1965 Chevy Pickup & Hemi Hydro combo

And as promised, the intake tube cut off. Once it was cut, I ran an X-Acto blade around the inside to thin the wall out a bit more to make it look better, it was pretty thick!



I drilled out the floor panel so the intake tube could pass through it. The hole is a bit bigger, but it's not like this part needs to be waterproof, it's inside!



After mocking the intake tube up again with the floor in place, it looks like my angle is a bit off...I marked it and re-cut it, so it's a good fit now!

Here's the screen I'm going to use on the end of the intake tube...well, actually on the plate, since it's easier to attach it to the plate than the tube!



Yeah, that's some seriously fine mesh!



A tiny piece was cut, and applied to the backside of the plate...



Extreme close-up anyone?



Once the superglue dried, I sanded the plate down and polished it up, I'm still not sure if I'm going to leave it brass, or paint it with some Metalizer Stainless Steel, we'll see how it looks once the boat is painted.

The next step was to get the area the intake plate will go recessed. I cut a piece of the brass to match the intake plate, laid it in the hole and covered it with filler. Once it cures, I'll sand it smooth and pop the plate free, the see if my actual plate fits!

I sanded the filler down and popped the brass filler piece out, cleaned up the opening a bit, then laid the actual intake plate in place, and added a bit more filler to cover the gaps along the edges. I should be able to sand this down tomorrow night and hopefully be done with this part!

The next few posts are all about the wonderful hood in this kit. Having ruined the first one, I took a slow, deliberate approach to the second hood. I stated by gluing the sides to the hood first this time, making sure they lined up with the cab. Once they had set for a week and I was sure they were not going to move, I set the front piece in place and glued it down to match the lines on the top of the hood, not really worrying about the sides. Once the glue had set, I had a nasty gap on each side where it meets the lower front, but it sits perfectly on the cab, so now I needed to fix the gaps. A bit of strip styrene was glued into the gap to fill the holes, so far, it still fits!







In this last pic, you can see the mismatch between the sides and front piece, that's gonna be fun to get straight! But it fits, so I can fix any other issues at this point, it's only plastic!