Ace-Garageguy

"Direction in life" is something people should think long and hard about early on...but it's never too late.

Change is not always for the better, and change just for the sake of change is almost never better...though not-so-deep-thinkers equate it to "progress".

Yup, a big one. So people should expect to see an uptick in fraudulent emails coming from supposedly legit sources, trying to get you to divulge info like credit-card and SS numbers. Everybody...pay attention.

Best thing to do in a case like that is insist on the part number that's on the product you want. Devising workarounds to get past idiots is becoming increasingly necessary.

Oh boy...another easy one. PM'd

As you surely know, the optional engine in that kit is a DeSoto Firedome hemi, which fits just fine as-is. The engine bay in those trucks is pretty huge, and should be big enough for just about anything. The front engine mount in the AMT '53 Ford truck is under the lower front pulley, which would make the Cadillac engine in the AMT '49-'50 Ford kits probably the easiest swap from another kit, because it has a similar front mount. IIRC, most of the other engines in AMT kits of the period were designed to swap around with minimal difficulty, though you'd have to address the front mount with most, if not all...as they typically have engine mounts on the sides of the block you'll probably want to remove. There was a fairly famous (at the time) blown-Caddy-powered truck like this (owned by Bill Edwards) that set some records at Bonneville. The blower fits under the hood IIRC. EDIT: Yup. Sept. '55 151 MPH. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/looking-for-any-info-on-big-bill-edwards.576967/ https://kustomrama.com/wiki/Bill_Edwards'_1953_Ford Otherwise, the Dodge Red Ram hemi from the AMT '29 Fords would be a good choice, while the Chrysler Firepower hemi from the AMT '32 Ford kits, or the Cadillac from the '59 El Camino, or the Buick V8 or the Oldsmobile V8 from one of the AMT '40 Fords, or the Pontiac V8 from the AMT '36 Fords should be close to drop-ins...but I'm pretty sure all the above would need simple front mounts under the lower pulley. The Ford Y-blocks from AMT's '56 and '57 Ford kits would be cool too, or the 348/409 from AMT's '57 Chevy...and of course, any smallblock Chevy. EDIT: Because the engine bay is so big in this Ford truck, you shouldn't have to face much scratch-building. Most of the exhaust manifolds that come with any of those engines should fit easily. Radiator hoses, if you need new ones, can also be done easily by using some of the flexible black tube most craft stores carry for stringing beads. The trans just kinda sits on the crossmember in most of those, so that's not much of a hassle either. The only tricky bit is making up a front engine mount that's compatible with the Ford truck frame, and a couple of pieces of scrap shaped to copy the mount on the Ford pickup engine will get you there.

And the Lockheed Electra... https://medium.com/propliners/lockheed-electra-part-3-dfb2c21a007c

Chocolate bunnies and marshmallow eggs will all be 1/2 price tomorrow. Uh oh. Looks like they're massing for an attack.

Mark this: concept cars, one-offs, and prototypes really float my boat.

Builders of things often have a better grasp of cause-and-effect reality than many, because they inhabit a world where actions have immediate tangible consequences.

Facts, some would insist, have nothing to do with objective reality, but are whatever is believed and repeated the most by idiots.

Later than you think, it is.

"Finished" is a concept with which I'm unfamiliar.

Her standard question before we went out was always "does this skirt make my butt look fat?", to which my standard answer was always "it's not the skirt".

I really like what you came up with, but it looks more like a Camaro with a Corvair in the woodplie than a genetically pure Camaro.

Chips and dips in front of the tube isn't the secret to getting back in the jeans you wore in college.

Haven't done anything with this one other than push her into the new showroom, just to remind myself that I do occasionally build model cars.

Now that the weather's getting decent to paint outdoors again, I figgered I'd put her up on her wheels to give myself a little inspiration....but somewhere along the line I misplaced the decklid. No worries. I took the mold to the big-car shop where all my epoxy fiberglass stuff is at the moment and made another one. Next trick is to get the hood fitting a little better, then block everything again, and shoot her all in white primer. Rear axle needs a little adjustment to get the slicks dead center in the cutouts. This is disturbing, and I don't know where it crept in. Oh well.

4:20 is, amazingly, a reference I didn't get until I was in my 50s.

...Yup. Heading out as soon as I finish my first-of-the-year 'mater sandwich. Life is pretty good some days.

Lines of...paperwork makes the world go around, the world go around, the world go around...

Beautiful day here. Sun shining, birds singing, low humidity, clear very blue sky, forecast high this PM 77 F. Trying to get my paperwork done early enough to go for a long hike in the woods later, but if it's not done, I'll probably just go anyway.

The FAA is certainly not solely to blame, but everyone who is part of a chain of events that results in a catastrophic failure shares some of the responsibility. Boeing's internal executive incentive focus has changed from emphasizing quality and passenger safety, but I can't elaborate on it here because of its "political" nature. Simply put, priorities directed away from building the best possible product are simply irrational...insane...when the product flies through the air at 500+ MPH with hundreds of people onboard. But the FAA's role was always intended to be the oversight that would protect the flying public from greed, stupidity, incompetence, and sub-standard work. The current trend towards allowing "self reporting" concerning critical engineering issues and construction procedures is rather like letting the fox run the henhouse, and thinking everything will be OK because the fox promised to be a good boy.

"Frustrating" describes my interactions with people who don't have a well-defined sense of self and a reliable moral compass.

Thing is, there's nobody overseeing ground "fleet vehicles" like the FAA is supposed to. And ground "fleet vehicle" mechanics aren't required to have extensive training and licenses like aviation mechanics are supposed to. There was a time when shortcutting aviation maintenance procedures was a big deal if you were caught, and could get you shut down, grounded, out of business. But both the FAA reps and the standards aviation mechanics are performing at have been deteriorating for decades. When everyone was qualified and did his or her job reasonably well, everything worked pretty well. Today not so much. And I speak as someone who's seen it from the inside. The laws and regs are all in place to insure against aviation "accidents" pretty effectively, but just like in a lot of other arenas today, if laws and regs aren't enforced for whatever reason, bad things happen. There HAVE been catastrophic airliner events in days past, like the De Havilland Comets literally exploding in flight as the result of metal fatigue in fuselages operating in flight regimes never encountered previously, or the wing failures of Lockheed Electras that, again, experienced conditions nobody had seen previously and so failed to engineer for. But these disasters taught engineers how to build the safest commercial aircraft humanly possible. The problems arise when shortcuts or excessive cost savings or misplaced priorities creep into the chain...from drawing board on out. Again, IF everyone is properly qualified AND does his or her job right...and those are BIG ifs.