The sound of trumpets

[Harold]

Well, since rebuilding my '66 Wildcat at the beginning of the year, things have been going slow for me in terms of finishing anything. However, I have not been idle. Here's a Trumpeter Monte that I've been working on. The suspension for the front was heavily modified. Apparently, TRumpeter plastic doesn't like being drilled, glued and shot with accelerant. That being said, I made new idler arms out of .040 Evergreen stock. The drag link started as part of a '32 Ford radius rod. I cut it to the length I needed and flattened the ends with a pair of pliers, then driled the ends with a #63 bit chucked into my pin vise. I then determined where the tie rods would line up and filed two .020 reliefs into it and added gussets from .020 Evergreen and drilled laterally through the link, again with a #63. The tie rod ends were originally notched, so these were filled in and drilled out with the #63 bit. The spindle arms were reinforced with .040 and .020 plastic and these were drilled out with the same bit. Everything was then put together with peices of straight pins and epoxy.

The kit engine is the weak point of this otherwise great kit, so I pirated the V-6/automatic combo from Monogram's '78 El Camino.

The wheels and tires are from Pegasus, and the body is geting a few more massages to get ready for paint.

[Janne Herajärvi]

It fun thing ill have this great kit too, but havent never seen anyone building this So this is first time i see it completed when it is completed Maybe i then start my own Looks great so far!

[Chuck Most]

Apparently, TRumpeter plastic doesn't like being drilled, glued and shot with accelerant.The kit engine is the weak point of this otherwise great kit, so I pirated the V-6/automatic combo from Monogram's '78 El Camino.

You ain't kiddin'! The plastic in Trumpeter kits rips apart like pulled pork whenever you do anything but cut it off the sprue!

I've never built the Monte, but I can say the 'weak engine' issue also plauges their '60 Bonneville kit. Kind of pleased to see you chose to repower it with a V6!

Edited September 30, 2009 by Chuck Most

[93Z34]

Looks great so far. Keep in mind, Chevy put a turbocharged V6 into the Monte Carlo in '79 as well. It did have a bulge similar to the Grand National bulge, but it is another option to think about if you wanted to replace the kit engine with another, more detailed V6. The Monogram Grand National V6 would lend itself beautifully to this conversion. Just another option to throw out there.