Aaronw

I just need a time machine and a stack of $100 bills....

I've been around a few hybrids, my aunt had a Prius, and we have a few Ford Escapes at work.They are very quiet when the engine hasn't kicked on, and it often doesn't at low speeds. I could easily see a pedestrian getting hit in a parking lot by an inattentive driver, and the pedestrian would not have to be an idiot, just hit from behind. My aunt came to visit a few years ago when she had the Prius. Just happened to arrive when I was walking to the house. It was cold so I had a knit cap over my ears, but no traffic, and not many people around. I didn't hear her until some gravel crunched under the tires when she was less than 10 feet away. Even then I didn't think it was a car, I turned to look back and expected to see another pedestrian, not a car. No sidewalks so if she had been an idiot driver I could have easily been hit. 10-15 mph probably won't kill you but it can still hurt. My vote is to give electric cars the car sound from the Jetson's.

I'm sure that has purists gnashing their teeth, but I like it. I don't even build customs and that has me wanting to track down a 356 kit. Pete has a good point too, the starting place makes a huge difference to me. If I knew a guy butchered a pristine Model T to make a bucket T, I'd be disgusted. Same guy takes a rusted chassis with a few bits of car attached he yanked out of a blackberry patch have fun, at least as a hotrod it will be on the road instead of rusting away. The quality of the work plays a big part as well, there have been many monstrosities posted here that are an insult even if they started with the creature from the brier patch. There is a guy Gary Wales building retro touring cars from old fire trucks which is causing a minor bruhaha among fire apparatus collectors. Some feel it is better to let them rust in peace rather than be rebuilt as something else. This I kind of agree, I mean your money, your truck, but.... no thanks. But that isn't what this guy is doing. He is taking trucks that would otherwise be scrapped and making them into something interesting. Anyway I think they are pretty neat even overcoming my biases to cutting up old fire trucks. If I had the means I'd buy one. An idea of what these looked like at one time. He says he only uses a chassis that is beyond having a reasonable chance for restoration. Kind of a broad statement, with enough money anything can be restored. As an example of what he considers too far gone, the fire engine that became the car on the right had been stripped and left out in the woods for a few decades before he got it.

They also sold new for less than most couple of years old economy cars, they were cheaper than a Hyundai which at the time were freakishly cheap themselves. People in that market don't usually have the money to follow the recommended maintenance. Most of the people I knew who bought a Yugo were high school or college students. It doesn't help a cars reliability image one bit when most of the owners are deciding between an oil change and a big box of ramon noodles at Costco. I remember looking through an old car buyers guide and under the Yugo it mentioned the scarcity of A/C on the used market. That was one of the few options offered and it would raise the price by about 50%.

Reverend Horton Heat is fun. Many of these bands have been around awhile but the past year or two I've buying a lot more retro swing and rockabilly, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Brian Setzer Orchestra, Squirrel Nut Zippers, The Blasters, Cherry Poppin Daddies, Crown Royal Review. This is one of my favorites from Big Bad Voodoo Daddy Some of the electro swing that leans more swing and less techno is pretty good too Alice Francis

What if you made some flexible foam (neoprene maybe?) rings sized a little smaller than your arm and attached them to the arm holes. Then you would just shove your gloved arms through them. You could use caps or flaps to cover the holes when not in use to help keep dust out / fumes in.

Look at frying pan spatter screens at the grocery store , Walmart etc. These use a variety of materials for the screen from a fine woven mesh screen to a variety of etched metal screens, circles, diamonds etc. I've picked up a few over the years that work great for diamond shaped expanded metal. It generally works out to be much cheaper than buying etched metal from a hobby supplier. Example https://www.walmart.com/ip/3-Piece-Splatter-Screen-Set/36670309 The one downside is you have to buy them in person so you can see what the style of screen they use.

It is called an extension cord, oh wait...

I've never seen an ad campaign cite a study that made them look bad. You will probably* never see an ad from Nissan proclaiming that they have the 6th best selling truck in the US. I'm sure every car maker can find a study out there showing that they make the best xyz, it is just a matter of wording. I'm sure even the Yugo was the best something. * I say probably because if I didn't some ad guy out there will ironically reference that stat just to prove me wrong.

Nice, hope they get some mileage out of the mold, from what is in the box they could hit 19 years of production with some simple changes, mostly wheels, grill and hood. I don't think this would be that hard to convert to a factory stock 242, and very easy to convert to a street legal weekend racer. I Hope they offer a rally version down the line, I think that would mostly just be different wheels / tires and some rally lights. I'd love to see them offer a 1980 US spec car with the quad round headlights, the best looking 240 in my opinion. The quad rectangular headlight cars come in second. A 244 and 245 is probably just getting greedy. Jonathan where have you found the best price on this? I know you shop several of the Japanese vendors. I have a 1-1 1985 244 so it is a moral imperative that I get one of these. I will add the obligatory nitpick, the oil pan shouldn't be flat on the bottom, the pan has a distinctly rounded profile.

Legos You can buy the bricks individually direct from Lego. I had a nice set color coded by size / shape until my Dad and son got into them and mixed them in with his Legos. I haven't got around to reordering another batch, but it isn't terribly expensive. The only time I've had Mark's issue of having to make a bigger box than I would like was when dealing with a random selection where I didn't have the best choice of options. I have a plastic HDPE cutting board I use as a base, it has a slightly pebbly texture that the clay can get a good grip on. I have never used mold release except for the silicone to silicone contact of two part molds, and I use petroleum jelly for that.

So does it sound like a Norelco or a Remington? Or maybe a Braun. I think putting an automatic in a 911 was a greater offense than putting a high performance electric motor in one.

They got caught too and had to stop that practice. Also why we lost the Ranger, they moved production overseas and it became subject to the tax, making it unprofitable. As the Big 3 move more light truck production out of the country, and the tax is being enforced on them they have been more interested in a repeal. Light commercial vehicles were thrown in by Johnson as a bribe to the auto unions not to strike in the run up to election. It is the only element that remains of the chicken tax the other industries impacted by it have long sense been excluded. It has cost us as consumers some very interesting and useful vehicles over the years. I for one would be happy to see it go.

I'm not talking about loaded, that stuff has been around since at least the late 80s. Its basic design, these new trucks are so overstyled with big swoopy flared fenders, large plastic grills etc that any damage requires replacement. The older designs were simple, you could pound it straight , maybe tack weld more severe damage like a deer strike and it looked good again. We have a lot of unpaved roads at work and the new trucks just don't hold up, the body panels tear, tail gates break loose and the plastic clips begin to fail within 2 years. We mostly run 3/4 tons, so they should expect them to be doing work. I understand the 1/2 tons are largely aimed at casual truck users. The fenders may be big, but they are not well designed. Many don't work to keep the mud under the truck anymore, we get back in after the rain and the whole truck from the front wheels back is brown. Sometimes there is even mud on the roof! On the older trucks before big manly flares became popular, you just had a patch behind the wheels to hose off. This is going back some way, but we got one new truck that within 30 days was having all sorts of power issues. Turns out it was the air filter, first year of a new design and some rocket scientist thought it would be ok to put the air intakes behind the front wheels. As the truck was so new it took awhile for somebody to think to check the air filter. We probably got 3 pounds of dirt out of it. After that we started carrying 3 extra filters and would shake out the filter each week and after every fire. We noticed the following year they had extended the air intakes up to the grill. Chevy has been the light weight better looking, better highway driving truck of the big 3 for a long time, but it used to be after the 4-5 years of use the Fords and Dodges were a good buy at auction for people who needed a cheap work truck. As we tended to baby the Chevys they weren't a bad choice either. These days we are limping them along for the last year or 18 months and once they hit auction they are mostly good for parts, or good bones for a major rebuild. We keep up the maintenance so the guts are good but the bodies are coming apart.

The 1990s was pretty much the end of trucks being trucks. We reached a high point around 1993. Rugged, simple easy to repair shapes and mostly functional styling. Not to say the new trucks are not capable, but they have lost the point of a pickup truck being a working utility vehicle and have sold out the designs to meet the desires of soccer moms and urban four wheelers.

I think this is the one used on some box style ambulances in the 80s and 90s. From memory it looked better as an ambulance.

There is a plastic 1950s style trailer from a 1/24 diecast truck that would work. I think this is it. Sometimes you can find the trailer by itself considerably cheaper. I kept meaning to get one for myself but never got around to it, they were fairly cheap and available on ebay. Appears not to be the case at the moment. Ertl 1950s trailer If you are patient Round 2 may re-issue the set of doubles, I understand those are an appropriate style for the the 1960s. Lindberg's milk tanker trailer is also supposed to be of 1960s vintage and can be made long or short. The Lindberg van trailer is also supposed to be of an earlier style and and shorter than others, 40 feet I believe. All of these trailers are newer than the F8, but should work for an experienced F8 still at work in the 1960s. Flatbed would be another option, as those are fairly timeless and relatively easy to scratchbuild. What about a restored hauler with a lowboy? A 1950 F-8 would be a nice looking hauler for the Fergusson and / or Porsche tractors, or an antique fire engine...

I've have a hard time coming up with a project, but I'll be going with a Monogram Mack AC. Not entirely sure where I'll be headed with it, but I've got a few ideas.

Hi Matt, not sure if by "looking for" you mean available in plastic / resin, or you mean ideas for 3D printing. If the second... A Cummins L10 would probably be well received. It was a popular medium duty diesel truck engine in the 80s and 90s and often used in a fire engines. The Navistar DT466 and 530 series is another I know many have mentioned wanting. I know both have been on the to do list by some resin casters, but it has been years and I don't believe either have actually made it past the "to do" point. Detroit diesels are always a possibility. Someone did a Detroit 6-71 but I don't think it was available long, it has been years since I saw it offered. The 6-71 (and related 2-71, 3-71, 4-71) was in use for 50+ years, extremely popular in medium and heavy duty trucks as well as marine and industrial use. The Detroit 6v71 / 6v92 can be made from an 8v71 / 8v92 but I would guess it would still do well as many would prefer to buy a ready to go engine kit vs converting one. I don't believe anyone has ever done a Detroit 6v53. It is another medium duty truck engine, that also saw a lot of use by the US military in light armored vehicles. There are some people out there now putting these engines into pickup trucks as it is about the biggest diesel that you can squeeze under a 1 ton hood. The Detroit 8.2 liter "fuel pincher" was by most accounts a terrible, terrible engine, but it was widely used in medium duty trucks, the Ford C and Louisville in particular. A Caterpillar 3208 would be another medium duty to consider. Either a full engine or parts to do a conversion of the Caterpillar 1160 in the Ford Louisville kit (minor differences, mostly fuel rail and valve covers). Some more obscure possibilities are some of the English diesels that found use in US trucks in the 1960s. The Perkins 6.354 which was used in several Dodge medium duty trucks including the L700. Ford of England had the Dagenham and Dorsett diesels which Ford used in the Ford C and F series trucks prior to 1970.

If you go to the Shapeways site they have links to a bunch of 3d programs that are compatible with Shapeways, free, cheap and pay programs. http://www.shapeways.com/creator/tools I've been fooling around with Google Sketchup for a couple of years. There are a lot of good videos on youtube and I found it is fairly user friendly. Unfortunately I'm also finding it has limitations when it comes to 3d printing. It was originally designed for 3d modeling online, not really intended for 3d printing. They also keep some of the most useful features out of the free part. They do offer an inexpensive student version if you are able to get your teenager to remember to bring home his student ID (3 years running mine has been unable to manage this feat). I am in the process of trying some of the other programs, but none are what I'd consider intuitive.

There are actually a lot of good performance four cylinder engines, it's just that many fixate on the large displacement V8s. Turbo 4s were giving the gutted, smog / fuel consumption compliant V-8s of the 1980s a good run for performance. Of course there are a lot of great 4 cylinders doing what they do best, be lightweight, reliable and sip gas, but I don't think most are looking for those here. Don't forget the Ford 2.3 liter used in the Pinto was later equipped with a turbo for use in the Merkur XR4Ti, Thunderbird Turbo Coupe and Mustang SVO where the final versions reached 200 hp and provided more power than the factory stock 5.0 V-8s. The 4 cyl SVO was the hottest Mustang available in the mid to late 80s. Volvo's 2.1 to 2.3 liter "red block" is legendary for its durability and ease of repair. It is not at all uncommon to find original engines still running well with 500,000+ miles on them. The non-turbos peaked at around 114hp, but the turbo versions in the late 80s were reaching 160-190 hp in stock form which was pretty respectable power for the time. 1983-85 Volvo offered a limited production (500 / year) evolution version of the 242 to allow them to compete in the European Touring car Championship. These cars made 300hp from a worked over redblock. Today enthusiasts are tweaking these engines to get 200-250hp, and heavily worked over examples nudging 400hp are out there. Not bad for a car that takes styling cues from Frigidaire.

I've got a few ideas, but I'll wait until after Christmas to commit to a specific kit. Just keeping my options open in case Santa is nice to me.

My wife and I are getting a Silhouette Cameo for Christmas, so I haven't played with it yet. We both have hobbies that it seemed useful for, and they had a Black Friday deal on these a few weeks back. In addition to cutting thin plastic I know of aircraft modelers using these to create canopy masks and painting stencils to use in place of decals. With ALPS printers being increasingly difficult to get, a stencil could be a useful option. Just pointing out that Silhouette and Cricut are brand names, they each offer multiple machines. The Portrait is the lower end machine offered by Silhouette (pricewise lines up with the mid range Cricut Explore Air machine at $179). Silhouette also has the Cameo 3 which compares to the top Cricut Explore Air 2 machine (both $249 with similar standard features). Cricut 's entry level Explore One machine is $139 (no comparable machine from Silhouette). The Portrait has an 8x12" mat size, the Cameo 3 and all of the Cricut machines have a 12x12" mat. The Silhouette Cameo and Cricut offer an optional 12x24" mat. The Silhouette Cameo 3 does offer an "auto blade" so you don't have to set the blade depth manually, but the manual blades remain an option. The Silhouette Cameo 3 and Cricut Explore Air 2 both offer a dual blade option. Both brands offer standard and "deep cut" blades. The Silhouette machines offer a pen conversion so the machine can draw instead of cut. Potentially useful for marking thicker materials, or maybe even for use with decal film. Silhouette offers a combination cutter / embossing machine (the Curio) which appears to be based on the Portrait (uses the same 8x12" mat). I only point this out because your comparison may not be apples to apples, your friend may have the top end Cricut blinged out with all the options.

So many possibilities, SWAT or surveillance van, rescue or hazmat truck, roach coach, utility company truck... Early in my career we had a broken down old 3/4 ton Chevy step van as a hazmat truck. It had been well used as a US Navy flight line repair truck before being passed on to us. If you were able to get the poor thing up to 45 mph it would start to wallow badly. That truck is probably being used to sell tacos in Salinas now if it hasn't rusted away completely. Mmmmmm tacos...

I'll play, but will have to think about what with. Is this going to be open to anything that falls under this section of the forum including pickups, vans etc or only large trucks?