1972 AMC Matador - Police

[frizzen]

Kinda a hack setup, but i'm not building a race car.
Though i might be able to stop some... (heh, now i REALLY need to track down that dodge wing-car) "Boy, you in a heap of trouble."


Brass plate ties a toygrade gearbox into chassis. Nothing very fancy. Still need to setup axle adapters for setscrews.


I think i can live with that ride height.
Also drilled the broken roof antenna, installed 30lb fishing line

[Galahann]

Good job on with car.

[Mustang46555]

Looks good!
Must be all that old-school radio gear weighing the trunk down. If you need help on the set screws just let me know.

[skeeter]

looking good, sir.

[frizzen]

The photocar donor trans was setup too slow, i managed to find a different motor, and got it up over parade speed.



"This black & white patrol car has an overhead valve V8 engine producing 328 hp at 4800 rpm, it accelerates from 0-60 in 7 seconds and has a top speed of 120 mph..."

[frizzen]

I got the headlights circuit working on the servoboard switch, then hotglue mounted wiring to body, cut wiring to size, retermed. Didn't have enough cheap servos to set up the roof lights yet.

Patrolling the warehouse district


1adam12, 1adam12 vehicle accident with roll-over, entrapment.


An awesome looking brushfire rig responded with me. (Sure wish there were an ambulance available too, but that guy is a slacker... hurry it up Frizzen!)
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I think this might become my siren.
https://www.modeltrainsoftware.com/p...-siren-diecast

[frizzen]

What else might an early '70s police car pull over?





What, where'd that come from?

[skeeter]

I LOVE the option you found for an affordable AND space saving sound system!

[frizzen]

Fuel up at beginning of shift


Slow shift turns into a rainy night...







Control, 1-Adam-12, back in service.

Ok so i let my ambulance steal the show in that pic. it's got a more impressive lighting setup, and since i run both of them from the same transmitter i couldn't power up both recievers. Besides the ambulance may need to leave in a hurry, while Adam-12 would be out of service on the scene until the incident was over and paperwork was done.

At one point there was a police chase involving a blue Semi that was going on a rampage. The chase ended without incident when the perpitrators father took the transmitter away from him and took him into custody.

[frizzen]

Hey, i need some opinions. On the VHS-rewinder body in post #47: keep it the classic Shoebox 2-door '57 Chevy everybody already knows and loves, or go coach-build professional car in a National Body Manufacturing Company kinda way?

https://jalopnik.com/1957-chevrolet-...35-000-5209282
https://hearseforsale.org/chevrolet/...ulance-hearse/

I like the look of them as a Landau style hearse. Maybe paint up a goth girl driving it, or to lean on the fender. Maybe some hotrod or lowrider touches have been added since it's been retired out of service...
Or is that too weird, and i should not have set this on top of the boxed (out-of-scale) Ecto-1?

[Wombii]

Hearse please! You can never have too many projects. I wouldn't even know where to start with all those curves though.

[frizzen]

Sweet, both responses on the boards went funeral coach.

I dunno, my unfinished pile might argue about too many projects...

I'm also stacking the deck about the curves. Pretty safe bet that nobody here has a 1957 chevy belair national hearse, vinyl style roof hides flaws, it's also gonna be a custom, plus it can go suede paint or ratrod if it goes too badly.

Thinking about 2.5" stretch to add back door, roofs going to be flat/satin for vinyl, landau style with some full-view kinda windows next to the load door. Probably aiming for some steelie or torque-thrust wheels when i find a donor chassis.

[frizzen]

Take a 2 piece body, make it 1 piece and set aside until inspiration hits.

Make the body 3 pieces, make them not touch or touch weird.



Grab solvent weld, make it 2 pieces. Grab soldering iron, make D-pillar connections stronger. Grab solvent weld and scrap, make it 1 piece. Grab brass and epoxy putty, make the roof sorta touch.

Grab some masking tape and a sharpie, so the insanity shows up better. But *don't* actually look at the source pictures you've spent the weekend looking up, the phone's in the other room.



I know there's a lot of Superior, M&M, Eureka... sneaking in there, however I'm already feeling that a lot more than a normal shoebox chevy.

[Wombii]

Great start! And if you give up and cut off the roof you'll have a nice presidential limo!

[frizzen]

Thanks wombii! I had forgotten they used to do convertible or removable-hardtop limos, i grew up with them running the pres in a limo-styled armored car in big convoys and shutting down roads.

Now that i'm sure it's not just Half-Baked, the hearse has moved to it's own build thread in Static.

https://rctruckandconstruction.com/s...d.php?p=165996

[frizzen]

The whole time i've had the car, I'd been bummed about the ruined white paint, but i found out Iso-alcohol got the old gas schmoo cleaned off pretty easily.



So in celebration, it got chromed wiper arms. Then since the best looking cop car wheel setup for a Black&White is and has always been black steelies with dogbowls/babymoons and beauty rings, i added the set of chrome rings.



I knocked together a rear 'strut-tower brace', which is more of a rear body support and package tray visible through the back window. I'm probably going to punch the on/off switch up through it, if i can find some kind of 'cop junk' like a hat or gun to make into a switch hider. It's not a cage car, so i'm not worried about the detained getting a hold of stuff.

Yes i know the 1-Adam-12 Matador didn't run beauty rings on the steelies. They also ran the black 727 can lights so it didn't reflect cameras, and didn't have LED lighting. My car.

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I shared this car over on the 'Cox engine forum' since it started life as a Cox product. Somebody liked the bus, so here's many VWs.



I'd finally ordered some sirens from Evan Designs. I'm happy to be able to know for sure the "9v" option works great off a 7.2 stick pack. I then put it on 4.5 - 6v rx voltage, works great! It will still take an RX Switch and a Servo to run the Police siren fully remote.

It has a momentary button to toggle sirens, Adam 12 can use the siren in mode 2 or 4. All the sounds in sequence (1) and phaser (3) just don't fit early 70s american cops.
A 'Police siren' will also be getting installed in the Econoline Ambulance, all sounds will work without it being too weird for that vehicle.

Evan Design
https://youtu.be/E_1qG0Ryx5Q
I'm calling it close enough to a Federal Signal PA20A.
https://youtu.be/UA4diGS8BXY

I also got their Fire Siren for my dads FWD fire engine, it's a great Federal Q that winds up nicely but doesn't really free-roll down, (so i think it's a Federal QE) Also they're a little heavy on the Grover airhorns, but they atleast use them well instead of the stupid 'fuhfuhfuhfuhfuh' junk that my local dept seems to like doing. Guess i'm going to be really pushy on the way to the scene. I'll definately need one for my American LaFrance project later, probably with the bigger speakers. Screaming Q!!!

[frizzen]

Very shortly this will be entering a 'Cars are the Stars' contest over on a forum about its original engine. I'm trying for getting it ready to rock since its on a waiver into their Modified class as the electric power means it's actually an Outlaw and not in the running.



Here's the wire harness it takes to run the body lights. Supplier issues mean the roof lights are still currently setup as only solid instead of Red solid / Amber wig-wag. Grrr.

I'm probably going to pull the RX Switch out of the Ambulance so i can have the siren finctional and wire it up pretty. Then i still have to knock together a servo mount for the momentary switch.

Need to pick up some white paint for touch up, then chrome out the window trim.

Then just take it outside, get some pretty pics, and i can try to get a "Dishonorable Mention" or maybe even get to take "Worst Prize"!

Originally (before i went Electric) it sucked Nitro and was the Ducks Guts. 
Sh-she's the last of the V8's! S-sucks n-nitro, with phase 4 heads! 600 horsepower through the wheels! She’s meanness set to music and the ***** is born to run!

Actually no. Although i never even ran her on nitro, i have to admit the cox cam-steering cars weren't really all that amazing. It was cool that it's a robotic car that worked off a rotary punch card. Electric RC is *SO* much better than on Nitro with 4 interchangible steering control disks.

Action van
https://youtu.be/0rwu848irCE
https://youtu.be/RSli3kqhjUU

Matador stock-car racer
https://youtu.be/_aEhoEp_3Yo

Some sick part of me still really wants to build up an Action Van body. It just needs graphics and murals to go full on 1970s Vanning. Possibly a shaker motor so while parked the body can be Rocking.

[frizzen]

Chassis layout.
Siren is a black chip, speaker, push button. It now has its own control servo since i wasn't feeling like trying to make a control circuit. Power tapped off the RX bus with 2 pin servo lead. Knocked together a styrene switch holder, bonded to servo case, set the epa to lightly go clicky. Toggle switch D down/up to advance through settings

On/off switch is mounted in the package tray. Fwd is on.
Body lights on th channel, up is on
Roof lights on sw B, down is on. This way car turns on dark, light controls come together for On





Cox boat anchor

The spring on the crankshaft starter knob is a worm gear for the spur gear that floated on the original hex axle, a switch let you mesh or clutch the engine

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I kinda think i'd like to deviate from screen accurate with the roof lights. Adam 12 had the Reds turn on solid, but now days wig-wag is better understood and is a whole lot better at getting attention.

Someone i work with is trying to convince me to get a couple digital sound recorders so i can throw a servo on the rudder channel to let me have some selectable 'radio traffic'. Maybe one being dispatched out on a run and the unit acknowledging, with the other marking back in service?

[Wombii]

That's a great way to solve the buttonpushing.

[frizzen]

Well all these years people have said i was good at pushing their buttons...

The button-pusher arm used the hub of 2 servo horns trimmed and rounded, a servo mount screw went up through those into the arm, and then installed the whole thing like normal. Backed the epa way down so i could sneak up on button without breaking the mount.