1966 T-bird Project. 1/25th AMT reman kit.

SO ! I havent built a car kit in like 6 years. bear in mind I'm an "old hatt-r" have built many a various kind of model kit in my days, and am no rookie at the ripe age of 26. I have in real live, obviously the real Bird and it too is a soon to be nearly completed project. There is THREE MODELS of this car for that year. A Town COUPE, a TOWN LANDAU
( has luxury package and vinyl roof and slightly different roof ornimentation hence LANDAU "S" bars" ) and the Convertable. There was far greater numbers of LANDAUS made but they seem to be fading fast in real life as I rarely see them at shows. While I like the lines of the convertable (as do all afficinados) I dislike greatly the price tag... lol (20K + in decent cond.)


Wanting to have a "concept car" to get an idea how it will look, I went to lovely place where souls can be bought and sold (E-Bay) and came across the recent remake of the late 1960'2 release in 1/25th scale of the AMT ErtL 1966 Thunderbird. There are 2 versions of the kit. I got the "street" custom one as it gave more optional parts (dauh) and had the LANDAU roof (dauh). I was stoked to pay only 12.00 for the kit, and I got it like 4 months ago (From SANTA :rolleyes). I opened it, looked at it briefly and up on the shelf it sat till I decided I wanted to do it.

Well, I wanted, and decided... :frog:


It was officialy busted out of the box April First. FOOLZ !

Upon closer insepction.... it left A LOT TO BE DESIRED.

the wheels were to be mounted on a metal rod that went through the engine block (giant hole) and no real detail to the parts, or accessories.

HIGHLY DISSAPOINTING, considering what I was used to in the past.... TESTORS, TAMIYA... etc.

Parts not fiting, huge gaps, sloppy mold lines, warpage, silly parts that are obviously taken from other kits simply to be another plastic nugget on a sprue for whatever (Gawd knows) use..

Then the short wire fuse filament in my brain that still somehow worked, sparked and remembered why I NEVER bought another AMT model kit after my 768 Firebird kit. Sheitty. Pure ans simple crap plastic kits... Meh, for 12.00 I wont knock it, but they could have at least put front suspension arms on it.

SO ! I started modifying, and going silly with mods.

This is a "Work in progress" Thread, and I will update it as I complete steps as well as discuss and be open to feedback along the way.

Like to see some pics of work on it.
IMO 56 T-Bird looks better.

Can't wait to see progress pics.

looks like a cool kit

since the engine compartment was completely lacking any respect, I wired the piss out of it using my micro BTU gas Orfice drill set, and some Florist wire. I did the entire distributor, the alt, trany, the cooler lines, and major electrical lines BEFORE I painted it so I could see WTF I was doing... Flat black is very mysterious... lol.

dave im looking to wire my el camino, can u give me some tips/advice and some more pics pls

THESE ROCK !

My dad does HVAC, and ever since I was a kid, my brother and I would ransack his "tool cabinet" for new stuff. These are worth the 80.00 they cost an ass load, but are hella awesome:cool:. Theya re used for Gas pilot lite cleaning and clearing very small orfices. I use them for model building lol. after 12 + years of begging my dadfor a set of my own, ... for christmas, he gives me the set WOOO WOO !


EDIT: 2 months later, I find he has a brand NEW set ..... lol he gave me the old set, and had his "WORK" buy a new set. ahahahah.. meh, At least I have them PERSONALY now. I can drill from an eight inch or so right in down to a Hundreth of an inch.

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!:eek: Spiders are eating your T-Bird!!! Look, they have already eatin' the body and tires!!!:D Sorry, I couldn't resist>:D I never thought of drilling the plug wire holes before painting. Great job, keep it up.
OK, now I need to put down the bong, eat some Doritos, and take a nap>:bonghitte :smoker2: :smoka: :bandit: :ylsuper

since I am ging to dump the door handles as IMO they ruin the sleek flow of the body lines flair, I shaved the door handles off, and "patched them"

I went on to the interior.

WAHT AN ACCURATE ///// POS @ the time !

so much detail that is "Close" to the real deal ... right on down to the dash board spedo having the large numbers on it, BUT !

OMG ! what a crappy fitting dash ! I swear someone at teh design studio took a hack saw to it to take it out ! (see pic)

Oh and I will need to putty the dash to the upper mo;ding of the windo sill as it is of by a 1/th of an inch...

Ahh yess.... the 2 part epoxy shal be flying soon !

also to be made, is the jacobsen electronic Egnition system I have, and the windshield resiviour bag (THAT WAS EASILY TO HAVE BEEN MADE YET WAS LEFT OUT OF THE KIT) that is classic to the T-Birds of the era.

Porkchop I replied in yer thread... ;)

Primered, painted chassis, engine painted FORD Blue, I wired in the battery terminals and the rest of what I could at present time, and went on to the the next step. placement of engine, and I await the arival of my "bug catcher" JEGS hood scoop intake.
This is where the real challenge will be as I have to cut out a PERFECT hood hole to fit the intake and still allow it to open.


I contemplated slicing the door off, and making it open also, but I decided against it as it would require 2 kits due to over cutting and resizing of the segments if I did such.

I did up the underside as it would be fron the factory with trany and brake lines. ( hard to see against the Black undercarrige)

lookin very nice :) but i suggest you detail paint the engine first before wiring it :)

nah wiring first prevents issues with plastic and glue drying and ruining paint. I actualy fuked up. I put the headers on backwards lol

I'm such a dumb ass ..... HAHAH. I forgot I changed them on my real car, and they didnt want to sit in the frame on this model. good thing I wired it first... or else I would have to re-do a LOT of work.


I suppose it all depends on what you are wiring. I left many parts un wired, and will "plug them in later.

perhaps " PRE DRILLING " is what I was making light of ;)

I feel your pain, Dave ESPI. I build tons of AMT/Ertl and Revell-Monogram kits and the old 60's reissue AMT's are the worst. For example, there's the 1972 Nova kit. In order to have any semblance of accuracy in the front suspension, I chopped it off at the subframe and grafted on the subframe and front suspension from a Revell 1969 Camaro (same parts off the GM line, you know). The hole in the block 350ish lump was replaced with the sweet 350 in the AMT/Ertl 1970 1/2 Camaro Z-28 kit, and the interior is kitbashed 1969 Camaro and kitstock nova bits.

It's not done yet, but I'll get pics as soon as I have a digicam.

Having woked a bit more, I attached the rear wheel skirts, and added on the tires in the "lowered" position as my car is indeed 3 inches lower to the ground (leik fer real d00d) I ran some coathanger all bent up and into shape from the firewall HEATER CORE tot he top of the block and along it to the radiator outlet. I got pissed at the radiator resiviour tank, and ripped it off the shitty little mounting post, and drilled a hole in the radiator top end, and made a piece of wire to run to the radiator overflow, and it will attach once the car is together. I am still waiting for the street scoop, so I simply slapped the standard air filter on for giggles.

I primered the now repaired interior and proceeded to make a shift lever out of wire and curled the end. I will add a small drop of CA to it, and it will form a nice "end bead" as the knob. Funny, they chromed up this column tac, but for no reason, because IT ISNT CHROME ! on the real car, it is interior color. lol... stupid asshats. OMG ! LETS MAKE STUPID SHIT CHROME ! too bad they didn't have the for thought to make the wheel trom rings in chrome, because they look like shit painted silver against the nice inner CHROME moon covers (not shown)

I used some " thinly washed" burnt umber over a dry brush of Red oxinde on some undercarrige parts and leading edges to show signs of age and slight rust (come on d00dz... its over 30 years old, have to have some rust.....) and in parts of the engine compartment.

I used some PASTEL CHALK that I rubbed into a piece of sand paper, and applied a crappy paint brush to the small pile of colored chalk dust, and then dabbed it on the semi wet exhaust line to add Oxidation and discoloring. UNFORTUNATELY, my chitty camera can't show it to well, but it looks hellacool and real.

I added the wheels and made it a "rolling stock" and test fitted the body for alignment.

again... argh.. needs massive work.

I'm going to look to see if I have some clear plastic, and put in a 1/2 rolled down window with minor modification to the door jam.

Next is the fun stuf...... ohhh yeah... trying to make that POS interior look GOOD.

stay tuned.:smoker:

I will have pics tomorrow evening that ya can compare against teh interior of my real car ;)

I am still waiting on the hood scoop, so the hood sits and waits for dremel tooling.

All the wires are ran for the engine compartment, and are trimmed to length for easy instal omnce the body is secured.

so As closely as I could, I made the interior match my REAL THUNDERBIRD. I added some details, but there are a few discrepancies.

THe doors are NOT the LANDAU wood grain insert, and the railing that runs around it is standard on the coupe models NOT the LANDAU. Also the rear window cranks are for the quarter windows on the convertable, but I left them anyway. Carpeting is dark green, Ivy Gold seats and upholstery with all the trim to match incl;uding the added center consaul switchpad for the power windows and vaccume advance for trunk "flo-thru" Ventelation system (its cool, cause it opens up vents in the trunk that allow you to hear the road of the road a bit more) and allows the air to flow inside the car nicely.

http://img.ranchoweb.com/images/espi/imginterior.jpg
http://img.ranchoweb.com/images/espi/imgdash.jpg
http://img.ranchoweb.com/images/espi/imginteriorrear.jpg
http://img.ranchoweb.com/images/espi/imgddiverdoor.jpg


I will try for some more clear pics of the model interior. Also, the color correction on the interior on my car is a tad bit light, so the gold irridescence comes out more in the pic than is really there.

I tu-toned the body with a flat black bottom, and Hunter CUSTOM Green top. I think it will look hellacool once I but all the chrome and stuff on it as well as paint the rest of the details in.

I also cut BOTH HOODS for the Street Scoop ( after FUBARing the STOCK HOOD which I cut SECOND after I " praticed" on the custom rod hood) and I had to back fill it with squadron putty as I made the hood scoop opening off center, and in efforts to make it look right, made it HUGE lol.... F- It. I filled it by using PACKAGING TAPE on the underside of the hood, taping tightly, and using a gob of WHITE SQUADRON putty that I smootherd into the hood hole. Once it dried a day later, I re dremmeled the hole, and it looks much better !

Comments ?

Wow, you ve got some mad skills !
I like the way the rims add to the look of the car, which is by the way extremely well built and painted IMHO.

Peace, Olivier

thanx d00d.

I have some minor details to work out, but I hope to have the subframe and body assembled before the end of tonight. Ill post pix.