Intermountain FP7

I decide to try to fix some of the more obvious errors on my new IM FP7.

The pictures below reflect the following changes:

Filed off rear overhang

Replaced the pair of early F7 horns with a Details West (DW) Nathan M-5 horn

Added ladder grabs and grabs over the windshields from Detail Associates (DA)

Added homemade grabs over the doors

Added DA MU hoses

Added DA nose lift rings

Removed the incorrect grilles and replaced them with DA grilles

Added the rear door frame with lift rings from DW

And added a DW "firecracker" antenna

While the hood was off I added a sheet of styrene behind (above) the speaker to enclose it.  That has improved the sound levels noticeably.

Here is a front view

and a rear view

and a detailed view of the rear

Most of this was pretty straightforward but I did encounter a couple of problems along the way.

 First, the replacement grilles were about 0.2mm to wide.  I clamped them in a vise and carefully sanded them down with a sanding drum on my moto-tool.  Not quite carefully enough in one spot which is why all of the pictures above show the left side.

Second, while filing off the rear overhand I noticed that the rear framing seems to stick out too far which means you can't file the roof down as flush as I think it should be.  This picture shows the detail of where the rear frame meets the roof.  As you can see, I filed the roof down just a little too much so the rear edge frame is actually protruding out more than the roof.

The final step was to change from the IM back and white herald on the nose to one that was more appropriate.  I obtained a herald from Athearn that was designed to fit on their Genesis F7 and glued it on with microtape.  Here it is

and here is a close up of the nose