Ace-Garageguy

I rest my case.

Zoom Zoom (Bob Downie) has posted some good info on correcting the hood / nose, and I believe Chuck Most has gone into correcting the inner bits...just in case you didn't already know.

70% or 90% isopropyl alcohol, available at any drugstore, will often take Sharpie off of plastic...but it depends. How hard the surface is is the key. The harder the surface, the less the ink will penetrate. Clear plastic styrene model parts typically have a harder surface than the rest of the kit parts, especially these days. Sharpie penetrates into soft sheet styrene, usually, too deeply to pull it all out with alcohol. Clear kit parts, not so much. And alcohol won't damage the surface. There IS the chance you'll scratch it though, even if it does come off. In that case, just polish the gloss back up as if you were doing paint. (Buying iso alcohol is a good investment too. 70% makes one of the best pre-painting cleaners you can get, and the 90% stuff will strip many lacquer paints. Both last forever in tightly capped bottles.)

I'll get the tip. Should be able to write it off.

This was posted elsewhere, but to make searching for it easier, I'm posting my thoughts on the various ways to achieve it here. Obviously, getting round spacer sections of appropriate tubing diameter is a preferred method. Carefully cut the wheel in half, paying attention to where the glue seams will be after reassembly, square up the cut surfaces, measure exactly the width of spacer ring you'll need, and cut sections of tubing to do the mod. Styrene tube from Evergreen and Plastruct is only available up to about 13mm i.d. Butyrate tube from about 3mm to 28mm is available here: http://modelshop.co.uk/Shop/Item/Butyrate-round-tube-white/ITM1179 Looks like hard white butyrate tube in lotsa sizes (up to 1 1/8") is available from Plastruct on this side of the Atlantic, too. Butyrate can be glued with epoxy, CAA, or Plastruct's own solvent glue. https://plastruct.com/product-category/tubing-fittings/butyrate-round-tubing/ K&N brass tube is available up to 11/32". http://www.ksmetals.com/26.html Hard clear acrylic tube can be had from 8mm to 25mm here: https://www.theplasticshop.co.uk/acrylic-tube-extruded-clear-8mm-od-to-25mm-od.html You can cut brass, styrene, butyrate, and acrylic tube and keep the ends square in a miter box, using a razor saw. Or, you can do it just like full-scale steel wheels are widened, with round bands made from sheet stock. Get some styrene sheet stock of about .020" or .030" thickness. Cut strips of the width you want to widen. Wrap them around a mandrel (like an X-acto handle or socket) of the correct, or close, diameter. Tape the band firmly to the mandrel, after cutting off most of the excess from the overlap. Dip it in boiling water for a few seconds. When it cools, the styrene strip will now be "tempered" in the round shape of a band. Mark the overlapped end carefully and cut. Glue the ends together. Allow to dry overnight. You now have a custom round band, in any size you need.

Gotta agree with both of those statements too. But seeing quite literally thousands of parts being offered simultaneously, clogging the search results, taking free advantage of eBay's server space to repeatedly re-list thousands of things that would probably never sell (which drives up the costs of doing business on eBay for everyone else) and asking in some cases more for a set of tires for a not-that-rare kit than the whole thing could be sourced for elsewhere by someone knowledgeable doesn't breed warm fuzzies either.

For what it's worth, here's a better, larger shot showing both sides of the Fenton cast iron headers shown above. These would have been early-1950s-vintage hop-up parts. And here's a link to more pix: https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/nos-fenton-cast-headers-for-ford-y-block.1021626/

The Mopar up-and-over cast iron manifolds in the AMT '49 Merc kit could make the basis for a very respectable set of these...

I have both Lindberg and AMT versions of the '40 Ford coupe and the '34 Ford pickup kits in stock, have compared them carefully, and I know a thing or two about tooling. The AMT '40 Ford Coupe kit (which was the subject of my comment) is NOT the same tool as the Lindberg version. On the other hand, the Lindberg '34 Ford pickup (which is the subject of the story you heard) IS the AMT tool.

There are bajillions of Chebby manifolds that are of a similar style. It shouldn't be hard to modify a set of those to look just like these...

The Lindberg '40 Ford is an obvious clone of the AMT kit, but it's definitely positively not from the same tooling. Why indeed?

Oops...I thought it said National Muff Day.

There's certainly some truth to that. But... No matter what the circumstances, that's hardly a class act. The decent adult response would have been "I've been having severe health issues; I'll make sure your money is refunded". Personal problems are not a blanket excuse for treating others rudely...and it's the belligerent, insulting, and completely self-centered attitude this guy has shown time after time after time that has cost him the respect of a number of board members. I agree fully he can ask any price he wants for his own stuff, and anyone is free to buy elsewhere.

Or this... ...or this... ...or this... ...or this... ...or this. ...or this... ...or this.

You're welcome. Looks like hard white butyrate tube in lotsa sizes (up to 1 1/8") is available from Plastruct on this side of the Atlantic, too. Butyrate can be glued with epoxy, CAA, or Plastruct's own solvent glue. https://plastruct.com/product-category/tubing-fittings/butyrate-round-tubing/

Styrene tube from Evergreen and Plastruct is only available up to about 13mm i.d. Butyrate tube from about 3mm to 28mm is available here: http://modelshop.co.uk/Shop/Item/Butyrate-round-tube-white/ITM1179 K&N brass tube is available up to 11/32". http://www.ksmetals.com/26.html Hard clear acrylic tube can be had from 8mm to 25mm here: https://www.theplasticshop.co.uk/acrylic-tube-extruded-clear-8mm-od-to-25mm-od.html You can cut brass, styrene, butyrate, and acrylic tube and keep the ends square in a miter box, using a razor saw. Or, you can do it just like full-scale steel wheels are widened, with round bands made from sheet stock. Get some styrene sheet stock of about .020" or .030" thickness. Cut strips of the width you want to widen. Wrap them around a mandrel (like an X-acto handle or socket) of the correct, or close, diameter. Tape the band firmly to the mandrel, after cutting off most of the excess from the overlap. Dip it in boiling water for a few seconds. When it cools, the styrene strip will now be "tempered" in the round shape of a band. Mark the overlapped end carefully and cut. Glue the ends together. Allow to dry overnight. You now have a custom round band, in any size you need.

404

That black Speedster above has almost the best looking hardtop I've ever seen on an early car. Almost...

Silicone will cause fisheyes during any painting process...if you're not sufficiently careful. Handle siliconed parts with gloves that you throw away afterwards, and never EVER touch a model before ANY painting process after handling something with silicone on it. Soap and water will NOT remove silicone, but a careful wipe with isopropyl alcohol will usually do it...from your hands as well as from your model. It's good practice to get into the alcohol-wash habit anyway. You'll save yourself a world of grief. Far as supporting larger tires that tend to go flat, the RC shops have foam inserts made just for it. If cost is an issue, if you ask nice, you can probably get miles of this stuff free (after it's been used) from any local body shop. It's used to mask panel openings on real cars, to get a "soft edge".

That's really not a bad thing...unless it was from a 912E, which is essentially a VW type-4 engine. The real 912 is very similar to a 356 SC engine, and most of the early cooling tin to make the swap will bolt on. There are a few other minor mods required, but really not much. After I stuffed my SC-powered Bug slalom car sideways into a tree, I put the engine in a 356A coupe. It didn't bother purists at all...in 1969.

Here's a little more about getting the Y-block look reasonably accurate: SBC vs Y block exhaust spacing The port spacing is similar, but far from identical. Today though, I don't have access to a Y-block to measure it. The problem with the old Y is the location of the plugs in the heads. The Y-block positions the plug bosses almost directly under the ports. There's also more space between the center ports than on the Chebby. Y shown immediately below. The SB Chebby puts the plugs farther to the sides. This may not seem like much, but it makes a difference when you go to do manifolds or headers that still allow easy plug access. A lot of the exhaust manifolds and headers for Ys are kinda up-and-over, as you've probably noticed, to clear the plugs. The Chebby rams-horn cast-iron manifolds are typically (though not always) kinda flat. Cast rams-horn manifolds for the Y typically have a lot more arch, and have the additional space between the center ports for the stud location. These look like they still might be a pig to change center plugs on, too.

It looks like a clean installation, but blow-through setups can be the real devil to tune. I kinda feel sorry for the little engine too. Ford flatheads have an inherent weakness as far as getting rid of heat goes to start with. The water passages are very close to the exhaust ports. Adding a turbo AND AC (especially without going to a cross-flow radiator) really asks a lot of the little guy.

I didn't say you had to like it...but it's not any worse than a stock 914, and I think the big lights in the bumper give it an aggressive race-car look much superior to the stock retractable bug-eyes. It would have definitely benefited from shaving the vestigial fender bulges where the odd oval lamps used to live.

Ain't "technology" grand? Great when it works, beyond maddening when it doesn't (especially when it's for no apparent rhyme or reason, and the onboard diagnostics don't...which we all know never happens).