Russell C

Kleptomaniac "irk" repairman came back this morning, the one in my April 23 comment. This time he's called in by the daughter of the next door neighbor (no wall between us, tiny little backyards) to see why the A/C stopped working. One of the problems (among several, it's a really old unit) is that the water condensation pipe out of the unit has dust/small leaves blocking its upward pointing outlet. But rather than ask the lady to get him a pitcher of water from her kitchen faucet to wash the dust out, he instead walks into my backyard, picks up my pizza pan-size plastic birdbath platter full of water, dumps it on the A/C outlet, and with the washed-out dust gone he shows her how the backed up pipe can now discharge. Give him minimal credit for putting my platter back - cockeyed on the wire stand - but can't even bring himself to ask her for water to fill it back up. If I didn't know any better, the repairman was born & raised in a hippie enclave where everyone's stuff was communal property, which anyone could help themselves to as they saw fit. A little hard to get mad at the guy if he literally does not know any better, but this kind of thing is really irksome.

Ditto. As a little kid when I followed my older brother into the model railroad hobby shops, I thought it was intriguing how the model railroad 1:87 Ulrich Mack kits had such long frames for the 3-axle versions, but over the years later as a model truck builder myself, I'd only heard it was a 'western United States thing' and nothing more beyond that. (photo gleaned from the WorthPoint website of some old eBay listing)

Finally got some of that after lunch today down here in the "valley of mostly unrelenting sun." Little drizzles happening right now, 78°F instead of 90°+ at this hour for a change. In the bottom half of the composite pic below, the duststorm wind hit maybe a minute or less after I got the shot; blew a bunch of those loose brown frond leftover bits off in rather spectacular fashion. Brief 'mudstorm' followed, less than a quarter of an inch. Plants & trees can use the mineral content, I guess (yep, I live in an old geezer colony where nearly each place has an 80 foot tall palm tree).

At the 1:30 spot, the video narrator says the original kit version was the Revell one, and then said starting at the 1:58 spot that this new version would feature a sunroof and a removable roof . . . . . but I double-checked my original kit, the Revell one did not have the removable roof cap, and has fender flares molded onto the body. The narrator and the Revell image he refers to might be a mistake, since the new box art certainly resembles the old original MPC Blazer version with its chrome spoke wheels, no fender flares, and the front front bumper guard that has the driving lights attached to it. That kit version also had a sunroof. Except it also has a molded-to-the-body roof cap. The Monogram Blazer / Jimmy kits were the ones with the removable roofs. If they are doing a straight up repop of the MPC Blazer version (which was later repopped as the AMT/Ertl one), I'd think it would be quite a chore to re-tool just to create a removable roof cap.

Way long time ago, the GSL contest used to have a Bonneville Salt Flats category, since that area was sorta right nearby - my fun with that category was to come up with the most unaerodynamic vehicles I could think of, and one year it was the Hot Wheels Divco milk truck. Ripe for mimicking that basic theme. (pic from my old Bonneville trio MCM thread)

My combo of mashing bits of a Hot Wheels '55 Chevy gasser into the body of a Hot Wheels Sunshine Cab - more pics in my MCM thread here.

I forget how many years back it was (late 1990s?) when I took that road on the longer way to my favorite Colorado summer vacation area. My condolences to you today . . . they added a roundabout to it. One of those showed up somewhat recently on the more direct route to Colorado, west of Ganado, on the way toward Chinle. Predictably, there are looong skid marks / scrape marks straight up & over that one.

Backstory there is that the "Group" category at the GSL contests was that we were asked to all build the same pre-determined kit ('40 Ford pickup for GSL XXI), but with parts only available 30 years earlier, nothing modern except for whatever repop of the original old kit happened to be available. My running gag was yellow 3-wheelers, and I figured out how to turn a pickup into a bike with an outrigger 3rd wheel. Little vertical pads for Ken's suicide rider to brace his feet against, back of the cab wall for mine.

Might try contacting him directly: https://www.kenhamilton-miniatureconstruction.com/ Tell 'im the guy who replicated his Bonneville Salt Flats suicide bike rider on a '40 Ford pickup trike sent ya. He should remember that old joke of mine.

Solution - simplify. Straight axle, 1960s tech suspension. Plus if you still want to keep the engine in the back, it would be a great wheelstander. 🤣

But if the thickness still looks bothersome, another option is black plastic sprue heat-stretched to a realistic thickness. Pliable enough to be bent around the pulley grooves, you just need to zap glue the joining part in at the least visible part of a pulley, bottom-most spot is where I do that. See my pic in this post for my Backbug's flat five engine. (I also despise single-unit pulleys/belts, and also thumb my nose at engine physics)

You guys back east have trees and shrubs and stuff. Always amazes me to see such runaway greenery. We don't have that out here in the low desert southwest. Car would've been entombed within a dense sand-filled cocoon of tumbleweeds. 🤣

I guess the Gatling Rail Gun is out, then. I remember when the hype came out on these, where somebody was saying you could also be hurling softball size mini satellites into low orbit perhaps cheaply. But from what I learned from my dad who had worked at a test lab that used rocket sleds to test missile components for durability under hard acceleration, the impression I got was that the 0-to-60 time over the distance of a couple of feet wreaks havok on yer average dinky electronics-filled satellite. All looks good on paper until you start trying to work through the physics bugs ....

Did one more image search, threw in the name "Oldsmobile" since they were famous for their rocket themes back in the '50s, and one single result was a guy at Flickr labeling it a '58 Olds Super 88, but had only this view and not of the whole car. However, I did a big search for '58 Olds-es, and none had that kind of mirror, just single stem round ones. Maybe these were a JC Whitney catalog-style custom thing back in the day?

Kept on searching, found whatever this sales site is later https://www.looknet.com/product/rare-classic-joma-straddler-rocket-fender-side-mirror with round mirrors attached. Could be the door or fender area has a shallow C-shape where the inner upper leg might be more vertical and the lower outer one is flatter? Or out farther on a fender, the inner bottom leg is flat horizontal while the lower outer one is over the edge and down more vertical? Beats me.

Guys selling vintage model kits/buildups on eBay sometimes list 1:1 parts, that's how I ran across this one today, where I thought at first if I popped in enough searches for '50s-era chrome monsters, then I could spot which car had such a two-post mirror bracket. No luck, so I added a ghost mirror to the eBay image below to see if any of you '50s (or early '60s?) experts might recognize it right off the bat. More pics at the seller's eBay auction if that helps. Or is it an aftermarket thing for rodders to add to their customs? Put in today's technology small twinkling LED orange lights in those 3 back openings and you have rocket power ready for takeoff!

This could've gone into three other MCM threads here, the "What'sUp with the Post Office" / "Daily Irk" ones, since the Post Office managed to lose the first trio or radiator hoses I ordered, but I could have mentioned yesterday in the "What Pleased You Today" thread that the second replacement trio arrived by UPS just fine. I'm technically stretching the boundaries of this thread because the title implies we'd have a daily driver non-project car and a 1:1 project car. I'm too poor to afford extra cars, this has been my daily driver since I bought it used in 1993, but ever since I was a car-guy 8 year-old, I wanted to own something spiffy that could be turned into a neat hot rod of some type or other. Years ago it got lowering springs, Jetta 4-into-2 ceramic coated exhaust manifold for a bit more horsepower, Passat dual fans setup, short shift linkages, improved suspension bushings ... but then it's been pure maintenance replacements to keep it mechanically sound. Factory plastic fuel pump swirl tank housing started leaking last fall but I ordered the wrong aftermarket all-aluminum one and had to accept a junkyard plastic one 'til now. A/C needs a recharge with vintage R12 freon cans. Prior plastic side tanks radiator lasted until 2003 then cracked big time and the current one is leaking at the same top area where the upper hose connects. Might as well catch the little belt connecting the two electric fans, Arizona heat kills rubber in the long term. Aesthetic appearance is a low priority beyond keeping it basically clean -- accepting donations for a total repaint! Just remember to make your checks out to "Cash." 🤣

Poetry in motion,

Yes, but FB is entirely its own unique system largely run by computer programming which automatically picks out what its programmers deemed to be 'against community policy,' whatever that was supposed to mean.This MCM forum is staffed by real-life moderators, and the rules are quite clear on what is worthy of reporting. Political content is not permitted here, no matter what end of the spectrum it comes from, so reporting it from either members or whatever stunts political advertisers might try to pull won't get anyone here a lifetime ban. FB, by contrast, is arbitrary on that kind of enforcement beyond description.

I see the dash difference better in this Bring a Trailer auction of a '93 cabriolet. That site is a valuable place for getting loads of 1:1 reference photos. https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1993-volkswagen-cabriolet-27/

The odo gear broke on mine around a year after I got it used in '93, my guestimate is it has maybe 330k miles. It's an '86 Mk2 8 valve though. Wish I had a carport, the Arizona sun has been unkind to the clearcoat. Cardboard shades in the windows help preserve the interior.

I'd also recommend that. The Fujimi kit is for a Mk2 Golf? Still quite a popular 1:1 car, so if you do an internet search for either the whole dash or just the gauge cluster, you might be able to find a straight-on view you could get a screengrab of and then print out on glossy photopaper after you experiment on what size to scale it down to. My own 1:1 '86 GTI daily driver has its gauges behind a single angled clear plastic sheet, which would be easier to make than two small squares. Attached pic is from the HeritageVW Parts UK website, the buttons might be different for a Japanese market version.

Franklin - I'd been keeping an eye on those on eBay a while back since I had a sinister custom idea for one, but they always ended up way beyond my poor guy budget. Then there was the AMT acetate promo (or whatever incredible shrinking plastic those were made out of), where I got one for cheap years back thinking if I could cut apart all the panels and re-glued 'em back on straighter, then I could use that. This is an older photo composite when it arrived in the mail, it's probably gotten worse lately. Maybe if I leave it out in the sun, it'll turn into a curlycue work of art I can sell at an art gallery for 4 figures. 🤣

Ditto. A while back, I counted up around 18 projects where so far the fun involves gathering all the ingredients that the project needs, then I do random bits of work in each, a mockup of the customized body, or to see how the engine looks when I do my usual miscount of how many cylinders the engine is supposed to have. There is enjoyment in that. Plus I have my fun making up stories to go with the projects. (but I really should get crackin' and get one of these to the finish line, though. Did you guys know that to counter the Ford Thunderbird, Pontiac came up with their own 2-seater 't-bird' with a 511 c.u. engine in 1958? I didn't know that either, so I need to finish this particular project to prove they did. 🤣)

Video sound of course never does these things justice compared to when you are there in person. The “Sentimental Journey” B-17 is based at the little airport about 4 miles north of me, I've turned in there on random drive-bys when I see or hear them starting it up, plus more often than not I zip outside to watch it when I hear it flying overhead. Fantasy thought I have - likely not possible to happen for some or other regulations - is for a major commercial airport and one of its airlines permitting a dual purpose gate where the usual 737s park, but that also has a provision for a Constellation or Super Constellation. Imagine the reaction of regular airport folks who never expect to see such a thing either get to watch it pull in or start up and leave.