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jonboy1

Pumpkin Power!!!!

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So I initially wasn’t going to start this until I’d finished the Ranger but I had already got sidetracked doing a couple of projects for friends, plus I’m looking into doing something with the Ranger which is taking a while to test out so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to get started on this.

I’d always wanted a Lunchbox or Pumpkin since they first came out, and after PeterB (hi!) got one for his little’un recently my hankering for one was rekindled so I started looking about for a suitable project. Eventually a Pumpkin turned up on the Bay which looked to be in a bit of a state but complete. I popped in a cheeky offer and it was accepted and a few days later it turned up. Now, based on smell alone, I reckon the previous owner was a chain smoking golden retriever, because it absolutely stank! I asked the seller if he knew what had happened to it and he explained it was the daughters of a friends he was selling it for. “Strange girl…” was all he said.

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After a good air outside I gave it a look over and sure enough, it was complete, the chassis wasn’t cracked and bar some new tyres, shocks and body mounts it was all in nice order. Best of all the body was an original white plastic one and there wasn’t any damage to it all. Admittedly it did look like it had been painted with a grubby stick, but underneath it was ok.

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And so the strip down commenced.

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Everything got a very thorough clean, metal bits got a polish, rough edges were fettled and a clean reassembly began.
I got a set of ball races for it and rebuilt the gearbox and built back up the main chassis tub

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After a bit of searching around I found some shocks I liked the look of, so along with the correct mounts, a Team CRP front end conversion set and a bit of tinkering things were looking like this:

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I also installed a 3rd shock conversion and got some orange/gold turnbuckles to finish off the front end.
In the meantime the daubed on paint was being stripped off. Initially things were looking good, but a: the paint didn’t want to come off and b: when it did come off the surface of the plastic was in a right state. As I said, there was no damage, but it looked like it has been media blasted it was that rough. So what was supposed to be a nice simple repaint ended up being weeks of sanding, filling, primering, sanding, filling, primering etc etc 

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I also decided that much as I like originality yellow wheels don’t go with red shocks, black and chrome, especially with orange and blue decals. So the wheels got a change of colour:

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and a plan was formulated for a colour scheme.
But before we get to that, the body needed a good black base, so lots and lots of hours of sanding and painting later:

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I bought a set of vintage original decals as I’d originally planned to keep it stock, but then as I started going more custom I began wondering what to do with the paint. After the amount of work that went into getting it straight there was no way I was going to put the original blue dot-matrix flames on. I quite liked the idea of giving it a rough, weathered and rusty look, but decided against that in the end as it seemed improbable you’d ever see a rusty monster truck, they’re the kinda thing that generally gets well looked after. I like the pumpkin door decals, so I had orange and red already in my palate, so why not do proper flame colour flames?!
So that’s what I’ve done (or started at least)

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I traced out the original flame decals, transferred them onto the body, line taped around them, masked up everything and went to town with the air brush. Never done anything like this before so I’m making it up as I go. Thus far I’ve got the red low lights on and a first coat of clear red. The bottom half will be orange, beyond that I have no idea, will just have to see how it turns out.

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Nice. I'd be meaning to ask you how the shocks turned out and how the masking was going.

Hotmail seems to be having issues today.

When you're finished painting, do you want me to get one of my boys to test drive it and check the durability? ;)

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Thanks for the kind comments guys, I really appreciate them ;)

Peter, absolutely! Bring them over to my neck of the woods, just pay a small collision damage waiver of £300 and let them go nuts!! :P

novicelad, they're available from TeamCRP on their ebay store. :) They aren't a 100% direct fit, the chassis pivot arms are a little too long so need cutting down a bit, and for the smaller kit at least (can't remember what you got in the full kit) you need to supply your own turnbuckles and make a mount for them in your chassis (ie: drill a couple of holes and fit a couple of nuts and bolts) but once they're all in and sorted they make a big difference and look really cool!

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1 hour ago, jonboy1 said:

Thanks for the kind comments guys, I really appreciate them ;)

Peter, absolutely! Bring them over to my neck of the woods, just pay a small collision damage waiver of £300 and let them go nuts!! :P

novicelad, they're available from TeamCRP on their ebay store. :) They aren't a 100% direct fit, the chassis pivot arms are a little too long so need cutting down a bit, and for the smaller kit at least (can't remember what you got in the full kit) you need to supply your own turnbuckles and make a mount for them in your chassis (ie: drill a couple of holes and fit a couple of nuts and bolts) but once they're all in and sorted they make a big difference and look really cool!

Thanks Jonboy1

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Nice work and thanks for the info on the Team CRP parts. How close does the upper arm link pass by the shock absorber? Also, what are those shocks? Oil filled and internal springs?

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37 minutes ago, Kingfisher said:

Nice work and thanks for the info on the Team CRP parts. How close does the upper arm link pass by the shock absorber? Also, what are those shocks? Oil filled and internal springs?

thanks and no probs!

I can't remember exactly how much space there is, but they never come close to one another. The shock is near vertical and the arm arcs in a perpendicular plane. It would also depend on what size shock you use and where you mount the arm, both to the chassis and the upright.

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21 hours ago, jonboy1 said:

. Now, based on smell alone, I reckon the previous owner was a chain smoking golden retriever,

Worth reading the whole thread so far just for that snippet rofl.

I know that feeling, my Striker must've been owned by a homeless drunk who pee'd himself regularly.

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Soooo it's been a while since the last update but have had a few issues which have stopped me from getting stuff done, but things are better now and I've managed to get back to some projects. 

I'm very close to finishing the Scania for my mate - I'll post some pics of that when it's finished (with his permission) as it's been a trial doing it, but hopefully it'll be worth the effort.

Anyways, back on topic - the Pumpkin is finished!!! And only today did I realise the irony of finishing it when I did :) 

So back to the flames. 

 

After the silver and red I went over them with some orange and then some yellow to fade out to the front. Once I'd got the base colours on I went back over with slightly different tones and added details and depth followed by some clear red and yellow:

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The decals took a lot of thought, and once i'd decided on the wheel colour I found I really didn't want to put the usual door graphic on, as it has loads of blue in it and it no longer fitted with the theme I was going for. Then I noticed there are some extra decals on the original sheet that are never used, and in my mind at least, are 100% cooler than the standard, plus they worked perfectly with my theme, so on they went. Erred on the "less is more" theory with the rest and just added a couple of sponsor decals on the rear sides and called it a day with that. A few coats of clear and voila!

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The body then got flatted back and polished. One thing I still hadn't decided on was whether to go with chrome or flat for the metal parts, I was a bit worried that chrome might look a bit blingy, plus I really wanted to use the standard grill which has the v8 logo, so after much back and forth and a lot of fixing and flatting and painting I went with the flat metal finish for the metal, which meant I could then paint the window trim and door handles etc.

One thing I forgot to say was I modified the chassis and body mounts as when I put the body back on I absolutely HATED the fact that at the back you could see the rear chassis tray underneath the bed and at the front you could see the top of the chassis mounts for the struts - something you should never see on a cool monster truck. So I've basically lowered the body over the chassis so these are now hidden - hopefully you'll be able to see the difference this makes in the pics below.

So drum roll please - here it is!!!

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Now for the great news.........

It going to be sold!!!! Yup, I'm letting this one go as I have another project in the pipeline and could do with recouping some of the costs from this to put into it, so if you fancy probably the coolest Pumpkin ever, head over to the sales section and check it out :)

 

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