Ace-Garageguy

Got one of these for $5 on the scratch / dent table at HobbyTown. Complete 'cept for one small part...but the decals are badly cracked. Thought it might be a good little quickie, but after looking at it carefully, I see it's going to take a lot more work to make a nice model than I want to do on it right now. I MAY start on it anyway, just a little every couple of days. OOB, NO HEAVY MODS, light wiring and detailing. Something to use up some big-flake Testors one-coat on, too. Still, I figure just looking it over was an easy 5 bucks worth of entertainment. While looking for other wheels on some of these old Mustang II funnies, I happened across this snap. Man...that's a driver.

Yup.

Thanks for the link, Joe. I love stuff like that. Thanks to everyone else for the interest, too. I've shot and sanded more than 8 double coats of primer since the last update, and she's getting pretty close.

Based on Mitsubishi tooling and guts. Found mostly in Oz, South Africa, a few in Britain. I first encountered one while having some dealings with the SA factory that manufactures the Superformance kit cars. It's "Jumbuck" export name is derived from the Australian Aboriginal word for

Excellent.

67. The general description after the score seems to fit me pretty well, though I'm significantly more detail-oriented than it would suggest. Anyone who knows my real-world work would agree...though I see the details as simultaneously parts of the overall goal or project, and tend to weight them about equally in my mind. And there's no question that although I can be very logical about other people and projects, when managing my own life, I tend to shoot from the hip. This has had some very expensive consequences, and I'm working to tame the tendency somewhat.

This pretty well sums it up for me. The more difficult, disappointing and demanding my life is during a particular period, the less I feel like working on models. Though I know it's always relaxing because it allows me to focus entirely on something other than real-life issues, I think I feel I'm not really entitled to do something fun until I've sorted the reality-bites. Same goes for working on 1:1 projects (things that HAVE to get done get done, but my fun stuff just sits)...and I don't even go hiking, which I love. When I'm on overload, I just have a very difficult time getting started doing anything for fun. Hmmm...now that that's out, maybe it's time for some conscious behavior modification.

When I was a kid building models in the early '60s, glue-sniffing was popular with some of my idiot peers. My parents took the "bad" glue away and forced me to try to work with the idiotic non-toxic crapp, or Elmer's. Impossible, obviously, and part of the reason I got out of the hobby...the frustration of trying to work with useless adhesives and paints just wasn't worth the effort. Seems like they might have realized that I was building contest-winning models occasionally, and probably couldn't be doing work like that if my little brain was glue-befuddled. Anyway, it's probably around that time I started getting REALLY tired of taking the whippings for other kid's stupid actions, and part of why I still have great disdain for a society that accommodates the lowest-common-denominator in its laws and regulations, while achievers have to deal with the consequences. I use acetone in my 1:1 aircraft and hi-po automotive composite work, and buying industrial quantities has become an exercise in jumping through stupid hoops, all because it's also used in some drug-cooking applications. Like I said...

i still look at the instructions if it's a kit I'm not EXTREMELY familiar with (as in I just built one exactly like it). I've found over the years that just jumping into something without bothering to look at blueprints, blowups, parts lists or instruction sheets is almost a sure-fire way to miss something important, and to have to do something over...or buy another one after I buggered the first one. Goes for real stuff, too.

I'm sorry Snake. My intent wasn't to "correct" you or to try to come off as a know-it-all big shot. My only intent was to try to provide correct information and clarify terminology for anyone who might like to have it. I sometimes rub people the wrong way in the process, and again, I apologize if you took my comment as anything other than a sincere desire to help get things right on the internet. What a concept.

Ah yes, but hardware-grade or trailer-grade U-bolts can easily break in a high HP application. And if you watch the video carefully on the youtube link, post #25 (full-screen it and go frame by frame) it appears the right side of the axle comes adrift first, then tears itself out, not taking the leaf springs with it. We don't see the sometimes characteristic "pole-vaulting" that often occurs with a front universal joint failure. A structural failure of a rusty front shackle bracket attachment-point could have caused the same thing.

Just to live up to my mechanical pedantry, the old big-block Chebby has paired intake ports too (not "siamesed" which would have no divider wall between the two ports) BBC head and ports... "Siamesed" center exhaust ports on a 331 Caddy for example, hence the single header pipe...

The '69 Z-28 still does it for me. One-year-only styling, and an obvious inspiration for all the "retro" BS knockoffs. I'll take an original anything over a copy/modded anything any day. Put a hot LS, real brakes and suspension in this thing...and though the '68 is admittedly cleaner, the uniqueness of the '69 appeals to me.

Me, me, me, and me. Really, from what I've seen, there's a fair bit of that going on. Again, I'm sure Revell has looked closely at the sales numbers on the re-releases of the older Roth etc. customs, before even considering doing a couple of new ones.

I well remember the '70 AMC Rebel "Machine". Neat factory hot rod, unusual to ever see one these days. Cool project.

I think the Parts Pack approach has merit...but it always amazes me how many car modelers these days don't seem to have any knowledge of what's already out there...for instance, the absolutely BRILLIANT Revell vintage engines, now out of production, but still available remarkably cheaply. I'd like to know how the even more BRILLIANT AMT engine packs are doing...recently re-introduced. They are really some of the absolute best engines ever done for model cars. The Revell non-engine vintage parts-packs are often going for silly money on epay, and I'm glad I stocked up before they began to climb. If they were re-released, I'd buy multiples of all of 'em. A '26-'27T body shell would be, to me, a perfect trial run for a new parts-pack line. The '26-'27 body would be a natural on either Revell's bunch of available '32 frames, or the coming zeed '28-'29 frame too, adding to the appeal of those kits.

What you're seeing are not twin-stacks per cylinder. Unlike the Mopar Hemi engines, the smallblock-Chebby has its intake ports paired on the heads, rather than evenly spaced. Typical paired SBC intake port arrangement... Even intake port spacing on the old Hemi (331-354-392), similar to the 426 and the new Hemi... And a 354 "old" Hemi with Weber-look electronic injection in a car I'm building for a client...also evenly-spaced intake ports. [url=http://[/uR Parts by Parks makes a resin Hilborn-style manifold for the 426...(and I believe Speed City makes one for the "old" Hemi.

Excellent advice, and it works for me. Keep your search terms to a minimum, and keep them relevant. Less can be more when doing a raw search. Definitely check the "images". You'll often get different hits than you'll get searching text-only, and most of the images are linked to sites that have more info.

Wow. I'm in.

I'll be needing that. Surely, at this point, the closest I'll ever get to owning what to me is one of the most beautiful things ever made. Thanks.

A great reason to back up your important files on removable media, or a separate drive...a lesson I recently learned the hard way, after almost losing all my data back to 2009.

I recall when they came out, a lot of guys were disappointed the suspension didn't allow the model to be built to approximate the box art. I agree entirely...if you're going to portray the kit as building something with a particular stance, you really ought to include the parts for guys who can't do the mods...and shouldn't HAVE TO do the mods. It's only fair.

Hey, nothing like a soupcon of acoustic-tile fiberglass backing to give your lunch that certain extra je ne sais quoi.

You probably know the relevant SFI specs are 14.1, 14.2, 14.3. Search old NHRA general regulations, section 1:10 and 1:11, for the first reference to mandatory blower restraints. All I can tell you fo' sho' is that it was pre-2008.

Obviously, injuries aren't funny...but I posted the first sign because of its seeming concern more for the machine than the Mr.Bill-like character in its grasp. I've worked around and with dangerous stuff my entire life, and so far, I still have all my fingers and toes...knock wood. But there are times I should really pay closer attention. I haven't ridden a bike in years, just got a 24-speed trail job. First time around the block, I rode it in sneakers with just stupidly too-long laces. Guess what? They got tangled in the chain, and I ALMOST went down...in front of a car...just because I wasn't paying enough attention to what I should have been paying attention to. But gee...there weren't any warnings on the bike in big red letters that said "don't ride this thing with shoelaces flapping in the breeze, moron". Guess I should have gone ahead and crashed...and sued somebody.