Today we have another review of a Trackgang kit. This time its the XP. I initially brought this to investigate the possibility of converting it to an Xa. 30 seconds after I opened the packet that plan went the way of the dodo. The only thing left? Build it as god intended (well, almost).

The box (Tauranga to Nelson in 24 hrs) contained the following bits. The casting are, as one would expect, crisp with very little flash.

First up I read the instructions (yes, really). As I had already put together several chassis I decided to have a go at the top first. This was in retrospect a very good choice.
The sides and ends go together with minimal filing. I used superglue for initial construction with Araldite to strengthen the joint.

At this point I offered up the floor to the body, and discovered that I was going to need to do a bit of filing to get it to fit. The instructions here are a bit misleading. there are 2 separate sections with the chassis assembly and the body assembly, but the body assembly suggests that you fit the floor in. No mention is made of the solebars etc. If the size of the chassis has to be altered its easier to do it as you assemble it piece by piece.

Anyway, back to the chase. The assembly order was tossed out the window, and i started by adding the floor, as I thought that the structure would be stronger by adding this first before the roof. I started filing down the floor so that it would fit into the body (there are some nice locating strips to get this correct). I found that I had to remove ~1mm off each end, and also file some material away so that the floor would slot in. The picture sort of shows this, next to an unmodified floor piece at the bottom.

After a fair bit of filing the floor fitted nicely, and it was then Araldited into place.

Next I added the roof. This required some gentle filing removing material from each side until it was a tight fit. I Araldited this on as well, then filed down the sides as indicated in the instructions (see, I used them for something) until the join was smooth.

Here we have a kit sitting next to Darryl's home cast resin Xc top. The Xc is slightly larger, but also has other differences in the door, paneling and the Louvre's being flush vs recessed on the XP.
 

Attention now turned to the chassis. I started by drilling the axle bearings out slightly as I've discussed previously. Taking one solebar equal amounts of material were removed from each end until it fitted between the headstocks. This was then glued into position. The second solebar had the same treatment, but much more carefully. The wheels were test fitted and the ends of the solebar filed away until the solebar both fitted between the headstocks and, more importantly, the axles were parallel. When everything was satisfactory the solebar was glued into place. lastly the brake bits were attached.

At this point I noticed I had forgotten to glue the roof ventilators into place. These were carefully (as there's no spares) cut off the sprues and glued into position. I used a ruler edge to check that's the 4 ventilators on either side lined up correctly (it 'stands out like dogs balls' when things like this don't line up).

To finish the chassis was painted black and the body and roof were painted white. A bit of shading (I still have to give in a light dusting of brake dust) and there we have it.

My general feeling is that this is another good kit (instructions aside), the detail is crisp and it goes together well enough without too much work. Another kit that I plan to buy several more of.