Ace-Garageguy

You're very welcome, sir. Beautiful work.

Some of the slickest, cleanest custom work I've ever seen. Very nice.

I've seen that from time to time. Nice clean used Lexus Hippopotamus XSE daddy bought the little girl to drive to college. Engine starts rattling, warning lights on, she keeps driving. BANG !!!

I've got old-school 7" round Hella quartz-halogens in the Spyder, and vintage 7" Marchal halogen driving lights (NOS race car stuff). 100 amp alternator, 10 gage wiring. With everything lit, it's so bright the birds in the trees think it's dawn and start singing as I go by. EDIT: Snagged a pile of NOS Cibie and Lucas bulbs and housings last spring while cleaning out a friend's basement. Should have enough for at least one Jag and the 911.

Tri-5 Chebbys and Camaros for some reason. Not that I don't like 'em...I do...but I don't have much desire to model one after I pick the box up. Very strange. EDIT: Though I'm kinda getting a hankering to do gassers based on a '55 Nomad and a 210.

Happened to a friendamine's Miata. "Economic total", but he bought it new, loved the little car, so I fixed it for thousands less than the estimate, and it's running still.

Correct. But I think it looks a whole lot mo' better like this...

Excellent...though it often requires uncommon courage.

According to what I'm finding on the interdweebs, that's not the case. There are multiple threads about what Bronco owners who don't care for the scrap-parts-pile look (posted above) are doing about retrofitting covers from other stuff to tidy up the mess somewhat. Here's one: https://www.bronco6g.com/forum/threads/2-7l-engine-cover.23185/

That's quite a piece of work. molto impressionante

All 3 US manufacturers still have testing facilities, Chrysler's being not too far from my place in AZ., and at least one other is in the same general area (I think). But having a facility and testing pre-production vehicles to destruction to eliminate weak points are, however, two different things. With a corporate culture that pushes rush-rush-rush, cost-cutting over quality, and individuals often reluctant to stick their heads up, you have another recipe for disaster. Anybody recall GM's little ignition switch mess that resulted in a $10 BILLION class-action lawsuit? https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/lawsuit-news/new-10b-gm-ignition-switch-class-action-lawsuit-filed/ Apparently the final settlement was much less, but the cost of recalls, wrongful death settlements, etc. isn't included below. https://reverbpress.com/gm-ignition-switch-economic-settlement/ Things like this, and engines going boom in new vehicles aren't just oopsies. They're indicative of management failure, period.

There's a lot going on both here and globally that we are forbidden to address on this forum. Suffice it to say...without, I believe, breaching any rules...that we're seeing Idiocracy, Atlas Shrugged, and 1984 beginning to play out simultaneously in reality.

Here's the problem a large part of the problem: when you hire and promote your engineering and development staff for any reasons OTHER than ability, competence, and experience, you're doomed to fail eventually. All engineers are NOT created equal, and anyone who believes they are is a fool. Then when you fail to implement brutal-beyond-real-world testing before you sign anything off for production, you're doomed to failure too. One more thing that's simple common sense: vehicle designers and engineers should be required to work hands-on in the "lower" echelons of the industry, see how things break, what it takes to maintain them, and how body and mechanical repair procedures operate in reality, before they're green-lighted to design and develop ANYTHING new.

And they were right. Early in the commercial development of the automobile, their horse and buggy WERE more reliable. We're headed that way again. You might want to read through the whole thread, as there seems to be some confusion as to what this thread is actually about; the subject here is the poor reparability of overly complex vehicles as they age. But there's also a worsening problem with the OEMs not being able to get their stuff ready for market prior to putting it ON the market. For the most recent example, see the thread over on "off topic" about the brand new Ford Bronco engines blowing.

https://www.bronco6g.com/forum/threads/2-7l-blown-engine-fail-list-38-so-far-feb-21-update.31951/ https://www.bronco6g.com/forum/threads/update-on-failed-2-7-engine.33149/ Lotsa other QC and design issues surfacing apparently too.

Critical thinking? What's critical thinking? Sounds hard to me...kinda like rolling up windows, ya know? Just accept everything you're told and sold and be happy.

Mmmmm...toast.

Friendamine went outta town a while back, rented a car, went to a mall to get something, left his phone in the car while he ran inside "real quick". Came back out, the central locking system wouldn't respond to the fob, and naturally this oh-so-mo'-better POS had no keyholes in either door. All kindsa grief getting somebody out to rescue him when he didn't know where he was and couldn't phone from beside the car. When the the driver from the rental company finally got there hours later, after my guy had missed his meeting, the rental guy had to smash the window to get in the damm thing. Man oh man. How about those wonders of modern technology, huh?

OMG !!! I only hope there's a phone app for it !!!

That's not really the subject of this thread though, is it? There's no argument that modern vehicles, by virtue of electronic engine management and improved understanding of the combustion process enabled by computer modeling, run cleaner, more efficiently, and have higher relative power outputs than their predecessors. Nor is there any argument that modern automated machining processes result in engines built to tighter initial tolerances, and the good ones will run for 200K miles with reasonable care (but so would cars from the 1950s, and well beyond with competent maintenance...which some folks seem to want to deny for some reason). However, as good as newer vehicles might be when they're new, when they break, they can be maddeningly difficult to diagnose and repair, and as they age and are inevitably no longer supported by their manufacturers, they can be quite literally impossible to repair given the financial circumstances of their second or third owners. What's the primary STUPID contributing factor here is the insane unnecessary complication every designer seems to think is the right way to do things now (every damm one of them apparently being ignorant of the KISS principle)...and what's DOUBLY STUPID is running non-drivetrain functions like brakes, window lifts, door locks, alternator voltage regulation, lights, signals, wipers, AC, heat, seats, and communications et al through centralized and INTERCONNECTED ECMs. All these accessory systems can be discrete, work perfectly and indefinitely with dumb switches and relays (or simple stand-alone ECMs that perform only one function and don't adversely affect ANYTHING ELSE when they fail), and be segregated from the mission-critical functions involved in making the car GO. Main systems would be vastly simplified. Diagnosis and repairs would be vastly simplified, and having the comm systems isolated from engine-management and safety systems just makes logical sense.

Here's another thought. The stock up-top in the AMT '36 Ford is MUCH closer in profile to what you want, but it's wider. It should be easier to take a slice out of the middle of one, to narrow it to the width of a '32. I have a few of these I'll never use, but they're 2000 miles away at the moment; surely somebody else here has one.

Well sir, it's what has been very successfully marketed to them over decades, not what they actually need...as you well know. I've taken some adults for rides in my 1989 stripper fleet GMC pickup, with a manual gearbox, rollup windows, and no heat or AC (which was the way base models came when I was a kid), and they're mostly horrified that someone can actually use something so primitive on a daily basis. Funny thing is that a few of them think it's really cool...lotsa times kids. And of course...I love it. God I'm glad I'm not a coddled wimp.

The rear panel on your Thunderbolt reference shot doesn't lean anywhere near as far forward as your Bop Top shots. I'd suggest the same top as Mark mentions as a starting point. It's this kit: Below is a built version copied from this very site. Not too terrible much work to get from here to where you want to be. Create a more wrapped-around side panel, lower the center bow a little, lean the rear panel back a tick at the bottom, and you're there.

I've encountered that with some CAD programs that, even though I thought I owned the copy of the dammed thing, it had to have a separate license to run on every single workstation...even if I was the only actual user. I thought it was bulldump then, I think it's bulldump now...one of the major reasons I haven't "purchased" the CAD thingy I really want. And I've read all the "thou shalt not copy, reverse-engineer, bla bla bla...", which I always just kinda assumed was their legal department giving fair warning to potential patent infringers. Guess I'll need to read all the small print in future. Still, I can see buying or leasing a "license" to use a very powerful computational and design tool much easier than I can get my head around not owning an integral part of what makes a purchased vehicle function, and is indispensable for it to function...thereby giving said vehicle value as a functional vehicle.