horsepower

Much easier for those of us who want a vinyl top to do it with a little styrene strip, and a wide soft brush dipped in liquid glue and touched to the plastic, than it is for those who don't want one to remove the molded in one. The wide brush and liquid cement method is how I repaired the top of my '68 El Camino after fixing the sink spots, just sanded down the rest of the top to almost perfectly smooth then took a wide (3/4") soft brush and dipped it in liquid cement (evergreen styrene, white label) and just flowed it onto the roof without brushing it at all. After it dried overnight the surface was very close to the original vinyl casting from AMT.

Is that Dukes hood the same as the R2 Fast and Furious '70 Charger kit that's so baaaaad? (That's about the only part that even looks close to a '70 Charger and it has that horrible ghosting from the scoring for a hood cut out.)

I have that set somewhere in my stash, the set I'd like reissued is the Indy Roadster and rear engined Lotus kit. I had the original issue when I was in high school and traded off the roadster, I've got a roadster that is a semi build up, but it's going to be a replica of a big block super modified we've raced against.

If you want to get a good shiny metal finish either wait and polish the black, or put on a really shiny clear coat. You can use something like testors one coat wet look clear, or Krylon makes a clear that's sold as a clear glaze coat that is basically just a high solid clear and one wet coat builds like two, but you can even wait to polish it to a super high gloss before putting the Spaz-Stix Mirror Chrome on. Because the smoother the black finish is the better and more real looking your chrome finish will turn out. The real good thing about Mirror Chrome is they produce a clear top coat for it that won't affect the shine like happens with Alclad. It can even be top coated with two part urethane clear, the trick is letting it cure out completely. I race RC Sprint Cars and some of the guys use the Spaz-Stix on the wings using black on the back of the Lexan, the Mirror Chrome on the outside surface and use their clear to protect it because they definitely get handled a lot and they stay looking like highly polished aluminum after more than a full season of racing, it works good enough that many guys don't replace the wing after a season of racing, they just replace the side panels and re-use the center section of the wing.

Just one of my little oddities, but I've been really surprised by the amount of people who've built this kit that evidently didn't know that the lower corners of the cab aren't a separate piece on the real trucks. They're done the way they are to facilitate the molding of the cab as one piece.

Bet he'd only drive that on a dusty driveway once before changing the end of the headers to point out or back.

most of the commercial engines I've come across from '55 have been yellow, must be something about where they were built.

MV's are lights that come in various sizes and colors and are available at any fairly well stocked model train store, and some model airplane shops too.

You would think that someone would make something to stop the "static cling" our plastic models develop. At least when we're painting they're grounded (if we use the ol' clothes hanger paint stand, and a simple dusting of isopropyl alcohol in the airbrush will dissipate any residual static from the tacking process. (Something I learned while painting full size Corvettes, boats, and other plastic cars).

That's really clean, looks like it came out of the box that way. Now I need to attempt a two wheel drive version that's down in the weeds very with some of the trick interior pieces you'd expect to find in one of those.

Really like the four link setup and independent front suspension, where did you source the pieces from for the front suspension and did it require a complete front clip on the frame, and if so where did it come from. Now I'm waiting for a GM, or MoPar equivalent from you, you do know that you have to give equal time during an election year don't you. ?

I like the high dollar parking brake on the bottom one ?. You'd think what with all the money the have evidently invested that a working parking brake wouldn't be a problem, or at the minimum a chrome parking chock.

Thanks for the clearer picture showing off the seat back. I stand (barely) corrected.

The best of these "multi" kits was a four car set that was all Corvette's, of which I bought one at $19.99, from KB toy liquidators, and three at $10.00 each when even they decided to liquidate what they had left. The only one in the set that didn't have a ton of extra parts was the '53 version, but even it was good for trading to a friend who was building a model of the "Waldorf Nomad" (Corvair concept car).

That '40.sedan has been released several times, but instead of the dented fenders and broken glass it has custom parts, extra engine and wheels and parts to make it a '39 sedan.

Those look interesting, but it talks about a particular laminating machine, doesn't it make the cost higher if you have to purchase that machine?

I've picked up a thing or two from Ebay, and from that and what I see on their website I could inherit the national debt on what I would LIKE to order, just some of their engines and parts are worth it. I'd like a few of their late model Mustang supercharger kits to make some faster hot rod engines, and a couple of "sleeper" Mustang's.

I think what Bill is referring to is the lack of a back on the rear seat. In the picture it shows a piece of plastic that we're assuming is the seat, that just comes up and curls over at the to and ends there. I had to look twice since I was giving them a lot of good will thinking it might be one of those curtain type pull back covers for concealing anything in that area, and to help protect the rear carpet. But not that lucky it's just an attempt at making a cost cutting maneuver in tooling. Wonder how much it saved not having to mold a seat back?

The Grabber Orange is pretty close to what Richie used, but the exact color is good old Omaha Orange, the one used by many states on their fleet of trucks and equipment and is available in many different manufacturers spray paints. When Richie first started racing somehow some paint from work ended up in his lunch pail and that's what started him on the famous Orange cars.

thanks for the info, I hope I can get them before they disappear?

A lot of people made the mistake of picking up three two barrel carbs and putting them on the aftermarket (or factory option in some cases) and trying to adjust the idle on ALL THREE carbs to match, or at least run smoothly. What most don't know is that only the center carb is supposed to even have an idle circuit, and on factory setups there isn't even provisions for it, but you CAN cheat and use production standard two barrel carbs, just screw the air bleed adjustment screws ALL the way in then adjust your center carb so the engine idles right. My younger brother had a blown Chrysler in a flat bottom Sanger that had been a fuel flat bottom drag boat that had been detuned for a ski boat and the big thing they did was remove the injection and put two 750 competition Edelbrock carbs on the blower but he always had a problem with not getting it to idle slow enough to go through marinas and launch areas, and it would on occasion load up and foul a plug or two if you tried to idle into a long cove and I told him I'd fix it if he'd listen. I just shut the idle screws down to one of the carbs and it made it as docile as a little lamb, it would slow right down to 5 mph, wouldn't load up, and when skiing all you had to do was bump the starter when your skier was ready and it would fire up instantly and pop your skier right out of the water (direct drive V drive) since both carbs went directly into the blower it didn't know how many carbs or what was putting air and fuel into the engine it would mix it equally and dump it where needed. Another friend had a T bucket roadster with a 283 and powerglide with six twos and it was so simple to make a mild street driver, we just put sheet metal pieces cut to the gasket shapes under the front and rear carbs and didn't put set screws in the linkage on those four, it ran just fine on the center two carbs and no one ever figured out how we made it idle and drive so clean on a stock little motor.

there is a trick that keeps the exhaust from bluing, especially on the heavy cast manifolds, we would coat the inside with a thick layer of white grease and if you didn't go out and stand on it before it "cooked" and cooled it would hold up to just about anything but wide open throttle freeway runs. We even used it on "T" buckets with sprint car type headers and after ten years they're still chrome without any bluing.

O.K. I have to admit I'm probably the worst person there is for putting off today something I can do tomorrow, but I've really been bit on the tail this time. I've been trying to collect parts for building a model of my uncle's '59 Chevy Impala, and have almost everything but the hubcaps he ran, and I was going to order a set from Modelhaus, and that's not possible now, so if any has a set of the full wheel covers for a '57 Plymouth they're not going to use...they're the ones that have a band of small rectangles around the outer band and are a full pointed in the center cap that is almost like a spun disc, but high shine. I'm willing to trade or purchase. Thanks for any answers, Del Streetman.

How about the auto trans in the Moebius 390 equipped Ford pickup kit?

that one looks like a generic 327 powered version at best, not an SS 396 from my viewpoint anyway.