Ace-Garageguy

The thing is...I've had posts rejected repeatedly that contained NONE of the naughty words. "Inconvenient"? How 'bout I just don't bother any more with information- and photo-heavy posts if they're rejected once?

Annoyingly pontificating on the internet is one of my favorite pastimes.

Especially when you have no idea what any of it does anyway...

Yup, I've had that happen more times than I can count. It's one of the reasons I rarely upload any build content anymore. I hate...HATE...having my time wasted trying to find some obscure word that isn't in my text anyway.

One of the things I love about car modeling...and modeling in general...is the opportunities presented to learn new stuff about physical reality. My own career path got a leg up because well before I entered the workforce, I knew the right terms for most major automobile parts, and their functions, largely because of what I'd picked up from model-car instruction sheets (long before they were terminally dumbed-down to McD's touch-screen idiocracy levels), so that when I started reading the real-car mags, I knew what they were talking about. So...in the course of researching a little of the reality of Mopar 'poly' engines, I found this. Enjoy.

First off, I don't claim any expertise in the Mopar 'poly' engines. But I do have a little knowledge of engines in general, and their identification. The only reason I can see for putting a Mopar 'poly' engine in a model car is for the unique scalloped valve cover shapes associated with these engines. Image-search anything related to Chrysler/Dodge/Plymouth/Mopar 'poly' engines and you'll get scalloped valve covers. Interestingly, there were different Mopar engines referred to as 'poly' built by different divisions, with distinctive valve covers...just as the Chrysler, Dodge, and DeSoto 'hemi' engines are all similar, but pretty much entirely different. EXAMPLE: The blue valve covers below are listed as fitting the Dodge 315-325 'poly' engine. The valve covers below are listed as coming from a 1965 Chrysler 318 'poly' engine. Note the substantial differences in the design of the scallops and the hold-down bolt locations...required because the heads themselves are different. EDIT 1: Apparently (according to my understanding at this moment) because there were essentially two different Mopar 'poly' engine families: those built on the A-block, and those built on Chrysler 1st-gen 'hemi' blocks. And while you're looking at head identification, comparing exhaust port spacing is definitely relevant, but also look at how the ports are oriented relative to the rest of the head. Note that the exhaust manifold is located much closer to one end of the 318 head on the engine I posted above. That's because the ports are grouped closer to one end, not symmetrically spaced, and this is an important ID feature on any engine as well. EDIT 2: Now that I'm into it, so far the most authoritative 'poly' article I've found online is this: https://poly318.com/poly-318-engine-history-information/

Life sucks and then you die.

Beautiful car, great project. Always loved the TR6. Worked on and drove them when they were new and still do.

I remember several colors back in the '60s and '70s reminiscent of stuff that would come out of babies on occasion, in the mustard yellow, brown, and pea green families. I had Fiats in both of these colors...and kinda liked 'em.

More is always better, unless less is more, and in that case I'm confused.

Sad thing is that with not much more effort at all, CAD makes it entirely possible to design for easy service. First obviously CAD-designed car I encountered was a '92 Nissan Stanza IIRC. Low oil pressure, lifters clattering, and I found a "secret recall" at the time concerning the timing chain tensioner. Seems the plastic facing on some tensioners would slough off, and the flakes were about the same density as engine oil. They'd stay suspended in the oil and clog the pickup screen. First symptom was ticking lifters on a low-mileage engine, then a flickering idiot light, then constant on. Diagnosis: drain the oil and strain it through a stocking. If there were flakes present, drop the pan, clean the screen, then replace the tensioner. When I opened the hood and looked at it, I was about certain the engine would have to come out to do the chain tensioner. But no...I decided to just dive into it and see if I could wiggle and trick everything out. Surprisingly, it had been intentionally designed so that there was just barely enough room and clearances at the ends of studs, etc., so it came apart quite easily and logically. I was blown away impressed, and figured that if CAD-designed cars would be like this in the future, the rest of my life would be far less maddening. Boy, was I wrong. * Interestingly, Nissan would pay an independent to do the repair, presumably in order to not get too much of a black eye from a model-wide dealer recall program, as not all the cars were affected and they didn't seem to know which ones got the bad tensioners. This wasn't, however, an isolated event. Later, a class-action lawsuit against Nissan emerged concerning similar timing chain problems in the VQ35/VQ40 engines, resulting in a settlement for affected owners. The prevalence of this issue across different Nissan engines illustrates a pattern of using plastic components in the timing system that proved less durable than expected. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm kinda wondering how big the class action numbers are going to be for the impending industry-wide wet-timing-belt debacle.

Early PTs, you had to drop the tank to do a pump. Second year, I think, they put an access panel in the rear floor too. Lotsa pickups you have to remove the bed or drop the tank, if possible, to do fuel pumps. I put an access panel in my '89 GMC bed floor, will probably need to do the same in the '92 Silverado shortly.

The "poly" engine valve cover is visually different from everything else, and I'm pretty sure this doesn't look like what's in the '41 Plymouth kit... EDIT: Just checked the '41 Plymouth kit. Definitely NOT a poly.

Just another example of how the holes ruin things for everyone else.

"Jobs" don't necessarily guarantee that the people doing them do them conscientiously, or put in any effort at all.

'Mind-over-matter' actually has some documented effectiveness, particularly where keeping a more positive mental attitude can contribute to physical health. https://www.research.colostate.edu/healthyagingcenter/2021/07/27/mind-over-matter/

Then there's plastic intake manifolds and anything plastic under the hood in general. Heat makes many plastics dry and shrink and/or crumble, kiddies. There's a plastic coolant elbow (a cheap small part, easily accessed) on some fairly late-model Jags that's destroyed a fair few engines when oblivious owners tried to keep driving with the temp needle off the scale. One woman I knew not only seized her engine, but after we replaced it, we found it got SO hot that every seal inside the transmission was cooked too...and of course NO INTERNAL SERVICE PARTS were available. After spending $10K on the engine replacement, she balked at the $6K more for a used gearbox and junked it. -------------------------------------------------------------------- This was, of course, someone who shouldn't have had a nice car in the first place. Earlier in this poor Jag's life, she'd left her dog locked in it, and the animal shredded the dash top and seat backs. Bad dog? No. Idiot owner.

Yup, I've seen that one too.

Yup. Which is why it's good, if you can afford it, to stock up on the cool stuff that's out there now. I missed a whole lotta Modelhaus kits, foolishly assuming they'd be around forever. Same goes for some great vintage truck-kit and other aftermarket suppliers as well. We're currently seeing some non-US manufacturers of great parts who won't ship here amid the tariff controversy, too. And one of the main reasons I went to the ACME show over the weekend was to buy as much from both MCG and Norm at Replicas and Miniatures of Maryland as my budget could stretch to. In the course of conversation, after I'd paid for my haul, Norm himself brought up that he's not going to be around forever. So if you really want something from companies that are around today, BUY IT. They might be gone tomorrow.

Yup. These are 1/32" but I've seen them as fine as 1/64" https://www.ebay.com/itm/203126014043?

"When used by capable artists as an adjunct to human emotional drive, AI can augment the creation of absolutely breathtaking visual images and composition of deeply evocative music..."

"Think about the damage that's been done...by really smart people who don't know anything". Bill Whittle

Rained pretty much all night, fairly steadily. My roof tarping of a couple weeks back was about 99% successful. Had one slow drip rather than water ingress at the rate of a half-open faucet. I can live with it.

Yup. I've seen that one. Isn't there a Ford...maybe the Transit...that does something equally stupid too?