Speedpro

Congratulations! Those are some amazing builds. Well deserved.

This might sound good but the hood/fenders are attached to the side frames but at a pivot point so the hood can tilt. If you move the firewall forward, The hood/fenders go with it. So then the pivot point becomes the area of needed adjustment. There is not enough room in the pivot slot on the side frame to make the difference and it would look hacked if you tried to elongate the slot so the hood/fenders could move back to the body. And the fender lips will still not line up. So what is the best way to deal with this? This is what i did...................... My thought is to remove enough material on the back of the hood/fender to move it back. By doing this it improved the centering of the wheel and tire in the wheel opening. It also fixed the fender lips lining up. I'm pretty happy with this but the hood scoop will need some work to get it to fit right. No big deal. Glad this worked out. Still going to work more on this area and fine tune a little more. Need to make some kind of stop for the hood/fender assembly so it won't just flop forward like it does.

Thanks everyone for the comments and thoughts. Its cool to here the memories of you guy's building this kit! I'v built a few too. So far my cat only has managed to get off with one part only because i left the door open to the room. She got off with the steering rack. Not to fear..... I went to my parts and pulled out a brand new one. Now i just have to make sure that don't happen again. Found the old one all chewed up! A good thing that came out of my trip through the parts is i found a better set of front seats. The seats that came with the kit have quit a few flaws. I have them all cleaned up and ready for paint but the ones i found are still better so i'm using them. Sorry it's been a bit since the last update. I'm not the fastest builder, I just have a bad case of ocd. As of now, All the basic parts ready. Most of the chrome parts have been stripped. One more wash and the parts are on their way to paint. Oh ya, No idea yet for any colors sooo..........? Working on the front end and the side frames. The side frames that the engine plate mounts to i think needs some kind tube in that area to make it look like the engine plat has something to bolt to. I used a piece of .060 half round to give the effect i want. I'm thinking about some other things i maybe want to do with these parts. That will be later on. The parts are mocked up again and firewall is taped (not glued) to the body. I want to make sure everything is perfect before the firewall is attached. The front axle and radiator are in place. Mocked up with some parts box tires. What I need to look at is how the front tires center in the wheel openings. I'm expecting problems in this area. Put the front clip on and.............................. looking at this, You can see there is a definite problem. I'm thinking the front clip needs to get a better fit to the body so that will be the first step. I'd hate to think the side frames need to be extended a little. I think that will cause a whole different set of problems. Thanks for looking and more to come.................

Great work. Really liked the chassis, engine and interior details. Where is the engine from may i ask?

Great pair of goats. Very well done!

Interesting. Came out nice. Is that a nova chassis under there?

I love this. Excellent paint, engine details, interior details and fit and finish. Very nice!

After kicking around a few ideas that could maybe help the spars interior of the chevelle, It has been decided to first construct a cage for it. I have a roll bar out of the street rat kit that i thought i could start with, But it is too narrow. I want the cage to tuck up to the interior panels tighter. So one will be built to fit right. And i want to be able to take it out and put back in for what ever reason while i'm doing the interior. I'm going to build the cage using evergreen .093 dia hollow tubing. I've found that the hollow tubing is easier to bend and is much more forgiving. And you can make a tighter turn without it breaking. When i'm making my bends i just use my fingers. As you are making the bend you want to go slowly. Don't just try and make the full bend you are going for. Just work it slowly with your fingers. The tubing seems to get a little softer while playing with it just from the heat from your fingers. I've also found that wicking the bend with a very small amount of heat it will help hold it's shape to get the part in place sometimes. Only do this if you "really" need to. The part will distort very fast and guess what! Just takes practice. This is my fist cage in about 5-6 yrs. First thing was to file new holes in the interior bucket for the main hoop...................... Take a length of .093 Hollow tubing And make the first bends. Don't worry about how long the rod is. Push the rod through the hole in the floor. Put the interior bucket into the body while feeding the long part of the rod through the window opening. Fit the rod the way you want it. Mark where the bend will be. Take rod out and bend. Now put the rods through the floor and pull through until the hoop is short enough to get the interior bucket to sit how its going to sit in the body. Push the hoop up till it is hitting the roof and check your work. If all looks good, you can cut the tubing on the bottom . I leave about 1/2 in long. Now i have full adjustment of the cage so it can move up and down. I will not be installing the chassis at any point during any of the building of this cage. Just the interior bucket. Built the hoop for the halo and put in place. Added a stiffener and then the front bars. I wanted to go through the top of the dash but not enough room. It is what it is! Another thing i do is fisheye the the ends of the bars for a better fit...... I added side bars and rear bars. The rear bars will not be installed until the interior bucket is done. Here is the cage out of the bucket. The ends will get cut as one of the last interior things to do. The thing looks like it's built for a truck or something. Not a chevelle! LOL Thanks for looking.................

The malibu ss had a tunnel ram intake while the street rat had a blower. They had different hoods. The street rat also had a roll bar and no back seat. Other than that (and the rear end deal and decals) they are the same. Oh, Can't forget the wheels!

After looking at my old parts it looks like the malibu SS (the black car) had a dana and the red or orange car had the 12 bolt. But if you look at the '77 box art of the original issue black car you can clearly see it has a 12 bolt as does the street rat. I think trying to remember back 40 yrs confirms it, I'm just getting old!! By counting the old parts i could find it looks like i built more street rats than super sports so maybe that's why i'm thinking they all had 12 bolt rears. And all the 12 bolt covers are molded in red or orange.

Excellent work! Colors different than what i normally see. Good choice.

Nice rod! Has kind of a 90's vibe going on. Great work.

Real nice! I like what you did with the headlamps. Suicide doors is a nice touch. And that engine looks great.

While working on the rear axle i had this feeling it wasn't right. Something has changed! I only remember it had a 12 bolt chevy axle. I guess i'v only built But this kit has a dana 60! When did they change that i thought. After some research i found that the first edition '77 kit #2219 had the 12 bolt. Then in '91 the reissue came out and it has the dana 60. And so does the '98 issue. The sister kit '66 malibu street rat (the red car) still has the 12 bolt axle. So why on earth would they retool with a dana 60 and ditch the chevy axle. The cover on the left is from the street rat. i have a couple original rear axles but they have been narrowed. I will have to do some surgery to fix this as i want a 12 bolt in the car. Any body notice this before? e

Got the majority of the parts all cleaned up and detailed. Put the engine long block together and the trans. Most parts ready for paint. Shaved the firewall of the two box's and wiring. Fitting of the firewall and side frames..................... Some of the pin and sink marks i had to remove............................ Parts cleaned up.............................

Thanks wrenchr, You beat me to the answer. Was just going to say the same thing. Also, the lindberg kit builds up very nice.

"It's too bad that there isn't a really good 1966 Chevelle available". Lindberg has the best '66 chevelle SS. It in no way share's the same problem with the windscreen area of the roof of the monogram kit. Here is a look at the lindberg chevelle................. And here is a build i'm doing of that car............... I'm not going to try and fix this problem. I just want to build this Out of the box for my collection because all the others i'v done in the past have turned into parts cars. As i stated, I''m just going to fix fitment issues. Not body molding issues.

This is a kit that i have built several times over the years. The first one i built was in '79 and through out the years used up many of these for parts for other builds. A few weeks ago i had a visit from my friend of many years @Kit Karson and he surprised me with a couple of chevelle kits. This kit from '98 being one of them. So now here i am at my bench building one again. Only this time i have a few miles under my belt building models and am going to have a go at this kit one more time. One thing about this kit is its name on the box '66 Malibu SS. While the car is a 1966, It is not a malibu SS per say. It is a chevelle SS. The malibu is a base model car. When you bought a super sport model it was call a chevelle super sport. The malibu SS is a canadian built super sport and is quit a bit different the the american built car. I'm not going to get into that here thought. So here we go.................. Pulled all the parts and took inventory of them. They were then washed and let dry. All the parts were then cut off the tree's and each one will get cleaned up and test fit. These kits have a few problem areas and i will address these areas for proper fit. The first thing i worked on is the fitment of the dash to body. If this is not done the rear axle will not be in center to the rear wheel opening because the chassis to body will not fit together properly. The chassis will instead fit to the rear because the interior bucket is not in the right position caused by the dash fitment. Starting with the glass, All the numbers and letters on the bottom of the roof were removed and the area sanded (still needs more sanding done) smooth so as the glass will sit flat inside. The dash was first lowered a little in the interior bucket. Next i started filing on the leading edge of the dash till the body and interior bucket fit together nicely and the chassis was center in the rear wheel wells. Been working on cleaning up other parts of pin, sink marks and casting imperfections due to the old molds. More to come and thanks for looking................

Perfection at it's best! Paint is beautiful and love the color. Very nice! I remember some of those builds in the back ground from back in the day. Some fine work.

@Dennis Lacy @Rocking Rodney Rat @Kit Karson This is an opportunity to tie a knot in our relationship! I'm standing in the garage with the guy that restored the original King T! -KK

Very nice clean build!

Love these old pro stock race cars. Very nice.

Really nice paint! Excellent detail work. Engine turned out great.

Great looking build!

Thought i would post some pictures of some of my older builds from day's gone past. This is a monogram 1981 Imsa mustang gtx. Built this in the early 80's when they first came out. This was also my first attempt at air brushing. The car was supposed to be white with the red decal's. It's missing a few small parts under the hood. Thanks for looking...........