This is the final chapter of my posts on fitting a set of custom-machined aluminum wheels to a set of vintage AJ’s threaded axles and fitting them to a modern Auto World Ultra-G chassis. Having bought a brand new Thunderjet specifically for this purpose, I discovered after assembly that I didn’t like the way the wheels looked on the ‘72 Buick Skylark GS. The Skylark body is already a little bit too short and “squatty looking” in proportion to the real car, and the large diameter custom wheels, which required 2 shims at the back to clear the wheel wells, only accentuated that condition and made the car look goofy.
Having seen this, I thought there was a particular Auto World body that these wheels would look good on, in part because its one of the AW bodies which is a little larger than it should be in comparison to the other cars: that would be the ‘66/’67 Chevy Nova, which is a great looking car, but a little out of proportion to most of the rest of the AW releases. I went looking for one I thought these wheels would fit and happened upon a seller offering an oldie, a metallic smoke gray version from release 5 that looked really nice! It wasn’t cheap, and it came on a non-traction magnet chassis that I could only use with The Road Crew, but I knew that body was the one I wanted now that I’ve seen these wheels on the chassis and mounted on a car. So, I bought it, and when it arrived, I got to work.
Happily, virtually no modifications were needed to the body; I did have to remove a tiny bit of material but its almost undetectable, and the design of the wheels looked particularly good on this car!
So here is the final entry and video in this series; part 1 is here and part 2 is here for those of you who want to see the full saga! Part 2 is the real meat of the matter, where troubleshooting and the issues of performance are examined; this conclusion focuses mainly on the experience of the build and the look of the final product, which came out quite well if I do say so myself! 😀
Amazing work and mechanics on this! These look great and good job on making these mods! Terrific photographs as well!
Well thanks! It was a fun project indeed.