Custom Mike

Don't ask Chuck, I get easily confused, I think it's all the vintage Testors glue tubes I have around here!

Beautiful Hornet Chuck, and I still want a bunch of that finned valve cover!

Ira, I don't know how I missed this latest excursion into styrene insanity! Your imagination is seemingly limitless, I'm grabbing my popcorn and waiting for the next update!

You're a very brave man Rob, this will be a great one to watch!

The chassis is now set, I got the driveshaft tunnel to match between the front and rear sections, threw some primer at it, then laid down some Flat Black to make it all pretty! It's not flawless, but I'm not expecting anyone to be inspecting the underside of this model! That's all for tonight, I'll bring it up to it's current state tomorrow night! And I'm going to go with a basic Black interior, just to make it easier. That, and the body is the big draw on this one, who cares what color the interior is, it's a SuperDuster!

The chassis has been removed from the body and Acrylic Filler was added to the top side of the joints. Once it's cured fully, I'll work on getting the driveshaft tunnel to match between the front and middle sections, then I can move on to the rest of the build!

Here's the cleaned up and prepped section of the Pro Street chassis... And it's soon to be mate, the front section of the Duster chassis! Now here's where I got smart for once. The Pro Street wheel wells will not fit in the Duster body, they're too wide and straight. So I took the wheel well section of the Duster chassis and "painted" the edges with a Black Sharpie, then set it in the Pro Street wheel wells. Now I'll start sanding the Pro Street wheel wells until they match the curvature of the Duster wheel wells. When the Sharpie is gone, I've sanded far enough... Look at that, it worked! No sign of the Pro Street wheel wells anywhere! Not too bad, huh? A bit more sanding was needed, mainly because of the height of the Pro Street wheel wells, but it fits perfectly now! Now comes the fun part, making sure my wheels line up in the wheel wells. I taped the sections of the chassis together, built the rear axle, and front suspension temporarily, and checked out my work... Since we look good and lined up, a bit of Tamiya glue was applied to the joints between the different sections. Once the glue has dried, I'll pop the chassis loose, and apply some Acrylic Filler to the top sides of the joints to strengthen it all!

Now onto the real work, making the AMT '70 Super Bee Pro-Street chassis play nice with the '71 Duster chassis. This will be my 3rd or 4th time doing this, so I've gotten pretty good at it I hope. I started with the Pro Street chassis, I cut the rear section off so I could mate it to the Duster chassis, then removed the front section so I could use the front of the Duster chassis. Hacking the rear of the Duster chassis loose so I can attach to the body easily with the new, modified chassis... Next up, removing the rear wheel well area from the Duster chassis. I left the two side "rails" so I could make sure I had proper alignment with the original chassis location to make assembly of the modified chassis easier... Once the rear section of the Duster chassis was removed, I needed to fill in the holes for the kit exhaust, and fill in the holes left by the original frame rails...

OK, here we go with my part of this build, let's start with the backstory on this one... This one stretches way back in history to my BMC days, Sam (Sam I Am over here on MCM) and a couple of other guys had tossed this idea around prior to my joining, but nothing ever came of it. I arrived, and it popped up again somehow, and I volunteered my services to make it a reality. So Sam sent me an AMT '71 Duster kit, and the nose and wing from AMT's horrible '69 Daytona kit, and I made them magically come together. This one has large amounts of Acrylic Filler around the nose, and it shows zero signs of shrinkage, even though it was completed back in 2007! Here's some pics of how she looks right now, let the completion of this long suffering build commence! And a few close-ups of the nose. I took build this on for Sam mainly because I wasn't happy with my '71 Daytona's bodywork around the nose, so this one allowed me to fix my mistakes. It's also where I learned that you could cut a perfect panel line in Acrylic Filler, along with character lines from the existing body.! The underside of the nose has the lower pan from AMT's '71 Charger molded in, this was done to cover the front suspension and K-member that was clearly visible from the front. .

I think that's because nobdy but Bob Dylan knows what he's saying!

Great work Casey, it's coming together nicely now!

Jason, that is one pretty car! I love the interior, and the Root Beer paint looks like it should have been a factory color!

Mark, I think you're right, that nose does look good on just about anything but what it was designed for. That actually looks great Tom, are you gonna finish it?

Next up, I got the fuel rail attached, and fuel line all bent up nice and pretty, then attached the freshly painted and buffed valve covers... And the last shot for tonight, the rear end was painted Metalizer Steel, the shocks were pained Chrysler Engine Red, and the coils were painted with Metalizer Aluminum Plate.

Thanks guys, I appreciate it! OK, I got some more engine work done, and here's where a big issue popped up. Sam, who did you get those valve covers from? I ask because out of the three you sent, one had a huge void in it on the corner, another had a bad pinhole, and the third had most of the flange missing, along with the fact if was badly warped into an arc. I did my best, then the flange broke off of the second one, and I gave up and put 'em back in the bag. A quick search through my parts box yielded the same engine you sent (Apparently you robbed it from an AMT Challenger kit), so I stole it's valve covers and smoothed 'em out in preparation for the decals that came with the crappy resin ones. Problem #2, they fell apart as soon as they hit the water. So the valve covers were painted with Metalizer Titanium and buffed out. Whoever you got those valve covers from, lose their address, their stuff sucks! Nice pinhole, huh? Look at the missing flange on the two on the left, and that pretty void on the right hand one... And this guy charges for these? What a rip-off! The old AMT Valve covers, cleaned up and smoothed out.

I caught that too Rob, looks like it's a clear plastic rod, I wonder where he gets that from? Russ, I tried that link again, I even copied and pasted it into my browser, but it still comes up as a bad website address...sucks to be me!

Alyn, your work is just amazing, I wouldn't even consider going that far, but you do it regularly. Keep at it, I'll be over here drooling and mumbling in the corner some more...

Man, he is GOOD! That dashboard alone is a work of art, this man is a true Master Builder! I'd love to see more of his builds, but the link on that page is busted!

And on to the part that took the longest, making a fitting for the fuel rail. I put a piece of sprue in the Dremel, and thinned it down to almost the diameter of the aluminum tube I used for the fuel rail. I carefully drilled a hole down through the center, then I made a crude hex-head shape with some careful sanding, cut a sliver of it off, and stuck it on a piece of 26 Gauge craft wire. I attached it to the fuel pump, and once the epoxy cures, I'll put a few more bends in it and attach the fuel rail to it!

And now we're on to the engine! I drilled the head for plug wires, drilled the carbs and fuel pump for fuel lines, and made a fuel rail to get the fuel line up to each carb. It may not be accurate, but it looks cool! I also painted the freeze plugs with some Metalizer Brass, and picked out other parts with Metalizer Aluminum Plate.

Next up, I drilled some holes in the chassis to run the fuel line. You'll have to imagine a beautifully detailed, absolutely perfect fuel cell in the trunk, which does not open!

OK, we're back at it, the chassis is set, I got the driveshaft tunnel to match between the front and rear sections, threw some primer at it, then laid down some Flat Black to make it all pretty! It's not flawless, but I'm not expecting anyone to be inspecting the underside of this model! And I'm going to go with a basic Black interior, just to make it easier. That, and the body is the big draw on this one, who cares what color the interior is, it's a SuperDuster!

Great work on the suspension Don, and the engines look sweet! Now what's with all this measuring you're doing, I've never heard of such a thing!

Thanks Wayne, I'll get some pics posted tomorrow, I'm uploading some new ones right now!