I've been quietly working away at this thing, here are some updates. Long story short, I rather rebuilt the motor mounting setup in the upper unit, and rearranged a number of other things in there. I added another drum, and electronic speed control, and cleaned up a lot of the cluttered look.
Teardown
The new motors and drum are behaving nicely. While in there, I relocated the main power switch that turns all the RC circuits and motor supply power on. Before doing this, I had to remove one or the other side panels to access the switch, that gets old. So I decided to hide the switch in plain sight, where it's real easy to get to. It's mounted high on the back of the unit.
Here's with the body cabinet in place. Note the turned aluminum thingy there...
And with a newly made air intake mounted to the switch, you simply slide the intake forward or aft to turn it on or off.
A month or so ago,I went to work on the cosmetics for a change of pace, here's how the carrier's cab is coming along.
This was another long story. I accidently stepped on this cab with an audible crunch. (and some other audible utterings we won't go into) But it was repairable. All the pieces were cut from .060 sheet styrene on the vertical mill. The window openings were channeled from the inside to make the "glass" closer to flush mounted. The partially assembled cab sitting there is for the upper unit. No new progress on it.
OK, I'll post this and continue in another reply to keep from over posting pictures.