GrandpaMcGurk

Doc, I'm sure in your minds eye you have a pretty good idea of how your van is going to turn out and as near as I can figure it's going to scream "bling"! It may have already crossed your mind.....but after squinting at the pics, I'm sort of seeing gold spokes in the wheels with chrome rim & center section?

Thanks a million Larry, I really appreciate it pal, problem is my better half is shaking the honey do list in my face at the moment....I'm sure you know how that goes. If nothing else works there's always that tired "you spend more time with those toys than you do with me" guilt trip. Such is life.

Maybe a visit to the wild side...

Ira, I figure you're just making stuff look the way it should....right?

Thanks Charlie, glad you like it. The wide whites on the tall tires really fill up the huge wheel wells and give it that "yeah I'm bad...and I'm wearing a tux, so what?" attitude. There I go drifting off into la la land again....later.

Brian, dude if you haven't already, you gotta get involved in this 40 Ford pickup "build off thing"....great fun. Making the meetings is one thing.......heck, I showed up 15 minutes before it was over last go around. If you can't make it to the meetings...no worries....build a truck and I'm sure between now and the finish date we can figure out some way to include your model if you can't be there. After-all, that's what F.A.S.T. is all about........good folks having a good time. Anyway.......here's the kit everyone is building their own version of. No rules other than the Nov. deadline.......build it any way you want, (probably) should use something from the kit, LOL. We're supposed to keep what we are doing as individuals to ourselves until the unveiling.......Arrrrggggggg!

I'll be darned......once I hammer the Vette rag top into submission it just might look like a hot rod. .

Thanks guys....I've extended the nose of the blower so that I could run a belt and pulley to the water pump (the model car companies seem to figure it runs by magic I guess). Kinda like those pulleys that have no visible means of support other than the belt. Still have to cram an alternator in there somewhere. I've also started to weather the engine a bit...after all it's a hot rod, clean but run hard. Nuff gabbing...here's some pics, I really like the fat whites.

Have to hang a pumpkin under here somewhere so I think I'll go with coils, shocks and Brooklyn Bridge traction bars. For the upper coil buckets I cut a section of the cap from defunct drafting pens and tied them together with sheet plastic....this will become a rear crossmember.

The sleeves make all the difference Bob...it not only makes the rail stronger and less prone to sagging, it looks way cool.

Now that I have established the engine size I'll be able to build a frame...this will be a rather hefty model so I'll need a strong frame. I've built a couple this way before so I know it'll take the weight. I start with rectangular tubing and drill some over-sized "speed holes" in it. Short pieces of tubing inserted into holes give me a completely boxed sturdy frame rail. Same process for the rear kick-up...I slid a smaller piece of tubing inside joints where the rails kick up for added strength. The frame horn was constructed from sheet plastic.

That's more like it.....finally....I'm happy with the size of the engine. Here's a pic of the cut down metal block between the 1/6th and the TDR 1/8th blocks. Here's a mock-up, works for me.

I really didn't want to have to build this engine from scratch so I'm back from the shed covered in metal dust and shavings carrying a handful of metal chunks. The bottom of the block was removed and cut down, a section was removed from the length and width of the remaining block.......measure twice and cut once...yeah right! That just never seems to work for me. Any how...I'm tacking the pieces back together with automotive metal epoxy for a little eyeballin'. I'll have to rebuild this core plug as I really didn't notice my cut would run right thru it. The front and back of the block have been filled in with plastic sheet and 2 part filler.

Let's try this, a 1/8th scale TDR Hemi block...... NO CIGAR... bummer, too small for my tastes! Well I guess that takes care of all the "easy way out" magic bullets......Oh my, what to do, what to do? I'm thinking I'll take one of these 1/6th die cast engine blocks out to the workshop (band saw is in the shed) and give it a tummy tuck. Hopefully I'll be able to come up with an engine that suits my orbs.

Alright then......I was hoping I could just stuff in one of those 1/6th die cast engines and as luck would have I have several kickin' around here. Slam, bam and so on. Arrrrgggggggg! No way, no how, forget it! It's just way too large to the point of hurting my face to look at it.

Another winner!

You guessed it Bart......yellow it is (at least some of it).

Just wait til you see the engine........the tires won't look quite so big! 1/6 is simply too big and 1/8th is a tad small.....guess I'm going to have to cobble up something around 1/7th.

Yep...this should look right at home in the country club parking lot! Nice work.

The tires are 1/8th, the body started out as 1/12th.

Not quite ready for the heater yet Bart, but I'll be using my interpretation of a Topo for the body.....It's an old Lindy clunker I had laying around. The rear of the roof has been raised (to clear the mystery drivers phat head). New back window and I really exaggerated the rear tire cut outs & spare wheel well opening...that's where the drag chute is going to live.

Woof...looks the the front end of a steam roller! I'm happy with these. Now what to do about the body? Could scratch one, but that's a hassle I don't need right now, so I think I'll use one from an old dusty project.

Johnny, I've had these for quite a while and was going to use them on a project that wasn't getting anywhere, they are however perfect for this build.

To give you an idea of just how big & wide these puppies are.....I asked Mr. Hand to pose with a tire.

This thread will be about a build inspired by Ira's zany creations. Thanks for getting my tired ol' Mo Jo flowing again Ira! I'll be putting gobs of detail into this build although I'm throwing scale and mechanical correctness to the wind. In other words, if it looks cool it's simply peachy keen as far as I'm concerned. I'll be using a mixed bag of materials, stalled project parts, metal, clay, resin and whatever else I can get my grubby mitts on that doesn't hurt my face. Okay then.......The first order of biz is to formulate some sort of vision into what I want build.......yeah some guys are going to say "that's lame dude", I'm cool with that. Others may question my sanity...whatever. Frankly....I'm fixing to have some fun, not to win any sort of contest or fame & glory. I needed some big honkin' rear tires and although I have a huge selection of tires in my parts bin, nothing really fit what I had in mind. So the Madd Fabricator came to my rescue with these humongus resin castings. Well buddy.....these are some big mutha's!