Russell C

Referencing back to my Aug 6 parts pile for my daily driver '86 VW GTI, my super backlogged mechanic specializing in Audis & older watercooled VWs finally had an open slot today - works by appointment Saturdays which I hadn't caught before. Gas leak in the OEM plastic fuel pump swirltank housing had gotten way bigger from my last weekly drive to the grocery store, so I was pleased as punch today that he got that fixed with the all-metal aftermarket replacement housing, and also had the time to do the radiator swap with all the new hoses put in. No more gas or coolant leaks!

Not technically on the road, but just off the street right by my VW mechanic's shop, somebody's 1970s Datsun Chinook project (less commonly seen than the Toyota Chinook campers). On the freeway going back to my house, a '50s F100.

Native more or less just to the Arizona Sonoran desert and on down into northern Mexico / Baja Peninsula. They're one of the birdies that create "saguaro boots," but when I looked that up just now, I learned that it's a long range planning thing, where the pecked-out area lining within the saguaro doesn't harden up for at least a year to provide a nest area to live in.

From this afternoon, Gila woodpecker (Melanerpes uropygialis) has figured out how to land on the hummingbird feeder for a sugar water snack.

Seems closest on the front. Could be a decent amount of '36 Lincoln Zephyr on the back, but squashed quite a bit. Or, while digging through Google's images for Zephyrs, the back end might be borrowed from this guy's '39 custom or other similar treatments.

I'm thinking minimally there's some amount of '37 / '38 Ford in the front end, Deluxe version of the '38 particularly. Bought a Blackforce off eBay for cheap several years back only for the wheels, but within the last month came up with some further customizations for the front and better looking taillights, which I'll put into a WIP thread here sometime soon ...

Me, too, looks better than some of the sheets I rounded up from somewhere years ago. Search yielded this result among others:

I'd forgotten that "Street Fighter" was the box art name for the one with the "Bad News" decal on the side panels, it had the orange-ish glass, and according to ScaleMates if that's accurate, it was the first of the iterations in 1970, repopped again in 1999 and 2009 / 2014. Quicksilver came out in '73 with all clear glass, Bad Actor in 1980 / 1993 with clear glass but only the sunroof.

Nice drizzle happening at the 10pm hour, 79°F, great on & off lightning show. Single frame screengrab from my smartphone. Back in the 1980s I wasted a hole roll of 35mm film trying to get a lightning stroke, never succeeded at all.

Yep, no doubt others have had the same idea. I dropped the body, so I do have more of the passenger side A-pillar, but that is a good idea on how to keep viewers distracted from however I tie that side of the roof back down.

If you have had the chance yet, the official Malone FB page likes to see models of his rigs: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063630907438

In today's mail, the $10 eBay Buy-it-Now (plus shipping) Moebius Von Franco Willys I bought last week. Originally only wanted it for the driver figure for my Edselized-Fairlane dragster idea, but now that I see this Willys buildup in person, its front tires are the bigger size I need instead of the too-small Anglia cartoon model ones I got last year, which would fix that problem. Seems like a not especially smart driver might need a shift gate cut into the upper corner of the Edsel Fairlane passenger door ... but I'll probably shorten the guy's arm/wrist a bit, and make some kind of purple shirt sleeve for him to wear. Hulk Motorsports!

... ya learn something every day. Since the old Monogram Quickslilver kit had that asymmetric fan, I've updated my rebuild/mod project accordingly.

Neglected but not forgotten WIP. I'd long been wondering why the fans in the Quicksilver / Bad News / Bad Actor kit Z28 engines seemed to be strangely mal-formed, but now courtesy of this days-old MCM post about '68 Camaro fans, this asymmetrical fan style is a must-have for my rebuild/mod here. The Revell '69 Corvette coupe glue bomb buildup I got a while back will provide a better rendition of that fan (plus, the Vette's whole front frame clip/suspension will ultimately replace the Quicksilver gasser-style straight axle setup because I'm aiming for a more comfort-riding look).

It's doomed, but still savable in the utterly different direction of becoming a cartoonish dragster.

One increment further accomplished today: sculpted the pair of clear red sprue "Edsel-ish" taillight panels to fit within the somewhat hollowed-out Fairlane fins areas. At the rate this poor old promo is warping, in 50 years it'll be a C-shape with the front tires curled under to touch the back slicks. I might have to stuff a couple long metal rods under the chassis to brace the front panel against the back to prevent that excess curl ....

Call this "Edselizing" a '60 Fairlane. Since the arch-warped promo I got back in late 2023 is going to be a caricature dragster, and since I had one of those Edsel grilles from the ancient 69¢ AMT Custom Grilles parts pack, I figured I could make this thing one increment more funny that way today. Also cut off the Fairlane taillight panel, that area is replaced with a slightly concave strip that I cut out of a leftover scrap of my 1:1 vinyl shed roof rain gutters project, its shiny white color matches the roof color on this old promo. I superglued it into place to set overnight tonight, with hopes that this'll hold between vinyl and acetate (or whatever warping plastic promos are made out of) I'll cut a thick strip section I have of gullwing-shape clear red sprue to become the two taillights to jamb into the Fairlane fins areas (iPhone red marker scribbles to show what the basic idea looks like). Not sure how I'll tidy up the front bumper license plate area yet, but I'll drive off that bridge when I get to it .... (Roth "Fink"-type caricature driver figure to arrive in the mail Tuesday from a nice Buy-it-Now eBay purchase I scored last week)

Nice video of the Pete COEs. Gave me an excuse to to a quick photoalteration of one of the images, since I'd long wondered what a wide grille version would look like. But did they ever make a 1:1, even as a prototype?

No clue how it works myself, except to say it's been working flawlessly in my '86 VW GTI daily driver throughout the 32 years I've owned it, approx 330k miles. If I remember right, my mechanic only needed to do one small adjustment to whatever the big round lever arm plate is, but I myself need to occasionally adjust the idle screw to keep it around 900 rpm. When my mechanic's visiting German expert on Mk2 VWs came in one time, I asked what he thought of the computer running the system, and he said they are absolutely problem-free.

Within my demented imagination 🤪 (I have this tendency to see vehicles that aren't there). Body is from your Otaki box art while the drag racer bits are from one of the revised box art renditions of the old Revell Thames Panel kit.

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.