Dennis Lacy

It was also just completely restored for comedian / vantriliquist Jeff Dunham who has an impressive collection.

I wonder if there is a clinical name for a tape-measure fetish???

Maybe the forum needs a "Safe Section" where sensitive people can go get virtual hugs just in case they accidentally encounter one of those words before a moderator can erase them?

I don't think you guys are giving enough credit for interest in American cars & trucks. There is a thriving segment of interest, particularly vintage vehicles, in Germany, France, UK and the Scandanavian counties. On a weekly basis vintage cars located in the US are being sold to these countries and going on a big boat ride. Japan is another huge buyer right now. These people are hungry for American culture and are well aware of what's going on here in the States. In a lot of ways, they are doing it better and more hardcore than we are.

Man, this turned out awesome! The weathering makes it look like it's been raced a few years in a row and they didn't clean the salt water spray off. I really like the wheel and tire combo and the splash aprons. What's next?

Nice! Looks really neat with the roadsters Buick engine and I like the color scheme.

Very cool! Digging the Red Ram and cut down Chevy rear section. Are you going to rework that hard top to fit? That would probably look awesome.

Just not around here. Haven't seen that guy post here in a couple of years. Another cool wheel and tire set that would look awesome are from the Lil Coffin show rod by Monogram. Similar rear wheels and whitwall slicks with matching front wheels and skinny whitewall tires.

Fantastic chop! Too bad Dr. Cranky isn't still around, he'd be all over those frame rails covered in watch parts. Since you don't seem confident with the front wheels & tires I'd suggest something else. Did the rears come from the Boothill Express? How about the front 12-spokes from that kit?

I love Street Outlaws. Those guys are the real deal. Chuck is definitely my favorite. Cheif and Shawn have a weekly podcast "The Cheif And Shawn Show" that's fun to listen to. Great insight into their world and great stories. I also very much enjoy Fast & Loud. Never missed an episode. The build quality and depth of their projects has gone way up from where they started. The '34 Coupe they recently built with guest Brian Bass is phenomenal! Love him or hate him but Richard Rawlings is doing something right. He's grown that business and brand like crazy in the last 6 years. Their name is on everything. If he had a low key personality none of that growth would have happened. Who cares if he doesn't work on any of the cars? That was never intended to be his roll from the onset. He's the business man and promoter. My Dad doesn't work on the cars that come through our shop, either. That's what I'm paid to do. He does the hard part - running the business! Now I'm checking out Aaron Kaufman's new show and so far, so good. For those that don't like Fast & Loud his show is (so far) much more straight forward.

Ambitious project! Replicas & Miniatures Co. of Maryland offers a Cabriolet, Sport Coupe and a closed cab Pickup. They all fit the Revell '32 series kits. While simply putting a '32 grill and hood on a '34 truck will save a bunch of work, the '34 has a 6-inch longer wheel base than a '32 making the fenders more centered on the bed. On a '32 truck the fenders are heavily offset towards the front of the bed. Also, my dad owned a legit '32 Roadster Pickup for 20 years. The cab shares nothing in common with the passenger car Roadster body sheet metal. It also shared nothing in common with the closed cab sheet metal except for the subframe and gas tank seat base. But, you're correct about the fixed position up-top. It didn't fold and had to be removed entirely if one wanted to go topless.

I did notice that. It's especially obvious in these new pics. It's weird because it's the same grill shell from the previous version. The bottom edge that sits on the frame has been slightly trimmed because I slightly trimmed the firewall feet to drop the cowl and everything used to line up. The factors that changed is I replaced the hood top and frame. Looks like I'll need to replace the shell with one that isn't trimmed, or trim the firewall feet a little more. Either way, it will get corrected. I do really like the added center trim to the grill insert on the Hollenbeck AMBR car. (Truly beautiful car in person by the way!) I'll give that some thought.

UPDATE! Didn't have a ton of time over the weekend so I did what I could. Taking a step back, this is how I adapted the wheels to the axles. I circumcised the tip of the axle and inserted a length of .060" rod. The rod is also an exact fit through the center holes in the Revell '29 & '30 Ford kit finned brake drums that I'm using. The rear is the same procedure. And, as luck would have it the center holes of the Revell '40 & '48 Ford brake plates are the exact right size to fit over the large shoulder on the axle making them a direct fit. The rear is similar but requires filing a flat spot on the bottom of the larger shoulder making it a "D" shape. Today I roughed-in the front motor mount brackets on the frame. They were made from .040" sheet and 3/32" tube for the round "cushions". I still need to clean them up a little and add triangle gussets to the bottoms. As luck would have it they ended up right in front of the steering box so I didn't have to relocate it. I did pin the steering box to the frame rail so it would stay in place. Hosted on Fotki Mock ups! For the previous version of the project I had stripped all of the chassis chrome and was gonna go with the monochromatic look. I decided to start over fresh with chrome parts and also decided to ditch the modern 4-link bars for the retro hairpin bars. The axle mounting tab on top of the spring got the tried and true Tim Boyd modification to lower the front and the ends of the hairpins were drilled, had pins inserted and attach directly to the side of the frame rails. I also stuck the custom grill insert in from the AMT / Lindberg '34 Pickup to see how it would look. Comments and opinions welcome!

I know Eastwood, have seen the re-creation in person several times and have met Barakat. Killer car, Awesome guys!

No bench time today. Had to go to work this morning to have a progress show & tell with the Woody owner, came home and did front yard work while we had a break in rain (starting to look a little WT) and finished just in time to host my Sister In-Law's birthday dinner. Bench time definitely planned for tomorrow. Gonna try and finish the engine set up and fit it to the frame.

Sure! I'll tackle it at some point over the weekend.

Some really nice work going on here! I especially like your solution for drilling the carburetors. This is gonna be a killer hot rod!

Good to hear from you, Bradley! Glad you're still around!

"Expanded Original Decal Sheet" Based on their latest decal sheets that alone will make it worth it!!!

Thanks to everyone for the comments, they're always appreciated! Glad to see such positive feedback on the wheels & tires. They're definitely not the same ol', same ol'. Looking forward to the weekend so I can put some more time in on this one. Gonna try and fast-track it to completion since, technically, it's my oldest WIP at this point.

Thanks, Bill! Either I know what I'm doing or I got lucky. A little of both, perhaps.

You're the only that doesn't like them! So far...

Excellent work here. Being into hot rods I just love the Willys delivery and the reworked Silhouette set is absolutely INSANE! Killer imagination there.

Here's how I modified the wheels and tires to fit together. More on the axle modifications later. The front outer wheels fit into the tires as-is. I made rear inner rim rings by cutting away the larger flange from the inner wheel half. Hosted on Fotki Hosted on Fotki To mount the wheel I installed a plastic bushing in the center dimple of the wheel made from 3/32" Evergreen tube and drilled them to fit onto the .060" rod stubs I glued into the ends of the axle. Hosted on Fotki Hosted on Fotki Hosted on Fotki To make the rear wheels fit I first had to remove the four flange quarters inside of the tires and sand them a bit with the some 80-grit so that the wheels weren't a super tight fit. Hosted on Fotki After modifying the tires the outer wheel halves fit as-is but like the fronts I'll have to modify the inner wheel halves to fit. To do that I cut the centers out of the barrels then shortened the barrels to 1/8" under the flanges. I then attached the removed centers to the backsides of the outer wheel halves and installed plastic bushings made from 1/8" Evergreen tube which already had the correct outside and inside dimensions. In the end it turned out I needed to space the wheels out a bit so I made spacer discs from the discarded front inner wheel halves. Hosted on Fotki Hosted on Fotki Hosted on Fotki Hosted on Fotki Here I've propped up an unmodified set of wheels and tires to show the difference. Hosted on Fotki Comments Welcome!

Yes Sir, the "I raided the O'Brien Trucker's catalog" look. Gauranteed to land you a Rodders Journal cover! LMAO!!! I took tutorial pictures for modifying the wheels and tires which I will add to the thread in the next few days. It was your suggestion on TRAK that they might fit the '41 Lincoln tires that got the ball rolling. So thanks!