mustang1989

Thanks Jeremy! Well I made a little extra progress on the chassis this morning. I got all the rear brake lines and fuel line formed and installed, got the differential and rear springs all painted up and glossed and started fitting the rear shocks. The chassis has been painted all aluminum with a gloss coat over it and the fuel cell and other two boxes in the back have been darkened slightly with a coat of Tamiya Smoke for a bit of contrast. Here's what I've got so far with that:

This stuff is top notch man! Really likin' the home made trim on the side. Brilliant.

Dang..................this is beautiful. Great attention to detail and resourcefulness. Wow!

Om el lete that slide this time.

LOLOLOL!!

Thought I'd bump this thread up to the top again. That is a cool idea with the Thunderbirds.

Man there's some great ideas rollin' off the line with this one! Second choice in wheels was a definite improvement!!

I've actually given thought to that Carl and thanks. Right now I'm concentrating all my efforts towards getting the vehicle stance the way I want it without mauling the heck out of it. I've done a couple of things that are helping to lower the front end more. It's just too level of a stance as it is right now. While I'm not going to get as crazy with the undersides as I did my F-100, I will still be doing little things like brake lines and fuel lines which I already have formed and painted up for the rear brakes. From what I can see I have a lot in front of me in regards to body clean up and prep as well as a few corrections to make here and there. Updates coming hopefully by this weekend folks. Thanks for all who are peeking in to check progress.

Nice touches to the rear of the car regarding tub cut outs and tubs. That's also a neat idea for the window trim.

Thanks Jeremy! Ok......I've had a flurry of progress and ideas on this one as of the last few days. First off I moved forward on stripping the carburetors of chrome which I was going to do anyways as chrome on carburetors just don't look right. Secondly I modified the Nova frame by shortening the frame in the back and shortening the leaf springs. Up front I cut the forward part of the frame completely off and cut out the center section. You can see the differences here........ After that I cut the front part of the '54 frame off and graphed that in. I still need a couple more bolt heads to complete this and while it's not true to realism on the bottom side, I took all the measurements and it appears that this is going to work out. I cut into the forward part of the frame about 3/16" where the front crossmember and front suspension mounts up in order to lower the car in the front 3/16". I'm going to notch out the suspension mounting area to get yet another 1/8" lower This is how the car is going to sit with only the frame notch out. The rear of the rear suspension is exactly where it's supposed to be. About this time the ideas started soaring around in my head after I studied the back of the vehicle interior some. I still need to notch out where the wheel tubs are going to fit on the floor here but I've got some decent plans for this. First off here is the rear floor... Now I thought to myself, "What can I do back here to make this interesting?" Soooo. I found a 1/24 scale flat screen TV on ebay Well I've gotta have something to sit this on and somewhere to sit so how about using a coffee table and couch from a 1:24 scale dollhouse set? Again..found these on ebay. Hey ......what tha hell ya know? Gotta have somewhere to store the cold ones too so I found a 1:24 scale cooler with an opening lid to put those in.... and speakin' of cold ones.......I found some 1:24 scale cases of those too! A case of these'll go on top of the cooler....probably Bud or Heineken I took measurements and plotted everything out on the floor using cut up post it notes to see if everything was gonna fit..... Looks like it's gonna make it. I may throw another Hot Rod Magazine and scratch build a remote for the TV to put on the edge of the coffee table/ TV stand. Looks like I might need to run an air line and an airbag to the L/H side of the rear suspension to even things out back there for the weight on one side factor. lol

Lookin' sharp Tim!

".............. he's winding up aaaaand looks like a curve ball and ......Whoa!!! You can say bye-bye folks! That ones outta tha park!!" This is definitely one of the best looking truck builds I've seen yet. Great job there Brian!!

You are.............tha freekin' MAN Wayne!!!

........and a couple of more views of the interior The excess "slag" carpet material on the sides was cleaned up prior to completion I ended up making the key ring out of a strand of electrical wire and painting it silver...

Man that is one cool build right there Shane!!! I used this kit in the making of my Revell job and it does haved some cool stuff in it. Great job!!! Really nice job on that paint!!!

Looking ahead as to what to use for the carburetors........ ....... Well I can tell you for dang sure that I sure as Hell aint gonna use the OOB carbs that came with the 427. I don't know what these are but they are anything but a well represented carb. I thought about using some Dominator carburetors that came with my Motorcraft Thunderbird but in real life it would be too much for a street engine..... that leads me to my third option which is probably the best all around from the Revell 1970 Boss 429 kit. I haven't found an OOB Holley 4150 series carburetor that's been more well represented than these in terms of detail and accuracy. Only the AM stuff has them beat but I aint payin' $12 for two carburetors so we'll stick with the OOB offerings from Revell: This is where I'm at so far on the bottom side. Oil filter was painted and installed yesterday and I just finished up installing the starter today. I've got the fuel pump painted up and the inlet and outlet holes already drilled in it for the fuel lines. And of course ....................the PE oil pan drain plug.

Well you came to the right place Steve! This is one of the best forums I've found yet and you should have no problem hangin' your hat here.

Talk about wild and out of the ordinary. Neat idea though and great finish!

Man I soooo want to build one of these kits Jan!! I actually had one of these about 13 years ago and had it about 40-50% of the way built and tossed the kit. What a doofus I was!!! Yours looks great in the black color scheme and it has a nice shine to it. Cool build man!! Gator: I believe those are the kit supplied wheels and tires if I remember correctly!

Interesting.............and cool! Wow! I'll be keepin' my eye on this one.

Ok folks. I didn't end up liking the chrome intake and plenum as it was just too much chrome and to me too much chrome just looks cheap. I stripped the chrome from the intake and plenum using Easy Off. You gotta soak this stuff for around 30-45 minutes but it works. Then I washed it in warm soapy water, dried and primed it in black. After that I shot a coat of aluminum on it and after that I applied a light coat of dark wash on it to add a little more convincing finish. Additionally the oil fill cap is supposed to go on the drivers side. Oops! Here's the results: There............that's better.

LOL! Hey.....it works!

I'll get you covered Mark. I couldn't bring myself to buy a $120+ Franklin Mint '54 Chev to rob the headlight bezels from it so I bought this kit for $15 to rob the headlamp bezels and lenses from due to the Revell kit not having any bezels. I'll be Frenching the bezels into the body. The tail lights are the same story. Haven't quite figured out how I'm going to do those yet.

This is a great idea!! I never liked the wheels much on this kit but other'n that it looked cool. I like that shine on that car body..............a lot!!

Atta boi cheecho!!! Keep it rollin bud! Your throttle return spring looks great!!! I've tried this a couple of times and mine always look like junk! I switched over to light bulb filaments robbed from 1:1 scale 3157 turn signal bulbs....