Aaronw

Something else to consider when looking at photos, is if you see something odd, it is not uncommon to see 2wd trucks from the 1960s and early 70s converted to 4x4, because there were just a lot more 2wd trucks compared to later periods. 4x4 options were also quite limited, 1 ton 4x4 trucks were almost always conversions before the mid 1970s. Except for Jeep and Dodge 4x4 was almost always an aftermarket conversion in the 1950s and earlier. Demand was just growing enough by the late 1950s to see manufacturers start offering actual factory built 4x4 trucks (GM 1957, Ford 1959) rather than dealer installed kits. In 1960 only 4% of Ford trucks were 4x4, by 1971 it was up to 6% and in 1979 26% of Ford trucks were 4x4.

So this is #5? ? Laughing with you, not at you. Old machinery is neat, and often fairly inexpensive making it easy to unintentionally start collecting. $50, sure I can use another table saw... The little tractor is nice too.

Maybe a 4Runner? it shares a chassis with the Tacoma so are actually a truck and built tougher. The Highlander and RAV4 are built on a lighter weight car chassis (share a chassis with Camry and Corolla). Really hard to beat Toyota for reliability. Sequoia is based on the Tundra so would be another option, but much larger, more expensive and pretty awful fuel economy. I've had a 1996 Tacoma and currently own a 2008 Tundra. Great trucks, the Tacoma was pretty easy on fuel (4 cyl) with a solid 26mpg but I can't say the same for the Tundra, maybe 15mpg. I've also got a 2014 Subaru Forester, it has been a great car, does amazingly well in bad weather, but it is not a truck, and suspect it would suffer from similar issues to your Highlander.

Sorry to hear this, Dave has always been great to deal with.

Hate changing the clocks and agree standard time would be the preferred. I suspect the senate bill picked daylight savings because that is what several states have proposed doing. The reason the states pick daylight savings over standard is because the current law only allows that. States had the option of not doing it, but once they adopted Daylight savings, their only option out is permanent daylight savings, staying on standard is not an option. That would not apply to congress since they wrote the original law. In typical lazy politician mode I'm guessing Rubio (who is behind the bill) just copied and pasted the Florida proposal word for word. I've never understood the concept, if your job requires daylight then do what most people do regardless of DST and adjust your schedule.

I have several old cars, I like them. The idea that they are trouble free is hilarious. They can be very reliable so long as you stay on top of the recommended maintenance which is far more frequent than a modern car. Find something putting out a similar amount of power from similar displacement engine back then and the word reliable is probably never used for it. A truck in the 80s with 200hp (stock) was doing pretty good, it is hard to find a truck today that only has 200hp.

That really isn't fair, on older cars things needed more frequent access for service so they needed to be easier to get to. Many current cars have minimal service requirements before reaching 100,000 miles, basically oil changes and air filter. In the 1980s 100,000 miles was the reasonable life expectancy of many cars and you were certainly going to be getting service done before 100,000 miles if you were hoping to reach that. Even something as simple as oil changes has gone from a recommended every 3000 miles to 5000+. Subaru's are particularly sensitive to oil issues and even they only recommend every 6000 miles, some brands are as high as 10,000 miles between oil changes for normal driving. Figure 15,000 miles a year, that is going to be maybe 2 oil changes a year compared to 5.

It used to be easy to buy used low mileage engines from Japan with something like 50,000 miles on them.

Took drivers training in High School, I think they had a couple of 80s Ford Fairmonts and Chevy Malibus. I did most of my practice time in an early 80s Volvo 242 and a 1976 VW Rabbit. Passed my drivers test in the Rabbit. Several years later I got my class B commercial in an early 1970s Ford C800 fire engine, with a 5 speed manual.

I don't know anything about Pfaff, but from what I've been told most of the old metal sewing machines are very hard to kill, and parts are still fairly available. Sewing machines were expensive and expected to be a lifetime purchase. One person told me the old sewing machines are like a Swiss watch if Swiss watches were built like an anvil. ? I've been assured that if a person is at all mechanically inclined DIY restoration is not super difficult. Small parts but pretty simple. The other advice I got was if a repair shop immediately tries to steer you into a new machine, walk away. A shop that will do good work on an old machine will want to repair the old machine. You should be able to find owners and service manuals online, and ebay is a good source for printed manuals and parts. I've kind of gone down a rabbit hole of fixing up old things, this is my latest, a watchmakers lathe made some time between 1890 and 1914.

I'm not really "into" vintage sewing machines but I do have a couple. I have two from my grandmothers. The older came from my Dad's mom and is a Singer Model 66 "red eye" which started life as a foot treadle powered machine in 1911 and was converted to electric probably in the 1930s. My grandmother was born in the 1920s so it was older than she was. It needs work to get it going but has good bones, mostly just missing a few parts. She passed in 2003 and my Dad gave it to us since my wife likes to sew, but it has just been decoration since it doesn't work and my wife had a working sewing machine. The other is newer being a Model 500A Slant-O-Matic or "Rocketeer" (got to love the 1960s names) and was bought new by my grandmother (mom's mom) in the early 1960s. My grandmother took her sewing very seriously and this was a very high end sewing machine for its time capable of taking Bakelite disks to sew fancy stitch patterns. She was always upgrading and this one was passed on to my mom in the early 1970s when my grandmother bought the next latest and greatest machine. I was a little kid at that time and this is the exact machine I learned to sew with (I'm not very good but can do simple stuff). I inherited it a couple years ago when my mother passed. It hadn't been used in years, because she didn't sew much later in life. I took it to a local sewing machine repair when I got it because it wasn't running right. They sorted it out for about $100, mostly it just needed some deep cleaning and adjustment nothing was broken. My wife now has two very nice modern commercial grade machines so this is mine to play with. If you do Facebook there are some vintage Singer groups where you can get some good information.

I wasn't going to do any group builds as in recent years my completion record has been awful, but I'm in. The idea of the Peking to Paris race is too good to pass on, and since it is very unlikely I could ever do the real race I can at least do it in scale. I not only didn't finish last time but I barely even got started beyond the planning stages. To add insult to injury I haven't built anything since then so to find that was 3 years ago really hurts. That does explain the cobwebs at the model bench (sadly not joking). Maybe this is the push to clear the bench and build something. I'll go with a Model T again as I at least had a lot of fun planning it out. There are actually a couple of Model As that have completed the real race. Gravel roads were a luxury in those days so probably nothing new for a lot of those old cars.

Don't the Revell 1990 Ford F250 and F350 Dually truck kits have a 460?

Another source of expanded metal is frying pan spatter screens. Many just use fine woven screens like the screen on a window or screen door, but some use really fine expanded metal. Can't go wrong with any relative of a Dodge Power Wagon. I'm sure this is going to be another great project. The trailer pump is great too.

I've found both. When I was looking for a booth, I looked hard at Pace, and very nearly bought one. I talked to quite a few people who had them on several model sites. A lot of people were happy with theirs, but I also ran across a fair number who were disappointed in its performance. I suspect being satisfied or not largely comes down to the exhaust, the size, distance, material and how straight it is. 3 feet straight out the window probably works ok, buying a 30 foot piece of flex hose and leaving the whole 30 feet laying willy nilly between the booth and the exit, is going to result in terrible flow. Looking at recommendations for a booth the size of the pace mini (24x14" opening) ideally should have a 235cfm fan on the low end, so with only 148cfm it needs all the help it can get. Looking at your set up it appears you and the OP have a similar run but you have rigid ducting, and possibly larger ducting (5"?) vs 4" flex duct on his. The info on air flow, and friction loss of ducting is readily available to look up.

Mine is 24" wide so about the same size as the pace mini but I put a 465 cfm blower on it, Pace uses a 148cfm blower. I considered one of the Pace booths, but after pricing materials I was able to build one for about 1/2 what they wanted. Mine is made from plywood so it is heavy but it lives over in its corner and doesn't need to move. They look like a well made booth so it is a shame that they use such a small blower, it would only add another $30 to go to a 265cfm, and probably less since they would be buying in bulk. Maybe they assume people will just use an airbrush with it.

I just read a lot when I built my booth. The more I read the more I found that the Pace booths are fairly marginal in choice of fan output, although this is not surprising since the blower is the most expensive part of the booth. Yes I would suggest trying a bigger duct, if it works it is a cheap fix, and if you end up putting a bigger fan on there you will still want a bigger duct for it, 4" is very restrictive.

Those Pace booths use the bare minimum fans and poor motor placement (top mount is the least efficient) so good ducting is critical. Bigger ducting is also worthwhile, 5" can offer double the flow of 4" and 6" can be as much as 4x the flow of 4". Many people use the 4" because it is easy to find but that is meant for a dryer which usually has a short run and is just exhausting hot air so the flow is less critical. They do make 5" and 6" flex ducting if you need to stick to the flex style, but rigid ducting causes less restriction, so maybe you can run as much rigid as possible and then make up the difference with flex. Also avoid hard bends if possible, a hard 90 can cause as much as 4x the restriction of airflow and a gentle 90 of some distance. This is where flex hose can start to even out with rigid pipe. Flex inherently causes a loss of flow, but flex that can follow a generally straight path may be equal to or better than a rigid set up with many sharp bends. In your case with the odd angles needed using 5 or 6" with flex line at each end and a straight piece of rigid pipe in the middle may be your best option.

That is quite a brute. Our trees are sturdier out west. ? In parts if MA, NJ and NY there are areas where the combination of soft soil and shallow rooted tree species will allow these big brush trucks to push over the smaller trees and brush to make their own roads. If you get out into Nevada, Utah, Eastern Oregon, and Southern Idaho, you can find some similar brush trucks, but without the cages since they mostly just have to push through sage brush. Pinyon and Juniper trees have deep roots to survive in the desert so they don't move easily and trying to push them over with anything smaller than a D6 CAT does not usually end well. It is on my bucket list to get to see a Cape Cod Brush Breaker or New Jersey Stump Jumper in action (preferably from one of the nozzle operator's seats). A very different experience from how we do things out west.

Hard to tell with the glare but it looks like the Bronco might have Police above the seal, just heavily washed out due to the glare. There is some sort of lettering there and it is of the correct length for POLICE, that is not just blank white door panel above the HB. Neat project.

I think this last bit will result in a major shift. Why would you own a car at that point, just use a car service. Instead of having a car sit in your garage or parking lot at work 1/2 to 2/3 of the time, just rent and schedule a pickup when you need it. No drivers to pay so they can have a fleet sitting around in strategic locations. Sure there will be some who own a car for their specific needs, rural areas or frequent short notice driving, as a status symbol etc, but I think over time a large number will give up car ownership. That is assuming they get past the occasional freak accident like plowing into the side of a semi because the computer didn't recognize the trailer as an obstacle in the roadway. I think most of the members here are primarily of the when you pry the keys from my cold dead fingers variety (who'd of guessed a place called Model Cars would be full of people who love cars), but a lot of people hate driving and have no attachment to automobiles. For those people self driving cars cannot get here soon enough.

This is looking great. The bench seats in the back are an amazing detail, they really have that well used heavy duty upholstery look to them.

This is just moving right along. Love the hinges and support rod for the hood. I've never seen one of these in real life, and assumed they had butterfly hoods like many trucks of that era.

The more I look at it, I may be best off separating the hood like you did, and then making new side panels for it from styrene. The top of the hood, cab, fenders and such all look the same, but the sides look like they come to more of a point, the badging is different and it also has those side vents. Kind of amazing how many little things you don't notice until you start to look for them.

Unless I can find an example built on the later chassis, but I think the state just bought the one batch of REOs in '49. The grill is a little different, but looks to be mostly the same shapes. I have been collecting information on the cab for many years with the idea of trying to make one. Just making a few changes will be much nicer. I've barely even touched the model bench in the past couple years but am finally starting to regain the interest.