Force

I do it exactly the same way...read the tip in a magazine in the late 70's-early 80's.

Yes the '29 Roadster was first but the '30 Coupe has also been out on the market, how could I else have bought the ones I have. Because I do have two each of both the Roadster and the Coupe and they were bought at the same time from Model Roundup about a year and a half to two years ago, the copyright date on the kit boxes is 2015 on the '29 Roadster (kit# 85-4322) and 2016 on the '30 Coupe (kit# 85-4326). The tooling for these kits was appearently damaged after the first run...at least that's the official explanation to why they only were issued once...and with the recent events regarding the Hobbico bankruptcy and the selling of both Revell US and Revell AG to a German company and mostly everything is on hold, so who knows if they ever will come out again. Here is Tim Boyd's topic when the kit was just released.

Over here everything is imported and a regular Revell US model kit costs around 300-400 Swedish Kronor retail wich is around 35-46 US Dollar, and the Revell AG kits are about the same on the higher side, so there are not a big difference in prices...but they vary a lot. They will kill themselves in time if they price the kits too high, no one will buy them or buy fewer of them. On the other hand...many complains on the pricing of styrene kit when they are under 30 Dollars but buy a resin kit for 70-100 Dollar is fine...a little strange huh.

Yeah, that kit has been out once allready, back in 2016.

I noticed one thing when I looked in a book about old Peterbilts the other day and saw pictures of 359's with center point steering, on those pictures the trucks looks to have a narrower track at the front axle, the front wheels are closer together and tucked further in under the fenders with the center point steering setup than with regular steering setup...if the axle is the same width between the kinpins for the spindles the difference must be in the hubs...I don't know. As I said in my earlier post, your build of this tractor trailer combination is very very nice and I look forward to see the final result.

Nice.

The Big Boy locomotives are cool. I have seen the 4014 (the one they are restoring) at the Rail Gigants Museum at Pomona Fairgrounds in California a couple of times...it was some years ago now.

Nice build as allways KJ.

Well no one will know if you never tilt the cab.

Interesting, I'm going to follow this. I read on H.A.M.B. that the Cragar Super Trick bolt together racing wheel was introduced in 1970 and became popular 1971-72, and the Centerline Auto Drag riveted together wheel came some years later in the mid 70's.

The easiest way to be sure to find what you're looking for is to look for the first issue with the 1979 copyright date on the box lid, all were molded in orange. There are some AMT/ERTL issues of the DOH Charger with copyright dates 1997 and 2001 on the lids kit# 8597 molded in orange, and a couple without dates on the lid with kit# 38372 from 2005 and 2007 with different boxart I think none of these are the same as the 1979 issue. Round 2 reinstated the MPC brand, no copyright dates on the box lids on these DOH Charger kits and most of them are molded in white, the kit numbers are 706, 706/L12 and 754/12 for the "glo in the dark" Ghost of General Lee issue and 766/06 for the collectors tin version. There is an Airfix version of the kit also from 1982 kit# 06430 or 9 06430 Here is a 1979 issue on ebay right now. https://www.ebay.com/itm/MPC-General-Lee-1-25-1969-Dodge-Charger-The-Dukes-of-Hazzard/202302163101?epid=1705140827&hash=item2f1a26089d:g:Y1AAAOSwuWha3naP

It looks to be quite true to the original...so it's a good replica.

I know many who lower their trucks now in the US use front axles for car haulers wich have more drop than regular axles, and low profile tires.

The real Daytona NASCAR race cars had much lower stance than the road going counterparts, especially in front, plus they had wider tires, so all of the NASCAR Dodge and Plymouth race cars back then had the wheel arches opened up. So MPC probably tried to replicate that and the molding was missed when they revised the body back. Here is a street Daytona and the K & K Insurance NASCAR race car nose to nose, you see the race car is substantially lower and the top of the front wheel arch is way above the crest of the body feature line that runs along the side of the body, even the rear arch is opened up right up against the same feature line on the quarter panel, the rear arch is about an inch-inch and a half below it on the street car.

Well I sent the email to Revell US, it was packaged there and should have done the quality control there, as I said, Ed Sexton ansvered but I did never get a new undamaged cab. The cab is the same for the more recent K100 Aerodyne except for the roof so it will probably be easy to get a new one...maybe I should ask at Revell AG. Otherwise I thought of the quality control in general as most of the later kits has been done over there.

The truck originally had torsion bar suspension...a system that's a little hard to maintain so a air ride is most likely better and needs less maintenance...and I have read that the Peterbilt Air Leaf is a smoother ride than the Kenworth Air Glide 100 and that's why many use it on KW's.

It's not the best Charger kit on the market but it was the first Charger I built...and it was back in 1979-80. Nowadays there are much better kits available.

Hopefully they are better than what they had before...but now everything will be measured in metric as the Germans has used that system for allmost forever (introduced in 1872)...so who knows. The thing I react to the most is the underscale wheels Revell put in many of the newer kits lately, they look like 13 inch wheels when you compare them to wheels from the older kits or wheels from other manufacturers. But there are much else that could be desired, it's not good when they have to redo a new kit because it doesn't have the right proportions, and sometimes they let obvious faults with some kits go through without correcting them. How hard can it be to take a measure (measure twice) and divide with 25.

I asked Revell US for new cab for the reissued Kenworth K100 flat top last summer as the cab in my kit was cracked when I opened it...Ed Sexton answered the email I sent but I never got one...and I will most likely not get one now. I'm not that impressed of Revell's Chineese quality control the last few years as it looks like more and more slipped through.

Isn't the 273 and 318-340-360 close in outside apperance, at least in model form, all of them are small block LA family engines.

I don't know when it was changed but the easiest way to be sure to get a older boxing is to look for the MPC lable on the box, mine from 1979 has the steering wheel you are looking for and it's molded in orange. Here is a picture of a box like the one I have, the kit number is 1-0661 and the 1979 copyright date is on top of the box, the AMT/ERTL labled ones also have copyright dates on top of the box but they are later (1997, 1999 and so on), and the newer MPC labled kits does not have any copyright date on the box top.

KJ at Double Take Repicas has a better reefer unit that the old unit in the AMT reefer kit, it's a corrected version of the Thermo King unit in the ERTL Great Dane reefer trailer. But you still need a tank and battery boxes for it.

It came out very nice Jarda. I have followed your progress and know some of the problems you had with this build but the result doesn't show it.

As Luc said, the original #T500-500 Unilite small window cab 359 issue was AMT's first truck model kit and came 1969, it had no sleeper but you could order a Restrite sleeper and visor from AMT, the original kits has a Detroit Diesel 8V71 and Stabilaire rear suspension, all six leaf springs are molded to the frame rails. I have one #T500-500 California Hauler kit, it's molded in blue-grey plastic...but the windows in my kit are clear, not green, some had the instructions printed in blue and some in black, mine are black...so they must have done at least two runs originally as they are slightly different. The second version of this tooling #T522 was the wrecker version of the Unilite small window cab 359 and it came 1972, I also have that one and it's molded in white. It's pretty much the same as the original kit with a "Big Stick" wrecker unit included, the same wrecker unit is used on the later #T533 1100 cab wrecker from 1977 and the kits after that. The third version #T500 came in 1973 and it's the same as the #T500-500 but included the sleeper parts tree with the sleeper and visor, I have one of these too and it's also molded in white. 1976 AMT did the #T501 1100 cab 359 wich got several other kit numbers later and the old Unilite small window cab 359 was forgotten until the latest slightly modified reissue of the original #866 from 2014. The 1100 cab 359 kit has a Cummins NTC 350 and Peterbilt AirTrac rear suspension with separate parts and this kit share no parts with the earlier Unilite kit. The tooling for the T500-500 was supposed to be lost but if I remember correctly some of the old #T500-500 359 tooling was blocked off on the #T502 Peterbilt 352 tool and had not been used since 1973-74, so it was as Luc said hidden in plain site, because the 352 tooling has been used several times after that. The original 359 came in 1969 and the 352 came 1970 so both the 359 and 352 must have been developed at the same time as they share some of the tooling, if you look at the instructions for the 352 they start with a "parts not used" box and these parts are for the 359.

Very nice, I like that livery.