Ace-Garageguy

Great project, and a car you almost never see. Looks really good so far.

It's really a pretty simple kit, with most of the piping details molded on the the boiler, unfortunately. But I have seen some extremely attractive static models built from it, and a couple of running locomotives with Bowser and Rivarossi guts. I have one on the shelf here waiting to become a scrap-line / pre-restoration piece.

Just Google "1969 COPO Camaro" and you will get a lot of hits. I just tried it...everything you might want to know should be there.

Yes. There's actually plenty of clearance between the axle and the frame (especially as it's a straight-line car, intended to accelerate fairly slowly on a smooth surface) and there won't be much paint on the running gear anyway, as it's supposed to be something with minimal show-appeal. The body panels will have to be fitted with paint-thickness in mind, as I'm going for a well-turned-out, shiny look up top.

Everything is dead on, so I cut the crossmember out of the A chassis and "welded" it in place on the new chassis. Everything went in right, and the frame sits level at the right height (measured at the mockup stage) to maintain the exact stance I'm after, while maintaining the wheelbase too. While the suspension parts were setting up between stages, I went ahead and started the bodywork. I don't see how anyone could do this work with one-part putty...at least not this fast, with thick, sculptural fills.

Yes sir. Hacking and whacking junk together, measure several times, try to cut only once. I'm using a Halibrand quick-change rear end salvaged from another gluebomb. Ted Halibrand introduced his QC in 1948, so this would be pretty much state-of-the-art in '49 or so. The Halibrand QC came in 2 flavors..."Model A" and "V8". The V8 unit used '32 and later steel Ford axle bells bolted to the alloy center section. The V8 axle bells I have here had much too thick flanges to look like anything other than klugey toys, so I put a little effort into thinning them. The one attached to the center section is about right, while the loose one is still to be corrected. It's pretty much standard practice to use a model A or T rear spring to clear a QC, so you have to use a crossmember that will work with those springs as well. Here's another gluebomb AMT '28 chassis with the right crossmember, and I was able to get the spring loose from it without breaking. I'm going to position the spring behind the axle. so I've made up 1/16" spacer blocks to stand in as mockups for new spring hangers. The assembled QC gets installed in the A chassis to check the clearance between the axle ends and the crossmember. Before I commit to the next step, I need to double check the ride height, and make sure the body will go back on the chassis in exactly the same place every time. I had Lefty sit in the car with the engine installed so I could see where his feet go. I'll be making a light weight tubular structure to hold up the body (and locate it positively, relative to to frame), so I need to see how much room I have to work with. Just exactly like building a real car.

Found out that my current version of Win7 apparently doesn't have native text-to-speech (TTS) capability other than a seemingly useless utility called "Narrator" (I suppose it's for sight-challenged users, under the aegis of "ease of access" ) that refuses to recognize my Word documents. XP had a lovely and simple to use TTS engine that was an integral part of Office / Word. Looks like Win8 has the older functionality restored, but not all versions of 7 do. Win7 DOES include speech recognition, but if you've ever used TinyLimp's version, you may know it's not terribly good. WHY 7 had speech recognition but not native TTS is completely beyond my powers of understanding. There appear to be some odd workarounds and "hidden" commands to get TTS to function in 7, but it's just stupid compared to the easy and efficient functionality of the XP version. I write a lot, and it's helpful to be able to have text read back to me, to get a better feel of how something will scan when read by someone else. Currently looking at outside software, as I used to run an additional TTS package when I was fiddling with an early AI simulator.

Looks very good, and your work is very clean. You also have a lot of little touches on yours that make it stand out from the herd, like drilling the ends of the exhaust stacks. One tiny suggestion...a little black or brown sharpie inside the stack ends for simulated exhaust residue.

I have an original issue that's complete, but most of the parts are off the trees. I did a mockup assembly of it last night and it went together perfectly. I also have several later issues. I'll compare the parts in those to the originals and see if I can determine if there have been any register shifts between the tool elements. The only readily apparent difference in the chrome trees (where the suspension parts are found) between the original issue and the later ones (that I've identified so far) is that the original has "moon" caps, while later issues have mag wheels, I've already compared the 2001 Racing Champion / Ertl T-bucket version, which includes the same chrome tree as the chopped and "tall" coupes, and the parts in question are absolutely identical.

I know this is an old thread, but every time I see this car, and other work done by Steve, I'm simply blown away. Custom model cars just don't get any better than this, and if there IS such a thing as perfection in model-building, this is it. Absolutely beautiful and always inspiring.

Perfect stance and proportions, perfect color for it, all the right parts. Very nice.

Thanks again for all the interest and kind comments. Today's project is getting the rear suspension under it.

Great job on a very unusual model. I love that you recycled an old kit, too. Fine work. I understand the Framo Stromer of '33 was front wheel drive. Did you build a drivetrain for this model too?

Whoa. Glad I ran across this one. I've been looking to cut down some of those big ol' Monogram midgets I picked up cheap. Great info here.

http://www.pdra660.com/competition/

Great concept, good looking project. If I recall correctly, the old Aurora kit has some proportion and detail deficiencies that make building an accurate stock version a little frustrating, but it looks perfect as a custom. Enough Aston-Martin to be instantly recognizable. Very nice.

Always both highly entertaining and inspiring to watch your work. Great stuff going on here.

Man Ray. they both look great to me. The '37 is clean, has a fine gloss and fits together well. What's not to love?

Though I'm using a pretty heavily dropped tubular front axle on this build, a very prevalent axle in use at the time on track cars was the lightweight unit from the V8-60 powered '37 Ford. The little "60" flathead was considerably lighter than its big brother, so Ford fitted a lighter front axle too. Many of the track cars of the period also used axles with a similar amount of drop, but tougher, stronger versions on the same theme. This axle is hollow, unlike the common I-beam Ford axles. The reason I'm using a front axle with considerably more drop than what would have been pretty common is because I'm using a junk frame of unknown origin, and to get the ride height I want with minimal frame mods, I'll need a lot of axle drop. Same rationale for using particular parts in a real junkyard build...whatever works to solve the problem. An axle with a lot of drop on the ends is honestly not a great idea for an asphalt-track or street car, as braking puts kinda horrific twisting loads into the axle ends. But it's pretty much a non-issue for a lakes car that goes in a straight line mostly, and like this model, has no front brakes. Bell Auto Parts, in Bell California, began building "tubular" dropped front axles for hot-rods in the late '40s, using a tubular center section and cast or forged ends.(research still incomplete). Something like that, or something that could have been made up from scrap or surplus, is what the heavily dropped front axle in this model represents. To mount the axle to the frame, I'll be using a "suicide" style perch. Here I've started making it up from 2 sections of styrene channel. I left the forward leg long to get a good idea of the alignment of the perch with the frame rails. I like things that are square and symmetrical. In this shot, the perch has been trimmed to its final configuration. The mount pad is 1.7mm higher than the tops of the frame rails, which is what that earlier figuring told me I'd need. Here, the axle has been tacked to the mount, and the 4-link bars set in place to mark their bracket locations on the frame rails. This shot also shows that the last of the horrible gluey mess between the rear rails has been removed cleanly. With the suspension tacked to the frame, the frame is re-installed, the belly-pans re-tacked in place, and the locations of the 4-link brackets are marked on the louvered sections for cutting.

Thanks again for all your interest. I really enjoy building models from junk more than from new kits. Weird. Dave, I've got a late pre-war (circa 1941) Riley 4-port-powered lakes car in the works too. The Riley heads that are available in kits are not the hottest version, and Denis Lacy was kind enough to send me a bunch of photos of the one I want. I'm still working on the engine mods, but this is the overall look. Un-channeled '28 body on '32 rails, '37 Ford V8-60 front axle on quarter-elliptics, and a Miller grille shell, plus a '40 Ford 2-speed Columbia rear end.

The flattened ends of the spring go in the slots formed by the little ears on the hubs. I can't be absolutely certain, but it looks as though your spring isn't all the way in the slot. That will account for most of your alignment problem. There's no fore-aft curvature of the spring, but there IS a slight wedge-shape to the ends of the spring that makes it fit in the ear-slots better one way than the other. The ends of the spring should be all the way forward in the ear slots. I have this kit here and just looked at it carefully. The front axle has to be positioned very accurately as well, to allow the holes in the wishbone brackets to properly align with the pins on the front ends of the rear wishbones.

GREAT concept. Missed it earlier, but I'll be watching from here on out.

Thank you ALL very much for your interest and comments. Looks like I'll be able to get a few hours in on her this PM. I have a pretty clear idea of where I'm headed on this one, most of the research is done, and I'm really going to try to actually finish it before I get spinning off on another project.

Thanks for the shot of the modified stacks, Bernard. That's almost exactly what I'll have to do, and I appreciate the info.

Wow. Just wow. I recall being awestruck by some of the best of the brass HO-scale locomotives, and this rivals anything I've ever seen. Wow.