Ben269

Nice job, this turned out really well! As you stated, these are tough kits to work with, they do need a lot of work to get to sit right, fit right, and look right. Its a shame, because there are so many good 83-86 thunderbird liveries to replicate.

This is a very cool project, I love these and the Metro vans. Its coming along great!

Did you paint the shift pattern on the shift knob? love it!

I made the window net out of an electrical tape that has a texture like hockey tape. Used it for the roll bar padding as well. I have the other car in the kit, it came in a 2 pack with the Zerex car. I would like to make some modifications to the body, raise the door sides so the body can drop all the way down over the chassis. right now, it gets hung up on the roll cage on the top of the doors. The windows look too large, so fixing those would solve both problems, hopefully. I also think the nose is too straight up, so maybe a guy can sand the leading edge and soften that a bit? Has anyone improved the shape of these bodies and had success?

Started this a while back, had to stop for a while. I couldn't figure out what color the chassis was, so I watched a few races from the 1987 season until I saw the race where Ken wrecked bad, and you could see all the black under the hood after the wreck. I like the way it turned out, I used Tamiya paint, Italian red, obviously, and white. the decals are a combination of the kit decals, and a JNJ sheet.

Finished this one up tonight, looks good on the shelf but lots of flaws. Struggled with the paint, had to redo it in a few spots. The decals were a challenge as well. Ended up using 3 different sheets, the stock ones that were 30 years old, the unknown brand 1/25 scale ones for the side Valvoline and rear, and the Powerslide 1986-87 valvoline decal sheet. I love the paint scheme on this car though.

Charlie, I used Testors bottle paints, Arctic Blue Metallic (1109-RM11091_0611), and Blue Met. Flake (1539-RM15391_0811). The arctic blue is darker, a nd I mixed in a little purple for the belt line stripe. I mixed some of the arctic blue into the blue metal flake to darken it up a bit, and used that for the body and chassis. I watched a few races from 1991 on youtube to get an idea, then just mixed the colors to get what I thought looked close. I have no idea what the actual colors are.

Got some of this going, finally. The paint hasn't been going great. Had to paint the white on top twice, and it wrinkled up. had to redo the red in some spots because the tape pulled some off. I am going to clear it and wet sand before decals.

Tires are looking good, just need to add a bit of weathering to dull down the white.

Paint is on the main cage and the chassis. I forgot to add the vertical bars at the front, so I added them afterwards. I will have to hand paint them later.

I started with a glue bomb. Had to replace a few of the bars for the roll cage. It takes twice as long to try and fix this. I should have just bought an unbuilt kit.

This truck is turning out awesome! I love that you used the AMT NASCAR engine, I think its got good detail and a cool choice for hot rod builds.

the first pic is of the kit decals. the next one is a set I found on eBay. They are 1/25 scale though, so they are just a bit small. the numbers are the same size, but the Valvoline for the sides is a bit short. The decal looks a lot better though. hmm, not sure what to do with these.

I put the strips on the b pillar, then trimmed them back a bit. I think they are good where they are.

Shark, I have been looking at your steps, and watching some video of that season on youtube. I think I'm going to use the early chassis for the pan and the newer Lumina for parts of the front to get the suspension right. I don't want to use the newer one because I don't see any with oil tanks behind the seats yet in '88.

Shark, thanks for the input, that's what I was wondering about the chassis stuff. I have one of those I can use. Here are a couple of examples of what I was talking about. I already added a strip to the b pillar, but I may be second guessing that.

I was watching several of the 1988 races on youtube while building the Bobby Allison Buick, and decided I liked the Valvoline Pontiac driven by Neil Bonnett. Cool car, and now I picked up one to make. I have several questions about cars from this time period. The monogram Grand Prix body has a pretty thin B pillar. I have seen guys add a strip of styrene to make it thicker, and shorten the window to make it fit. Problem is, half the photos I find of this car, the B pillar looks thin and the other half it looks wider. Not sure if I should make that mod or not. Second question I have, when did the change happen where the oil tank moved behind the seat? Looks like Monogram started in 1990 with the Lumina kits, but they didn't do the Fords, Olds and Pontiacs that way for a few more years? Was there an official change in Nascar where that was required, or was it team by team preference? I am planning a few builds from this era, 1988-1993, and would like to get them close if possible. I'll add pics of the Pontiac tomorrow.

regular Tamaya gold, TS-21

I haven't tried to cut them either. I got the idea from this book I just picked up. If I do another kit that has them, I'm going to give it a try. they look like BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH as they are, so nothing to lose, right?

Yeah, it seems from the few underside pics I could find, that neither of these cars ran those headers. If i build another with those, i may try to cut the middles out, or use some of the headers from the later style GM kits.

Mike, that's cool that you got to meet him, sounds like he was a pretty cool guy! thanks for the tips, guys, I'm going to try a few things and see if I can get a better result on these tires. this never happened when i used the Testors dull coat, it just started happening with the Tamiya, so i think that's the fault point. might be able to clean them up with a blade, might just sand them clean and try a different dull clear over a new decal, we will see.

I ran out of the Testers flat clear, so I bought Tamaya. When I spray the tires over the decals, it seems to be too hot or something. It looks like the decal is peeling off, and ruins the effect. Does anyone have that same problem? Any ideas or suggestions?

Monogram kit, 30 year old kit decals looked pretty good, but they are thin and I think every decal tore while trying to set it. Testors bottle paint airbrushed for the blue and the dark blue. Had some extra 9 hole wheels, which is what this car used in most of the pictures i could find of it.