Time for a test build

Now, where was I? Ah yes, putting it all together.

Chris's instructions recommend that before you start painting, you do a test-build of the main groups of components to ensure that they all fit together properly. It makes a lot of sense, as my experience proved. And so to the lesson learned...

When I came to bolt the chassis to the body, everything lined up perfectly. The only trouble was that I couldn't seat the M2 fixing bolt properly because the head wouldn't fit past the protruding end of the compensation beam:

 

So (you can guess what is coming next...) the solution was to reach for the trusty Dremel with the "angle grinder" disc in it. I'm afraid that there is only a blurry photo of this, but a little discretion is probably best for the nerves of some:

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After this, the way was clear. There were only a couple of small nicks on the inner faces of the mainframes. Nothing structural was damaged, nor even anything visible:

In the previous picture, you may have noticed a trace of blu-tack in the slot of the bolt head. This is my standard trick to ensure that they are held by the screwdriver and placed in the right location. It also reduces the cost of modelling by cutting down on the number of replacement purchases necessary to cover those sacrificed to the Carpet God. I literally smear a small amount of blu-tack sideways across the head of the screw or bolt and it fills the slot up nicely, enabling this to be done:

And as you would expect from a High Level Kit, it all came nicely together. Here are a couple of pictures of the finished thing after the test assembly. All of the major parts are together, except the cosmetic ones like the backhead detail and brake rigging:

Attachment:

 

And so on to the paint shop...

Cheers
Flymo