If you want to ask me any questions, you can reach me at pocher_rolls@yahoo.com.
At this point I was actually more surprised to find pieces that were not warped and fit right than the other way around. Here, the differential body had deep dimples from where it was attached to the tree and the surface was wavy. More bondo. I also laid out the rest of the rear axle pieces just to make sure that I had the right ones and they all fit (ha ha, fit, yah right).
While waiting for the bondo to cure, I assembled the muffler (more sheared screws) and attached the mounting brackets which required bending 90° and some of the hand brake linkage on the driver's side frame rail (remember that this car is right hand drive).
Finally, the pedals were attached to the ends of the transmission linkages without the instructions indicating that these pieces need to be bent by rotating 90°. Pocher seems to do that a lot in their instructions.
Three more evenings of assembly and aggravation resulted in a completed rear axle assembly.
It sure looks impressive but will it work?
Are you ready for the next problem? It's a biggy. The leaf springs are assembled from individual leafs. It was easy going until I noticed that I had an extra short leaf and I was shy one of the longer ones. I was saying to myself "why couldn't it be the other way around?" But, trimming a long leaf down would've been too easy.
So, what is a model builder to do? Make the piece from scratch. I started with some sheet metal stock that was the same thickness as the leafs used in the kit. I drilled the hole first before I cut the piece out. I figured that it would be easier to trim around the hole than to keep everything in place while drilling the hole in a finished piece.
Two cutting wheels (one shattered when it started binding in the work) and three hours later, I had a leaf ready to be installed. Be sure to use your safety glasses when using power tools (in this case, I'm using a Dremel). When the cutting wheel shattered, a fragment hit squarely on the lens of my safety glasses. It left a gouge in my glasses but the eyes are in tact. Better to invest the additional three seconds needed to put on your safety glasses than spend a lifetime compensating for the loss of vision.
