Fabrux

The various Revell 69 Camaro chassis and engines are good replacements for the MPC 1969 Firebird. One could theoretically use the AMT early-style USA-1 to make a monster truck out of any RCLB pickup. The Lindberg Off-road 4x4 F-150 kit is a great source for BFG Mud-Terrain tires and the Mazda M5OD transmission for any 1988-2008 F-150 with a six cylinder or small V8 (5.0/4.6). AMT/Revell 94 Mustang chassis and engine is a good update for MPC/AMT Fox body Mustangs. Polar Lights Torino Talladega stock cars provide a much better chassis/engine/cage for the MPC/AMT 71 Cyclone stock car. The Revell 77 (sic) GMC wrecker provides a great wrecker body (and if you're not too fussy, chassis) for just about any wrecker build.

Okay, I managed to sort through some more engines and take some pictures. I think these are all BOP engines. Probably more like OP, don't think any are Buicks... This one I actually have no clue about:

Niko, I've always wondered what the purpose of those national signs were. Did all European countries have the same license plate designs and needed the national signs to identify what country?

Oh boy! As mentioned, the MPC/AMT 69 Olds 442 chassis is a good donor for the AMT 69 Chevelle. Also good for MPC 70-72 Pontiac GTOs. Another source is the AMT 70 Monte Carlo, with some tweaking (different wheelbase, IIRC). The AMT 60 Ford Starliner is a good donor for just about everything to build a high-detail AMT 61 Galaxie. The AMT 66 Fairlane/66 Comet is a good donor for the AMT 60/61 Ranchero kit, with some tweaking. Revell 65/66 Chevy C10 chassis is a good fit for AMT/MPC 67-62 Chevy/GMC C10 kits. Revell 56 Ford F-100 chassis and engine is good for AMT 60-62 Ford F-100 kits. Lindberg 64 Dodge 330 provides an excellent slant 6 engine for any Mopar from 1959-2000 with appropriate tweaks as well as providing a good chassis for various early '60s Johan Mopar kits. AMT 70 Dodge Superbee/68 Plymouth Road Runner kits, both regular and pro-street are good for other later '60s Mopars. The back half of the pro-street chassis can be used for any number of kits, as well as: Revell 67 Chevelle pro-street; good for building pro-street GM cars (fits pretty good in Lindberg 67 Olds 442 and 67 GTO) That's all I can think of right now; more will come to me!

Now that I know what this is, this engine will find its way into one of my AMT 1962 Bel Air kits. Without shield, of course.

Are we talking pickup trucks or road tractors? In either situation, a longer wheelbase does make it easier to back up with a trailer on.

Most of the time when I visit my LHS it is a combination club meeting/LHS visit/company head office visit. Because I spend the day working out of my regional head office, my employer reimburses my travel expenses!

Have you tried Vallejo? I've been very impressed with it so far.

Aha! That explains things a bit. The Monogram kit has the shield molded in, thus I didn't recognize it.

A while back I purchased a lot of about a hundred or so miscellaneous engines from eBay. Combined with all the random engines and parts I've been collecting over the past 16 years or so I have a lot of engines! In the interest of trying to pin down an identity on some that I don't recognize, I brought the whole shebang to a club meeting last night and had some luck, but some are still elusive (our ID guru wasn't at the meeting...). I may post a bunch of these engines in this thread depending on how successful the process is! First up is this six cylinder. It appears to be 1:25 scale and I think it is GM; it is similar but yet different to the six in the Monogram 53 Vette kit. It also has this curious heat shield that covers the distributor as well as three carburetors. Anyone know what this is and where it came from?

In the end, though, you have to agree that discontinuing a marque simply because the boxes were a funny size is a bit ridiculous. But, if they didn't want to put any time/money into re-sizing the boxes...

Hey, I've been there!

You're in ND? Head on out to the oil patch. Work an 8 week stretch and I bet you'll make more than $9000.

Around these parts we had a LHS that was run for years but closed down about two years ago because the current owner (who bought the shop after he retired from his day job) wanted to retire and probably couldn't keep the doors open any longer. He had all genres of plastic models, trains, scratchbuilding supplies, paint, glue, magazines, etc. We also have a new hobby shop that has opened in the past 10 or so years that is doing quite well. The recipe for him, I think, is that he runs the business out of his home (no overhead) and has an online store as well. He also carries plastic models of all genres in his store along with paint, glue, magazines, and what not. He has some scratchbuilding supplies but anything you can think of, he can order. I actually live 1.5 hours away from his store, so some times it is cheaper for me to order something online and have it shipped than it is to drive up; that being said, my company's regional head office is in the same city as his shop so I am in that town fairly regularly.

Hey Clint, you can build up to an 82 Chev or 84 GMC non stepside short bed with the AMT 84 GMC/Fall Guy and MPC 81-82 Chev kits.

The first picture, with the stepside C10; where did you source the wheels? I have a set of those hub caps and I've been thinking about using them on a similar truck. The wheels I'm pairing them with are from the Revell 41 Chevrolet pickup. The Kandy Van kit I got the hub caps from didn't have rims.

No skin off my back, I plan on tomorrow being my last Monday of 2013!

Hmm, now is that a HD edition ProStar or is it a ProStar owned by HD for hauling bikes?

Those wheel covers are also coming in one of the Moebius F-100 kits...

Well, not easily removable anyway. If you follow the messageboards for the folks that have the Chalets and Casa Grandes some of them have removed the camper from rotted out bodies and transferred them.

I have a few 1:1000 and 1:2500 Star Trek kits in the stash waiting to be built.

Aha! If it was not standard equipment then perhaps different suppliers...

Like I said, 73-75 full removable hard top.

The slightly oddball 73-75 K5 Blazer had a full removable hard top. I believe that these were factory equipment (as opposed to 69-72 Blazers which were optional) but I'm wondering about the C-pillar area of these tops. The MPC 75 Blazer kit has a rather significant overhang seam extending from the top of the side windows. At first I thought this was a molding error and was figuring out how to correct it, but upon searching my favourite reference material (eBay motors) I've noticed that some trucks do indeed have this overhang but some appear to have a smooth transition like the 76-91 tops. Here are a couple smoothies: And here are a couple with the overhang: Is this perhaps a difference in top suppliers? Not sure if GM produced these tops in-house or if they would've been farmed out to a specialty shop (perhaps one of the reasons for a switch to simpler half-cabs in 76). I had also thought that it may have been a development progression as the model years when on, but of the examples pictured the smoothies are '74s and the overhangs are on '75s. Then again, by now the tops could be from who knows what year. One common trend I have noticed is that on trucks that have a painted top the overhang has been smoothed out. Given that to paint the top the factory textured coating has to be sanded down this is not surprising.

The '72 GTO had a similar building option: