little Big T

[Mr. Metallic]

In the same vein as my little Big Deuce, here is the (hopefully short) buildup of my little Big T. While the Little Deuce has many differences between it and its 1/8 counterpart, the Little T and Big T have fewer differences. or at least that's what I thought. Once I got looking closer at vintage Big T builds and mint kits I realized there are several small differences between the kits. And since there are so many Little T builds out there I can use these differences to make my build unique.

Starting with a minty Little T kit. Well, I thought it was minty but turned out to have a couple issues. Nothing insurmountable, but still annoying. The turtle deck is missing, and it appears someone sprayed clear on the chrome trees, possibly to preserve the chrome, so many of the parts have a slight yellow/brown tint to them. Unfortunately it was not sprayed evenly so it collected in some places. So I'll be stripping and using Revell Chrom on many of them.

First order of business was defining all the differences between the Big and Little T's and gathering/modifying parts to mimic the Big. The Big comes with display accessories like a fire extinguished, first aid kit and some tools. I found those items. After some digging I did eventually find a source for the jack stands, the AMT 63 Ford Galaxie. But since they only included one in that kit, and I only have one of those kits in my stash I'm on the hunt for more.
 

 

First up was creating the chopped 32 ford shell. I grabbed the molded in red shell from the Monogram "little deuce coupe" version The one with the poorly proportioned 3window body. I removed the spring mounting flange from the T radiator and grafted it onto the cut down 32 shell. Then I grabbed the custom grill insert from the AMT 64 Merc and cut it down to fit the shell. 

Above you can also see the nearly finished bed assembly as well.

I thought a good way to present the display items would naturally be in the bed of the pickup. However, the Little T bed is not finished on the inside. It doesn't even have a bed front where it meets the cab as in the 1:1 world the bed was usually welded to the back of the body. So, first I made a bed front. 

I had an extra tailgate from a gluebomb that I was able to cut down and massage into place. Then I needed to make a bed floor. A bump for the rear crossmember protrudes into the bed, so I needed to make a false floor. I was going to use a gluebomb bed cover but by the time I trimmed away the glue damage it was too small. It needed to be from the original issue because as you can see the later issues "white" plastic is quite a bit different. Unfortunately I was unable to find a vintage piece. I know you're probably thinking just paint it, but my builds of these Monogram hot rod kits are mostly paint-less. 

Thanks to a suggestion from Randfink (Randy Meyer)I tracked down a paint that will hopefully match the old plastic color, Tamiya racing white. So, I set about modifying the new issue cover to fit in the bed, and added a couple supports made from .125 square Evergreen.

Next up I worked on adding mounting flanges to the exhaust headers. I think this was something that Dennis Lacy did when he built one of these T's awhile back. It's a simple procedure that really adds a little accuracy. 

I took a piece of .015x.100 Evergreen and marked where the outside pipes would land since those are the ones that actually attach to the block. I drilled the appropriate size hole. You then need to sand the inner siamesed tubes a bit so the new flange slides over the outside tubes and allows them to feed into the block again. Then you trim it and glue it into place. I was hoping to just hit the flanges with Molotow, but I got a little liquid cement on the good chrome so into the stripper it went. At least that little flub allowed me to then address the mold lines too.
  

Last item to get you all caught up is I decided to go ahead and try to turn the slicks into cheaters like Bob Spedding @TooOld has done on his builds of these Monogram kits. We discussed the process and it's pretty straightforward. I took a stack of Post-Its and peeled some off until I got the desired height of my cheater "tread". Then I laid the saw on the stack and dragged the tire along the blade as I rotated the tire. Don't try to do too much at once. Just a little at a time several times around the tire. Then I performed my usual scuffing of the tire with a sanding stick and presto! Cheater slicks.

I use these Monogram slicks quite often, so here's a couple of little tricks I use to make them looks better. First, sand the back of the outer rim of the wheel until you see evidence that you have touched that inner circle with the sanding stock. Then you know that you have taken enough off. This allows the rim to sit down a little more into the tire.

Also, sand the backside of the whitewall just a little bit, then test fit it to the wheel. You may need to remove a little material on the inside of the whitewall because it is usually a very tight fit on the wheel (so tight that often on old builds you will see the whitewall broke due to stress. Once that is done put the assembly together and you'll see the difference. Note in the pic how the whitewall is slightly above the surface of the tire on the unmodified part (on the right)

Edited December 6, 2024 by Mr. Metallic