Ace-Garageguy

Yup. I've owned at least one of all of 'em except the wagons and rampsides. Fine little cars, all. The '60 was a little squirrelly if the tire pressures weren't dead on and you found yourself going a little fast into a decreasing radius turn, but was easily fixed with a "camber compensator". The gutted, race-prepped '66 140 I eventually ran on the street was one of the most fun cars I've ever owned. Nader was my first exposure to a self-styled "expert" with verbal diarrhea concerning things he had little knowledge of (followed by countless others) and a gullible drama-seeking public swallowing just-flat-wrong loads of excrement whole...but GM's gutless lack of defense of the little car and its entirely adequate engineering (exemplary from '65 on) was what actually killed it. There is, however, no question GM should have installed the camber compensator from day one. The engineers knew it, but the bean-counters nixed it.

Correct. The Caddy engine is the only one with the water manifolds going to the front of the heads as represented by the model.

I'm sincerely sorry to hear about the difficult times you've been going through. I've been through something similar, and it's hard to understand why these breakups happen sometimes. Hang in there. You can deal with it.

I assume you're targeting my comment, as you quoted it. Every word I posted is fact. Every single word. Here's some more facts: a quinine derivative used for treating malaria has shown very positive results as a treatment once you have the bug (though that was misidentified elsewhere on the forum as being a malaria "vaccination", and a vaccine is now in phase one of clinical trials, though it will be months before it becomes widely available even if it proves to be effective.

And let's try to keep the hand-wringing concern in perspective. Look at the numbers indeed. CDC estimates that so far this season there have been at least 36 million flu illnesses, 370,000 hospitalizations and 22,000 deaths from flu. Coronavirus cases, by comparison...13,622 illnesses and 189 deaths. Where was the economy-crippling panic due to the flu? People are acting like this bug is an automatic death sentence. It's not. Period. If you're basically healthy, it's just a bad flu-like couple of weeks at most, and many people who are exposed don't even get the sniffles. If you're old and have pre-existing respiratory and/or cardiac conditions, you should be very careful. And if you know people like that, you should avoid them to protect them from infection, as carriers can show no symptoms but may transmit the bug. Otherwise, a little calm and rational thought might be good at this point.

There is a guy on the board who's done 3D renderings of a poly engine. I don't recall whether he's printed any yet, but his other work looks very good. I'll try to remember his user name. He's posted a lot of good info regarding 3D printing.

Correct. The "poly" heads were a cost and complexity cutting measure applied to lower line cars from '55-'58. The rocker covers on the actual "hemi" hemi look like this, lacking the scalloped lower edge... Great little car anyway, well worth rescuing, and looks to be remarkably complete. Any aspect of your restoration work you need competent professional advice concerning, don't hesitate to ask. PM me if you'd like, and I'll give you my direct email.

That's it in a nutshell...except it's a whole hell of a lot harder. I watched the early trials of the first-gen Darpa-sponsored self-drivers navigating around rocks and ditches in the desert, and thought "well, that's cool, but the rocks and ditches aren't all moving independently, or stepping in front of the thing, or cutting it off with lane-changes, or running stop lights. It should be interesting to see what happens when all that gets stirred into the mix". Turns out I was right. The level of "intelligence" and fail-safe reliability necessary for a full-function self-drive environment is higher, probably by an order of magnitude, than anything ever previously devised by humans.

Yup. I'm in 100% agreement. And destroying the economy in the process doesn't seem to be the smartest possible move.

Hey man, who needs drive-in movies when you can just call Uber to take you anywhere you can afford and watch a movie on your tiny little smart-screen while somebody else is responsible for controlling the vehicle? Hell...the fully-evolved self-driving cars will probably have big-screen entertainment and bean-bag seating, so you don't need to grope with that pesky steering wheel and gearshift in the way, or climb into the back seat for more comfortable maneuvering.

They appear to be knurled hold-downs for the valve cover castings, as the covers also appear to lack the normal bolt pattern on the perimeter. Somewhat similar valve covers show cast-in bosses for filler cap or breather installation, but even without the bosses, machining pads on cast alloy covers for aftermarket breathers is no big deal. Likewise, machining holes in cast covers, machining knurled knobs, and fabbing brackets that bolt to the heads and receive the threaded portion of the hold-down would be no big deal to anyone competent in the business. EDIT: You also have to remember that this car was built in a completely different America. There were still plenty of highly skilled pattern-makers around, and making wood patterns, sand molds from them, and getting a small foundry to cast a set of two of custom parts was not uncommon.

Definitely a big win for mindless panic over well-informed and reasoned behavior on the part of the majority. Why am I not at all surprised? Latest twist: the parking lot outside my local Publix was littered with hundreds of disposable gloves. Reminded me of a run of Coney Island whitefish.

Not at all. The self-driving car craze is as mindlessly monkey-see, monkey-do idiotic as the panic hoarding of toilet paper. There are not, unfortunately, very many people with whatever it takes to stand up and say a stupid idea is a stupid idea. And the herd instinct seems to be getting stronger with the decline of general intelligence and testosterone.

Good call. Better than the '39- '40.

Good job, sir. I started cutting way back in about '95. Finally quit for good, with some other lifestyle changes, around a decade later. It's a powerful addition. I smell a cig these days and really REALLY want one, but so far, I'm clean. One day at a time...

Almost certainly cut down from a '39 or '40 Ford hood, narrowed.

Glad it's working for you. Soldering is a great technique to have in your bag of tricks. Just a note about terminology..."braised" is a cooking term meaning lightly fried, then stewed. When talking about joining metal, it's "brazed", but it's different from soldering. Brazing is done at a higher temperature, most often on steel or other ferrous metals, using brass as the filler material (though several other alloys can be used depending on the base metal being joined). Brazing was widely used on European racing car tubular chassis structures at one time, as the lower temperature (lower than welding) doesn't embrittle the metal adjacent to it, but produces a very strong joint if the parts are closely fitted. Some folks get upset with me when I try to clarify things technical. I hope you'll take the information I present in the spirit it's offered...a sincere desire to help further understanding and accuracy. PS: Is that magnets you're using on a sheet of steel for your fixture? Very nice, if so. Great idea.

Wait...so there's TWO sections for taxis? That doesn't seem fair.

I agree completely. But it's always been politics that's prevented compulsory effective driver training. Legislating personal responsibility is a very VERY hard sell.

Lots more deadly than coronavirus, eh? Maybe putting fifty rolls of toilet paper in the trunk would help...

Yeah, but the grossly-fat-is-beautiful culture has much the same effect. When dangerously overweight is promoted as "healthy" and accepted as a "lifestyle choice" and dressed up in phrases like "self acceptance" and "body positivity", the whole society's health suffers...and medical costs soar for those of us who choose to not look like hippos too. And if you want to talk about contagion...The CDC estimates that so far this season there have been at least 22,000 deaths, 36 million flu illnesses, 370,000 hospitalizations. The 2019-2020 influenza outbreak is moderate to low in overall severity, but hospitalization rates are high among children and young adults.

Soldering additional parts to a model in close proximity to previously soldered parts has always been a problem. Solder of different melting points is one solution. They are available. Another solution is using various kinds of heat-sinks to control heat spread. A wet paste of chopped asbestos was used when I was young, though it's probably not the best solution in light of what we now know about its toxicity. Alligator clips work, or even wet paper towels. Becoming very proficient with your soldering technique also helps, and properly tinning parts prior to soldering, then using a soldering iron or gun that has sufficient heat to make a quick job of each joint.

I just got in from a cross-country flight. Half the plane was empty, but one Asian-looking girl was wearing a mask. Now I have the sniffles. I guess I'm infected and going to die. But before I do, I'm going to the store to buy every roll of toilet paper they have, and then come home, set my hair on fire, and run in circles. From what I can tell on the interdwerbs, that seems to be the correct strategy. PS: Anyone who read this comment should go was his hands now. Can't be too careful.

I didn't know there was a section for stuffed animals.