The "new" '32 Revell Roadster

[TopherMcGinnis]

59 minutes ago, customline said:

OK, Topher, I'll bite. Who's Alex?  The only Alex I know goes in a caulk gun. 😂

https://www.est1946.com/socalhistory1.aspx

 

Alex Xydias founded So Cal in 1946.

[slusher]

On 7/26/2025 at 10:37 AM, customline said:

The engine in this kit isn't the greatest. There's one option on mounting the air cleaners directly on the carbs, which are poorly represented, or on velocity stacks. The entire intake assembly consisting of twelve pieces, all plated, was, for me, a tedious operation and kept me busy scraping plating from all the mating surfaces. I chose Testor's liquid cement to allow a little adjustment while fumbling with parts that have no alignment features except on the ends of the blower. I thought seriously about using the engine from a '29 roadster kit but decided to build this one anyway. 

One reason for my attitude is the split oil pan, which is rendered as a high volume, racing style pan. I'm not sure how I should paint it. After sanding to try to make the seam disappear, I "skinned" over the pan bottom surfaces with scrap .010 or .015.  Bonded the scraps with thin cement, let it set up a while, then trimmed and sanded the edges.  I suppose you can just use a filler to smooth things out but my method is quick and done. 

 

The "False bottom" is in place and sanded on the front portion. This piece of scrap, I discovered, had white paint on it 💩.  

A nice clean scrap piece is shown bonded to the sump. I can't be the only one who does this. 

Ta-da ! 😊.  

The T-bucket headers are in the kit but not on the parts list, holdovers from a previous version. I like them, it's just the plumber in me. They must be assembled. That leaves a visible seam on the muffler that will need to be tended to. The kit also includes a set similar ( but not identical) to the ones from the '29 kit. Not sure which ones end up in service yet. 🤔

I will try to get it painted today. Thanks for looking in. 🤓

Jim,  love what you did with oil pan so I learned something today.  How do you handle transmission crack?   Red every post to catch up……

[customline]

4 hours ago, slusher said:

Jim,  love what you did with oil pan so I learned something today.  How do you handle transmission crack?   Red every post to catch up……

Thanks, Carl, those things bother me.  If it's an automatic, and the pan isn't a separate part, skinning would fix it, the rest of it I just try to sand out. I don't worry about seams on castings too much because cast components can have mold parting lines. If it's really bad, gotta fill and sand, I guess.

[customline]

5 hours ago, TopherMcGinnis said:

https://www.est1946.com/socalhistory1.aspx

 

Alex Xydias founded So Cal in 1946.

Ohhhhh.....that  Alex 😯

[customline]

I did some things today that I've been avoiding. One of those is connecting the headers to the muffled system.  I like to handle small parts with my favorite spring-loaded tweezers and occasionally I will inadvertently launch an item into the ether. Such an event occurred today. One of the connectors disappeared as I was about to install it. Luckily, I have solder of the size needed to replace the lost part. I need to stop using those tweezers. Anyway, I bolted on the rear fenders, added the gas cap, installed the steering box (it lined up perfectly with the tie rod) and I glazed the Duval frame. The glass is much thinner than regular kit glass. The frame is pretty thin too. I usually like to scrape the plating in the glue surfaces but not this time. I used clear enamel to bond the glass to the fully plated frame. Wish me luck.

 I thought it might be difficult to glue the windshield to the painted and polished body so I drilled the frame and the cowl for an .020 pin. Yes, it was dangerous. I was victorious 🥴.  

 

The arrow indicates how I totally missed this parting line. 💩 That's the solder job☝

The arrow is for the steering box(which includes the shaft and a u-joint) I may run a pin through it just because 🤓 

I installed the coil-overs. Big R could have done better here. The locating pins on the axle are three sizes too small for the holes they mate with........ 😉

Moving along.....

I thought it might be cool to do a one piece hood.

That was easy 😊

WDYT about 86-ing the headers and doing solid hood sides. Or custom louvered ones. It makes sense with the Duvall.  Oh, heck, that's the SO-CAL talking.

I'm gonna stick my neck out here and say I don't like all that empty space under the rear fender.  And that's a pretty big tire.  Should it be bigger? 🤔

I'm having sec....47th thoughts about the color scheme. 

Thanks! Oh, and........... pre-drilled ET Dragmasters are available with polished centers. 😜

[BK9300]

Awesome work on pinning the windshield!  I'm thinking I shouldn't have said anything about the fender opening.  Maybe a set of scale, 33" Mickey Thompson, Sportsman Pro's for the rear?  Then again, not sure you should be listening to any suggestions from me!

[customline]

13 hours ago, BK9300 said:

Awesome work on pinning the windshield!  I'm thinking I shouldn't have said anything about the fender opening.  Maybe a set of scale, 33" Mickey Thompson, Sportsman Pro's for the rear?  Then again, not sure you should be listening to any suggestions from me!

Yeah but then it becomes a whole big thing trying to find wheels and adapting them and all that. I'm just not that ambitious. I listen but I hate buying aftermarket stuff because the added expense makes me unhappy ☹. 

As far as your suggestions goes, try beginning them with the words "I may be totally wrong but..." if the suggestion causes a disaster, you have an out. 🥴

[rrb124@sbcglobal.net]

Thanks for posting all of this. When I build mine I will watch out for surprise voodoo's.

[customline]

59 minutes ago, rrb124@sbcglobal.net said:

Thanks for posting all of this. When I build mine I will watch out for surprise voodoo's.

You're quite welcome. I like this kit a lot but that may be because I haven't had any disasters yet 😄. There are some things that some might find difficult but not many. Gluing the front fenders raised my BP a little but I got them mounted on the first try. 🙂

This is today's progress

 

[thatz4u]

I'm building this kit now, bad part for me is the Duvall frame is warped...

[Mr. Metallic]

You can bring the rear down by simply shaving the top off the airbags. You'll still have that heavy rake, but it will close up the gap. You may have to do a little massaging with the coilovers, but there's no attachment point for them on the chassis so you can let them land where they land.

As far as the Monogram kits at ollies that had the Ollies tag UNDER the cellophane, I believe they were a contracted run just for Ollies, like they have recently done with some of the Atlantis stuff on their shelves now.

[Mr. Metallic]

20 minutes ago, thatz4u said:

I'm building this kit now, bad part for me is the Duvall frame is warped...

Unfortunately that was an issue with some of the initial runs. But I think it's still a current kit so you may be able to get a replacement.

You can adapt the chopped stock-style windshield with a little judicious cutting and sanding on the cowl and the bottom of the windshield posts

 

I chose to lay mine back a bit and used a now discontinued Drag City uptop.

Edited 7 hours ago by Mr. Metallic

[customline]

50 minutes ago, Mr. Metallic said:

You can bring the rear down by simply shaving the top off the airbags. You'll still have that heavy rake, but it will close up the gap. You may have to do a little massaging with the coilovers, but there's no attachment point for them on the chassis so you can let them land where they land.

As far as the Monogram kits at ollies that had the Ollies tag UNDER the cellophane, I believe they were a contracted run just for Ollies, like they have recently done with some of the Atlantis stuff on their shelves now.

The third member is going to stay put, Craig, too much to undo and I'm too far along but tomorrow I'm going to see if Ollie's has any more (Wifey needs coffee pods-good excuse to go 🥴).  I figured those Monogram kits were a special deal. I bought a couple of those too. Nowhere near as good as this kit. I'd like to channel it and get it down in the weeds.

Edited 6 hours ago by customline

[customline]

57 minutes ago, thatz4u said:

I'm building this kit now, bad part for me is the Duvall frame is warped...

Revell is good about replacing bad or missing parts.  I did it once a few years ago (the '29 windshield frame). Off-hand, I can't recall how to contact them, sorry; try the website?

[Ace-Garageguy]

On 7/30/2025 at 12:09 PM, customline said:

I Thank you, Brian, I'm trying 😌.  I have no "hands-on" with deuce bodies but there are fiberglass and re-pop steel bodies out there.  The model sits higher than that SO-CAL car. Optical illusion? Trick of the light? I dunno but we have some knowledgeable people here that drop in now and then.  Maybe we'll get some Intel on that issue.   Stay tuned ! 🙂    

You could say I have a little experience with the 1:1s.  

I've never been a fan of the stance out of the box of the Revell '32 Fords, and they didn't change it on this one apparently.

Bottom line is that the suspension needs to be lowered to get those rear tires higher in the wheel wells...like the SoCal car, and the front looks like it could use work too.

I just got a couple of these but haven't cracked the box yet...BUT...if the rear end setup is like their earlier '32s, it's no big deal to cut the tops off of the rear springs or bags or whatever they are, to get that tail down.

Pay particular attention to centering the rear wheels in the wells fore-and-aft too, if you want it to look right. That may also take a little bit of modificating.

You can usually get the nose down on a Revell '32 by shaving the top of the front transverse spring. Whether there's enough meat there to get it down as low as the SoCal car is anybody's guess, and the SoCal car just might have a front axle with more drop than what comes in the Revell kit. If so, you'll need to get more creatively radical...

Edited 6 hours ago by Ace-Garageguy

[customline]

5 minutes ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

You could say I have a little experience with the 1:1s.  

I've never been a fan of the stance out of the box of the Revell '32 Fords, and they didn't change it on this one apparently.

Bottom line is that the suspension needs to be lowered to get those rear tires higher in the wheel wells...line the SoCal car, and the front looks like it could use work too.

I just got a couple of these but haven't cracked the box yet...BUT...if the rear end setup is like their earlier '32s, it's no big deal to cut the tops off of the rear springs or bags or whatever they are, to get that tail down.

Pay particular attention to centering the wheels in the wells fore-and-aft too if you want it to look right. That may also take a little bit of modificating.

You can usually get the nose down on a Revell '32 by shaving the top of the front transverse spring. Whether there's enough meat there to get it down as low as the SoCal car is anybody's guess, and the SoCal car just might have a front axle with more drop than what cones in the Revell kit. If so, you'll need to get more creatively radical...

I was wondering when you'd stop in, Bill.

My first reflex was to just go ahead and do the stuff I did to the '29 roadster/'30 coupe kits to get them lower but I wanted to just build it. The only mods are some engine details,"no outside door handles" and a one piece hood. That's it. A nice fast build with no "creativity" spent on a pretty decent kit. I need to find a pair of '39 taillights, though 😕