Aaronw

This hit me harder than I would have expected, I liked his music well enough but he also seemed a decent and interesting fellow. Not only a varied musical career but also involved in movies and theater. As another mentioned he appeared to be aging very well which made this more surprising. I spent much of last night listening to his music, I can't pick a favorite but it is pretty hard to beat Bowie and Queen

That is pretty neat. I've not seen kits like that but I made up a couple of biplanes for my son when he was about 3. I built them toddler resistant though so they were a bit more burly, and a little less detailed. It's nice to see somebody building a wood model. By the time I finished buying the tools to do these I probably could have bought him one he could ride in. He is 15 now and still has them more or less intact, so I guess they were toddler tough.

That is more my speed, but then those new fangled paved roads still haven't fully caught on around here.

So it appears that is the case for most marine engines then, they just buy industrial engines and modify them for marine use. I found another bit that suggests the twin turbo wasn't offered until the early 1970s, not the 1950s as the linked article claims which makes sense, turbos would be pretty high tech for 1960. These were pretty high end engines, I found a blog on a boat rebuild and they had the paper work from when a prior owner installed a pair of these in the boat. In 1973 these ran $7500 each or around $35,000 adjusted for inflation.

The Dencon resins F8 was very nice. Somebody other than Matt mastered it, but I haven't seen any of it reappear from another caster which is too bad because there was a whole series of bits and bobs done for an F7 / F8 beyond the fenders. He did a sleeper cab, 337 cid Flathead, axles, springs, fuel tanks etc. Only the F7 (2 1/2 ton) and F8 (3 ton) had the wide fenders. F1 (1/2 ton) through F6 (2 ton) mostly shared the same sheet metal, the fenders were the same width, just having larger wheel wells to fit bigger tires / wheels. It is a fairly simple job to cut away and reshape the wheel arches on the F1 kit to fit 20" wheels (for an F5 or F6).

This is coming along nicely. I'm building the same kit and when I went to wire it I noticed something. The kit does not include the ignition coil. I found a few photos and it looks like it should be just to the right of the carburetor, laying flat.

The various hard airlines running along the frame look to me to be 1/4 to 3/8 inch, the trailer lines 1/2-3/4" (outside diameter based on eyeball measurements), the coiled nylon being smaller, the rubber hose style being larger. Wire of various sizes (core only, not including the insulation) 30 gauge 0.01" (scale 1/4"), 24 gauge 0.0201" (scale 1/2"), 20 gauge 0.032" (scale 3/4"), 18 gauge .0403" (scale 1"). Individual strands in common small size wires (speaker wire, cheap extension cords etc) is typically 30 gauge or smaller.

Matt, if you haven't found an engine for that thing and still want something different, apparently the Ford GAA V-8 engine used in the M4 Sherman and M26 Pershing tanks was similar to the Merlin, but was more advanced. If you cut the that Merlin down to a V8 size maybe It would fit. Some neat stuff about the GAA here, including a photo of a 1970 Mustang that some nut managed to cram one of these beasts into. http://www.fordgaaengine.com/

Weird, so what Seamaster just bought crate motors and worked them over into marine engines? I was actually just looking for some photos of the 534 to detail one I'm working on when I found this. There are some good diagrams / photos and I thought seeing how the turbo plumbing was run might be handy if someone was looking to hotrod a C. A flatbed hauling a couple of marine engines is a neat idea.

So never a factory option, but I ran across this and thought I'd put it in here for anyone looking for something different to do with a C cab. In the 1950s Ford offered a twin turbo marine engine based on the 534 Super Duty, thought it might be helpful for a restomod or what if turbo C cab. http://hooniverse.com/2015/05/05/534ci-twin-turbo-super-seamaster-is-here-to-shame-your-gm-twin-six/

An original Mini is 120" (10 feet long), by 55", an Isetta is 90" (7.5 feet) long by 54", so yes it would be a small model, but as I said roughly the size of a Mini (chop the hood off and there you go, sorry bonnet ). If they can make an adequately detailed Mini in 1/24 they can make an adequately detailed Isetta. Both cars make the Beetle look like a barge (I think an Isetta may be able to fit inside a Beetle).

It is roughly the size of a Mini and we have several of those.

Where to start... This poor little guy is on probably it's 12th anniversary of neglect, so close to being done too... Much more recent, I think this was a mid to late 2014 start. Off to a good beginning, but then got side tracked, I occasionally poke at it but have made little forward progress in 2015. I started a pair of 1950 Ford brush trucks early last year, but then work and other life issues got in the way and they have sputtered along. One made it this far, the other only got to paint on the cab and fenders. This little wrecker got going during the summer, and was intended to be a slump buster.... fail Finally the last batch, these only got going around October, so have not yet reached the level of side tracked.... yet. 2016 however is getting started with a good head start, if only I can focus...

A 12v71 is half the displacement of the Allison engine (852 vs 1710). Poking around it appears there were a number of post war trucks built using military surplus engines. Allison aircraft engines, and Ford GAA 1100cid V-8s (late war Sherman tank engine) were cheap and plentiful in the 1950s. Like the Hall Scott V-12 truck details are scanty approaching legend.

I agree it seems an odd choice. It would fit in quite well with the recent Citroens, Renaults, Minis, and Trabants but 1/16 puts it into another interest group. Hopefully they scale it down for a future release.

This should be neat. Do you know who did the cab? I picked up a Pete bubblenose a few years ago but have never seen anything to do a similar vintage KW.

Wow, looks like this will be a lot of work, but you're getting a good start.

I'm going to go with a late 1960s / early 1970s look which is what I believe the kit represents. I know there are some good aftermarket tires out there, but I'm most I've seen are too modern. I was actually thinking about tracking down the tires on the Paystar, so Terry that would be awesome, thank you.

Even California is allowing the old trucks on the road under limited circumstances, one of those being historical vehicles. The regulations Clayton refers to is killing off small owner operator operations. The emissions "solutions" are also creating all kinds of havoc in industries other than over the road use. One of the common systems is the diesel particulate filter and its regeneration feature which burns up the collected soot. This works well enough on a truck that spends its life on the highway doing 55, but is very unreliable for trucks that stop and go, or never get up to highway speeds. We've had issues with fire engines just shutting down (something we were assured could not happen). One incident in particular occurred the day after we lost a piece of line on a large forest fire and had to boogie to a safety zone. Thankfully the truck shut down the next day just as the crew pulled into fire camp, but had that truck decided to have it's little hissy fit a day earlier it would have become a $300,000 charcoal briquette.

I had a number of ideas floating around for this, but also have a closet full of "great ideas" that have stalled for one reason or another, so I'm going to try and keep this simple. I'll be doing the recently re-issued Peterbilt 359 "California hauler" as a logging truck. With the weathering restrictions I'll be building this as it would look for a factory new delivery photo shoot. While I'm not looking to recreate a specific truck, there is a lot of local logging history around here so I'll be using some of that for inspiration. Cummins diesels seem to have been the majority choice for these trucks, so I'll probably be swapping out the 8v71. I'll also be looking for some more aggressive drive tires as well.

There was a 1950s Kenworth built with an even larger 2181 cubic inch Hall Scott V-12 (the Allison is "only" 1710 cubic inches). Nobody seems to have much information on it, but there is a photo showing it is possible if difficult to squeeze such a monster into a working truck. The caption shows 600hp but elsewhere I've seen claims this engine could produce up to 900 horse power. http://www.hallscottengines.com/Gallery__3_Comm_l_Trucks.html

This is very nice. We can be pretty hard critics of ourselves, that gap by the rear fender is problematic, but if you look around there are some shocking gaps on the hood of 1-1 cars on much newer vehicles than this. I think we often try to provide better quality control than the factories themselves churn out, and quite a bit higher than some vehicles after they have been on the road a few years. There is a lady at work with an old Blazer and I can fit my whole thumb, maybe even 2 fingers into the gap where the hood meets the fender.

I'm just going to pop in a plug Abbey Road, hard to pick a favorite but if I had to pick one, I think that would be it. I have a strong bias towards Rubber Soul and later albums, while they have some good music early on those albums are very heavy on covers of songs made popular by other acts.

The first engine I was assigned to was a 1971 Duplex / Van Pelt with an 8V71T under the cowl. That truck was 22 years old when I started driving it, but I don't remember any issues with leaking oil, it was no worse the 1976 Mack CF600 or 1970 Ford C800 it shared a station with (volunteer department so everything we had was second hand). The inline 71s came out in the 1930s and the v71s came along in the 50s, both types sold well into the 90s so obviously Detroit Diesel did something right when they built these. Perhaps the reputation came about because they would keep going even if poorly maintained? Not so much that they had to leak oil, more that they would run while leaking oil from every joint and seal. Just a thought, I can't see an engine that leaked oil like a sieve as "normal" staying in production for almost 60 years. I'm with Driptroit, there are other good diesels, but nothing sounds like a Detroit 2 stroke. I grew up riding GM New Look buses most of which were running some form of Detroit. Just hearing that sound takes me back. I wish I had room for one of these, mobile hobby room.

Now we agree on something, I could get excited about a Workstar.