Muncie

OK, I'll take a shot at it... The instructions show the torsion bar lever locating on the radius rod mount on the axle - center up the axle on the chassis and it should line up where it is supposed to go. That will also move the end of the steering arm outbaord of the frame where it will connect to the drag link

Grandmaster all I'm going to say...

At this point, Revell has to be checking to see if any NASCAR noise turns into sales numbers. No sales, they tried and no interest.. Good sales, hope they do some more. Makes sense to me. Yeh, I'm a Chevy fan, but I'll pick up a couple of the Penske Fords... (did I say that out loud?) With today's NASCAR, I bet the chassis will fit under that resin Chevrolet SS resin body real nice. Best case is that a little interest in the NASCAR kits will get Revell thinking about some new drag racers - Pro Mod, Pro Stock, Funny Car - or - just as cool, some ALMS kits (say Corvette!)

Wow! That's it! Ron - very nicely done

Gotta love that black wagon - Can remember when big block full size Chevy wagons with all the toys were darn near required for drag race tow vehicles - with a four speed for when your street car also needed to be cool.. or had to deal with the local kid in a Mustang... Later with young family, had a '67 Caprice wagon with a 325 horse 396 - black with wood and gold inside. 14 mpg, regular gas. great go to the beach car - could be going 40 on the two lane hwy behind some gutless 4-cylinder and when the opportunity to pass.. stand on it move left and it would be at 70mph before it got even to their back bumper with no drama. Learned that it's way easier to find parts if it had been a Camaro... Of course when I sold it, the parts I needed to fix the automatic AC showed up...

Mike, if you're interested, shave the emblem off the rear lift gate as well - I'll bring you better one - the chome trunk emblem from Monogram's '55 Chevy Badman. let me know. - or add the V below the molded in emblem. Good to see your progress on this - you're building the model I want to build. Chevy had two styles of emblems for 1955, 1956, and 1957 passenger cars - front and rear The 6 cylinder cars had a large crest - about 14" long The V-8 cars had a smaller crest above a large V The body you have has the smaller 8 cylinder crest without the V - probably to make it look more like a standard 6 cylinder car with the 235 six which would be common in a stock sedan delivery.

Angel, great looking truck - the lift axle really adds to it - good work

I kind of generalized and simplified a bit... However, given the shorter wheelbase, which puts the lift axle closer to the steer (front) axle, the steerable lift axle is appropriate to reduce tire scrub - better steering control and longer tire life. It could be non-steerable, but the driver would have to lift the axle to make a tight turn. BTW that's a great looking truck. Let's add someting about fifthwheel position - The fifthwheel position needs to be forward of the center of the drive axles to ditribute weight forward onto the lfit axle.

steerable - yes and no... The example in the picture steers by just tracking where the rubber meets the road and is not connected to the steering gear or the front axle. A steerable lift axle is generally located about midway in the wheelbase. The steerable function helps with tire wear and allows the truck to turn easier. not steerable - If the lift axle is located just ahead of the drive axles it would be a pusher axle - they are not steerable - X_______LDD same deal, not steerable if it's a tag axle aft of the drive axles - X_______DDL yes, steerable - If the lift axle is located further forward, about midway in the wheelbase - X____L____DD - this would be a steerable lfit axle

just brainstorming - may take a lttle work to adapt or modify back into street engines... The Mongoose rear engine dragster has a decent supercharged hemi for it't time The later funny car kits have a very good 1/24 hemi - Keith Black engine block. The snake/Mongoose funny cars have a hemi with a torqueflite

Does't matter to me what the date or number is on the cover... Picked up the latest new issue - 2015 contest issue - at the local hobby shop a couple of days ago. Wow! Must be the biggest issue yet - 86 pages cover to cover. Excellant contest coverage at many good shows with an interesting selection of models. Plus a neat bonus article about building a highly detailed '57 Ford by Mark S. Gustavson. Gotta say I like it!

Steve, This decal is on my list as well so I took a look at it on on Chuck's decal page - I see the challenge - the decal does not include the red on the nose - would be difficult to do all of the shapes around the grill, bumper and headlights as a decal. Painting the red with an abrupt seperation between the decal and the paint would require a dead-on match... The alternative - fog the paint onto the decal so the color blends from paint to decal. The flames are faded at the front of the body... Need a red paint that is close - Air brush - apply the flame decals - dial the spray pattern down to paint the nose wth a soft edge onto the front of the decal - apply the headlight and grill decals - clear coat and polish per standard procedure. Rattle can - apply the flame decals - "Roll tape" the edge and mask off the rest of the body. Roll taping is sticking the tape down on one edge with the other edge lifted above the surface. It is a way to control a blended edge. Spraying over the lifted edge will give a fogged line over the decal that can be faded so that it blends into the paint on the nose. Roll taping may be another use for post-it notes. Office supply stores have a low-tack clear tape that should be easier on the decal - I believe it is also a post-it note product practice, experiment

very good garage sale find a couple of years ago - saw some long springs from a gundam kit at a garage sale - very lexible and very finely wound - very convincing as a brake hose. Couldn't tell that they were just a spring from a foot away... Perhaps there are parts packs for gundam kits???

Skip, Good question, it would be good to have some other sources for these wheels and tires. As a full set, the Orange Hauler is the only kit with the Orange Hauler wheels and tires. As mentioned above, the wheels and tires from some of the other Monogram kits will interchange - sometimes with just a little effort to ajdust fit for axle diameter. The Orange Hauler has white wall skinnies with inserts for the front tires, the rears are wider whitewall piecrust slicks. Front wheels are chrome reverse with a two blade knock off style spinners. Rears are the same but different size to fit the slicks. The wheels in the Little T are closest, but probably more difficult to find. Baby Moon hubcaps instead of the spinners The Blue Beetle uses the same front wheels (from slightlly different tooling) and whitewall skinnies on the front, but has five spoke American mags on the rear. The restored Blue Bandito issue has newly tooled wheels and tires. (Monogram tooled new sprues for the wheels and tires - great idea because nothing was lost from the other recent issues of the Model A pickup) Front tires are slightly larger diameter. The Blue Bandito does have good copies of the two blade spinners. It may be easiest to put a post over in the parts wanted section. Hope this helps Steve

don't see where you are coming from JB I've always found the information in Dave's posts to be interesting, accurate, and reliable.

probably a little artistic work in that brochure. The aluminum roof skins were riveted to the roof framing. Have to agree that the rivets in the AMT cab may be a little larger than they need to be.

in the '70's, Freightliner painted the assembled chassis with the engine and transmission installed - even the air lines and wiring harnessses were installed. The engine and radiator were masked off, but the trans was painted chassis color. Chassis color could be any solid color the customer wanted. However... The whole transssion couldn't be painted because there were other things like frame rails and crossmembers in the way. In the areas where the paint didn't cover, the transmssion base color showed through. I remember them all being black on the line before chassis paint. The transmssion brochure probably used red because it looks better.

difficult to really get good color from the photo - but it looks like an orange that Ford had in their commercial/fleet colors - could be the same as grabber orange.

yep, everybody needs one - The story is the guy did the presentation in one take with no notes

Thanks Tim - I've made the trip to the Autorama three times and there are always regrets on the first day of the show when I don't. Detroit is the Motor City! Really appreciate the pictures to see what's there.

yeah, I could go for one of those - but it kind of reminds me that i'm getting into the age when my grandparents alway had Buicks...

#4 - hood - Mark's got it, You can notice the shape near the hood pins that lines up with the character line on the Challenger front fender. The 'Cuda doesn't have that shape. However somebody may have shortened a Challeger hood to fit a 'Cuda. It is an easy modification so it may be worhtwhile check the part against a known Challenger hood for size.

Glad you said it better - would hate to see D-i-L trash something that somebody else would enjoy. Wouldn't even mind it going to some of the dealers that I know because at least it would be re-distributed.

Oh yeah, can remember when the NNL West and the Oakland Roadster show were on the same weekend (probably 1990?ish) what a great combination. Have Linda Vaughns' autograph on a Chezoom poster on the wall in the laundry room as a souvenier.

probably going to have to step over to the the railroad or military corner of the hobby world - maybe in the aftermarket/internet section...