I’ve begun to revive my Kenner Ecto-1, as well as my Firehouse, which will soon be chronicled in the ‘Other Props’ section under a similar title. After seeing what CaptCyan and Spengler28 have been able to do with theirs, I’m excited to bring my toys back to life and looking a bit more like the movies than the cartoon. A fair warning, mine won’t be anything close to the greatness they’ve accomplished.
I don’t have any pictures to post yet, but they will soon follow. I’ve managed to take the Ecto-1 apart and clean up 15+ years of neglect. It’s body is still quite yellow, even after tonight’s bleach bath, so I think I’m going to just paint it since so much else on the car will be painted anyway. I’d rather buy the paint than the Oxyclean and hydrogen peroxide I’ve seen listed as a good way to clean that up.
I should have more to report in a few days, if not sooner, but I do work the next 4 days, so don’t be shocked if I’m not accomplishing a lot very quickly. I should at least have a few starting point pics to post in the next edition.
I got off work a few hours early today and when my wife and son took naps, I had some time to start working on my Ecto-1 project. Here’s the ‘before’ pictures to give an idea of what I had to work with:
This was my toy from when I was a kid, and I took very good care of it, so it was in relatively good condition despite being in a shed for 15 years. All the pieces are here, except the claw which I cut out when I was a kid. In this picture, I’d already disassembled the car earlier this week, and I painted the body white yesterday.
Today I painted the dashboard and back windows black with a paint pen and did some black detail work with a fine tip permanent marker. I also used some silver chrome paint to coat the bottom and grill of the car, as well as the edges of the fins. That’s about all the time I had to work on it today. I’ll post some progress pics tomorrow or Tuesday. Thanks for looking.
Sorry, but I won’t have any new pictures up until Wednesday or Thursday. I’ve been working when time’s available, but it hasn’t been anything exciting and so I haven’t taken pictures. I’ve got a job interview Wednesday afternoon, so that is taking most of my attention at the moment. I promise a better update soon!
I’ve got a little time to show off my progress, so here you go. (Sorry in advance for the pic dimensions in the pictures, I don’t have time right now to change it.)
I painted the grill and undercarriage chrome/silver. I had to go back and spray paint the headlight area white, but I haven’t gone back to re-chrome the edges of the lights. I plan on leaving the lights white, as if they are on. I haven’t made my license plate yet, either.
This aerial view is sponsored by Goodyear. Not a whole lot to see in this shot, other than what’s not easily seen in the side shots.
Here’s some shots of the passenger side. You might notice I had to do a little white touch up around the door logo, but it’s barely noticable. The logos were printed out on glossy photo paper and cut to fit the indention of the door as closely as possible. The fins were chromed on the edges, as well as some of the other detailed parts of the body. I plan on going back around the door areas with a black fine tip marker.
And here’s the driver’s side. Pretty much the same drill as the passenger’s side. I’ve still got some touch ups I need to make. You can’t see it really well, but I painted the dashboard black, as well as the back windows, minus the stripe.
Here’s the back hatch. A little chrome and black paint on the window. It doesn’t look that great, but it’s good enough for me. Again I filled in the door indention the best I could with the logo.
I thought about putting this little guy on the back door, but decided against it. Still fun though.
Here’s the classic shot of the Ecto-1 busting out of the engine bay. I plan on overhauling my firehouse soon, too. You can see here that I finally painted the rings around the headlights.
I was also given some decals to use on my project (Thanks CaptCyan!) Here you can see the Code 3 label on the light bar, and if you look closely on the dashboard, there are some nice decals in there also.
The rest of the shots are just a general overview. Again, I’ve got some great new decals on the doors, and the license plates, too. I’ve done some detail work on the roofrack, though it’s still a work in progress. I cleaned up some areas with a black fine tip permanent marker, like the doors, the fins, and the air vents on the hood.
Like I’ve said, this isn’t intended to rival CaptCyan’s or any other projects of the same kind. I just wanted to revive the toy to my liking. There are some places that aren’t perfect, but I plan on doing a bit of touching up later on.
Next I plan on getting some yellow on the roof rack. I’ll update when I get a chance.
Also, check out my ‘Extreme Makeover: Firehouse Edition’ thread. I’ll be working on that eventually, and I’ve got some things that will be different from the others I’ve seen so far on this forum.
The rest of the shots are just a general overview. Again, I’ve got some great new decals on the doors, and the license plates, too. I’ve done some detail work on the roofrack, though it’s still a work in progress. I cleaned up some areas with a black fine tip permanent marker, like the doors, the fins, and the air vents on the hood.
I wasn’t sure about the use of the marker, but I really like it. I gives it the effect of being the cartoon drawing of the Ecto, but in 3D.
Alrighty, thanks to some tips and some tinkering, I’ve got my pics the right size. Sorry that the originals are gone, but all of the ones that were up above are in the next few posts.
This is the beginning of my Ecto-1 restoration. Here the car has been cleaned and the white shell has been spray painted following some failed attempts of just cleaning the yellow off.
Small update. I painted some of the roof yellow. Yeah, that’s about it. But I’ve been working on my firehouse, so go check out that thread for some real progress!
I’ll try to have a little update on the Ecto-1 next week. I just finished the Firehouse overhaul (see it in the Other Props section), and I’m going to take a week off and relax. Most of my work on these is during my 2 year old’s nap time, which is around 2 hours, so I get about 6 hours a week to work on this stuff, when I could actually be napping too. It’s worth it though, it’s been a fun project.
