Fabrux

Oh, and for the mods: I wasn't entirely sure if this build should go here or in the Drag section. If I do a weekend warrior, would it stay here? A named car in the Drag section?

With my massive stash of three 64 Dodge 330s, two Color Me Gones, and one 64 Plymouth Belvedere Paul Goldsmith stock car, I thought I would start mix-and-matching bits and pieces and come up with something interesting. I'm building a Belvedere drag car, not sure if it will be a weekend warrior or a pro car just yet. Rather than the new-for-64 426 Hemi I thought I would switch it up and build something a smaller, less-well-funded team could come up with. This car is sporting the 392 Hemi from the AMT 57 Chrysler 300C (which also donated its wheel covers). The four-speed stick is from the Belvedere. All the suspension pieces have come from a Color Me Gone kit, which also donated its wheels and will provide the roll bar as well. I'm going to use the bucket seats from the regular 64 Dodge 330 and the interior from the Belvedere.

I purchased my wife a camera for Christmas but I've been using it as well. Its a Nikon 1 J1 and sure blows my previous Sony Cybershot out of the water. So far I have gotten some really good closeup shots with it but I haven't tried getting super close yet.

I signed up with Picasa back when it was just an image hosting site and I have no issues with size limitations, ads, or linking to various websites. It seems to now be tied into Google+ but I think you can still sign up for just the image hosting. Its worth a try. I have close to 5GB of image storage.

Works for me! A confirmation of dealing with them through Yahoo was all I was looking for.

My mistake; there's a whole network of sites. My favourite are the Brazil and Argentina versions; lots of interesting variants there.

Has anyone dealt with Lindberg for replacement parts lately? I sent a request in to them earlier in the year for a missing from from an F-150 kit and they were prompt in reply and sent me all four rims for that kit in the mail. The person I dealt with last time was the person listed on the website for customer contact and their email address used the processedplastic.com domain. I sent in another request the other day for a tire; I have three tires the same size and one that's bigger. I just received an email from someone claiming to be the manufacturer and they need my mailing address, but they're using a Yahoo email account. Does this seem odd to anyone else?

If you can read/understand enough Spanish to get by, try the Mexican Mercado Libre site. Its basically the Central/South American version of eBay. Lots of stuff there.

The Lightning engine was only ever a SOHC, and a 2-valve at that. I'm also hesitant to call the kit's engine a 5.4L; if it has coil-packs molded into the ends of the heads, its a 4.6L. I think the engine is the same as in the Harley Davidson kit; I'll look into that this evening...

My space right now is rather long and narrow so its difficult to see everything... All told I have about 420 kits or so. I usually buy multiplies of kits that have several building options. So, I have 2 68 Chargers, 2 69 Darts, 2 70 Mustangs, 2 57 Black Widows, etc. I have one each of the various versions of the 69 Nova as well. I have every intention of building every one of those kits, it just might take me a while. The open/upside down boxes in the third picture are projects currently on the go, but with most of these kits you can grab any one of them off the shelf and chances are there's something started in there; some more than others. I have what I guess you could call modeler's ADD: I start one kit and then get an idea for something else so I start that one too and on and on...

From my understanding the reason why you can't get a manual transmission in pickups anymore is due to emissions requirements. Newer, more stringent requirements are very difficult to meet with manual transmissions as the vehicle's emissions output varies greatly with drivers.

I like to keep all my kit boxes. I've moved around so much in the past 10 years that every time I move I put the built models back in their original boxes. Yes, that means I have all those empty boxes from the built kits; they're stashed in my shed.

Today's actually my brother's birthday. No, he's not turning 12; he's turning 33.

From which website are you trying to post pictures?

As promised, here's my model space. Forgive the picture quality; new camera is coming from Santa. Being a 6'x12' space, its difficult to get a good overall view. The first two pictures are from the doorway looking in. The next two are from my desk looking out towards the door. The room isn't a perfect rectangle; there is a small closet in one corner that intrudes into the space... The breaker panel for my home is in here too, further limiting the space. I managed to make room for everything I have at the moment. Gotta start building to make room for more!

I'll snap some pictures when I get home from work, but my model room is a 6'x12' bedroom that also doubles as a computer area. I have bookshelves alone one wall and two 6' wire shelves along the other. My desk resides on the third wall with the window and is almost the full 6'.

Interesting that that news comes out of Australia rather than the US; I guess they're more excited about exporting than the US is about importing...

Sure, the overall shape of cars is becoming more uniform but that is more for aerodynamics and fuel efficiency. But, each manufacturer still has their own unique designs.

The truck in that picture has buckets; no idea about console.

Telling the difference between modern vehicles is very, very easy. They're all vastly different.

Oh, I wouldn't say they have no style. They have a different style then what you like, perhaps. There are those of us that actually like modern vehicles and not only tell them all apart but see and appreciate the style in them. IMHO all the cars from the mid-to-late-70s all look the same: big, square, and ugly!

I can help you with that. The heater hose comes out the back of the block. This is the line from the water pump to the back. And here's the back of the engine: The return for the heater hose I think goes above the oil filter. There's a bracket that attaches to the block that houses the oil filter and a coolant line (I forget which). As a side note, the kit is slightly inaccurate with the oil filter. The placement on the block is correct for car-based 4.6L engines but for the trucks in 97 the oil filter was actually located on the frame in front of the driver's side wheel. I don't have any pictures of the setup but it was a lot easier to deal with than crawling in and finding the filter above the front axle pumpkin (which I have to do with my '01 5.4L).

No Ollie's stores around here, but I did get a bunch of Lindberg kits from the Mardens down in Calais, ME. When they first got their shipments in they had a 20' shelf section full of kits; you could really pick up a smoky smell from them so I believe the warehouse fire story.

Let me tell you, spark plugs are not fun. I fought with my Expedition so much I gave up and took it to a shop. The back ones on the passenger side were the worst ones for me due to all the extra coolant lines running to the rear heater core.

I stumbled across a listing for a die-cast 1:24 scale 75 Chevy K10. Look! A stock steering wheel! Someone needs to find one of these and cast it.