Thanks guys.
So here's the issue - a very clumsy treatment of the forward attachment points for the pontoon supports. With the struts just dry-fitted, you can see how much of a step is present with the rest of the fuselage and wing root. Pics show that there should be a smooth transition of the fuselage and wing sheet metal here.
Here's a view of the area without the struts. The manufacturer would have you accept that this huge step and gap be left as is! I had filled the one on the right earlier in anticipation of some minor work needed but, as it turns out, there has been absolutely no effort by Italeri/Tamiya to address this. I would not have expected this of even low end manufacturers. Rubbish, really.
Here's the start of my fix using bits of styrene card and square rod with some initial shaping done. That's just to cover the step. Once the struts are attached, there will need to be further leveling.
In disgust, I moved on to the engine to start detailing that. Having already glued the push rods on, I now note that the moulded in sparl pluds are wrong as the engine had two plugs on either side of the cylinders facing forward. I therefor started scraping off the moulded in plugs and wires and reinstating the cooling fins as best as I could. The cylinder at 5 o'clock has been done and the others still have the moulded-in plugs.
There's a lot of sharp edges on the push rods that still need to be cleaned up (the above pic is AFTER I had already done some of this so you can imagine what it looked like before). The flange at the gearbox has been filed down to a smaller diameter to accept the ignition harness which I will make as it was not represented on the kit.
Really not impressed with this kit and I can't believe Tamiya put their name on it. I will soldier on though.....