Ace-Garageguy

EXCELLENT! I've been wondering how this project of yours was going. Very nice job, and I'm sure as you do more of this kind of thing, you'll get more and more confidence and it'll seem easy. Amazing how well things work sometimes when you follow the directions.

It's impossible to beat what you get from building something yourself. I completely understand your viewpoint, and really like your line "I wouldn't trade it for anything."

1500 grit wet is sufficient, as long as the entire surface is sanded correctly and no "texture" or deeper sanding scratches remain. It is NECESSARY sometimes to prime parts, as on this clutch/output shaft housing, after the seam was filled and finished. The intake manifold here was stripped of factory chrome, scuffed carefully with Comet and hot water as I mentioned above in post #2. Both the metalized and polished manifold and the clutch / output shaft housing are as close to perfect as a human can get. The texture in the bellhousing is intentional, to represent casting roughness.

The X-frame was a GM mainstay from '57 through '64 (Rivera through '70).

Try not getting it on your fingers. If you DO, acetone will take it right off. Cut up old credit cards make excellent mixing paddles, and keep the stuff at more of a distance from little fingers.

The flathead engines from the Revell '48 Fords should be right. The Merc and Ford engines differed very little, other than displacement. The engine in the Revell '49 Merc is a first-gen OHV Cadillac V8, which went into production in 1949. It was a popular engine to swap for the flathead, particularly before 1955 when the smallblock Chevy engine was introduced. The Caddy engine can be any color you like, as it would have most likely been sourced from a junkyard and possibly rebuilt (or at least painted) before being put in the Merc. BUT, the stock color for the Caddy engine is a dark blue.

Comes up as this one...http://public.fotki.com/drasticplasticsmcc/mkiba-build-under-c/amt-instructions/automotive-cars--pi/chrysler/amt-2005-chrysler-3/03.html

You can get millinery (hat-maker's) netting in various net sizes at fabric / sewing / craft supply stores.

...and number 10: It has some obvious issues and inaccuracies, but I'll buy it anyway. It's a decent place to start.

...and maybe take a minute to remember what it actually means (besides beer, hot dogs and fireworks). I know. B o r... i n g.

...but did they have a pig in the back wearing lipstick and a short skirt?

Sure is no other bird that sounds like it, except the Cobras with the same rotor system. I should have said "raises my awareness", not "raises my ...hackles".

Sounds great to me. Tool a '26-'27 body shell, throw in a couple of engines from amortized tooling...genius. More legs for existing tools, minimal development expense.

The first sentence starts "When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds that have connected them with another..." The second paragraph starts with the more widely immediately recognized "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." It continues (yes, I had to look it up): "...that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. " Such fine ideals. So very sad the reality hasn't always fully lived up to them.

A "torsion bar" is nothing but a straight metal bar or rod, anchored solidly to the chassis at one end, and free to pivot at the other end connected to the axle by a 'swing-arm'. It 'twists' and untwists as a vehicle negotiates surface irregularities, and can be packaged many ways. This is a simplified tank (a half-track in this case) suspension design. Look at the first and last illustrations. The torsion-bar is the skinny rod in the center. The swing-arms are at the ends. That's it, basically. Simplicity. Chrysler Corp. favored this design for many years. Same idea, but in this case, the swing-arm was the lower control arm, and had a ball-joint at its outer end for a spindle. Torsion bars can be packaged in a variety of ways, allowing in great variety of space-saving layouts. Sometimes the 'bar' runs in a tube, sometimes it doesn't. The 'bar' can be mounted parallel with the main chassis members, or perpendicular to them. Many trailers use a layout like the tank, again for simplicity. Most car torsion-bar setups today use a round-section bar with splined ends... ...while some Chryslers favored this design... The old VW Bug used a square-section front torsion-bar that was made up of flat 'leaves', stacked... These 'bars', made up of leaves, run in the upper and lower tubes shown, clamped rigidly in the center. The outer ends are clamped in the swing-arms which pivot to allow the wheels to 'bump', and have ball-joints to allow steering.

Eshaver is right...1500 grit wet or finer is in my shop notes. My mistake.

The sound that always raises my own hackles is a Huey coming in at treetop level. I live under an approach to a regional airport, and a couple of civilianized Hueys nest there. The sound of fireworks in the neighborhood doesn't bother me, but somebody let off a string of what sounded just like heavy caliber machine gun fire in the distance last night, and that was a little spooky.

I personally prefer a medium gray sandable primer, to minimize show-through of the substrate after buffing. If you're going to shoot it over bare plastic, I've found it helps immensely to scuff the part thoroughly with Comet, hot water, and an old toothbrush. You'll get superior adhesion, better flow without as much tendency to run and puddle, and a safer buffing experience. The stuff is very thin and shows up ANY small imperfection, but 1500 (edit) grit or finer should be OK. If you DO see sanding scratches or graininess after the first or subsequent coats, it can be wet-sanded just like anything else (and you'll have to shoot it again afterwards). Continued effort will yield perfection...as close as you care to get, anyway. The trick to getting it grain-free is to learn to shoot it wet, just on the verge of running but not quite. Dry mist coats will make a grainy surface...which can be helpful if you're going for a rougher as-cast look. I find 3 wet coats (minimum) to be sufficient to deposit enough material on the surface to mostly avoid the problem of rubbing through the stuff on high spots when you buff it. Give it plenty of time 10-20 minutes) to flash between coats, and let it dry at least a couple of hours before buffing.

May as well go big. This car. Not one like it, a clone, or a replica. This actual car.

Damm. Man. Words fail. Damm. Man.

OMG !!! OMG !!! Chicken Little was RIGHT !!! The sky IS falling !!!

Conventional V-8 engines will have to have staggered heads. This is a semi-raw aftermarket 392 Hemi (Chrysler FirePower) block. The cylinder bank offset is clearly visible as the step on the RH side of the casting.

This is the only photo of the bunch that gives an easily-interpreted idea of the front suspension layout. There appears to be a transverse torsion bar, probably anchored in the center of the lower transverse chassis cross-tube, that is connected via heavy-ish forward-facing bellcranks and drop-links welded solidly to the underside of the axle. There could be two parallel transverse torsion bars. This setup was fairly common on a lot of cars, including something quite similar on many Indy roadsters. The torsion bar links function to locate the axle side-to-side fairly well, and there also appears to be a normal hairpin (looks like, in some side shots...though I didn't spend any time carefully analyzing them) that would provide fore-and-aft location of the axle. Rather than having a full hairpin on each side, it's also possible there's only one top longitudinal link per side, as a hairpin would tend to jam the geometry of the torsion-bar linkage motion, whereas a single top link would not. A single top link would allow the torsion bar linkage below the axle to function as part of a parallelogram linkage that would fully control fore-aft motion of the axle. It doesn't take terrifically sophisticated or strong linkage bits, as there are no front brakes with heavy loads that would need to be resolved into the structure. Here's a somewhat similar setup that uses full hairpins on each side. Similar setup, but with only a single longitudinal top link.