jbwelda

that looks fantastic curt! the offy motor looks pretty special too...is it right out of the box or did you fancy it up a lot? got any good close up pics?

now THERES a big ole piece of american iron i can appreciate! always loved the over the top styling on that and super job of customizing and paint there!

i was thinking about applications for this motor and something kind of unorthodox struck me: with the reintroduction of the big tub, im thinking about using the exterminator dragster frame to mount the motor inside what the "big tub" body would be and build a modular pilot area where the motor would normally be, and possibly use an aircraft sort of canopy to shield the driver. it would look like a big clear bubble for a supercharger or other high profile motor accessory and the motor would be behind the driver, back inside the tub! i havent done any drawings but it looks neat in my minds eye so far. not sure what i would do about a transmission and the linkage might be a bear but maybe fake an electronic automatic trans or something. or maybe just adapt the big tub chassis to the motor in a similar fashion. or even have the driver sit in the rear of the tub, and the motor stretch from the radiator, through where the firewall would be, and back into the front of the tub. i kinda like that one a lot. so many possiblilites with a motor like this!

thanks and you know what i would really like, being the old school kinda guy i am, is a set of printed instructions and/or those tutorials. i say that because printed material is easier to look at and more convenient in situ than going to a computer monitor, but also because i would like them to accompany the finished article or in my archives just for future reference...or to assure i (we actually, meaning your other customers) that if i put the kit on the shelf for several years, those reference materials will still be available (the internet is a transitory thing by nature so no telling if in a year or decades time anything will still be there). so what i am getting at is it might be a good idea to print up some material and include it with the parts instead of just relying on an internet presence. certainly the net presence is ideal for up to the minute information, but basic info should come with the parts. oh and back to the "old school" part: of course i dont have a printer compatible with my opsys so i cannot just print pages out! maybe if i put them onto cd and take em to kinkos...hey i dont even have a cell phone yet! i am looking forward to getting into this motor and the allison (see allison thread) but also the suspension bits too.

cool! i love distressed dioramas.

well with a little looking, i am convincing myself of something about those wierd little slivers: this otherwise very nice build has taken the slices, and put them sort of along the chrome side panel to the outside of the chrome nerf bars. thats a concept i had not considered. but the builder has them on upside down according to the instrux illustration: the narrow part is suppose to be upward, not downward. so that means they are on the wrong sides too. i think i will play with this and see how they look with the narrow upward. on this build, contributed by gramps-xrds, they are left off entirely...something i was considering doing as well. either way i am still left with that gap on the right hand side.

thanks for looking and commenting folks and thanks for the compliments! filling in that lense gap is going to be a bit nervewracking. but five minute epoxy is relatively easy to clean up! ;-) i am not even sure yet if that is the proper fix but its the only thing i can come up with so far. there were some goofy little sliver pieces that are supposed to somehow fit somewhere over or around the lenses but there are no photos or illustrations of how its supposed to look in final form, and the instructions are very much less than clear. they just kind of point in the general direction of the lense, not much of a help. i could see one fitting between the lense and the body on the right side, but not the left side. maybe if i popped out that left lense and fitted it differently it would allow the "sliver" to have a home there? i am going to have to study the photos of another completed back end before proceeding i think. note this is in opposition to my general game plan: go with my first instinct and only later find out i "fixed" something that i should have left alone. maybe this time thinking about it first might be the way to go!

ok...a little something in the march to completion! got the taillight lenses in, in a rough fit anyway. look good from this angle: but examining each separate lense and their enclosing area, one notices they are sitting differently in their holes: (by the way you can see the intricate areas of separate parts that make up the taillight opening. it looks better because i lined it all inside the body shell with black tinted 5 minute epoxy. fills in slight gaps very well and you cant see it against the dark blue/purple of the body). and looking closer at the right hand side lense, a large gap is revealed: i think i will carefully fill that gap with clear epoxy and then run a red sharpie over it, or some tamiya clear red, to make the lense "fit" better in the hole. meanwhile, the interior is done and i snapped it into place and may glue it like it sits. the interior bucket sits high in the back but i think thats the way its supposed to fit and the photos i have of the original kind of confirm that, so i think its good as it sits. you can see the flocking job and the handbrake lever; the steering wheel and column and the shift lever are yet to be installed. so next up is to clean up the taillights, may pop and reinsert the left one, dont know yet, they are just held in with Future (Gods gift to modelers) so are easily removed. meanwhile it will be time to fit body to chassis pretty soon and then fit the front panels. off to death valley next week though so might be a couple weeks before the next update!

wow. i have to get those suspension components! i bought the 1/8 offy motor (those are 1/8 jackstands in the upper left and are not included with the motor...they are mega cool just by themselves): and plan to put it together this winter, and post a thread on the workbench area during construction. then i will proceed to build a lakester much like the 1/24 i finished recently. great stuff from TDR. the resin is a little unorthodox to my experience but i am waiting to put a first primer coat on it to see how it cleans up.

oh i thought it was going to be something interesting, not some old man moldsmobile!

if that kit has nice opened up louvers, i would buy it to graft those onto something else! do you have a photo of them by any chance, on the hood sides? edit: oh i see the hood pieces now. many thanks!

i really like that color. metallic stop light red is a semi transparent color, what did you shoot it over? looks great on your 32, nice and deep. i assume you airbrushed it on?

i was looking forward to seeing a vintage 409 in there! but still its coming along well! sounds like for color you might want the rat look? how about some tinted primer or just a light color with dull coat sprayed over it?

ok heres a few updated photos showing some progress! Ive nearly finished the body itself, fastening on the chrome side panels (dont look nearly as bad as i feared but in round two i am going to paint them body color), finishing the simple but effective dashboard with one instrument (altimeter?), and epoxied most of the panels together to assure they dont go anywhere during final assembly or on display. i sure wish i knew ahead of time (and it occurred to me from the beginning) that the body shell could be assembled and still fit over the frame. the instrux sort of look like you have to clamshell the frame with the body parts but nope, seems to fit fine as you can see. if i knew that i would have molded the lower rear valance and painted it as a unit, but as it is its not too bad. round two on this one also then, its good to know. and from the rear shot you can see the complex rear portion is coming together rather nicely. remains to be seen how much fiddling needs to be done to get the lenses in there with this little trim piece on each side. now that i am rolling a bit on this, i am going on a trip for a few days so hopefully will still be inspired when i return! and here is the rear show where you can see the body, the lower body valence, and the two chrome rear side panels coming together around the rear frame and suspension. looks pretty good so far! and its a plus to know i can do the assembly and tweaking thats sure to be required, without mounting the body. that part was gonna be the nightmare!

>down to shear laziness on correction: thats what happens when one is in a hurry. no, thats what happens when one depends on a spell checker. first one of you guys who thinks youre perfect, you throw the stone at buba. not many stones i see. blow it off buba and build a model. meanwhile my vote is to disappear this thread.

hey thanks for the tip on the steering wheel; now i will have to dig around and see if i have one of those stude kits on the shelf somewhere. >That's one of the new resin bomber seats from ThePartsBox.com. Lovely, isn't it? The two vertical middle slots are a nice >touch. They also sell the same seat plain without holes and upholstered with simple pleats. The ubiquitous "rat rod" seat >from Replicas and Miniatures Co. of Md. has always had holes that were too big for my tastes thanks for the tip, i will have to check out that site; ive never heard of them before. i have some of the RMM seats and like you mention seems to me the holes are too big. they look good, just sort of out of scale. so im glad to see a source for an alternative seat as much as im glad to hear im not the only one having a hard time drilling straight well spaced holes!

ps: the fujimi transaxle is a far far far superior rendition than the typical blob of plastics you get from other manufacturers, so ditch that and upgrade to the 356 transaxle!

one thing to note about that fujimi porsche 356 motor: it is a very rare and fragile variant...a quad cam motor that came in only a very few of the carrera cars of the era. very rare in 1:1 scale. and they turned out to be very "hand grenade"-y in actual usage: very high power output up to very high redline but one of those times it just explodes. but for detail that motor cannot be beat. check out the dual ignition system

see i must have read that side panel all those long years ago when i was a kid, and it just bubbled back up to the top at the right moment!

very neat and clean vintage racer. i notice you used a specific steering wheel that i used in an offy powered T roadster, but mine was just in my parts box. can i ask where you sourced yours from, is it in a currently available kit? i need another for another project im doing. i really like the simplistic but realistic look to it. i like how you drilled that seat too.

>It originally came with 3 options for the back end -PU box, chrome cylindrical tank and turtle deck! thats interesting because it gives you the rear end treatment, if only that, to build a mini big t (pickup bed), big drag (turtledeck) or big rod (fuel tank). pretty cool. ive never had this kit so i dont know but i wouldnt imagine it also included scaled down parts for other areas of the various "big" variants?

progress has been made and an update is due so i am bumping this to the top to make it easy to find! stay tuned! the rear of this car ought to be a real challenge! its gonna be do or die time soon!

i cant even hardly recognize the situations described by the past two posters, buba39 or especially beefheart! i dont mean those things didnt occur, i just cant compare them to the experiences ive had since i re-started building in early 90s. seems to me everyone i meet who is into model cars is very open, very friendly, and certainly very forthcoming with constructive comments and criticisms followed by easy ways to improve what they see. hardly ever have i come across someone who isnt open with that. i cant hardly believe someone actually INVOLVED in a contest or whatever would suggest you find another hobby! it just seems so foreign to me. maybe its california vs the rest of the country or something?

my name is bill, not joe, but yeah i sold the car back in about 2002 or 2003 to a guy who then did a frame up resto and like i mentioned he drives it and keeps it on a lake in michigan somewhere. im happy my teenage years car found a good home because to be honest much of the time i owned it it languished in the garage and only got driven occasionally. and yes it was a MGTF, 54 so pre-1500 which made it a much stronger runner than the 1500. it was widely reviled when it was offered by MG when the public was waiting for a new style from MG, the MGA design had been leaked and everyone was tired of the "wing" look of the separate fenders. to my eye it was always the sleekest, most balanced of the T series and thats what led me to buy it when i was a kid. at one point i was that close to putting a chevy small block into it to keep up with my friend with the healy with the 327 corvette FI engine in it but somehow sanity prevailed if only for a short time. great MGB again there...