see if I can remove the decals as they are turning yellow. If I can I will try to place new decals and clear over it if possible to salvage it.


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## Rusty_S85 (Apr 7, 2018)

Forgot to update last week. Last Sunday I put the decals on the body itself. Didn't put decals on the hood yet as I sprayed the red a bit thick and it looks darker than the rest of the red on the car so I want to clear the main body first and see if it darkens the red up some.


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