Pack 12 - Stage 95. Fitting the rear wheel arches and rear body.

[Mark, The Master Modeller]

Stage 95 gives us the rear wheel arches.  We fit them and the rear body (which provides more 'entertainment' that it should do!)

The rear wheel arches have a tab on the rear.

This tab fits in a slot in the rear body.  Remove and flash and mound lines from the tab and any excess paint from the slot.  It's important that the tab can fit in the slot easily.

Insert the tab in the slot, then manoeuvre the wheel arch into position.  It fits against the side of the heart body like this.

It's a bit of a game getting it to sit in the correct position, but it will go with a bit of persuasion and some robust adult language!

The front screw hole tab will line up with the recess on the rear body when the wheel arch is correctly located.  Then secure the wheel arch with 3 screws.

Repeat on the other side.

Now we come to fitting the rear body to the car.  I'll give this to you exactly as it happened as I suspect that other people have had the same problem.

Put a couple of pieces of masking tape ont eh rear body hinges to hold them flat.  Otherwise they hang down and are difficult to get into the correct position.

 

Put the rear body in position and secure it with masking tape.

Fix the two hinges to the rear body with a screw in each.  They locate with a screw and a pin, so it's easy to get teh screw in once the pin has located.  You need a fairly thin screwdriver as you have to drive the screw at a slight angle because the rear body gets in the way.

Turn the car back the right way up, and admire the beautiful body taking shape, apart from the horrendous panel gap!  

It's OK, we can fix this!

There are two possible places where the fit can be poor and cause the excessive panel gap.  The first is where the boot compartment is fitted into the rear body.  However, I described how to remove the mould lines and burrs to make sure this fitted properly in stage 94 so that shouldn't be the problem.

The second place for error is fitting the silencer support plate to the rear sub-frame in stages 29/30 (Pack 4).

Remove the rear body, and the silencers.

Check to see how the silencer support plate is fitting to the rear frame.   On mine, you can see how the support plate mounting bracket is sitting proud of the rear frame.  It's difficult to see as it's black agains black, but the tip of the screwdriver is resting on the support plate bracket.  That should be flush, but it's sitting 2-3mm proud.

Here's a winder angle shot so you can see the location more easily.

I removed the support plate, and this burr and excess paint is stopping the support plate bracket sitting in its hole properly.

So, I removed the purr, removed the excess paint, and test fitted it.  I actually had to remove all the paint and chamfer the corners of the support plate.  

I also had to de-burr the screw posts and remove excess paint from the rear frame.  DOn't worry about all the metal showing.  Virtually all of this is where the two parts join so it's visible once assembled.  You can easily touch in and visible silver with a little semi-gloss black paint after assembly in necessary.

Also check that the support plate isn't fouling on the back of the differential.  I had to file back the support plate a little to make sure I had some clearance. 

The brackets now fit flush.

And the bottom also fits flush.

Reassemble the silencer support frame along with the silencers.  Refer to Pack 4, stages 29 & 30 for details on this assembly.

 

Refit the rear body as before, and now we have a really nice fit.  

Check that the rear body opens nicely.

This completes the stage.