mustang1989

Thanks J. I just couldn't understand why they did that. Even the photo on the side of the box looks off and obviously the builder tweaked the one in the picture some but it still hangs low and has that nasty squared off exhaust pipe exit.

Yeah dad blocked that Camaro and then he blocked a 1969 Mustang purchase. The Mustang was really hot with a pretty strong 302 that, if memory serves me correctly, was a faster car than the Camaro I was going to buy. And yes.....insurance rates are crazy these days with a teenage driver. I should be getting those distributors in the mail any day now.... Build progress....... One of the shortcomings of this kit is in the exhaust area. First off, there's LOTS of clean up to do, more so on this kit than most any other of the models I've built in the past. After that is the issue of the position of the tail pipe when it's all installed onto the vehicle and the fact that I'm not a big fan of square cut exhaust pipes exiting any give car. OOB exhaust: (Note: the tires will be re-positioned in the wheel opening so I'm still working on that) This crazy right?? After tweaking the exhaust mounting points and bending the pipes to where I wanted them to exit the car (and adding my bevel cuts to the tail pipes and hollowing them out). That's MUCH better. I still have some adjustments I'll make later on in regards to the final locations of each pipe but this is the preliminary result:

I've now got the wheels and tires selected for the Z-28 build. The rear tires will have those big bottom GOODYEAR scripts shaved off and some BF Goodrich T/A ones will take their place. This'll be the stance/ look that I'll be going for. The rear part of the chassis is about 70% finished. In the picture below the black looks all the same but I did take the time to paint different parts of the chassis with different shades and hues of blacks to keep it from looking all bland. Still have to install the rear sway bar, shock mounts and shocks but we're getting there. I had to take a break in the progress and narrow the rear end and arch the springs just a tad to achieve the stance I was looking for in the rear. I merely cut off the axle ends, shaved each end of the axle back about 3/16" , drilled holes in the axle and in the axle mounting ends and pinned them back to the axle. I've already done a test run and the wheel/ tire assemblies are right where I want em now. The exhaust has been dealt with as well and I'll be covering that in the next update. There just aint no way I could've left the tail pipes with the look they had OOB and in the locations that they ended up in. Just crazy ridiculous.

These old Jo-Han kits fetch a pretty penny....or two nowadays. I built a Jo-Han Ford Maverick last year and those kits are going for over $300 now. Really wish a model company would pick these old molds up and produce some newly released kits. Progress is looking good on this one Neddy.

WOW!!! I thought I saw this over at MCM and I really need to comment on it over there too. Beautifully done.

Crazy aint it? It won't be that way for long.

lol....thanks fellas!! Starting on the engine build for the Z-28. Here's the base engine completed. I'll be going with a MAD pre-wired distributor on this to cut down on time spent drilling the distributor and putting the wires in which I just ordered a set for both cars. Base chassis all laid out ready for painting. Actually this aint a bad chassis having quite a number of parts. Per some of the reviews that I've read on these kits , I'll be attaching the front subframe assy at a later stage in the build for ease of assembly.

Thanks Jeroen!! I appreciate the comments Tony. I built up the GT-350 version as well but it was in the background being used as a "stance mule" and as a mock up to check for potential problems I would encounter throughout the build. Thanks for the good word Steve. I put alot into the front and rear panels on this one as flaws in these areas stands out like a bloody nose. I really appreciate your comments as well Neddy. Don't worry about where you are in modeling bud. Just keep building and hanging out on the forums and you'll be blowing yourself away with some of the things you'll be turning out in the future. Happened to me. I'm sorry to hear of your losses CC and you're right, the bench is rather therapeutic in those times. I'll be definitely moving forward and already am as you've seen with the Camaros. Thanks for the great comments.

Well guys…the Mustang build, as much as I hate to say it, had to come to an end. I’ve gotta say that I really enjoyed that build alot. I had been doing alot of pondering about what was next up on the bench and had it all narrowed down to three but couldn’t make my mind up on what I wanted to build out of the three. It was really a source of frustration in a small way because I just couldn’t make a decision. So…to end that I decided not to do ANY of those but to build something that I’ve been wanting to build for a very long time… A 1970 Camaro with a big block in it and a Z-28 side by side. These kits are said to be a very difficult ones to work with but we’ll see what happens. I’m up for the challenge… These cars hold great interest to me because #1…The Baldwin offering has a big block in it and #2 The 1970 Z-28 was almost my first car…till dad stopped it. Smart guy because I probably would’ve been a grease stain on the highway at an early age. Now on the bench: Baldwin Camaros are just evil …sporting a 500+ hp 454 and covering the 1/4 mile in the 11 second range. I’ve already got the MCW Forest Green paint for this car. The real thing: The Z-28 is a beautiful car as well sporting a 350 small block. Not as nasty as the Baldwin Camaro but still packs a decent wallop. I’ll be going with Cranberry Red for this one and will be turning to MCW for the color. I'll also be shaking this one up a bit with the wheel and tire selection to something more to my liking. Stay tuned gang…...I hope to do these two cars the justice they deserve.

That's definitely a cool color choice. Will be hangin' around for this one.

Yeesh!!! I really hate to see this one stall out. Looks like you've had your problems with this but I'm looking forward to the recovery efforts friend.

Thank you for the comments, condolences and the reactions fellas. This whole build started last July after I saw the kit re-released by Round 2. I've had visions in my mind for years of building a 1967 Mustang Fastback model as it would have been if I had one. I've had the pleasure of owning three 67 coupes and always wanted a fastback in real life. My last Mustang was the best of the three because it was built from the first two cars and I had managed to score a 351W from a 69 Mach 1. She also had a 4spd manual transmission and 3.55 gears. The first car I had I managed to purchase from my home town. It had a 289 2bbl with an automatic tranny and 2.79 gears. It wasn't fast but it was a good lookin' car. On one of my many trips back to Ft. Hood from my home town in North Texas I hit a deer and destroyed the front end of the car. (going off into the ditch is the WRONG thing to do when dodging animals I found out). The deer was only the beginning of the damage....while dodging the deer I didn't look on the OTHER side of it and dove into a concrete drainage system. This car....was done. Car #1: Acquired 1989-Decommissioned-1990 I found Car #2 in a wrecking yard and rescued it. Man.....that car was rough looking BUT.....it was a GT and had all the options to include tilt away steering which was a very weird option but definitly good on the cool factor. This car also had a standard transmission from the factory. No engine or tranny was in the car when I bought her for $100 but I quickly took care of that. The 289 was carried over from Car #1 and I got a close ratio 4 speed tranny for this one. Later on I bought the 351W I was talking about earlier and freshened it up and dropped it into this car and drove it for a few more years before somebody pulled out in front of me at Ft Hood. I dodged but not before I hit him with my drivers side door in a side skid. Jeez.... Car #2 before the wreck: Acquired 1990--Decommissioned 1991 and after the wreck: The tilt way column that I was talking about. This was supposed to help with driver ingress and egress. Definitely different: I did get the opportunity to lay my hands on Car #1 and Car #2 after 30+ years. They are both in the same wrecking yard in my home town within 15 feet of one another. Car #2 is in the foreground and #1 is just behind it. For what it's worth they are still together and still not crushed out. This is where Car #3 comes in. Acquired 1991--Sold 2002 I bought her for $600 at Fort Hood and towed her back home. I had two other parts cars now to draw parts from to make this one the best car out of the three and one that I would have for 11 years. Me and my best friend built this car over a course of 5 days from this at day one: to this at Day 3 of 5 moving under her own power. The next two days would see the finish up...bumpers, trim, interior and all the cool stuff to make this car driveable. The end result: Now....all of this is where the inspiration for my build here came from. I wanted to build a fastback with all of the things that I had in this last car with the only difference being that I wanted factory style wheels on this one. And so, I set out on my venture. I purchased this kit....and went for broke. Color is Acapulco Blue from MCW Finishes, Wet Look covers the clear coat. The pad printed tires in this kit are a God send and thanks to Eric Oberhaufer at AMT the change out from the Firestone Super Stock tires that this kit came with got changed out to the Wide O Oval tires you see in the following pictures. Model Car Garage covered most of the PE items that you'll see on this car with PE kit # MCG-2032. Joel at Iceman Collections provided the Cobra air cleaner, HGW Models provided this 1/48 scale REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT tag hanging from the rearview mirror and the CPC 64F (the same tag that was on Car #3) license plate and plate frame were provided by Thomas at Speedway decals. Throttle linkage, air cleaner wingnut & washer, fuel lines and brake lines were all either fabricated or drawn from PE parts bin. Throttle return spring is an element from an automotive turn signal bulb. Plug wires are from Lex's Scale Modeling and the 650 cfm Holley Double Pumper carburetor was from Shapeways. The hood scoop is from the AMT GT-350 kit and was graphed onto the stock hood. I also cut out the area of the hood where the scoop was to allow the air cleaner to sit up inside of the scoop from proper hood closure/ seating. Outside door handles are from Fireball Modelworks, Alclad applied to both and pinned in place. A good amount of work had to be done to get the front suspension lowered achieve the stance that I wanted and the front wheels had to be moved in ......significantly... to go inside of the wheel wells where they belonged. The rear suspension had to be raised so a light re-aching of the leaf springs is all that took. This kit is a good kit overall but there are some notable areas that need mentioning. Firts off ...the good. The base engine was well represented with only a carburetor change out needed to spice things up a bit. The interior is also well represented with good detail. The aluminum plating on the dash face is a BEAR to replicate on this one as is the door panels. If anyone's interested in how I pulled that off let me know and I'll be happy to tell you how I managed to get through it. 80% of this build was pretty straight forward BUT....the fit between the nose piece and the drivers front fender on these kits is very hard to get flush. I spent all KINDS of time trying to fix the issue and STILL ended up with a slight gap. Test fit--sand-test fit--file--test fit and MORE TEST FIT is required to get this part right. The fuel cap sticks out way too far because it's thicker than it needs to be. I took sandpaper and stuck it into the contours of the tail light panel and sanded it down to what I felt like was the proper thickness. The front and rear bumpers had little braces going down on either side of the license plate area and I don't care for those so I cut those off of both bumpers, stripped the chrome from them, cleaned 'em up and worked the Alclad magic on both. I'm pretty happy with the turnout overall as it's just the look I wanted to get from the build. Thank you guys for following along, encouraging me and helping me get through this one. Finishing shots:

Ok folks. I have to apologize for the long absence. I had a lot going on last year and then at the end of the year my mom and dad caught Covid-19. Dad did alright ...but mom....not so much. She passed away in late January which really hit me hard. Subsequently I didn't really feel very "forum like" and stepped away from the bench for a little while. About a month and a half ago I plopped myself down at my bench chair and went back to work on this one. The next post that follows will contain the completion of this project. Thank you all for chiming in and encouraging me along the short way that I had started. Stay tuned......It'll be up within the day.

Thanks goes out to both of you for hanging in there with me. Had alot happen over the last half year and it slowed and at one point just stopped all progress on this one. I am looking forward to that dual project though.

Thanks and I'll do that. I've already got the next ones up on the bench. Dual build: