Ace-Garageguy

Most every vehicle I own...

A larger battery than is called out and OEM installed will fit the PTs with zero modifications.

I recently bought a bottle of Mission Models MMP-067 "Yellow Zinc Chromate" to start experimenting with water-base paint. It's a decent match for what's on those B-25s above. But NOTE: there are very obvious differences in the colors of adjacent panels on those aircraft.

I kinda like it, frankly. My first impression was positive. But the somewhat ham-handed photoshop job fails to adequately address the vast differences in width between the two vehicles. So...if this was done in 1:1 (or even in scale), the proportions would change and it wouldn't look like that anyway. And then there's this...

I can't endorse any particular brand. My current understanding is that most of the US-made wet-cell batteries come from the same manufacturer anyway, so the real differences are minor. For my own vehicles, I buy the best parts-store wet-cell battery I can afford, the biggest one that will physically fit in the space for it. This usually works pretty well. The group 24 battery in my '89 GMC truck has been going strong since 2011. Sometimes, however, the same battery in a different application may have a much shorter life. For instance, I've only been able to get about 3-5 years from the same batteries in a PT Cruiser that has MUCH higher underhood temperatures, lots of electronics, AC, makes constant short trips, and in general puts more stress on a battery. At this time, I think the best thing any consumer can do to prolong their battery life is to fit a smart solar trickle-charger that's compatible with the type of battery in the vehicle. But again, I can't endorse any particular brand.

1) Most people don't bother reading instructions on anything, so there's that. 2) Yes, the no-leak part of AGM batteries is a significant plus, but on the client vehicles where I install batteries, I almost always put the battery in a vented polymer box with a drain tube running entirely out of the vehicle anyway. Problem solved.

The quality of Optimas has been questionable for some time now. While they were at one time pretty much the gold-standard among performance batteries, today...not necessarily so. While SOME perform just fine, SOME seem to be garbage right out of the box. They're so notoriously bad (and I've seen several fail for no apparent reason) that I refuse to install them in clients' vehicles now. There's plenty of online info regarding this, and though I'm typically very skeptical of online "experts", having seen a few fail myself, like I said, for no identifiable reason, I've gone back to old-school wet-cell batteries for everything I stand behind. NOTE: Improper charging is well known to have adverse effects on the AGM (absorbant-glass-mat) type of batteries, including the "spiral-wound" style like Optima. I've found the wet-cell batteries to be far more tolerant of abuse. That said, an alternator failure should NOT, as stated above, immediately stop the car anyway (usually...barring a catastrophic internal failure leading to a dead short), and there should have been at least an idiot-light indication prior to engine-shutdown, giving more than ample time to get the vehicle off the road and in a safe place.

Couple things to be aware of... 1) Real zinc chromate, having been identified as highly toxic AND a carcinogen, has been largely phased out, especially in consumer products. 2) There was no color standard for zinc chromate primers or coatings on aircraft. Other pigments were routinely added to the stuff, giving a range of colors from the brightish yellow-green to a darkish green. There's been much discussion of this on warbird restoration and modelling forums, and the consensus is generally that different manufacturers at different times used a wide variety of colors of the stuff...and sometimes stretched it with whatever was on hand. Remember that combat aircraft weren't built to last indefinitely. When a particular surviving aircraft is restored, there's usually an attempt made to find a patch of the original material and match the new coating to it. Different areas of the same aircraft could have different colors of 'zinc chromate' as well...like interiors leaning to darker greens, with gear wells and cowl interiors being more yellow. This is probably what most folks familiar with vintage aircraft think of when ZC is mentioned, but I've seen a wide range of yellows, yellow-greens, and darker greens on general aviation and commercial aircraft and warbirds.

Force is correct. Junkyard first-generation ('51-'58) Chrysler "FirePower" (and Imperial) hemi engines (represented in the kit, and not to be confused with the other Chrysler Corp. Dodge RedRam and DeSoto Firedome hemi engines) were still the hot setup for maximum power in the early-mid sixties. The cast-in bellhousing Force mentions on the earliest 331 Chrysler engines looks like the photo below. Subsequent 354 and 392 engines through '58 did not have the cast-in bellhousing.

The yellow engine with the green head has the stock water port blocked off with a black blanking plate just visible behind the carb. Here's the bare block clearly showing that water port. Stock T cooling, below. The yellow engine has an aftermarket coolant manifold on the opposite side, where these square-drive plugs used to live. The plugs are there to facilitate removal of casting core sand from the water jacket during production. The block has been machined to accept studs to hold it in place.

And then there's the much more common occurrence where "someone posts a well-detailed build or one with interesting parts. Then a member asks about something on that build, i.e. where did you get those wheels, or which muffler oil did you use", all of which were addressed by the builder, but the person asking the question is just too lazy to read through the copy.

Try the google search function for this site. There are multiple useful threads. Here's two:

Modifying the curve of the 5-window part with heat and adjusting the width by filing or adding strip stock to the edges is vastly easier than any of the other methods. I've adapted that decklid to several different bodies.

Glad you finally got to someone who could straighten things out. A mortgage payment is kind of a big deal. It eventually took me 6 hours online with "customer service chat", on phone hold, and eventually angrily visiting the local office to finally get my internet and landline service provider to admit there was a problem, admit that it was THEIR equipment or lines at fault, and to restore a reliable connection. This was after 3 months of randomly interrupted internet and phone service, and as I work from home occasionally, to say it was exasperating is an understatement. Ain't "technology" grand?

I also admire your effort in getting this model to resemble the real car more than it does as it comes in the box. I bought a couple of these shortly after getting back in the hobby, solely out of ignorance...and the very pretty box-art. After looking at them, in disgusted exasperation I put them on the shelf, where they've been for well over a decade. I'm looking forward to seeing your results.

I looked at several random cans I have. Some state "Made In USA". Some do not. Interestingly, it's the ones that don't (in my admittedly very small random sample) that are leaking.

I just received a used head core for my Neon. Little car is so much fun to drive, so anonymous, and gets such great mileage, I've decided to keep him indefinitely. Plan was to buy a head core, rebuild it on the bench, and then swap it, along with doing the timing belt, tensioner, water pump, and RH engine mount. But as usual, stupidity had different plans. For starters, it was supposed to be a "good" takeoff from a running car with 160K on the clock. Nope. Looks like it's been under water for 6 months. And I've never seen such a moronic job of packing a heavy car part in my life. Rattling around in a cardboard box, with a little shredded newspaper. That's all. The box is busted up, naturally, and the pressed-in spark-plug tubes are ruined. So...I'll have yet more work to do, and more time wasted out of my life, compensating for a mess made by a mouth-breathing, brain-dead chimp.

A lot of times it's the clear "binder" (sometimes called "vehicle") that the pigment is suspended in too. Binder refers to substances that hold the particles of pigment together in paint. All paints include a binder of some sort because this is what keeps the pigment in place after the paint dries. That's the gooey mess that gets the can firmly glued to wherever it's sitting. You may or may not be able to recover the contents by decanting; you might need to add more clear, and the paint might have lost other secondary chemicals as well. Good question. If the lower seal fails, you'd still lose propellant, but the paint itself might still be OK after decanting.

It's pretty simple these days to tamper with a digital odo display now too...though that doesn't seem to be common knowledge. https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/even-in-the-digital-age-odometer-fraud-is-a-growing-problem-121620.html

Yeah, that used to be the average frequency I'd get them, but in the past 30 days I've had no less than 5 calls, from different originating numbers. The best place to put them, for sure, but enough people are falling for this stuff to keep them going.

Same thing goes for the extended warranty used-car dealers try to tack on. Another friend bought a low-mileage PT Cruiser when they were cool, and the dealer got really nasty when she refused the $2500 (paid over time) extended warranty. In the end, when the timing belt failed at an indicated 60,000 miles (it should have lasted at least until 100,000+), I was pretty sure they'd turned the odometer back too. This was a big-name new-and-used car dealer, so the appearance of legitimacy is no guarantee of legitimacy.

There are folks out there with more money than brains. The ex-girlfriend of an old friend paid $10,000 for a new engine for her Jag after she drove it with no coolant until it seized, because an $8 plastic fitting cracked. She kept on driving with the "red light" on, because her old Toyota ran forever with the "red light" on, and she just thought it was a petty annoyance. After the ripoff chimps put the engine in, they realized she'd cooked the trans as well (it got HOT)...which is when they brought me in. Turned out there were NO parts available from the manufacturer or aftermarket (at the time) for the trans, and the best price I could get her for a low-mileage gearbox was another $6500. They junked the car. I never really understood why an old hippie chick had bought a nice Jag anyway, especially after she let her dog shred the dash and seats.

Model Master is Testors. I've had similar problems with both.

Lately both my landline AND my cell have been inundated with scammers pushing an "extended warranty", claiming my factory warranty is running out and I'll be...OMG...left with the possibility of staggering repair bills destroying my financial security. Really? Obviously robo-calls that have no real info as to what vehicles I actually own, their ages, or anything remotely connected to reality. Fact is, the newest vehicle I operate has been out-of-warranty for at least a decade. DON'T GET DUPED. These are almost always scams that try to scare people (often focusing on older folks on fixed-incomes), take their money, and either disappear entirely after they've filled their bank accounts to overflowing, or find some reason to refuse claims made against them. If you think you want or need an extended warranty, there are legit companies out there...but do your due-diligence research and SEEK THEM OUT; don't trust some phone call from out of the blue.