Ace-Garageguy

to the gullible

Boltsbaggens (VW Bugs and other VW products) got built under license in several countries, including sunny Mexico and Brazil. And the wonderful little Yugoslavian-built Yugo (but not for long) was a baby Italian Fiat under it's mildly restyled skin. Several English brands have been built in India, Australia, etc. Fords have been built under license all over the place.

Thanks. Yeah, and in an effort to get the nose down to a reasonable height, a lot of "straight axle" gassers actually use dropped axles. Kinda silly in my opinion to jack the car way up with leaf-springs on top of the axle, and then have to drop it back down somewhat with a dropped-axle. It makes far more sense to use a real straight axle, easily fabricated from tube (on a real car OR a model), and choose (or make) springs to put the thing at the right ride height. Another thing...using a dropped axle on a real car is a handling compromise at best. It's almost mandatory for a hot-rod, to get one low, but the dropped ends act like levers, multiplying the brake torque trying to twist the axle and wrap the springs up. Old-school gassers and similar classes like this are pretty squirrelly to start with, due to the very high center of gravity. No logic in introducing more variables and unhappy forces acting to destabilize a car any more than absolutely necessary. Of course, if you're building a car from junkyard parts, you use what you can find, but as it's relatively easy to fabricate a straight axle, and have leaf springs made (or re-curved) to get exactly what you want, it makes more sense to me to go that route.

that's finger lickin'

Always a fan of gluebomb saves. I'll be following.

This is great. Really appreciating all the effort you're putting in to make the car look right for the year it represents. Love those 1:1 shots too. My first car was a '62 Bug the same color.

Yes, I'm aware of the smaller 2-hole scoops, and maybe I'm wrong about the dimensions being off. I've been wrong before, and there's every likelihood I'll be wrong at least once more before I die. But I still say something looked so off when I mocked up the engine from this kit, I just put it back in the box and wrote it off. Mayhaps I need to pull it out and have another look.

Thanks to Mr. Snake, I scored a 1/32 Spitfire Mk22-24, the last of the line. I wouldnae ha known aboot it had it nae been for him. Thanks, Snake. The decals are a little buggered, but there are bound to be other sources. Damm what a pretty airplane. Looks like the offspring of a P-51-D and an early Spit. Also looks (at first glance) like the cockpit can be installed after the fuselage is built and painted, from underneath through the opening for the wing.

It sure does. Hmmmmm...

Like lotsa Everclear

PLEASE: TO EVERYONE ALL OVER THE FORUM >>>> IF YOU"RE GOING TO QUOTE SOMETHING, HOW ABOUT DON'T QUOTE THE ENTIRE POST WITH ALL THE PICTURES? IT'S EASY TO EDIT A QUOTE DOWN TO JUST ONE PHOTO, OR BETTER YET, JUST THE TEXT YOU"RE COMMENTING ON. ALSO: PLEASE BE POLITE AND DON'T POST YOUR OWN PHOTOS ON SOMEBODY'S BUILD THREAD, UNLESS IT'S TO ILLUSTRATE A TECHNICAL POINT OR FOR REFERENCE PURPOSES. IT GETS CONFUSING SOMETIMES AS FAR AS WHOSE WORK IS WHOSE, ETC. THESE POINTS HAVE BEEN BROUGHT UP MULTIPLE TIMES IN "GENERAL" AND OTHER AREAS, BUT SOME NEWER FOLKS HAVEN'T HEARD. NOT BEING MEAN...JUST TRYING TO CONSERVE SERVER SPACE, AND MAKE IT EASIER TO READ THROUGH THREADS WITHOUT SEEING THE SAME IMAGES COPIED NEEDLESSLY. THANK YOU. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I'm pretty particular about how wheels relate to fenders, and I make an effort to keep things right. I've seen a lot of otherwise very nice models spoiled when the wheels / tires are way off center in their openings. I glued the front axle in to a fixture on the frame (made earlier) that holds it in the correct position relative to the body, established during the mockup phase. I used white glue that's strong enough to hold the axle while I work on it, but easily removable when I'm done. You probably can't see it here, but the axle has the correct camber made into it, and the caster has been set by leaning the kingpin bosses back at the top. When the wheels are posed, the steering will move correctly and look like a real car. The springs shown here are single strips of .020" styrene with rod to simulate spring eyes on the ends. This little part I made is one of a pair of spring brackets that would be welded to the axle. U-bolts would go over the axle, through holes in the brackets, and get nuts that clamp the axle to the spring and keep it from rotating. Here's the first one in place, very carefully located on the axle. With both brackets "welded" in place, I was able to laminate a few more spring leaves in place with the right curvature, made from .015" styrene strip. I laminated more leaves on the rears too. Here the finished springs are in place on the axle, pinned from below so they'll go back in exactly the right location after painting and "plating" the axle. I buggered one end of the rear axle while working it down to fit the "sliders", so I took both ends off and replaced them with tubing. The mods to the lift bars are also proceeding in this shot. Width check after trimming the ends to length. I ended up needing to use a .030" spacer on each side to get the tires exactly where I wanted them. After the axle was primered to check some other repairs (it was salvaged from a gluebomb SWC Willys), I measured and cut a section out of the driveshaft to fit the previously mocked-up axle location, and to help me check the pinion angle relative to the trans. Yeah, it's not going to run, but I'm just wired to do things as if it was. Finally, with all that fahoolin' aboot out of the way, I'm able to glue the lift bars to the axle housing, using the fixtures I made to hold the axle in the right place, and one more to hold the ends of the bars in position. Much like building a real car. There's enough clearance for the tail to squat about 4 scale inches when the car accelerates, without having the lift-bars hit the floor. Should be plenty. Up on her feet again, to verify I got everything in the right place BEFORE the glue gets entirely hard, and to give myself a little more motivation to keep going.

I had to build frame outriggers to anchor the rear ends of the 4-links. They have to be this wide to clear the front bellypan. They're pinned so I can take this end apart too, for painting and chrome work. Then I built slide clips inside the rear of the hood that fit tightly over the flanges I made earlier at the front of the cowl. These will keep the panels in exact alignment, but allow the hood and nose to be removed to show off the guts. Up on her feet, with the major panels installed to give me a little boost to keep going. The 4-links clear the exhaust cutouts in the hood just exactly as they did on the earlier mockup. I've stripped the rear wheels (from the old Monogram Kurtis Kraft Indy racer again) in preparation for making molds of the wheels, and then turning them out of the tires on the lathe. I'll be using the hard plastic tires, as they're white, so I can just sand a little black paint off the raised letters. New wheels will be inserted after painting with the appropriate metalizer and buffed.

There were in fact some cast-aluminum smaller fakey-Hilborn-looking scoops made, typically mounted on carbs, just as you say.

but the drip

Yeah, like in the real-world, custom-car builders are going to have access to 3D printers that can do an entire chassis? Well, maybe if you have a Saudi oil sheikh's money, you can hire a company like that...or if Bill Gates ever wants to become a car guy. But this tech, at least in the foreseeable future, is probably beyond the reach of even Jay Leno's resources. So when the voiceover guy says "imagine designing and building a car as easily as playing a video game"...exactly who is he talking to? What's the potential customer base? The old-school skills still work perfectly. I can build something "a little different" (actually, one helluva lot different) in my own garage, without any whizbang tech whatsoever, and if I can do it, a LOT of people could do it. This stuff is cool, no argument, but it reinforces the idea that you just can't build anything anymore without computers and robotic hardware...and that's just not true.

Well, the way I see it, there's probably not a soul on the planet who would have complained if the re-tool designers had done the thing in correct-scale, and had taken a few hours to check 1:1 dimensions on real parts (which is all it would have taken to get it right). The average modeler would have never noticed the difference, as long as the thing looked pretty much like the earlier version...but the serious modelers (to whom scale-accuracy and period-correctness matter...and I'm certainly not the only one) would have had a fabulous kit to build as-is, or to pick parts from. As it is, I'll never buy another one. Had it been right, I honestly would have bought multiples, as the sources for really good vintage dragster parts (like the old Revell parts-packs) are drying up, or becoming silly expensive. The proportions of the pinhead scoop (that's apparently supposed to represent a very common, easily-referenced Hilborn unit) just don't work at all perched on top of the close-to-scale blower...well, not if you're used to seeing the real ones for decades, anyway.

Lotta good stuff on that page. I've been getting around to checking the width of the Slingster Bantam firewall against the old Revell parts-pack Bantam roadster body (which represents a f'glass repop, but should have the right dimensions).

Here's some of the parts recovered back in '03 after the car was stolen... The Sept. '92 CC has one article on the thing, and other back issues can be had if you really want pix. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Car-Craft-Sept-1992-2082/361877026985?hash=item54418d38a9:g:C~YAAOSw5cNYdm7b:rk:1:pf:0

between the headstones

Another one of the all-time greats, and one of my heroes. Last time I was in Mojave, I missed him. I hope to get to shake his hand at some point. He broke his hip in Finland a while back, and had to be flown back to the States under special conditions; I don't know how he's doing. Anybody? https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/classic-cars/a23747237/gene-winfield-gofundme/

The only problem is all the oopsies they made with the so-called "scaling". Many parts are just ridiculously UNDER-scale, and it's hard for me to comprehend that arithmetic-challenged kit designers got the project to market with nobody catching it. Of course, mentioning that people aren't doing the jobs they're PAID FOR is a sure way to ignite the old "good enough" firestorm.

who cultivate roses

and hysterical mobs

It's still resting. Most likely, I'll pull it out again after I finish the two I'm trying to close out now. On both of them, all the cans or worms I opened by going way beyond my original plan are finally emptying, one little worm at a time, and when they're done, I believe I should be able to tackle just about anything (except BMF ). Actually, this one has been pretty much in preparation for doing the rest of the Eddie Dye car. Lots of similar features, similar problems to solve.