Thanks all. Did a bit of shopping at the Eduard store and decided to pick up a set of the early wheels. Looking at the detail on these nice Brassin wheels, there was no way that I could replicate this by modifying the late style with the flat hubs.
The wheels are now in transit to my lair but in the meantime I tackled the erroneous issues that I should have caught earlier. First off, the MW50 filler cap was eliminated by, first, carefully applying some CA glue into the recesses.
The area was then carefully filed and sanded, taking care not to damage the cross decal.
Then, the decal was masked with Tamiya tape that had the tackiness reduced and a localized spray of 74 applied to the area. I took this opportunity to add some more mottling as the profile I'm using seemed to have more dark areas.
Next up were the cannon fairings pointed out above. These were simply filed down, smoothed and the marred surface was then repainted.
These areas were then hit with clear gloss and I also sealed the decals with the same coat, though I still need to add a few more stencils.
Thanks for following along.