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DEL

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Everything posted by DEL

  1. DEL
    Espo, Thank you! I do hope we can get it out sometime very soon! OCF: If you think it sits low NOW, you should have seen it at it's natural allocated ride height. The top of the rear wheel arc was even with the top of the wheel well opening! If you look at rocker panel area you can see the side of the frame/chassis plate which is supposed to be up inside the body. I 'propped' it up a bit. Fear not. I will correct what MPC hath wrought and get it perched up a bit higher there before i am done..
  2. DEL
    And in addition as a progress report, I sourced some pretty accurate looking Hubcaps that are almost 100% perfect for the 76-78 Police Novas. See what you think..
  3. DEL
    Well, I opened up the ModeMailBox last Saturday and found a single lone robin's egg blue Easter pastel colored envelope. I brought it inside & sat down at my workbench & opened it up after noting the return address from Anthony and thinking he must'v had a few extra Easter envelopes left over.. And inside was a CARD. With Nova PARTS! I literally laughed out loud! Thank you Anthony! And you are most welcome as well..
  4. DEL
  5. DEL
    Anthony, that is a sharp ride and I understand why you kept it so long. I owned my 78 LTD from 1982-2008. I had sworn all along only death would wrest it from me. Then The Hell happened in 2008, as it did to so many others but my personal one had added another component; divorce. I needed cash to keep someone out of my retirement and in an extreme moment of weakness, I let myself believe I was finally 'done' with the 78 and could let it go and would not miss it. So I sold it. God, I was SO wrong. Bad, BAAAD thing to have done. The div despondency passed, the MAJOR seller's remorse every day since HAS NOT. I should NEVER have done that. Still, I do hope to recover it one day, and if I don't, I still have another one I could restore but boy o boy is it in rough shape. Jeff, if you have any others of my SSP I would be eternally grateful for them. I have it torn down at the moment and all the separate components restored and boxed up waiting for the climb back up the hill to the re-build and completion. Heck, I even have all the period police equipment and markings to boot.
  6. DEL
    You are without a doubt the DiscoNovaMan. I was a radio DJ in high school and the first couple years of my working life prior to LE. I was a part of the "Disco Sucks" movement back then. ... But I like a good bit of it now. Time gives perspective. Especially by comparison to TODAY'S garf that masquerades as 'music'. Never thought it'd leave me but it did.\ Still, I'm ah, ah, ah ah, Stayin Allliiivvveee..YEAH. PS: That AMT does look funny..
  7. DEL
    That's FUNNY! Was MPC the only kitmaker to do a 75-78 Nova? I thought I heard mention of AMT? The fact that the 9C1 version had the flat plain stretched cowhide vinyl seats makes the interior a lot simpler to do for obvious reasons. What is quite a bit more intricate is to try and replicate the kit's seat fabric pattern on the new extended 'shoulder' portions of the upper back cushions. Sometimes it's rather simple, sometimes darn near impossible to get an acceptable ingrained extension of the upholstery. But it must be done! Maybe those other body parts will be in the 'ol model mailbox when I get home.. :-)
  8. DEL
    Thank you Sir! Anthony, it would seem the good folks at MPC did you a big favor with that 2dr Sport Nova kit. I guess the only thing different was the grille/header? Which you worked on I could see. As Danno and a couple of others said here though I never drove one of these I bet it was a blast to drive. My dept. got an unmarked 1982 Chevy Malibu. It came with the smog-choked emissions/power killer 305 and a o... God, ...a 2bbl. STILL, I was just amazed at how quick and peppy the little thing was. I almost lost it on wet roads a couple of times, and while I preferred the official full-sized look of the LTD, Impala or Diplomat for day to day patrol, the Malibu was fun for short trips around the state. One of our guys got t-boned in it by a red-light runner so it died a quick, young death in less than a year or so and almost no miles. I was sorry to see it go. So I can certainly understand the appeal of the 4dr Nova with a 350 4BBL. In addition to the multitude of many late model ex-copcars I owned over the eyars as personal DD's, I also have had a Trans Am, Monte Carlo SS, an LTD LX. The LTD LX was a 1985, and it was the decked out Fox-body mini LTD with a 302 & throttle body fuel injection. A 4dr Mustang in effect. It was a blast to drive as well. I also currently own a 1993Mustang SSP, currently undergoing a glacial resto. Here is a pic of it (the exact car I now own. Not another like it, THE very car) back in it's day that someone snapped and put on the net way back whenever. The second pic is of it a couple years ago before I started the resto. I bought it from the state in 2002, it was the last they disposed of out of only 12 they had bought that year. I have not put 5 miles on it in my 16 years of ownership.
  9. DEL
    Thanks for the pics & diagrams Anthony.. Ok, first of all that is THREE (3) different steering wheels. The pic of the black interior one is mated to the same dash as shown in diagram 77-79 above. As you know, the MPC Squad Rod kit utilizes the 75-76 dash & steering wheel!!! As you said, unchanged. What a mess. I guess MPC couldn't be bothered to make the proper dash for the 77-79 Novas. But I watched the Leno video, and allegedly the Nova in it is an actual survivor restored LACSO 78 Nova, (ick. Look at the 'engine bay in that car below. God almighty..) which does have the same steering wheel as the one in the black interior above and if memory serves, it is a Z-28 Camaro steering wheel. A quick check of G-Imgs and there it is. So one can be scarfed from a 78-80 Z-28 kit OR I can build one from scratch. It is not a difficult wheel to construct. What is a bit dismaying is while the "NOVA" scripts on the fenders are accurate, they are way too big. So I'll have to copy and try to graft a set off the tail panel script. And lose the "CHEVROLET" script and the banner on the hood's lead edge. The stretched cowhide seats makes the interior VERY simple to do. I can build a bench seat for the front to replace the buckets, and all I have to do is smooth out the rear seat, do the door panels and that is a dunn-deal. We had those same stretched cowhide smooth flat seats with trampoline 'heavy police duty' springs in them in our Diplomats and Chevy Impala's of the 80's. The old guys complained about their backs bitterly on those. No wonder they never wanted to leave the office. The really bad thing was the inmate on the washrack would sadistically lather every vinyl surface down with that Son-Of-A Gun 'protectant' which was really just milky WD-40 on everything. Get a bad call and between those aircraft carrier landing deck seats, the rubber floors, the lubrication and you wearing boots and no handholds ANYWHERE in the car.. well, one hard turn or curve and you could wind up knowing WAY more about your partner than you ever wanted to know!! As I touched on above, the exterior and the toys resto on the 9C1 Nova below is nice, but the very thing that makes that car COP, the ENGINE and it's engineering, was evidently totally ignored to get to the 'fun stuff'. Paint, stikkers lites n sireens!! I know a whole group of 1:1 copcar ...'restorers' (well, that's what they call themselves) who work this exact same way. Only they don't even bother to find real police package cars to do them with. Too problematic. A dead granny's garaged grocery getter advertised on Craigslist by her survivors is their goal. Sooo much easier to.. 'restore'. Like the guy below it only has to look like a copcar. Still at least that guy used a actual LACSO ex-unit for his project. Points for that I suppose. But I digress.
  10. DEL
    WOW! I have a large two stage but it ai'nt THAT BIG. HAs a 80 gal tank but.. Oh, well.. You'll never be left 'gasping for air' with that bad boy.
  11. DEL
    Yup. And mike is currently working on a scale version of the coiled hood hinge/supports to attach the hood to the fenders just like 1:1. KIDDING!! Someone may just do that before all this is over. I sit and watch and marvel from a distance. Please do mock one up Greg, and post us a pic or two. Big 'ol hairy double thumbs UP!!
  12. DEL
    And this was last night after a bit of putty and priming..
  13. DEL
    Anthony thank you for what you said. I feel exactly the same way about the partnerships have formed since joining here. I appreciate all the help, guidance pointers and critiques I have received on each one of my projects. Well, it is on the edge of done. I went ahead and grafted in the header you sent me, had to work it a bit at joint partitions but I think it's quite nice. Right now I'm working on 4dr-ing the interior bucket and when that is finished so will this conversion be. The pics below are right after 'surgery' for the header..
  14. DEL
    More pics, and HL bucket-header closeups..
  15. DEL
    Thanks a lot Danno for all the kind praise on the master works I have done. Can't forget and I want to add my thanks once again to Greg and Mike also. Greg's Molding and casting, and Mike's glass work, as well as the detail to the hood and separation of the header panel, is every bit as much an art as what I do. Mr. Terry, as soon as we get to the actual casting of the Novas you can be sure of a PM from me to let you know. Meantime DiscoNovaMan otherwise known as Anthony, my new co-collaborator on this project shot me some parts. A header panel and a HL/Grille part from a 78 to graft onto this 79 body. Just for giggles I couldn't help myself I had to see how off/close the two were. It's VERY close. after a grind of the bar under the grille at each end to allow the HL buckets to slide in and a bit of trim above behind the leading edge, in the grille went. The main diff at that point is that the 79 HL bucket openings are VERY square. I can fill them and round them off but I may just go ahead and do surgery and graft the 78 header in anyway. Then I notched the edges of the hood for the upper inner edges of the HL buckets and there it was. Have a look see!
  16. DEL
    Mr. Ron, Your pic makes you look like the Dude. Abiding... And great minds think alike: Anything to do with a police car is cool. As the Brits might say, Too Right! Copcar models were what got me out of Battleships and sailing naval vessels.I bought the Chevy caprice annuals starting back around '71 or so. MPC so helpfully threw in that single bubble light!
  17. DEL
    Thanks, Shaun and all. I appreciate the appreciation of the work(?!) To answer your question I use tape to limit primer only to the actual areas being worked for substantial change. I learned long ago repeated plastering of the (whole or most) entire body just caused a buildup of primer necessitating it's removal in final stages. Obscuring finer details, badges & lettering for example. Sometimes even body lines. When all is completed I remove the tape and wet sand the edges down to conform with the rest of the body. To that end and a personal FYI to other scratchbuilders; the attached pic is of the absolute BEST spray can primer I've ever encountered and I have tried a bunch! It sprays on smooth and wet, builds up slow but nice, dries FAST (like 8-15 mins) so you can get back to work, and it's inexpensive to boot. It's marketed under several different names but the most recent I know of is KEY 890, or Key Gray Primer, Flex-n-Fill. About $7.00 a can. I got this from a local LKQ outlet. Take my word for it, it's a super nice primer to use on our models.
  18. DEL
    Now the door handles. I carved each handle out of .15 styrene sprue, then took a bit of round rod, filed the end flat where it goes under the handle and glued each handle to it's 'button', leaving a short bit of the round rod extruding to place in the door by way of a pin-vise drilled locator hole. Also each button had some kind of half-moon body accent in the door panel itself. To create that I ook a bit of hollow round tube proper size sliced a very thin piece off the end then cut THAT in half creating a "C" or half moon shape. That had to be added to each handle assy at it's base Yes, it was a PITA of the first order, with Foul Language Streamers. Now I look for hubcaps and wait for the header panel/grille..
  19. DEL
    The Nova nears completion. The final bit will be the grafting of a 77-78 header panel onto the body of this kit. But right now I thought i would show some pics of the inlay of the C-Pillar cabin vents into the c-pillars, and then the door handles that I fabbed up from strip styrene and installed.
  20. DEL
    Thanks to you both! And yes, the HC's were only ever found on the 68 & 69 Impala SS Promo's, or perhaps maybe the kits also, I think. They are proper for the full size copcars from 68-73, but they are HARD to come by. Thanks for stopping by..
  21. DEL
    Thank you, sir. I truly appreciate your comments. Always helps with motivation especially on the current projects. Have a great weekend!
  22. DEL
    Back when I made body molds for casting, I also used modeling clay of course. But where I could, IF I could, I used a sturdy, thick-ish tape that was usually used for packing moving boxes. A bit like very thin adhesive cardboard. I would use that stuff wherever a flat place would allow it. Like along that side window opening from the A-pillar to the C-pillar. Then I would back that up with some clay just to keep the weight of the RTV from pushing the tape in. It worked well. Still, if all this goes under pressure in a pot that might preclude the use of tape. I suppose it would just blow it out. I am hoping whatever damage is done is not beyond my ability to repair. SO I suppose we had best hope for good castings, eh?
  23. DEL
    No Pat, you just have to go slowly and it's a bit tedious. Make sure where you work is clear and open and you have a 'catch apron' or something that will corral the script if it gets away from you. Go slowly, use your index finger and just pin it to the sanding stick & apply pressure slightly & rub the script back and forth till you get it down to scale. When I did this one I actually broke it in half close to the end of the sanding because the connection between the letters "r & o" became so tenuous. But if you don't lose the two parts that makes it far more accurate. I was just tickled that I noticed that script and thus had a way to depict it. Otherwise, it would just have had to be skipped I suppose. But, model building is all about trying something new anyway, right? Believe me, I didn't get here overnight!
  24. DEL
  25. DEL
    Hello, Pat! You are right, not photoetch. I had a spare 76 Caprice grille that had the same size and style of script embedded in it. So I carefully dissected it out of the 76 Grille, and even more carefully sanded it down till it was almost nothing but the script "Chevrolet". Then I placed it on the header using superglue. On some kits with great magnification, I can carve out of strip styrene the scripts I need (I did it for my Diplomat) But when a simple solution is nearby I go that route. You have a sharp eye, and thanks for the question!
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