Flat's Builds... Ground Up

For this build ill be using a 67-69 Barracuda Hotwheels. A little back story on the reason for this build is i own one.

Its a 1967, 273 Commando, 3spd Automatic car. Its All Original with less than 50,000 miles. My grandma bought it brand new for 1,200$ in 67' took it straight to Lions Raceway in Wilmington and raced it, the fastest shes ever had it was bottomed out on the speedometer at 160mph. They bought it as their crusing car, something they could go out in, the only other vehicle they had was my grandpas 46 chevy pickup... but it wasnt a looker it was pretty rough. The car was then handed down to my dad, whom hated the car... i only remember riding in it as a kid a couple of times, He was a bowtie man from the heart who also loved racing. He had numerous hotrods, 68 Elcamino SS, 69 and 72 Chevelle's, a 82 square body stepside and more. My senior year i worked on a horse ranch literally shoveling $#!t for a living and bought the car from my dad, fixed what little it needed to make it run and have had it ever since. I plan on doing a full restoration on the car and repaint it Hemisfear Green which is a Chip Foose color. My plan when doing this build is to use that paint and make a small replica.

Heres the car, this will be the last time you see it this way. :-)

The cars ive been doing lately have been metal bodies and i strip them down to nothing and start over. To do that i use Aircraft Stripper, now before i get started let me tell you somethings about it and some Do's and Dont's.

This stuff is nasty, dont do this in your home, it will not only make you and others sick if in constant contact but it could get on anything and possibly mess your stuff up.

Do it in an open air flowing environment, Wear a mask and gloves and if your really worried wear safety glasses.

Dont worry about using too much, its about 6$ a can and it goes a long way.

If you get it on something or it gets on you wash it immediately with water.



like i said before, when using this stuff dont be greedy... spray it on. I do the underside first once i get it good and covered i flip it over and cover the other side until it looks like a big foam ball.

This stuff is kind of messy so i use a shoe box.

Dont jump the gun... wait the 15-30 minutes it will make life easier trying to remove the old paint. It literally wipes off, i use a shop rag and once ive got off everything with wiping i wash the car and rag off with hot water, i then use the back of an exacto blade and scrape out the rest of the paint in jambs and small places. Once im done with that i wash the car with dawn soap and hot water, some rags have oils in them and to prevent oils from being implemented on the body i use dawn.

I found some polaroids of grampas 46 chevy and my dads old stepside, sorry about the glare its a picture of a picture. I couldnt find any pictures of the cuda way back when.

When looking at riding a bicycle to New Zealand, postage sounds reeeaaalllyyy cheap LOL. Cigar boxes back then use to be made of wood, ive seen better fedex boxes than the cigar boxes today. I too love wood, warm and rich. It will do for now, until i get too many cars like you did.

I do have an idea of making an all roller chassis and seeing How that works. Mechanically it would seem it would be faster reducing resistance, pulling it off will be interesting but i have ideas.

All bearings, no bushings. From axles to motor to gears... everything that moves. When the time comes id like to send it to one of you guys to make some passes and get a round about ET and MPH it runs, Then modify it and retest to see the difference.

Bb's .......... problem with 4g's is room to fit them. Not axles but plate and chassis. Brushes can be shifted , but trying to get a ball bearing to fit between them is the trick. Might want to consider a combination of bearings & bushings.

1.5 mm bearings I believe are .060..... I think only one mfg.uses .059 the others .060 (maybe other way around). Wiz sells 1.5 mm bearings. To put them on their green wire arm, had to polish arm shaft to fit.

The reason for bearings or bushings is to reduce friction. Being a smooth surface compared to.plastic. Both.have a lower co-efficient of friction. I've had better results with arm shafts polished to .058 or .0575. So bearings slide onto shaft instead of being pushed on. Creating a sort of float .between shaft & bearing. Reaming bushings while in chassis accomplishes the same from opposite approach.

......... Peter