Slick Shifter

There is a tool named File Card that is specifically designed to clean conventional metal files of all types. One side has steel bristles. Other side has nylon bristles to clean off the remnants. A welding supply store or a real hardware store will have both.

So what does it mean? 400# Boy is eating a lot of old model car kits?

Yep, it took my breath away when i saw an ugly green 1969 R/T convertible promo sell for about $1500 a few years ago. A month or two later a seller from the same city was selling 1969 R/T promo RESIN copies for a little less that $200 ea. Suddenly, i saw the light.

That one needs some help. The hood, the rocker panels, the glue from the trailering mirrors, the glue from the roll bar. Kinda sad. Keep the faith. The pieces will come to you if you are patient.

I've bought maybe 40 or 50 vintage 'sealed' model kits on eBay over the past 15 years. i've made good money flipping them, usually 2-3 times what i paid, after fees. It got a lot harder to flip for a profit when the eBay and PayPal fees jumped to 13%. Along the way, i sadly bought at least 4 (that i can remember) that were obviously reshrinked. One had cello that was WAY too krunchy to be factory correct. Two had obvious wear on the box top corners UNDER the shrinkwrap. Number 4 had a return address label from a guy whose industry initials go by M K, on the box bottom. This return address label was UNDER the shrinkwrap. The eBay Seller that i bought from never pictured the box bottom. After i recd it, i emailed M K using the email address on the recent model box art. M K told me that at the beginning of his journey into the old model kit business, he regularly reshrinked old model kits and marked them with his return address UNDER the shrink. As it turned out, ALL FOUR of these reshrinked kits had missing or even glued parts inside! So, even M K 's kits had issues that were present when the kit was rewrapped! I have nothing positive to say about the 3 mystery thieves but i give credit to M K for being totally upfront about his history of rewrapping vintage model car kits. And he DID mark them with a label UNDER the new shrinkwrap. Word to the wise: Look hard for corner wear on 'Factory Sealed' old car kits.

There's a red-white-blue 70 badge on the left fender.

I appreciate the hours that were invested into this Masterpiece!

Exacting realism, right down to the dent in the right front fender. Stunning!

Hmmmmm. I thought i was the only one elevating front seats to slightly above the carpet. My method much simpler, though. Maybe i should make a post in Tips.......... BTW, nice work so far.

Clearly, some people are allowed to advance a certain kind of lyrical prose and some people are not. Who knew that anyone could ever claim exclusivity on the use of a language?

In 20 more years, everyone who cared about that movie will be dead. Then the bottom will fall out of the perceived value.

Pic, please. Every case has their own unique challenges.

Yep, i can discriminately correspond that image to a remembrance in my personal eye of the mind.

WOW! That is Faultless! WOW X 2 !

Once upon a time i stripped and scrapped a 1976 Trans Am Special Edition. There were many changes from 1976 to 1977, though. For future reference you may choose to remember that the shaker callout for the 1977 Pontiac 400 V-8 was T/A 6.6 whereas the sorry 403 Olds V-8 got 6.6 Litre markings. For people who loved Pontiac Motor Division and their products, this is an important distinction.

Don't think the Chevies did. The 1957 Competition Guide mentions exhaust manifolds but not headers. http://chevy.oldcarmanualproject.com/stuff/57csccg/index.html This example is clearly running non-stock iron exhaust manifolds. Maybe made by Fenton? https://www.hemmings.com/blog/2015/07/24/one-of-only-a-few-left-black-widow-1957-chevrolet-narrowly-escaped-the-crusher/

Probably couldn't shorten the wires because he dint have one of them badass MSD terminal crimpers. They are worth the money. Looks like he had a little trouble figgering out how to cut the braided steel fuel line as well.

Thanks, Mike. Am hoping to see some other ancient saves from time to time.

Wow! You gotta be the first guy to get the right color on the Sports Steering Wheel! By the way, the driver's side valve cover is 180° off. Such a common mistake that even some real cars have it wrong.

There's no way that any mold shop is gonna plug and move the ejector pins such a miniscule distance. They made a new core for that clear shot. Who knows why. There's a few cues to indicate that the cavity side is different as well. Maybe they lost the clear section in one of the many moves and had to recut it.

1972 Chevelle Super Sport grilles were all black when new so maybe that's where the fork in the road is.

Thanks, LL#3. It's fun to exercise one's skills every so often, isn't it? The kit version of this model regularly sells for $125 and up, already built, even the customized ones. And there are far more (heavily warped) dealer promos in circulation than kits. Neither has ever been reissued since 1959 and the kit version is real hard to find, not boogered up. Because the kit instructions and box art encouraged kids to customize the heck out of them. This kit HAD to be rare to begin with. Who but a well-meaning Grandma would've bought a FOUR-DOOR model car kit to give as a gift? Have a Merry Christmas!

Ah! I looked up the pricing on the WalMart website and it was $6.28 for a 4-pack of .07oz tubes. Yikes ? https://www.walmart.com/ip/Duro-Super-Glue-0-07-oz-Pack-of-4/49025443 Thanks for setting me straight! I'll get it at Wally World from now on!

Thanks, Chris. Yep, old Jo-Han plastic is plenty hard. Drop one and they shatter. That hurts. 1958-1960 AMT plastic hardens up and tans if it has never been painted. It's a little shocking to see the difference in the surfaces when you strip the paint off a PARTIALLY painted 1958-60 model car from back in the day. Something changed with the styrene formulation for 1961, it seems. After that they just got harder and brittler if they were never painted. I should've mentioned that i brush-primed the surfaces with lacquer thinner a few times to soften them up a little before i glued them.

Thank You , Wayne. Because i'm a cheapskate who don't like wasting paint, what i normally do when filling with primer is to first tape off along each side of the repair area then spray some primer into an aerosol can cap and wait for it to thicken. When it's 'just right' i'll spray the same primer into the crack then take a fine brush and dab the thickened primer into the crack while the sprayed primer is still plenty soft. That keeps from having to clean a lot of primer buildup out of the panel grooves. Of course, it takes a few weeks for a heavy dose of primer to harden but there are enough other irons in the fire that make waiting easy.