#4831992
Hey there, fellow Ghostheads and hope your 2015 is going swell.

Well,...for about the past seven to ten months, give or take, I've been working on the great Ecto-accurization. As any of the other Ecto owners, (59' Caddy or otherwise), can tell you, it's a years, (nay, Decades), long process.

You get your car to a certain point and you run out of time and money and it's "done" aka "done for NOW".

Then you get a little more time, a little more money, wash rinse, repeat. Groundhog Day,....glitch in The Matrix. This is the way of things.

So I was simultaneously surprised, delighted and just a little bit melancholy when I realized that this next phase will, most likely, be the final phase of this, (between both Ecto's I've done), eighteen year project. The finish line never seemed in sight and yet somehow, by the grace of God, it looks like the car will manage to make it into the "maintenance phase", which will most likely involve a NEW Groundhog Day scenario in which I polish it, tarp it, garage it, take it out for holidays and ALL OF OCTOBER, provide the proper car care and maintenance, wash rinse, repeat.

So it is with great excitement that I give you lads-n-ladies who may give a hoot a sneak-peek at what's to come this October when ol' Janine :eyeroll: hits the road again. She'll be about 90% screen accurate give or take, while incorporating some of the interior design differences of my 59' with a little artistic license making the remaining 10% Ecto-1A-ish and an interior color changing LED lighting system that is 100% and lovingly inspired by the RGB Ecto.

I found, when recreating interior components, (some for the simple fun of it and sometimes because you just can't find what you need in the time you need it), your best friend, (all you beautiful lunatics out there currently working on or contemplating Ectos), is a sheet-metal bending brake, some nice angle iron, a good drill and tap set and a sweet set of hole saws.

IF you can find new/old stock,...rub off transfer type is invaluable. Hobby Lobby sells it and it's good in a pinch, but I was lucky to find a graphics supply place out here in LA that had a WALL of boxes of old Letraset and Chartpack rub off transfer type that took me three weeks to go through.

Worth it, though.

So without further ado,....some of the components.

Image

Image

The Texas Instruments cross section sensitivity unit was a pain in the A$$! I redid that damn thing three times before I was happy with it.

Image

Image

Image

Image

Fan box! WOOT!

Image

that's not the droid you're looking for.

Image

Test fit.

Image

This,....I get tired just looking at it. :sigh:

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Here's some quick peeks at the ongoing exterior upgrades,...

Image

Image

Image

And finally,...probably the nicest photo ever taken of her. It looks Photoshopped but it came out like this with my wife's Samsung Galaxy. That camera is sick.

Image

If any of you like-minded maniacs are in the market to build your own interior components, a good aircraft and electronics surplus store is a MUST. If you have one in your area,...lucky you. If not,...travel within reason.

I am lucky enough to live twenty minutes away from the surplus place that supplied all of the stuff for the original films and even then it took me fifteen years of digging through boxes,...lens by lens, knob by knob, switch by switch.

Fifteen,.......years.

I just heard it in my head. I think I have a problem. ;)

Thanks for looking! More to come!

V71
jackdoud, mburkit, PrometheanWorks and 8 others liked this
#4832003
Looks fanfreakingtastic!
I wish you had used a full size break for the bends in the 3900 panel, but yeah, this makes me super jealous. Especially since I can't really finish my Wagon, and will eventually sell it soon..
#4832017
jackdoud wrote:Awesome work. Somehow I get the feeling that once a friend of mine sees your interior work I'll have to help him do the same.
I'd be shocked if he didn't ;)
Chace liked this
#4832039
Thanks, PW! I truly appreciate that. My idea for the purple under-glow was inspired by Aykroyd's original description of the Ecto as being a black hearse with a purple light projected from beneath the car.

The LED circuit is actually on a multi-color display but is set to purple.

Truth be told, I'm still working out the kinks. That last pic was taken on the last night that everything was working perfectly. The "beta-test" stage. The rain here in So-Cal last Halloween shorted out the exterior lights so we've been engineering a workaround.

V-71
#4832040
Oh,...and by the way,....

I also wanna give a shout-out to AJ and this site. It is, by far, the best resource for everything GB that any builder could ever, EVER, hope for.

During this build there were a thousand times when it was quicker from me to access this site for reference than it was my own files which are still displayed on said site.

AJ,....I thank you. My Ecto owes as much to it's accuracy to your site as it does my own tenacity. It's like a nerdy snake eating it's own nerdy tail.

So,....whoo-fah!

The nerdery doth progress and flourish, no?

V-71
groschopf liked this
#4832186
CPU64 wrote:Looks fanfreakingtastic!
I wish you had used a full size break for the bends in the 3900 panel, but yeah, this makes me super jealous. Especially since I can't really finish my Wagon, and will eventually sell it soon..
I did on the third and final one. I went and bought a bigger brake. The not-quite-crisp bends were giving me the shakes.
#4833548
jackdoud wrote:Awesome work. Somehow I get the feeling that once a friend of mine sees your interior work I'll have to help him do the same.
Who could you possibly be talking about?

The Bishop Ecto is badass...and Sean is too.
#4853877
What a truly awesome Ecto. Loved the pictures, especially the one from your wife's phone.
You really should do a photoshot. Hell, you could sell pictures as posters. I wouldn't mind having the before mentioned picture as an Ecto-poster [SMILING FACE WITH SMILING EYES]
Your hard work really paid off. Just awesome.
venkman71, Theoderic liked this
#4895057
I am working on a replica ecto 1 and am in need of assist on the cross sensitivity unit. Where did you get the knobs from?

ebl
venkman71 wrote:Hey there, fellow Ghostheads and hope your 2015 is going swell.

Well,...for about the past seven to ten months, give or take, I've been working on the great Ecto-accurization. As any of the other Ecto owners, (59' Caddy or otherwise), can tell you, it's a years, (nay, Decades), long process.

You get your car to a certain point and you run out of time and money and it's "done" aka "done for NOW".

Then you get a little more time, a little more money, wash rinse, repeat. Groundhog Day,....glitch in The Matrix. This is the way of things.

So I was simultaneously surprised, delighted and just a little bit melancholy when I realized that this next phase will, most likely, be the final phase of this, (between both Ecto's I've done), eighteen year project. The finish line never seemed in sight and yet somehow, by the grace of God, it looks like the car will manage to make it into the "maintenance phase", which will most likely involve a NEW Groundhog Day scenario in which I polish it, tarp it, garage it, take it out for holidays and ALL OF OCTOBER, provide the proper car care and maintenance, wash rinse, repeat.

So it is with great excitement that I give you lads-n-ladies who may give a hoot a sneak-peek at what's to come this October when ol' Janine :eyeroll: hits the road again. She'll be about 90% screen accurate give or take, while incorporating some of the interior design differences of my 59' with a little artistic license making the remaining 10% Ecto-1A-ish and an interior color changing LED lighting system that is 100% and lovingly inspired by the RGB Ecto.

I found, when recreating interior components, (some for the simple fun of it and sometimes because you just can't find what you need in the time you need it), your best friend, (all you beautiful lunatics out there currently working on or contemplating Ectos), is a sheet-metal bending brake, some nice angle iron, a good drill and tap set and a sweet set of hole saws.

IF you can find new/old stock,...rub off transfer type is invaluable. Hobby Lobby sells it and it's good in a pinch, but I was lucky to find a graphics supply place out here in LA that had a WALL of boxes of old Letraset and Chartpack rub off transfer type that took me three weeks to go through.

Worth it, though.

So without further ado,....some of the components.

Image

Image

The Texas Instruments cross section sensitivity unit was a pain in the A$$! I redid that damn thing three times before I was happy with it.

Image

Image

Image

Image

Fan box! WOOT!

Image

that's not the droid you're looking for.

Image

Test fit.

Image

This,....I get tired just looking at it. :sigh:

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Here's some quick peeks at the ongoing exterior upgrades,...

Image

Image

Image

And finally,...probably the nicest photo ever taken of her. It looks Photoshopped but it came out like this with my wife's Samsung Galaxy. That camera is sick.

Image

If any of you like-minded maniacs are in the market to build your own interior components, a good aircraft and electronics surplus store is a MUST. If you have one in your area,...lucky you. If not,...travel within reason.

I am lucky enough to live twenty minutes away from the surplus place that supplied all of the stuff for the original films and even then it took me fifteen years of digging through boxes,...lens by lens, knob by knob, switch by switch.

Fifteen,.......years.

I just heard it in my head. I think I have a problem. ;)

Thanks for looking! More to come!

V71

While waiting impatiently for Frozen Empire to rel[…]

Make it that pack, sell it for $599. (While I […]

Good morning everyone! I have a local toy collect[…]

Yeah, we've been building this thing for ten[…]