Well folks. For the last few months I've been taking it slow at the bench due to just plain ol' life happening to me. You know how it goes: priorities have to shift for a bit.............BUT...I'm happy to announce that I've been back at it now for the last couple of weeks. I took on a simple enough project to get me back in the swing of things. I was invited on another forum to participate in an Ebay challenge. The jist of it is that the senior moderator takes a kit, divides it up among members and has each member build their part. One member got the interior, another got the body, another got the chassis and I got the engine build part of the deal. The idea is after each member gets through with their part, they mail it back to the moderator, he assembles the whole thing and puts it on Ebay to sell for funding Hobby Lobby gift cards to hand out to Model of the Month winners.
Here's the kit that was selected:
The engine of course is an old Chevrolet "W" engine. The famous 409.
I just finished it as of this morning after 2 months research and building. I added the plug wires, accelerator linkage and throttle return spring ( made from a 1:1 scale turn signal bulb filament) as well as a wire standoff bracket for the front of the return spring to hook to , an aftermarket resin Carter AFB carburetor to replace the hideous "box" looking carb that the kit came with, a PE alternator adjuster bracket with PE bolt heads to mount it to the engine block and generator, solder fuel line to the carburetor, wire for the thermo tube going from the R/H exhaust manifold to the carburetor choke and I replaced the nasty OOB cooling fan with a replacement that I had in the stash.
The results:
I sanded off the molded in battery terminals from the battery, drilled holes in place of them and inserted squared off ends of solder up through the holes. After that I painted it all up, applied the Delco decal and sealed it with a coat of semi gloss clear.
and added some cables and PE terminal ends of my own:
It was a fun little project and was enough to keep me productively busy for a little bit. But now................it's time to make my way back to the bench full time!!!!