Thanks fellas! I ran into a little bump with the build but I’m already past it. I initially was going to use the cool 90 degree spark plug wire boots that I acquired but after tireless attempts at trying to make them work at the distributor connection I had to scrap them and do the plug wires the way that I normally do them. It’s not accurate but maybe the air cleaner will hide some of that. Anyways I should have some updates within the coming days.
I had to keep the good stuff under the mattress. The car and truck posters only served to keep my parents off the trail! [whstl]
Too much info. lololol
Ok folks. I’ve been on and off at the bench for the last few months so progress has been pretty thin as of late. The bench time will become less frequent during the month of January due to my sons FFA show for a week in mid January. It’s gonna be a crazy week with lots of preparation for the show in the days before it so I’ll be trying to get what I can in on this bad boy before that.
As for now I’ve got more done on the engine. The air cleaner is merely resting on top of the throttle body in this picture. I be lowering it somewhat as it sits way too high. I’ll also be adding some fuel lines to the back of the throttle body, some throttle linkage and will be installing an ignition coil. For such a detailed engine I’m not sure why that part wasn’t included in the kit.
You’ve got it all going on brother. Stellar detailing as usual. It’ll look all that and a bag of chips when you get the last bits on.
Merry Christmas to you my friend.
Thanks Joe. Not as much detailing on this one as I would’ve liked but there’s still quite a bit of detail from all the OOB parts.
Merry Christmas to you to bro.
Very nice engine Joe. I agree it does sit a little high.
Thanks and got 'er fixed Lee! I did a few adjustments to this thing today. I put a little droop in the ignition wires just behind the cylinder heads as they just didn’t look right and that air cleaner was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too high. I shaved some off of the bottom of the air cleaner and installed at the proper height. I also added an ignition coil and some fuel delivery lines. I was going to add some throttle linkage but everything I had was incorrect and it’s much to intricate of detail to scratch build and get to look right so I left that part alone. There’ll be an intake duct attaching at the air cleaner inlet and mounting on passengers side inner fenderwell later after the engine gets installed into the truck.
Finished 454:
I’ve been working on the chassis as time allows for the last couple of weeks. Having acquired this kit on Ebay, it was missing one of the front molded coil springs. After looking at the one remaining spring and noting how horrible it looked, I thought it best to up the ante a little bit and make it a little bit more realistic looking. I opted for a set of steel coils that I had in the parts bin. Other than that it has been a rather labor intense seam and injector pin mark clean up. I shot almost all of the chassis parts in a coat of semi gloss black lacquer followed up by a thin shot of semi gloss acrylic paint which resulted in a more life like color to me. Not completed by any means but I thought I’d show a shot of progress to let you all know that I am in fact alive, well and building.
and for all of you who are curious…this will be my only modification to this build. I have too much love for this truck in stock form to do anything else to it. Still have some clean up left on the rear tires to get totally rid of the raised white lettering and then matching both sets of tires up color wise but here’s what we’re going with.
Engine looks much better.
Thanks Lee! [H]
Terrific progress there Joe. The chassis is certainly looking sharp. The time and effort you put into cleaning up seam lines and injector marks sure pays off. I’m curious though, why exactly are you removing the white lettering off of the tires?
Looking forward to more awesome and wanderous builds from in the coming new year.
Happy New Year to your and your family my friend.
Cheers, Joe
Thanks Joe and I hope you had a great Christmas and New Year. These are more of a street tire than a drag tire and the letters on these tires are HUGE and don’t look right for a street tire. I used these same tires on the '69 Camaro SS that I built a couple of years ago and they worked great.
Chassis is now complete. I did make the front wheels steerable as I’ve always wanted a model with posable front wheels. It was a lot easier to do with this kit than it has been with some of the builds that I’ve done. The ones in the past and really delicate and finicky parts or they had no option for steering at all.
Thanks Joe. We did indeed have a wonderful Christmas and New Years. I hope your holidays were filled with joy also.
Thanks for the clarification on the tires. Makes sense. The chassis is excellent. Definitely up to your usual standards. That’s cool that you were able to make this with positional front wheels. That’s a slick new addition to your kits.
You’ll be happy to know that I am getting started on my 1/72 Airfix A-4B Skyhawk over on the Airfix GB. Feels all so good to be working on something at the bench again.
Cheers Brother
Thanks Joe and I’m glad to hear that you had a good Christmas and New Years. We had a good one as well with the usual “Dr. Liz”/ NRA President/ Master Counselor at the house. lol.
I’m going to have to check that Skyhawk out. Whatever happened to the Corsair?
Great progress, Joe. I love that engine and the weathering that you did.
[Y]
Comforting to know that your holidays had adult supervision. LOL!!
I’ve set the Corsair aside for the time being. Don’t worry, I’ll get it done. In the meantime, I just needed something to get me back in the groove and the A-4 along with Bish’s GB fit the bill.
Sorry I missed you this morning. Needed to sleep in on my day off to fully recover from staying up on New Years with the family. Feeling rather refreshed now.
Thanks Steve.
Well…I’m not so sure about the adult supervision part but ummmm…yeah!
No worries on this morning. There’ll be Monday. Got the headliner and sunvisors replaced in my 1:1 truck and took the carpet out of it and used the high pressure rinse on it at the car wash. I purchased the new jute yesterday and will be reinstalling the carpet probably this weekend. Speaking of which I probably couldn’t have heard much of what you would’ve been saying this morning anyways with all the carpet out of the truck. I was surprised at how much it deadens the exhaust noise. With “40 Series Flows” and no catalytic converters it’s been really loud the last few days. 
I still have to move the rear tires inwards a little but I’ve just about got the wheel/ tire and stance set up where I want it. The chassis isn’t adhered to the body yet which will pull the body down to set a better stance but you get the idea anyways.
I also received my re-mastered decals from Thomas at Speedway Decals.
What can I say Joe, I like it!
Dandy set of decals you got yourself also.