Ace-Garageguy

Yup. And privatization doesn't always seem to be a good thing, though it's one of those still-fashionable knee-jerk reactions that avoids rationality in favor of mindless "action". I remember when this city had a road crew that would go out and fix potholes. You'd have a single older truck blocking one lane of traffic, and three guys leaning on shovels. Now, with privatization, you have three brand new huge trucks blocking the entire road, a couple of equally brand-new pickups idling for hours with the AC on for the supervisors, (at least two of whom are required, apparently, for every little hole), seven or eight guys leaning on shovels while looking at their smart-phones, and two more to direct traffic around them. Explain how there can possibly be a savings to the taxpayer on the costs associated with maintaining the roads. That WAS the point, remember?

Here's the other side of the coin. For the MOST PART, I think the USPS does a pretty good job for a reasonable amount of money. Yes, it's considerably more expensive than it was 20 years ago. So is gas. So's a sixpack, or a jar of mayonnaise. I buy a fair amount of stuff online, much of it parts, tools and reference material for my business, and for MOST of the time, I have no complaints with the PO. I do see the occasional very odd routing of a shipment that defies any logical explanation, but so long as whatever I'm expecting gets to me within the estimated time window, i honestly don't care much what route it takes. But when I see something going 1000 miles out of the way, or sitting in one PO sorting location for weeks (and the only remedy is for me to go to the local PO with a tracking printout and start making a noise), there's really something wrong. One of the first things they used to teach you in engineering school is to identify and define the specific problem problem you're tasked to solve...so you understand exactly what it is you're trying to achieve. The first thing they teach you in psychological counselling is that you have to admit there IS a problem.

Good looking bunch.

At the risk of starting the typical firestorm with insults of "angry old man" and "living in the past" liberally thrown around, I just have to say that today's obsession with over-complication of everything, and doing things by somebody's idiot numbers when in fact those numbers don't really make any logical sense to someone who actually still thinks, is just another indication of the creeping idiocracy. But don't criticize it. Accept that a package that's "passed within 50 miles of my house 3 times before being put on a (delivery) truck" is the bast way to do things, because some twerp in logistics says so, and a mindless computerized system follows the GIGO rule faithfully. This is the same kind of stupidity and herd-think that gave us Obamacare, and vehicles that are insanely needlessly complex and virtually un-repairable after they age beyond a certain point...and are ridiculously difficult to repair even when they're brandy-damm-new off the showroom floor...especially if the onboard computer can't tell the "tech" what to do. And it happens ALL THE TIME. Progress is great. Stupid and unnecessary complication to achieve progress is simply stupid and unnecessary. And fashionable, apparently. But most people are content to follow along, trying to dodge their tiny little piece of responsibility (as long as they get a paycheck for doing as little as humanly possible), play by the rules and don't criticize a hopelessly broken system that's run by idiots. And that's pretty much the problem with everything, in a nutshell. EDIT: And speaking of stupid systems, I ordered a must-have part from Summit because all the local parts stores had was the "just as good" Chinese version. Nah, not on a $28,000 engine. So I get an email this AM saying the part is backordered and won't be shipped out until the 20th (Saturday). I HAD to have the part, so I ordered it from Jeg's, who showed it to be in stock (as had Summit). The one from Summit arrived on my doorstep today, the day before it was estimated by "logistics" that it would be shipped out. So now I can't cancel the one from Summit, because it's already here, and I can't cancel the one from Jeg's, because they show it already shipped. I'm stuck with an extra part I don't need, unless I pay the return shipping and restocking to Jeg's. Every week, same carp. Just stupid. And typical.

Here's a guy seling the instructions for the '82 version, which is basically the same kit. http://www.ebay.com/itm/1982-Z-28-Camaro-Monogram-1-8-Decals-Instructions-/112409471915?hash=item1a2c206bab:g:lHoAAOSw1WJZG0Ac There was a copy posted on ImageShack some time ago, but it appears to be gone now, and as it's not a current Revell catalog number, it's not on their site either.

You know you have my interest. I can't resist anything with "bellypan" and "lakes" in the title, and those old Indy tires are the perfect choice.

I haven't seen him in a whole lot of stuff, but I've been watching the old HBO series where he played Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe. Considering the Hollywood legends who have played the role (Dick Powell, Bogart, Robert Mitchum), Boothe did a fine job with the character. Sad to hear he's gone. Wasn't very old...only 68. Damm.

Definitely my kind of car. Very nice...and you've given me an idea for the 1:1 911 I'm currently amassing parts for.

That's a street wheel with fake rivets.

Good looking car, but I agree with you about the A-pillars not quite getting it in profile. I think part of the problem is that the rear of the hood has been raised a tick, and the rear edge of it has had a swoop formed to shroud the wipers. It's just a little too heavy-handed, and makes the car look too thick and heavy right there. I don't understand what the heavy blackness just behind the A-pillar itself is all about. Maybe it's a cage bar, but it really interferes with the first impression, the way the car is photographed.

New annoying extra special malfunction...reposting photos from elsewhere on the web is either not happening, or the photos sometimes disappear shortly afterwards. As I often illustrate answers to technical questions with photos taken from open internet sources under the "fair use" definition in copyright law, this makes it impossible to continue as I have been doing, and makes it necessary to save the photo to my own drive, then load it to Photobucket, and then copy it to this site. Frankly, it's just too damm much trouble if it continues. I don't know if it's the result of somebody tinkering here, or some oddball change in the way Google tags and displays photos, but it's now a real PITA. Whatever the cause, maybe I need to find a better use for my time. EDIT: It seems to be working at the moment. We'll see.

Finally swapping the FAST direct-port EFI / Edelbrock manifold on to the 572 Grumpy Jenkins engine in the Chevelle, having just finished engineering and fabbing all the AC, heating and accessory retrofit stuff, along with the new custom boards for all the Mr. Wizard electronic gizmos the owner wants, a custom console, heavy dash mods, etc. So...none of the local parts stores had the good Fel-Pro gaskets, everyone was trying to sell me Chinese-made junk that's "just as good", and they're out of stock at Summit, etc. Bugger. I need the EFI manifold in place to build the forward wiring harness (I don't just wad up and tie all the factory harnesses, like a lot of builders do, but I engineer a complete new harness for every car, with stand-alone segments for ease of service). So rather than being able to permanently fit the manifold, I'll have to dry-fit it and install the correct gaskets when they come in. It's no big deal, really, but it's getting harder and harder to get GOOD service parts every day, as the market is shifting so far towards price-shoppers. I harp on the appallingly poor quality of much of the offshore-produced JUNK all the time...like the electric fuel pump I replaced in my GMC less than 3 months ago that's already failed internally. It's kinda making me hate the business.

I agree entirely. The other photo reminds me of the exotic work I saw in the model car mags when I was a kid, and could only dream of being able to do someday. It's such a cool looking model, and you have the hood already...

A couple of answers, not necessarily in order. You're right, I just cut a horizontal slice (about 3 scale inches, which is all you probably want to go, max) and moved the roof straight down. This works fairly easily on the Chevelle because the cut is made through the center of the vertical line at the front of the sail panel...which you maintain as straight. However, because of the tumblehome in the sail panels (the inward slope towards the top), when the top comes down, the sides of the upper and lower portions will not line up, but the plastic is thick enough to just stick the edges together, and then add sheet styrene material to both the insides and outsides (the white streak), which is filed to final contour after being thoroughly dry and hard. Using liquid cement, this makes a very strong joint...which I further reinforced inside with model airplane fiberglass and epoxy. This method is similar, in miniature, to the way we reinforce composite structure splices on aircraft and real-car parts. Obviously, the rear line of the sail panel will not line up either after the cut, but this is easily corrected by again adding a little styrene and filing to a pleasant curve. It's actually a lot easier that it may sound, and avoids the need to rebuild the rear window opening like on Mr. Boyd's method. I made new A pillars from styrene, because splicing them in the middle or ends would have given weak joints. By fabricating new pillars, I was able to splay the ends where they attached to the body, and spread the gluing surface considerably. Again, the joints were further reinforced with very fine fiberglass cloth and epoxy. In all the sanding during and polishing after paint, no cracks developed...which was the goal. Nothing will ruin your day like having a crack come through your beautiful paint job. The windshield is the stock Chevelle piece, carefully fitted to the new opening, and it fits flush. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To do the old Mopar, you aren't going to be able to use my exact Chevelle method...because there's no vertical line on the forward edge of the C-pillar (sail panel). I'm not wild about Mr. Boyd's method, as it requires a section to be cut out of the roof at the rear, and a careful rebuilding of the window opening. If you haven't done a lot of heavy mods, any extra cuts and reworks are best avoided. In general, a minimum number of cuts and splices is always better. If I were doing the S-Bird, I'd cut the roof free at the lower edge of the sail panel where it intersects the body, and slip the cut edges between the edges remaining on the main body shell. You can come straight down that way, to preserve the original proportions, and you avoid having to section the rear edge of the roof and completely rebuild the rear window. Look very carefully and critically at your new proportions, and when you like them, cut the lower edge of the sail panels flush with the tops of the quarter panels. You'll then need to make styrene "ledges" projecting inwards from the quarters for the cut sail panels to sit on. Spread the sides of the sails gently as necessary, and glue them to the ledges. If you cut and fit carefully, and use liquid cement, you'll have a strong joint that only requires a little filler to smooth everything out. I'd still recommend reinforcing inside with f'glass, but that's up to you. I'd cut the front pillars loose at the bottom, and likewise slide them down inside the opening. You'll have to gently bend them slightly forward at the bottom, as the windshield will of necessity be raked a little more. Sliding the roof down into the body shell this way allows you to actually look at the results of your chop as you go, and get a feel of how you're changing lines and proportions as you work...without hacking all the way through the middle of the sail-panels, and making a potentially frustrating multi-piece mess that's difficult to correct. Your original "glass" should be fairly easy to fit to the new windshield and backlite openings, as you're not changing the angles at the intersections of the pillars and roof panel very much. I developed the new chopped proportions on this one in a similar manner...sliding the rear of an up-top down into the rear opening of what had been a hardtop body shell, and carefully adjusting it until I had a good look from all angles.

Tim Boyd's method in SA should work fine, but it's a lot more complicated than the way I'd do it, and it will tend to shift the visual mass of the roof rearward somewhat too...something I usually avoid, depending on the car. I'm not a big fan of using CA and brass reinforcements either, as they tend to crack with rough handling (if not done perfectly), so there's that. The chop method I used on the Chevelle brings the mass of the roof straight down, preserving the proportions of the original design, but it won't work the same way on a Superbird body, because the forward line of the sail panel slopes. To bring the visual mass of the roof straight down on the 'Bird body the easy way (and to preserve the lines) it's necessary to cut the top at the base of the C-pillars. Carefully executed, cutting a section out of the roof, as on Tim's method, should be able to be eliminated. Maybe some day I'll take the time to do tutorials on the various methods and what to look out for, why one works on one body and not another, and visual considerations...maybe not In the meantime, if you follow Tim Boyd's steps carefully, you should be fine. http://www.scaleautomag.com/how-to-models/how-to/2014/06/chop-that-top You mention you'll be lengthening the nose, but after the chop (using Tim's method) you may find the nose will appear slightly longer with no additional surgery. I DO recommend, however, that you print out several copies of this, adjusting them to roughly 1/25 scale, and do your design development with paper first.

If you want my guidance, I'll be happy to tell you exactly how to do it the easiest way, so it doesn't end up a dorky poorly-proportioned mess. Like this turd. Or not.

It's similar to chopping any car of the period with inward-sloping C-pillars. I did this '70 Chevelle in 2012. If you really want to know how, I'll walk you through the procedure.

Again, to the best of my remembrance, the original racing Centerlines from 1970 were pretty much identical to Fred Puhn's Chassis Engineering "monocoque" wheels...bolt together, sealed with silastic and a big O-ring. The CE wheels were spun from 6061 aluminum alloy, with a T6 heat treat. Anybody who was actually involved in road-racing in 1970 probably saw both the original Centerlines and the Chassis Engineering wheels. Again, it's entirely possible I'm remembering the Centerlines wrong, but I know for a fact the Chassis Engineering wheels were spun and bolted. In 1970, when the original Centerlines came out. 100% certainty, no BS.

There were several different Rajo heads, including a DOHC unit. They could have been (and should have been for best performance) fired by an engine-driven magneto, rather than the old stock-style T ignition. (There were multiple Roof heads as well, but for the T engine, I'm not as familiar as I am with heads for the A engine). This Rajo model 30 head (on a T engine) has a Wico magneto. The plug wires are readily visible, the mag drive is in front.

The insulators and top contact are visible on two plugs, sticking up at about a 45 degree angle, just under two of the intake runners. Look just to the left of the "OOF" (look in in the red area next to it) on the lower right hand corner of the photo. You'll see the top of one plug. Then look just above the polished runner that's immediately above the "OOF" in the photo (again, look in the red area). You'll see another plug insulator sticking out.

I should have put a wink after the "girl's car" comment. A woman I'm still friends with after 34 years was driving an MG Midget when I met her, and replaced it with a Fiat 124 Spider after the MG was totaled (not her fault). My first very-significant other was riding a motorcycle the day I met her (just a little Honda, but you had to shift it) and a girl I was with for 7 years ran a TR-6 and an early Capri. A girl I almost dated ran a 911 in SCCA solo events (autocross), and I've known quite a few others who were entirely competent with manual gearboxes...but not for some time.

Both the Centerlines and the Cragar Super Tricks came out in 1970, and were essentially copies of Fred Puhn's design from the 1960s. They were probably changed just enough to avoid patent infringement issues. I saw my first set of this type of wheel on a D-Sports racer in SCCA at the runoffs (the nationals were still referred to as the ARRC, American Road Race of Champoins) at Road Atlanta, a little Quasar, also designed by Puhn. That particular set of wheels was bolt-together (if I remember correctly, and I probably do because I was really blown away by the whole concept and the reduction in unsprung weight the wheels made possible...of immense importance in ultra-light road racing cars, of which we would run two slightly later in my career, a D-Sports tube frame Abarth, and a C-sports 1300 OT Abarth coupe). They were also somewhat expensive, even more than the cast magnesium Campagnolos we ran on the Abarths. At some point, Centerline began to move away from hyperlight pure racing wheels, began making riveted units, relatively heavy street wheels, and I lost interest entirely. EDIT: At least that's the way I remember it. It has, after all, been about 47 years.

You can delete the other two thread posts yourself.

When they were introduced for road racing, they were the trick setup for a time. They were lighter, rounder, stronger and easier to balance than cast wheels (the original racing Centerlines were spun aluminum) and you could make up virtually any offset / backspace combination by swapping rim inner and outer sections (they bolted together, sealed with a big O-ring).

Look closely and you'll see the plugs just under the intake ports on the 101 Cyclone head. Inside the chambers, you see the plug boss adjacent to the intake valve position (the exhaust valve is still in the block, and lives at the end of the projection from the chamber).