AMT '71 Charger built box stock

[Dodge Fan]

This is the AMT 1/25 '71 Dodge Charger built box stock with some painting detail. Even though it is crap, I thought it would be a cool to build one like a promo. The challenge was in attaching the body to the chassis with the tape strips but it worked out, I got close anyway-

[Dodge Fan]

I thought about doing something with the wheels but with the tools I have I just decided to build it like they proposed it would look like.
It cannot make it around my Carrera track one lap thru the banked turn and it also catchs on the guard rail. Wonder how it would run on a wood track.

[waaytoomuchintothis]

It won't go around the track. He'll have to replace the motor and the gears!

I am amazed that there were inserts at all in that kit. None of the other kits have that as far as I know. I have three of them, and they sure don't. It looks like they had the same trouble with that kit that they did with the Pontiac. The frame doesn't adjust far enough to fit the body's wheelbase. The big story here isn''t the crappy model, its how you made the body look good. You really dressed it up nice. Are you going to put a good chassis under it in the future? I'm about to finish up the Fireball Roberts Pontiac this week, which is what I'm making from the crappy kit I did recently.

I'll turn the inserts down on my lathe if you want.

[waaytoomuchintothis]

We're all screwed up. I just noticed that there were two postings above me by the time I got that written.

Yeah, I'm a veteran of the worst kits ever made. Not a thrilling distinction, actually.

[Dodge Fan]

It's just going to be a shelfer, but it would be cool to have the inserts fit properly. I have the model kit that this body comes from and an extra set of wheels from the kit. How would you cut them down?

[waaytoomuchintothis]

Yep. Usually, the problem is that the insert is a scale part, and therefore won't go inside the slot car wheel. To reduce the diameter, you can turn them on a lathe, chuck them into a drill and turn them against a sanding block, or just hold them by hand and sand them down a little patch at a time on a standing belt sander. Harry used to do one or all of these methods at one time or another. I have done the belt sander method and I have hand sanded them on a piece of sandpaper on a flat table.

But you can always send them to my shop. Its cheap- free. The AutoWorld cheapos wouldn't have more than one size wheel, I'll bet, so I can use the AMT wheels I have here to size them. Are yours aluminum or black plastic? You can PM me for an address to send them to.

[Dodge Fan]

Wow, Rob is so way to much into this, I sent him a set of Mopar Rally wheels from the 71 AMT Dodge Charger model kit and Rob trimmed them and up and fit them into another set of wheels to fit the axles on the slot car.
Here is what it it looks like now, thanks Rob-

[waaytoomuchintothis]

That's what I hoped it would look like. The black Delrin plastic wheels from the first AMT kit I reviewed were donated along with the tires, to make the illusion that the tires weren't the silly rubber band skinny things from the kit. The aluminum wheels would show how thin the tires are, but the black plastic hides them. The inserts didn't need much work at all to get a friction fit inside the black plastic wheels, and viola! The illusion was complete. I couldn't be happier with the result. Teamwork!

[dge467]

That looks so much better! Nice work you two!

[MoparGreg]

Nice Matt, Good color choice as well. The wheels look so much better when the inserts have been moved in.

[TuscoTodd]

Wow! That turned out nice - and the flush inserts in the black rims REALLY look "right" on there! NICE!

For reference, I will say that the cars are actually fun to drive on wood track. I have three that I have built - the first was the Galaxy kit, which I left in the factor as molded yellow and didn't put any inserts in the wheels - but did later upgrade to H&R silicone white letter tires that give it a pretty tough / vintage racer look. The second kit that I did was the '06 Camaro - I went with Duplicolor Metal Specks - Retro Red and vintage Dynamic 4-hole wheels that the factory rubber fit nicely (and the low profile look seemed to look "appropriate" there). The third kit was the 442. I went with Duplicolor metallic Buckskin base with Duplicolor Metal Effex clear over top then added vintage Strombecker rubber / wheels with inserts for a bit more of a "classic" look. (A couple shots of each are attached below.)
I will say that I did learn a lot about the chassis/kit short comings over the three builds and did find some things that you can do to improve the performance / handling of the stock kit. (would be happy to share a link to the write ups I did on my testing via PM for anyone interested.)
In the mean time - I hope you enjoy these shots of my assembled kits... :)