Oldcarfan27

Boy, I forgot about this beast. I know you'll do it proud!!

Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Now I'll never be able to leave that part alone from now on. Luckily, it's so easy to fix, it's not a hard repair to do again and again.

Per the attention of Krass, I quickly fixed the drip rail on the driver side. Relaxing the straight line from the A pillar to just before where it curves down. BEFORE: AFTER: Notice that all I replaced was the trim representing the drip rail - and saved the weatherstrip underneath. Easy fix!

Beautiful TA, Steve! I really like the deep dish look to the Rally II's, too bad MPC never got that right from the beginning.

Next up the Rally IIs. We all know how shallow the stock Rally II wheels are in the kit and you guys may have your own personal preferences on replacements. However, I'm not about to spend a lot of time and money trying to find better representations, so I'm going to try to improve the wheels in this kit. In the original issue, the wheels weren't that thick because they went inside solid, narrow polyglas tires from the era. But, over time the tooling gained some bulk so they could fit into wider, hollow, more modern tires. Even after all the cutting, they only added thickness to the BACK of the wheels, not to the front, so they are still too shallow looking on the business end. First off, is to separate the centers from the rings. I ended up cutting off about half the thickness of the wheel just to get close to where the wheel center is to sand it away from the trim ring. Once separated from all 4 wheels, I set aside the wheel centers and looked for suitable replacements for the trim rings. I found a bunch of deep dish custom wheels that I had too many of, so that's what I decided would fit my needs. I could adjust the depth to look closer to OEM. I took the first wheel and cut away the center and then sanded the rim down to the depth that I liked. Once satisfied, I used it to mark the point to cut the other 3 rims to match. I glued the original centers to a sheet plastic backing and then detail painted them, before attaching the trim rings to finish. I've decided I like the look of the BF Goodrich Radial T/As for this car. Now I just need to figure out what paint to use for the white letters. Enamel stays sticky forever and acrylic will peel off when the tire flexes. All in all this little project only took me a couple hours to do and I'm happy with the results.

Reminds me of the old joke: "I bought the original axe that George Washington used to chop down the cherry tree. The antique dealer told me that the handle had been replaced a couple times, and the blade was replaced once, but it's the real deal!" I read that story too. It seems they "restored" (replaced) everything on the gutted shell of a car except the bent frame sections, SO THEY WOULD HAVE THE ORIGINAL PARTS FOR FUTURE REFERENCE!!!! All new sheet metal, grille, bumpers, engine, interior suspension, paint - everything except the cracked windshield and the weakened chassis, "so the car could still be driven around". They proclaimed they had saved the original #1 General Lee. I still can't stop laughing about that rationale. 😂

I always stick with Crazy Glue brand because I've had other brands come out like water and take too long to set. Also, the cap seems to work best at keeping the nozzle from getting clogged. Others will clog every time and the tube kind will glue the cap on solid!

I'm not good at step by step tutorials, mostly because I don't know what the result will be until I've done it. That's why I take pictures after the mods are done, but before I have it in primer so you can see where to make the cuts and changes. I hope it still gives the same results. Basically, I build as if it were a real car. I try to cut and join at the easiest contours to blend together. I carefully plan my cuts. Cut as accurately as I can and sand the edges to match and fit BEFORE I glue it together. I also try to minimize my use of putty as putty is just the "frosting on the cake", not the substance of the work. Like real body men say - Bondo is not the replacement for good body work, it just smooths out the small imperfections. I use Crazy Glue brand super glue as my adhesive as it doesn't shrink over time, sets quickly and is cheap and easy to find anywhere.

I never noticed that before, I'm pretty sure I can do something about that. Easy fix

I noticed that too, but I haven't decided whether to put that on mine yet. I do like the color combinations with it though.

Thanks Snake for cheering me on!!

Probably not red - too common I'm trying to decide which color to use from this chart. I'm liking subdued, like these... It seemed like many were painted these colors when I was growing up, so that's what I remember.

I may have to replace the lenses, but as of yet, I can't figure out how to redo those tiny bezels to make them more accurate. Any ideas, anyone?

This was the first time I read about this concept: https://www.hotrod.com/articles/hrdp-1011-corvette-hack-track-test/ Hot Rod magazine did it first as a follow-up to their "Caddy Hack"

Great resto! I was going to suggest you use the original Revell 68 VW beetle for the missing chassis parts and damaged engine, but I see you handled it all fine. Looks awesome!!