The 1971 Duster That Wouldn't Die

[LennyB]

One step forward, two steps back.

 

Started working on the grill earlier this week. As I mentioned when I started this post I obtained a standard grill for the Duster from Hart Resin Parts.

On trial fitting the grill I found the fit left a bit to be desired.

Kit grill

 

The top of the resin grill is flat, whereas the kit grill has a recessed area.

So I cut my own recess.

Got the grill to fit a bit better and gave it a shot of flat black. While the fit was better the paint  just made some of the flaws in the grill stand out. ☹ Now this shot is obviously larger then real life but even with the naked eye you can tell the detail is not sharp.

 While working out plans for a similar Dodge Demon build I stumbled upon a seller on e-bay that has 3D printed grills that look much better, at least in the pictures they do, so I ordered one up, along with a Demon grill.

For now the grill is on hold until the second one arrives and we can assess whether that one looks better for ourselves.

 

Thanks for checking in....

[LennyB]

Realized the sun was going down outside and remembered I wanted to get some pic of the body in natural light to show it's true colors.

 

Not much daylight left but enough to see my big mits have rubbed off some of the black trim paint. Oh, well, it can be retouched. ?

[Moparman18064]

2 hours ago, LennyB said:

One step forward, two steps back.

 

Started working on the grill earlier this week. As I mentioned when I started this post I obtained a standard grill for the Duster from Hart Resin Parts.

On trial fitting the grill I found the fit left a bit to be desired.

Kit grill

 

The top of the resin grill is flat, whereas the kit grill has a recessed area.

So I cut my own recess.

Got the grill to fit a bit better and gave it a shot of flat black. While the fit was better the paint  just made some of the flaws in the grill stand out. ☹ Now this shot is obviously larger then real life but even with the naked eye you can tell the detail is not sharp.

 While working out plans for a similar Dodge Demon build I stumbled upon a seller on e-bay that has 3D printed grills that look much better, at least in the pictures they do, so I ordered one up, along with a Demon grill.

For now the grill is on hold until the second one arrives and we can assess whether that one looks better for ourselves.

 

Thanks for checking in....

Len, the grille from Few Sprues Loose that you ordered is really nice, I have one waiting for a build. Your Duster is coming along very nicely.

Edited November 10, 2024 by Moparman18064
Spell check

[LennyB]

43 minutes ago, Moparman18064 said:

Len, the grille from Few Sprues Loose that you ordered is really nice, I have one waiting for a build. Your Duster is coming along very nicely.

Rich, glad to hear that.

[Bullybeef]

Shame about that resin grille, but the 3d print one looks like it has the fine detail that your build deserves. 

[LennyB]

35 minutes ago, Bullybeef said:

Shame about that resin grille, but the 3d print one looks like it has the fine detail that your build deserves. 

Fingers crossed Bil that it’s a nice piece.  

[LennyB]

Duster has been making some backwards progress. It's my own stupid fault. Started mocking up the slant six into the chassis and found the tail shaft binding on something. Well, I guess it's the first time I really looked at the tranny and realized it was a manual. The Duster that wouldn't die had a slush box. So did some digging through the parts bin an found a close semblance of a proper transmission. That would be the one in the center....  It funny, the last slant six I took from a Lindberg kit had an automatic, guess they came in two flavors.

Little bit of plastic surgery and we are now back on tract.

 

Grill from Few Sprues Loose came during the week and it's light years above the resin one. It feels rather brittle so care must be exercised when removing the supports.

It fits fairly well but the body needs a bit of a trim as shown so the grill recesses properly between the fenders. Unfortunately I nicked the paint a bit with the trim but that can be easily touched up.

Now it sits in place better.

Painted the grill and used some Molotow inside the headlight buckets and parking lamps. When this is dry the lenses will go on. Can't really tell in the pic but the perimeter of the grill is painted with good old Testors silver as that was not chrome in real life

 

 

That's all for now as we sit and watch the paint dry.

 

[customline]

Oh good. I love watching paint dry. That grille is really a grille! Very nice ?

(Actually, I use a hair dryer)

Edited November 17, 2024 by customline
Smart-alecky comment ?

[Moparman18064]

Nice work around with the trans Len. The grille is a huge improvement.

[slusher]

Grill and paint looks great, Lenny!

Edited November 17, 2024 by slusher
Typo

[Trendsetta68]

I love your build and dedication to it; it's coming along nicely! 
I too have those 3D grilles, and they are wonderful pieces! ??

[LennyB]

13 hours ago, customline said:

Oh good. I love watching paint dry. That grille is really a grille! Very nice ?

(Actually, I use a hair dryer)

And wifey let's you get away with that....I'm surprised.?

11 hours ago, Moparman18064 said:

Nice work around with the trans Len. The grille is a huge improvement.

Thanks Rich, this grill is so much better.

10 hours ago, slusher said:

Grill and paint looks great, Lenny!

Thanks Carl, we are making progress.

4 hours ago, Trendsetta68 said:

I love your build and dedication to it; it's coming along nicely! 
I too have those 3D grilles, and they are wonderful pieces! ??

Thanks, much appreciated. I ordered the Demon grill at the same time and yesterday I picked up the MPC kit from HL as they had a sale. Now if I could just find the time.?

[customline]

36 minutes ago, LennyB said:

And wifey let's you get away with that....I'm surprised.?

She watches me pretty closely. ?

[STU111]

G’day Len, yeah, that 3D printed grill was worth it. Looks way better than the original one you had for the Duster. ??

[LennyB]

1 hour ago, STU111 said:

G’day Len, yeah, that 3D printed grill was worth it. Looks way better than the original one you had for the Duster. ??

Thanks Stuart, it does make a big difference.

[Bullybeef]

New grille is way more better! 

[LennyB]

20 minutes ago, Bullybeef said:

New grille is way more better! 

It's a real live grill ?

[LennyB]

Not only was the bear dogging me on my Vette project it followed me over to the Duster as well. Working on getting the slant six nestled into place and ran into an issue I didn't anticipate. I guess if I did it wouldn't be an issue them, would it? A wise man one said we create our own issues.

Anyhow, I found out that the cooling fan on the slant six is slightly offset to the drivers side (not going to say left to confuse anyone).  As the fan needs to tuck inside the shroud, that just isn't going to happen. I guess I cheated on this fix. To do it properly I should have removed the shroud but that wasn't feasible the way it was molded on the radiator. Or I could ditch the radiator and find another sans shroud of the same size. No luck with that at Auto Zone. You see on the real car there was no shroud and thus no shroud to interfere with the fan. But I tackled this by doing something Plymouth didn't think of, (yeah, I suppose you could say that), I moved the radiator.

 

The radiator and shroud are part of the core support. So I cut off the 'wings' of the core support, shortened the left side and added a spacer to the right. This put the shroud where it belonged, according to me that is.

 

Now we can get the engine in place. And we'll have a cooler slant 6 thanks to the shroud.😁

 

Hopefully we can continue on this forward path and by next time we have some rolling stock under this 'ol gal.

[customline]

Oooooo Lenny, I dunno...🤔

[slusher]

Might be the picture but the K member looks crooked?

[LennyB]

1 hour ago, slusher said:

Might be the picture but the K member looks crooked?

Might be the picture but it's probably the slant 6 that makes it look like that

[LennyB]

The Duster and I have been battling it out of late. At the point of bringing the body and chassis together to form a cohesive union, but all it wants to do is fight with me. Trying to bring the body down upon the chassis and all I find is resistance. Every time I slide the body on one or both of the rear side windows would pop out. The side windows have a lip around them that attaches to the inside of the body. And the interior needs to slide over that lip. Guess what, it doesn't want to cooperate.

I finally gave up, removed the windows, almost left them out all together, and cut off the lip and glued them in flush to the body. Looks better anyway. Sitting holding the glass while the CA set and wouldn't you know it my finger slips and I wipe CA right across the inside of the LH window. At this point the duster almost became a rocket ship. But, regained my composure and on we go.

At this stage the glass is good and solidly glued, now I didn't dare remove it as it would probably take some paint along with it. So I sanded and polished the window in place and then coated it with some Quick Shine Floor Finish. Looks acceptable and in fact the windows on the real car were never this clean.

So finally have the two halves getting along but before I make it a permanent joint have one last bit of detail. As this Duster spent a lot of time bringing papers back from the printer I made up some news paper bundles for the back seat.

 

But we still had some bumps in the road. I spent an hour going thru my spare tire box to dig up some presentable white wall tires for the ol' girl.

They had the appropriate patina for the car (look at the original pic if you don't believe me) so as we continue mock up the wheels were added. Wouldn't you know it, they are too big for the Duster.

Looking at the tire that come with the Duster kit and they are teenie, weenie. Here it is with the kit tires.

 

Even with these the wheels track too wide, particularly the front. The kit tires are 25.43 mm, while the most tires I find are around 27.70 mm. So I need to find some smaller tires with white walls. So far the search has come up with nada.

 

So if anyone knows of a kit with teenie weenie white walls please let me know. Until next time.

[customline]

Wow man 😦,  after reading all that I need a drink!  

edit:  I especially liked the part about the rocket. I'm getting close to one of those myself 😕

 

Edited December 13, 2024 by customline

[NOBLNG]

It’s looking real nice Len!👍 I like the newspaper bundles.😎

[Moparman18064]

Looking good Len. I almost lost it when I read rocket ship! The news papers give me nightmares, I used to run 2 routes.