Force

Not yet as far as I have seen...but I'm presently in the US on vacation so I haven't checked for some days...when did you send them?

I got the #221 issue in the mail today, second in a row so hopefully the delivery problems are solved now. I'm still missing #217, #218 and #219 tho'.

Same here.

I think the two axle Ford C800 with a gasoline engine is way too small for the AMT Trailmobile moving van/race transporter trailer...but that's my opinion. The reason I thought the car choice was a bit odd was that AMT didn't have these kits but the competing company Revell did, even if the molds are with Atlantis now it's still kind of odd, but that doesn't matter much as one can use them for a display anyway. The AMT race transporter trailers came 1990 at the same time as the Kenworth T600A and T600A Canepa. It's not a big loss if the AMT race transporter hasn't been reissued since then, it's wrong for a post 80's race car transporter anyway. The trailer is originally the old Trailmobile moving van trailer from 1972 with an added kind of a racing car transporter interior with very long folded ramps for a race car to get access to the upper floor, and the racing teams stopped using old moving van trailers a long time ago. I do have a couple of them (one customized to fit a 90's 300 inch wheelbase Top Fuel Dragster built a long time ago) but they are quite short at 40 feet and are better as a moving van trailer than a race car transporter, and if I want to do another race transporter trailer I will probably build a more accurate 53 foot Featherlite style 2 story trailer with a rear lift gate from scratch.

The Testors HSO kits with the metal wheels and photo etch were issued in 1998-99 if you go by the date on the instructions wich is the only date on these kits, the Scalemates timeline for these kits are not correct as I believe these HSO series kits came about the same time as they have subsequent numbers, 7401 for the Olds 442, 7402 for the Plymouth 'Cuda, 7403 for the AMX and 7404 for the Rambler S/C, I have a few of them in my stash. As far as I know Testors did not mold any kits themselves so they had kits molded for them from other manyfacturers or reboxed bagged kits from others like Italeri, Lindberg, Jo-Han and others. One thing I know is that the AMX, Mercury Comet, Plymouth 'Cuda, Olds 442 and Rambler S/C tooling is missing after the last Testors issues and Testors was to issue another batch of these kits but it never happened due to that, who did the earlier issues for Testors I don't know...if it was left over stock from Jo-Han or if anyone else did the molding for them, if it was another company one would think the molds would still be there.

As some here has mentioned, the 1/24 kits first issued under the Monogram name and later issued under the Revell name are the most modern and detailed. The basic tooling is from back in 1984-85 when it came as a mid 80's Pontiac Trans Am in 2 versions and Ford Mustang 1 version, the tooling has since then been updated several times, with a 57 Chevy body wich Tom "The Mongoo$e" McEwen drove, and late 80's-early 90's Olds Cutlass bodies in 6 versions, mid 90's Dodge Avenger bodies in 7 versions and late 90's Pontiac Firebird bodies in 8 versions, the tooling was updated in the chassis and engine department over the years...so they are the best so far allthough it's not up to date today. Revell also did all new tooling for the Hawaiian and Chi Town Hustler 69 Charger funny cars in 2010 so they are the newest.

Nice to see you're at it again Rickard.

The moving van trailer would for sure have been a better choise based on the decals, but I'm sure Ed "Big Daddy" Roth never had a semi to haul his cars around...so it's a "what if" anyway. Another thing, Revell did the Mysterion and the Outlaw, not AMT, and the Orbitron was only available as a resin kit as far as I know, so it's a bit strange that Round 2/AMT chose to include them on the trailer sides.

The mail delivery over to Europe, Sweden and Finland especially, seems to be very iffy and sporadic nowadays to say the least. As you can see from my earlier post I'm still waiting for #217, #218 and #219 wich I haven't recieved and out of the last 10 issues I got 4 in the mail as it should, I've got replacements for a few but I'm still missing the ones listed above wich I've never got and I don't know if I ever will. It's not only this magazine, I subscribe to a couple more with the same problem, among them Rodders Journal wich I know have sent out the two missing issues that was missplaced during their move to foreign subscribers, a couple of friends of mine got their copys back in early August...but I never got my copys and I still haven't and I don't know if they are disappearing into a black bottomless hole somewhere. So it's something fishy going on and it worked a lot better before and during the Covid 19 pandemic than it does now.

The AMT Ecto 1A has chromed steel wheels with baby moons and the Polar Light Ecto 1 version has the full original style wheel cover, both are simplified kits, that's why I wondered.

Yes...this is a '59, not a '58. I wonder wich one they based this kit on, the AMT kit or the Polar Lights kit...Round 2 owns both.

The only thing a clear coat will do is dull the BMF, I allways do the BMF last.

Yes that's right The diagram provided by Gary is not so bad...a little small, tho', here is a larger one with trailer and converter dolly. Air inlets on the brake chambers, the rod on the upper left side is tha brake rod wich is cut to length when installed, on the left side of the chamber itself is the cage bolt, nut and washer when it's not in use and stored on the chamber.

Well it's not that easy then. I have read many car magazines and have tinkered with cars and model cars all my life so it's like second nature to me. But internet is your friend, if you search you will find as there are many sites on there where you can find information and pictures of how it's done..

Lo and behold, I got #220 in the mail today. Now if I would get #217, #218 and #219 it would be fine because they are still missing.

Well I have a commercial drivers license for full size trucks so I had to know how the air brake system on a truck works. ?

Here is how a brake chamber with parking brake looks like on the inside. The chamber with the heavy spring on the left side is the parking brake chamber wich needs air to compress the pring and release the brakes, without air this heavy spring pushes on the service brake diafragm and apply the brakes, it can be caged/compressed with a bolt to allow the vehicle to roll without air in the system if towed. No air in the brake system or parking/spring brake applied. Parking/spring brake not applied as the air in that chamber holds the spring compressed, and no service brake applied for normal driving. Service brakes applied when driving when you push the brake pedal down to allow air into the service brake chamber and press on the service brake diafragm, the parking/spring brake is not activated as the air in that chamber still compresses the spring . You screw in the cage bolt to the parking brake diafragm and screw on the nut to compress and pull the coil spring towards the end of the outer casing of the chamber to release the brakes, pretty much like in the lower two pictures above when there is air in the chamber, so the cage bolt will stick out quite far when the spring is fully caged/compressed and here is how the caged brake chamber looks like.

When you are going to lower or rise a model car, look at how its done in the real world and try to do it the same way on the model, if it works on a real car it will work on a model. Dropped axles, dropped spindles, cut down coil springs, blocks between the axle and leaf springs, and the other way around if you want the car raised Yes, it's a tube axle tho'. Most of the old school rods use I-beam axles.

You are quite right there Jim. When the cage bolts are not in use they are stored on the outside of the brake camber, or if you live and drive in areas where they salt the roads in the winter preferably in the toolbox on in any other dry place.

Cut off the pegs on the brake chambers, they shouldn't be there. I don't know why Revell put them there because no brake chambers on the market have these, it could be cage bolts but they are not used in normal operation, they are used when you have to cage the parking brake spring so the wheels can roll without any air in the system.

If it's plated plastic like on many modern cars it might, otherwise no it woun't touch it other than make it cleaner.

Yes, photos and information on the season 2 1975 trucks are very sparce, some still shots from the TV series itself and a very few other pictures are out there...believe me...I hunt down and save everything I can on all of the Movin' On trucks...and some others too for that matter. The season 1 1974 trucks is much easier as there are a lot more pictures and info on them. The picture from the Big Switch episode is of both the 1975 trucks used in the season 2 at the same time, they were ordered and built at the same time and are identical. Most people thinks that the trucks from both seasons are alike but here are some differences between the 1974 and 1975 trucks so if one are going to do an accurate replica of either one there is lots of things and small details to look for and get right. The thing I don't like is that in season 2 they dubbed on the 2 stroke diesel sound from Benji and Moose's GMC Crackerbox on almost all of the outside scenes of the "Sundance" Kenworth's...the trucks had Cummins NTC 4 stroke engines, not Detroit 2 stroke.

I'm sorry but the mechanic side of me can't let this go. The BAE engine looks weird because of the spark plug location and the strange shape of the valve covers. Real BAE engines are based on the 426 Hemi and the valve covers looks like this, they have the spark plug location in the same place as on the original 426 Hemi covers...pretty much in the middle and not near the top like they are on a Ford 427 SOHC. The blown Hemi is also a bit strange, the blower drive belt goes from the water pump and has no connection with the crank shaft below wich only has the harmonic damper on it, this setup will not work as you have no drive for either the water pump or the blower, because the crank should have pulleys there to drive them both as it's the only thing that can do that. Here is how it should look like, the blower drive goes from the crank up to the blower and an idler wheel wich is there for the tension of the belt, the water pump is not a part of the blower drive and has a separate V-belt to drive it and the pulley for that sits behind the blower drive pulley on the crank.

Yes I found that myself.

You nailed it quite good Tommy, it's a build to be proud of. ? I'm glad I could be of assistance and help you with what I know, it's fun when the result ends up this good. One thing that I haven't noticed before...the stacks...you have angeled "baloney" cut pipes and the TV series trucks had straight cut pipes...me picky??? You think?? ??