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Anyone for Darts? Your thoughts on the AMT Sportsman kits.

 
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AdamtheWayne



Joined: 09 Jul 2018
Posts: 1182

PostPosted: Mon Jul 30, 2018 8:37 pm    Post subject: Anyone for Darts? Your thoughts on the AMT Sportsman kits. Reply with quote

I posted this on SA and it fell flat. I KNOW I can get some help here.

I just bought two kits I've been passing up since I was a kid. The Petty Dart and Dart Sportsman.

I've heard good things and I've heard horror stories. (So they're not that different a model) I like to know in advance though, what I'm up against when I can.

Give me your impressions on building them please and my apologies if this is in the wrong category.
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Tom M.
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Joined: 01 Feb 2018
Posts: 600

PostPosted: Mon Jul 30, 2018 9:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

They were tooled in the early days of the Modeling Dark Ages so they are a sometimes frustrating mix of oversimplification and overcomplication. On the plus side they were never butchered into anything else so they still build pretty much like they did in '75 when they were originally released but our standards are higher these days.

Let's see... I'll start with the front suspension. Ignore whatever the instructions say. The ride height is set by the attachment of the lower control arm to the shock, which is molded onto the engine bay bars and lacks anything in the way of detail. But you have to work with it unless you want to completely re-engineer the kit so it is what it is. Prep the engine bay bars, upper control arms, lower control arms, and spindles because you'll need to juggle all of them. Install the engine bay bars to the frame rails WITH THE SHOCKS THROUGH THE MIDDLE OF THE UPPER ARMS BUT WITHOUT GLUEING THE UPPER ARMS TO THE CHASSIS! I like liquid weld, it's fast but not too fast to prevent me from repositioning stuff. Then glue the lower arms with struts and torsion bars to the chassis and to the shocks. Make sure everything is the same from left to right. Hold it or fixture it if you have to (this is where the speedy cure of liquid weld is handy). Once that subassembly has cured up solid you can then assemble the spindles and upper arms and glue everything together. The upper arms fit poorly, they always have so you don't want to be glueing those until you have the lower arms square and solid in the car. I do all this before adding any paint so I can use the solvent glue then I detail paint the suspension components with a fine brush. Less than optimum but about the best you can do with the kit parts.

The interior/cage is next. You need to do a little more than the usual prep to the cage bars, the parting lines are getting a little prominent after all these years. I pre-assemble the cage using the attachment points on the floorpan as a fixture, the cage itself goes together pretty well with one exception. The bar that runs from side to side behind the instrument panel is fiddly, not well located, and frustrating. It does have one bar that goes down and locates to a mounting hole in the floorpan so if you build the cage without that bar and get it good and square with a couple of rubber bands holding the cage to the floorpan you can add that one last bar and get it positioned correctly. The instrument panel doesn't fit that well on top of it either but that's not a big deal. Nothing else really jumps out at me about the interior. Oh! The X braces from the rear top of the main cage hoop down to the rear frame aren't continuous, they have a top and a bottom piece that both contact the rear package shelf to give the illusion of going through. Use the interior tin as a guide when glueing the part of the X braces that go down to the frame so that everything fits together well when you do the final assembly.

The engine. It's undersize and lacks detail. Also, the headers don't fit well. I have used the Polar Lights 355 smallblock in one and it fits okay with some bending to the engine mounting plate I think I used the Polar Lights headers and made my own dumps from aluminum tubing but it's been a long time. If you make do with the kit engine you can make the headers and dumps work but they require a lot of test fitting, adjusting, and preassembly.

If you're building the Dart Sport or Duster you'll want to remove the vertical lip around the front wheelwell. Be careful, you'll be left with just the material thickness of the body at the fender top. If you're building the Petty Dart you will want to either hinge the trunk or add some locating pins so that it doesn't fall off inside the display case every time someone walks past the case and makes the floor vibrate.

Really, they aren't as bad as it sounds especially for a kit from that era. They look great built up and they're simple enough that they build quickly. I'm interested in reading your impressions when you build one.

*Edit to add...

I almost forgot to mention the tires. They're hollow and flimsy and the Chinese molders thoughtfully made a die to cut out the center spider that's molded into the opening to allow the tires to mold properly. Unfortunately they made the die just a hair too large so the hole in the tire is oversize for the kit wheels. I build pavement cars so I use the Plastic Performance Products 10" slicks with either the Goodyear, Hoosier, or McCreary decals depending on what I'm building. They're just a tiny bit loose on the kit wheels but a couple of wraps of electrical tape cut to the proper width makes the PPP tires fit the kit wheels. The fronts benefit from being pulled in a little bit and the rears benefit from being spaced out a little bit.
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afx



Joined: 28 Jan 2018
Posts: 270

PostPosted: Tue Jul 31, 2018 5:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think Tom's build notes should be a sticky.
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"Fireball"



Joined: 09 Feb 2018
Posts: 202

PostPosted: Tue Jul 31, 2018 12:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

afx wrote:
I think Tom's build notes should be a sticky.


Yep, I second that motion.
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AdamtheWayne



Joined: 09 Jul 2018
Posts: 1182

PostPosted: Tue Jul 31, 2018 12:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ummmm… Shocked o-kayyyyyyy. That's a bit to process, went through twice... got it!

I agree with the assessment this should be pinned. This will likely cut my build time in half!

As for the smallish engine and front fenders on the Sportsman Dart, I've never been bothered by an engine swap and cutting down the fenders is accurate for the style of car, but I'm not sure I'm in that deep as this one will be a fantasy Petty car and I kind of like them as is.

The Petty kit car is the reissue with the truck. Truck will get set aside until I can at least come up with a Dodge cab. If I can find a Dodge hauler truck I'll use the kit car truck for the Torino.

That suspension info though! THAT is invaluable. One of my biggest harangues is getting down to the last, which for me is mounting the suspension and wheels, and finding the car doesn't sit level anymore.

Most likely I'll hinge the deck and hood, toss in an MPC NASCAR or some such engine with some mild detailing.
I keep plenty of evergreen styrene on hand for roll bars and such.

I won't do a build thread, but I'll definitely post the results and my thoughts. Thank you Tom for your reply.
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Tom M.
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Joined: 01 Feb 2018
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 31, 2018 7:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for the compliments! As you can see, I've built a few of these... Probably around a dozen total, between the original issues and the reissues.

Here's a reissue Petty Dart, IMHO the Petty Dart has the best body of the bunch. I don't touch it except to add some retention to the rear deck. The Petty Dart is also unique in that it has a full floorpan to the rear of the car, Petty built it like a GN car instead of fully gutted like most short track cars. That changes the assembly of the lower part of the rear cage diagonals since the upper and lower part of the X both attach to the floorpan.




Here's a reissue Dart Sport with resin Duster conversion parts that I started probably 15 or more years ago and finished about 6 or 7 years ago. It was the first one I had built since probably '77 so I was a little rusty, it was a learning process. This is the one I swapped the Polar Lights Charger smallblock into:




Here's another Dart Sport reissue, this one became the Joe Ruttman Car&Driver Magazine project car. Basically box stock with the PPP tires:


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AdamtheWayne



Joined: 09 Jul 2018
Posts: 1182

PostPosted: Tue Jul 31, 2018 8:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Tom M. wrote:
Thanks for the compliments! As you can see, I've built a few of these... Probably around a dozen total, between the original issues and the reissues.

Here's a reissue Petty Dart, IMHO the Petty Dart has the best body of the bunch. I don't touch it except to add some retention to the rear deck. The Petty Dart is also unique in that it has a full floorpan to the rear of the car, Petty built it like a GN car instead of fully gutted like most short track cars. That changes the assembly of the lower part of the rear cage diagonals since the upper and lower part of the X both attach to the floorpan.




Here's a reissue Dart Sport with resin Duster conversion parts that I started probably 15 or more years ago and finished about 6 or 7 years ago. It was the first one I had built since probably '77 so I was a little rusty, it was a learning process. This is the one I swapped the Polar Lights Charger smallblock into:




Here's another Dart Sport reissue, this one became the Joe Ruttman Car&Driver Magazine project car. Basically box stock with the PPP tires:


Very nice! I'll likely do the same with regards to the engines. With minor differences to the floor pan, I'm seeing essentially the same kit. Should be a fun, quick build. Those are aftermarket wheels and tires?
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AdamtheWayne



Joined: 09 Jul 2018
Posts: 1182

PostPosted: Thu Aug 02, 2018 3:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

YaY! They stickied it! (stickied?) Anyhoo, I'm in an awesome mood as my Dart kits just arrived. Here are my initial impressions upon grokking the kits.

PETTY DART: Overall a sweet lookin kit. The frame, pan and body were packaged together and the frame is nice and straight for the most part. The passenger frame rail up front is a little high... or the driver's is low... something's off. There's zero flash anywhere that matters. Chrome and windows are pretty nice.

I don't get what everyone is saying about the engine? It's HUGE! If anything it's way too... oh, I guess that's for the truck.

Seriously though, I can't get over how this kit can't decide what scale to be and it's not just the engine, which might convert to a v-6. The seat is too small and maybe a couple other minor parts, easily replaced.

The Dodge Dart "Millennium" edition: FIRST thing I saw was the front fenders and you were right. The vertical panel has to go. It just doesn't belong. IIRC, most of these cars had a fiberglass front end that was bolted on at the cowl panel didn't they?

At any rate, It's as good a casting as the Petty Dart, but this one's frame is so wavy you could surf on it. Fortunately I have clamps. Pretty much as you describe, the same kit, different body. Same go-kart sized seat. It won't be until I get done with the Olds and MAGNUM but I'll post my build impressions after I dig up the motors from some PL Chargers.
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sentsat71



Joined: 03 Feb 2018
Posts: 1237
Location: Fenton, IA

PostPosted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 8:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've had a couple of the Petty Dart? (the "fast back" body style. That I bought 10=12 years ago, but ended up selling them. Think I had one from before that, but can't remember now....but, for me, they were more than I wanted to tackle....

Guess one could say, it could be because I grew up with the AMT 3n1 kits in the '60's.


Good, bad, indifferent, think I would prefer the old Super Stocker chassis.
Even the old MPC '71/'72 Mustangs that had a fair setup for racing, Trans-Am style....
But, that's just me.....

The WIP and completed build posted here looks FANTASTIC
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Helio Neto



Joined: 05 Feb 2018
Posts: 3

PostPosted: Sun Sep 23, 2018 7:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Petty Dart roof is way taller than it should be, it stands out when you compare it side by side with the pretty accurate Revell Dart GTS body.

Kitbashing tip: the roof proportions and C pillars are in fact extremely close to the 4 door Dart and 67-69 2 door non-hardtop sedans!
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AdamtheWayne



Joined: 09 Jul 2018
Posts: 1182

PostPosted: Mon Jan 13, 2020 7:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have the Revell Dart here about somewhere. While I'm not into 4 doors, I may look into a roof swap if it's viable.
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