#88 Quality Care Thunderbird-1/24 Monogram

[68Mopar]

I just bought this and it should be here in a few days. I built it years ago and had problems with the body being twisted, had to give it the hot water treatment to "untwist" it. I did a few more as Bill Elliot's and another Jarrett car and all of them had a horrid twist to the body.I can't find my original build blog or any pictures of the finished car. I had my old computer quite a few years ago crash and lost a lot of my older builds, I now back up everything on thumb drives.Hoping the decals are useful or it's search for after market.

[68Mopar]

The kit just arrived. Off to wash plastic then start painting.

[68Mopar]

A good omen I hope. This is the first kit of this car I have had that DOESN'T have a twisted body! Hope the rest of it is this good.

[68Mopar]

Five minutes in a zip lock to de chrome parts....a la oven cleaner. Been at this since the 20th century.

[68Mopar]

What got me into this sport? I lived all my life until I was 48 years old in western MA on the NY border. A 20 minute ride over the mountain and you were in a small rural town of Lebanon NY and at the Lebanon Valley Speedway. Saturday nights were at the dirt oval and Sunday afternoons at the 1/4 mile drag strip for the Funny Cars. The local hero of the dirt track was Butch Jelley in his 24J. He was a CT native transplanted to rural VT, Pownal near the Pownal Horse Racing track. This was late 60s to early 70s. Here's a few old pictures of Butch. He left this world at 80 years old in 2020.

[68Mopar]

Back to reality or close nuff. Engine started.

[Vdc]

I've built several of these too.

The windows, are you test fitting?

I now remove the body's window lip entirely so the glass can sit further in.

[68Mopar]

Thanks, I have built roughly hundreds of Revell-Monogram NASACAR models over the past 35 plus years. I will give the window trim a look see. Thanks. Some fun with the rattle cans in the booth today. More on the way.

[18degrees]

If you think those 'Birds are bad for warped bodies, go back to the previous generation, the "mail slot" ones. Seems the only ones that are ok out of the box is the Todd Bodine Factory Stores #75 ones. Dunno what's up with that but most all of the white plastic ones are horribly crooked.

[68Mopar]

Do you think it was Monagram or when Revell took over? I think most of the bad ones I had said Revell on the box. Maybe it was the plastic, I have a younger brother who is a mold maker, showed me some of the molds and the mills, lathes, CNC machines and how they were polished. I wasn't that finicky, I worked for 42 years iron working and welding. I made things fit with an oxy acetylene torch and a ten pound hand sledge.

[68Mopar]

Here is a warped body, same parts but Bill Elliot #94 McDonalds Thunderbird decals. I built this in 2018.

[68Mopar]

This is the same body after several very hot water treaments and twisting while hot. I did not use the kit decals, I got a set of Mac Tonight decals for it.

[68Mopar]

Some more work on the engine and body.

[MarkJ]

Looking really good. Moving right along. Very clean work.

[68Mopar]

Thanks, some chassis work.