bill-e-boy

Hi Mark - you are on the money. All of the AMT "Trophy" series 32's bodies have the wedge section.

Being doing some work on the interior - paint stripped and painted a fibreglass racer bucket seat and added a roll cage. The down tube is loose and will be connected on assembly of the top to the body. I just need to extend the roll bar to reach the floor.

Thanks for the pix of the real deal Mark. A picture is worth a thousand words. I have been scouring the inter web looking for pictures of an Ardun headed banger. Lots of words mentioning a Frick head - good and bad - but alas no pictures. Your photo answers some of the gray areas I have like how to implement the ignition and water pump. I had in mind to fit a pump to the front of the head where a water outlet already exists similar to what you have done. But I was heading down the thought road of a front mounted distributor or magneto on an angle drive but space is limited as I need room for a blower drive set up and your pix shows a mag mounted off the rear of the cam drive - perfect I do like your headers and the mana-free inlet manifold too. And yup Sid - three two's are what I have in mind and I will need to Neanderthal build an adaptor to fit the blower. I need to scratch build an intake manifold too.

A little bit of progress on the banger. I have turned down the rear wheels to fit the slicks - sorry no pix. I have cleaned up the Revell motor/gearbox and painted them Tamiya Pure red that I will be using on the drive train too. The head is SMS aluminium The head on siting the wrong way around as the valve gear on A motors is on the RH side of the motor so the push rods for the Ardun will need to be on that side as well along with the intake. I have also been doing prep on the chassis, guards and body. The chassis was in the paint shop when this was taken Thanks for looking

More on the 32 Tudor. I dug out my one from the stash and compared the body to the revel Tudor. At the rear there is little difference in body height between the two. Although this shows that the Revell has an incorrectly shaped rear window opening and the body swage at the bottom may be a little too wide - it is a hot rod after all and can be build as a Hi-boy so you need that extra depth there. When I put them firewall to firewall the infamous wedge section is all to evident. The funny thing is I have compared grill shells and both makes are very close to being the same size Rear view Firewall to firewall There is about 6mm difference in height at the firewall Others have mentioned that the interior may be shared with the Phaeton. Well I think they used a modified Phaeton interior bucket where the rear door detail has been blanked out. It is very hard to see as the engraving is very feint. Phaeton is on the left As far as I can make out the Phaeton and Tudor shared the majority of parts. I will need to dig out a Victoria to see what is different as I have not looked in one of those boxes for a while. Aa an aside - the Phaeton kit shown was made in New Zealand by Tonka circa 69-70. The moulds and litho plates were leased to Tonka along with a bunch of other kits that were produced under license to AMT. NZ at the time had very restrictive import rules and a way around the issue was to make stuff under license and to have a high local material input. The Tudor was released after the NZAMT releases as there was some relaxing of import rules by then. The brakes did not come off until the mid 80's

I thought the 32 Tudor body mould had disappeared/broken?? Good to see it back in production and I most probably stump up for one even at the exorbitant prices we have to pay here in New Zealand. I have a 1975 issue in the stash and a poor resin repop of the body The collectors may be a bit miffed as there were some big dollars being asked for them before the Revell Tudor arrive I wonder if the new parts will be a new body and if they will stay with the wedge section like the original. More accurate than the MPC Switcher effort but it's not as good as the Revell imo. Still it builds into a nice shelf model even with all its inaccuracies. This was built late 70's early 80's

Wow Kit - another way to chop a 32-34 5W coupe. I am liking it a lot. The last time I chopped a 5W I cut and stretched the turret between the A&B and the B&C pillars - a lot of cleanup work with this method. I like the step at the B pillar as this will make alignment when gluing back together a lot less stressful. The treatment at the C pillar is awesome. I am liking all the other stuff happening with this build I will be watching

Thanks Jim - I thought about it but not sure yet. I might make a sling shot style one where it uses the centre hole on the radiator and two new holes at the firewall. And make a filler for the original hole at the fire wall. It can stay in the cabinet for now as I need to get some movement on another (group build) project. And I do like your gungy old hot rod

What a b1+ch Jim. Ghost lines in your paint job. It is the bane of us kit bashers. What Greg suggests is spot on. You are best to fill the gap with tight fitting plastic glued with thin cement. You do need to use primer/surfacer and a lot of sanding. I have found with lacquer paints to take sanding out to at least 2000 grit Also helps to shoot a barrier coat of silver on the primer surfacer before your colour coats. The metallic paint seems to seal the body works better. And I have not had trouble mixing and matching primer/surfacer and colour brands but do let the paints gas out between primer and colour coats. The lacquer paints are fairly hot at the best of times and will pull into any sanding scratches or other filling operations. A pain and it is a bit of gamble as to whether there will be issues or not. Also I think use 2 part epoxy fillers for things like these door lines works better than say 1 part fillers like Tamiya and others. The paint tends to suck into the filler and you cant see it till you put a topcoat on. And it can happen over time when you think you have dodged the bullet. I have heard that the Tamiya light curing filler is good for this too. Just a pain and a party killer when it happens - I feel your disappointment

Hi Sid - exactly what I was contemplating - late 50's when things were very experimental and people were using all sorts of power plants. The big hemi's were still new and bangers were old and cheap Hi Dennis - thanks for the inspirational pix - I know I have seen a banger thread here - I even contributed with the Cragar motor - but I have not gone looking for it as the seed was sown way back then. It just needed a couple of other planets to align to make it a reality. I have finished my 32 coupe build so I can now focus on this build - and it has a deadline

Indeed. Got those pesky little details done over the weekend. Headlights, tail lights, plate, radiator cap, door handles and gas cap all done. I could not get the radiator brace in as it clashed with the frog mouths - oh darn! It is now in the cabinet and I will get around to posting in Under Glass -sometime Thanks for bearing with me through this build but I must say I have enjoyed it and I did it in record time - for me anyway

Cut a bit of the bubble bit on the bottom of a 2 litre soda bottle. Not sure what quantity that is in USA but they are 2ltr here in NZ Or the foil skirt from a wine bottle screw cap is quite a soft ally and can be burnished to suit. Place it on a backing of say polystyrene and burnish the shape with your finger. You could use an ally tray but these are a little harder and may need something a but firmer than your pinky. Being ally all they need is a polish up to look the part

I have a number of early hot rod kits that have had extensive chassis work done to them and I want to show off my handy work. I had a good think of what I wanted. - A black base - LED spot lights - preferably hidden - Pedestals to lift car off the floor a bit - Mirrors to show off all the underside bling - Some sort of perimeter or barrier to keep the public back I did a quick sketch of what I wanted and armed with my fertile imagination went to the nearest $2 emporium. A few bucks lighter I can back with a pack of black card, a bag of 16mm chrome balls, a pack of small mirrors and some fancy string I also went to Jaycar and picked up some 3mm 15000cmd white LEDS - cheaper by the 10 - and an AAA cell battery box with a switch I dilled out the chrome balls to fit the LEDS into and double stacked these and connected with some styrene tube I have. I set it up on a bit of customwood with a bit of blue card to check the concept. I mocked up some mirrors and found I need to have these on an angle to get the best from them. The nuts are to mock up display height The chassis is a 32 Ford junker from the parts department I powered the LED up and found it was too close to the car for maximum effect so I made the card larger - sorry no pix of that step The height of the nuts was perfect so I am about to machine some pedestals from ally bar that I will polish. And continue with 3 more chrome ball stacks

Thaks for the feedback guys. I was concerned that the slicks I have chosen would be too much rubber on the road. The ones in the photo above were the skinniest I could find in my tire bin. I know there are narrower ones around but I could not think of what kits they were in. Then I thought, I have another slow moving project that has skinnies so it got robbed and they are cheater slick to boot. I will need to face finding replacements, but I will face that dilemma another day Meantime I have started clean up of the chassis. Battery box is gone and front bumper mounts have ben clipped off. I am looking at the shocks next. Not sure if I need shocks but if I decide I do need them I will make something a bit nicer looking that the kit blobular ones. I have found a quick change and a tubular front axle again stollen from the stalled kit - but these are in the overrun bin for that project. Thanks for looking

Had some issues getting the grill and radiator assembly to fit properly. Had to monkey around with the lower hoses and radiator stubs where it meets the chassis. An adjustment here, a tweak there and a little time with the lower hoses and it now fits Nextup wheel fitment. Rears sat nicely but had to chock up the fronts to get camber and a little toe in. The Tamiya square bottles are perfect for this. I have a little side project on the go - a display base that nicely shows off the kit - although not quite finished yet Thanks for looking

Cool - I will be watching

An outstanding build. Very clean and with just the right amount of added detail and terrific colour. And period perfect too. This is the type of build that gets the juices flowing and providing inspiration for future builds - love it. The buildup is such that what is presented looks like it was in the kit all along (oob) and that is the clincher when those that don't know see a model like this and are stunned at the extra work put in to get such a result. The above plaudits are well deserved

Thanks Jim. The pix quality from my phone is a bit suss when using heavy zoom. May take one with the big camera. I think you have right end of the stick. There is a blingy aftermarket hex cover that fits over the hose clamp and is a hex style mimicking the fittings used on braided lines. Just adding bling to the rather bland looking radiator hoses and clamps. The other way is to use chrome pipes in the centre with short hoses but that would have needed even more clamps. Thanks Steve

Not sure I do either. Logic tells me if you can put OHV heads on a flatty V8 you should be able to put a single head on a banger. In the real world not sure how things like water galleries and lifters would line up but with a flat head motor the valves take up quite a bit of real estate in the block so should be able to do it. The biggie of course is the cylinder spacing and how that mates up with the head But we are working with 1/25th scale models and have wild imaginations so we can do anything😁 Sounds a bit like Bob the Builder - we can do it

I made up some radiator hoses from 1.7mm solder painted Tamiya rubber and I needed something to bling up the ends - well the top hoses anyway. I have made hose clamps before with foil and that is a real pain of a job. So methinks I can make up some hex clamp covers. I have some ally tube the right i.d. size of 1.7mm so over to the mill we go. Here I have the tube set up on an indexing head that has 12 index points so I can machine 6 sides easily. The chuck was remoted back into the lathe and I polished the newly machined hex and cut off some pieces about 1mm long The result with tube at the front and the hexes fitted to the radiator hoses. Most probably small detail that will go unnoticed by most but I know it is there. Thanks for looking

Thanks guys Well the windshield, rear and quarter windows are - just hard to see in the pix

Much as I would like to use the Cragar engine I was thinking of something with a bit more power. I looked in the resin flatty stuff that was bequeathed me from my late mate Mike and I discovered I have three of these heads - perfect. Fits the esoteric theme I mentioned above perfectly. The discovery - an Ardun head on its lonesome just crying out to be fitted to a banger. Alo in the box was a S.C.O.T blower (or two) I mocked this up on the Monogram motor for the pix but I will not be using it as it is a bit blobby I have a donor Revel A kit with a motor I can use. This is an oldish kit that someone has chopped in the past and it has a few bits missing. I have made a start on gluing it together Oh - the mph is a reference is the FB group I am on - mph = miniature petrol heads Thanks for looking

Can't remember the seal detail as it was a long time ago - I think it would have been Street Rodder as that was the mag I was getting back then But the door stretch made a difference. I think the sideways jump seats were normal - I don't know lots on old Chebbies - I am a Mopar man

A local FB group is having a motor sport build off. Whilst most have opted for a more roundy-pounder themed builds I am having a go at a straight line build as it fits into my way of thinking. Looking for an early 60's style, nose high and banger powered I had a subject in mind but first I went looking and found these in the junk yard. I would have preferred slightly narrower slicks but this is all I could find Then I got this out of the stash. It is a recent arrival but I have at least one more Toying with motor choice - I have either this Banger Cragar OHV conversion or I may go a different route with something more exotic but it will definitely be an OHV conversion. I did the Cragar conversion a while back where I milled the valve cover from solid ally and the head is hand shaped and milled plastic Thanks for looking

The article Greg linked shows a very radical cop and an even more radical (body) section. The method of inserting spacers between the A&B and B&C pillars is the (correct) method I would use. The 37 Chev usually does not chop well IMO - but take it just as that - my opinion The rest of the kit is a bear to build where the biggest issue id to get the fenders, body and chassis to mate together nicely. Hence I have only built a couple of these over the years There was an article in one of the rod mags yonks ago and to help with some of the proportions of the top cut the doors were extended. The doors are fairly short even by coupe standards Good luck