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Pocher Alfa Romeo Spider


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The cylinder head is 4 and a quarter inches long. Yes, it's big.

I built the Aventador recently - thread here somewhere - and whilst it is a superb model, it suffers from two faults.

1: Seriously lacking in LOTS of engine ancillaries and details.

2: It goes together TOO easily.

That last comment might sound odd, but at the price, you really want more of a challenge, not just a kit that you can almost 'shake the box' to build.

I know a lot of people won't agree with that, but the old classics really are a project.

Lots of fettling, fiddling, tweaking and detailing.

The only comment I would add as a bit of advice:

Whatever kit you go for, get the EARLIEST version you can find. Easily identified by the box art. Just Google it.

The earlier kits were more complex. In later years, some of the construction was simplified to the point the later Mercedes kits had plastic ready-moulded wire wheels!

Also, the Alfa Romeo's were by FAR the most popular in the range, hence the moulds wore out quite badly.

The later Alfa kits are a lot more prone to flash, lumps, bumps and sink marks.

Not a real problem, but a lot more clean up of the parts.

Whatever you get - have fun!

Edited by roymattblack
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Roll on retirement so i can have the time. I get, if i am lucky, about 10hrs a week! Not enough for such a project. Ill just have to live vicariously through your builds.

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Roll on retirement so i can have the time. I get, if i am lucky, about 10hrs a week! Not enough for such a project. Ill just have to live vicariously through your builds.

You make a good point. These thing eat hours because, like a good book (remember those?), you can't put it down.

I go 2 to 9 hours per day, at least 5 days per week.

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The engine has been put to one side for a while although there is still a fair bit of extra detailing to do, as the gearbox needed building up.

I’ve mentioned previously that if you consider buying a Pocher classic kit, get the earliest version you can find if at all possible. As these kits got older, Pocher made newer batches and changed the box art several times so it’s easy to tell the ‘age’ of your kit.
Unfortunately, Pochers’ tooling was never the best, and with age the moulds wore fairly badly meaning later incarnations of the kits – particularly the Alfa’s – suffer from lots of flash and sometimes, degraded detail.

Mine is a later model.

The gearbox is made up of five plastic parts with lots of metal additions.
The plastic parts need cleaning up. In my case, lots of cleaning up. Don’t let any of this put you off buying ANY Pocher classic though. It’s all part of the ‘project’ nature of the work.

Once cleaned and test-fitted, the parts were painted, stained and bolt detail added.
The DVD came back into its own again now as trying to fathom out the construction of the metal linkages etc from the dire kit instruction book is a bit like trying to understand a map of the London underground if you are from Botswana and only speak Swahili.
The DVD takes you through the entire build, bolt-by-bolt, in thousands of annotated photo’s.

Once the gearbox unit was built up, the pedals and other linkages were added with a good deal of fettling to get the pedals to line up as they should. No doubt further adjustment will be needed later on when the firewall and floor are fitted.

The assorted bolts etc were detail painted and finally the gearbox was mated to the engine.
Quite a substantial lump now.

Roy.

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Edited by roymattblack
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I've actually on been on it nearly 2 weeks but bear in mind I work on it around 4-8 hours a day Mon-Fri, and 2-3 each day Sat. and Sun.

In all, I'd guess around 60-70 hours so far.

I'm going to leave it alone for a little while as this Alfa is nowhere near as complex as the Rolls Phantom I built, and I don't want to find I've finished it in a matter of weeks to come.

There's still a lot of detail to add to the engine though, so I'm going to sort that before I give it a break.

Roy.

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Many thanks for such kind praise.

I'll probably do something smaller 'in between' this build, so no Sedanca.

After this Alfa, I'm REALLY going to try to wear earplugs to stop the giant kits shouting at me from the stash.

I really have nowhere to display them now and I still have 5 x 1/8 kits and about 20 x 1/12 kits 'in the wings'.

There is also a bit more development work on the 1/8 E Type lightweight roadster trans-kit that will hopefully be available before Christmas so I need to get chasing on that one.

AND, I have a 1/8 scratch D Type yelling at me that I'm trying to ignore...

...As well as a 1/8 DBR1.

Oh well - it keeps me busy.

Roy.

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A small update...

Next on the list of ‘to do’s’ was the steering box and column.
Quite a bit of adjusting, cutting and trimming was needed here as OOB, the box will fit nicely to the engine, but then foul the main frame later on. It needed to be trimmed and re-shaped on the inside face to move it around 2mm closer to the engine. Once done, the column also lines up better with the hole in the fire wall.

Another alteration was to dump one of the kit parts and make a new one.
On top of the steering box to one side, the kit provides a threaded rod about 25mm long, to be bolted through a flange on the front of the ‘box.
In the kit, this rod serves absolutely no purpose.
Inspection of the real steering box in photo’s shows it should actually be a hollow tube, with the accelerator and choke cables feeding through and along it, with an adjustment nut at each end.

The rod was dispensed with and a piece of fine bore ally tube replaced it with miniature nuts at each end as the adjustment nuts.
An extra bracket had to be made up for support of the tube at the upper end, as per the real thing.
Once fitted, more connections were made for the choke and throttle cables.

I also had to fabricate the sensor from the intake manifold and the fuel line intake to the carb.

I've stood the engine in front of the Rolls to give an idea how 'small' the Alfa engine is compared to the Rolls Royce....

Mind you, it still measures 7" or 180mm from block front to rear of gearbox.

All good fun.

Roy.

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Roy,

Just a thought; when I build my Spyder in the '70's, one thing disturbed me greatly.

Besides the fact that I was a hacker... :weep:

I always felt the Pocher fender treatment was too wide, front and rear. I considered sectioning them narrower-purely for my own taste. I had virtually none of the reference we have today. I thought (and still do) that the 1:1 looked more lithe and graceful and narrower fenders would contribute to that.

What mainly stopped me then was the fact that I didn't have the talent then to accomplish that (and no beloved Bondo 2 part).

I recently came across a Touring 2300 C set of drawings in Wingrove's book and they are just like I envisioned, narrower on the same track width. It is most clear in his top view. I doubt they made the 2900's fenders differently.

Is it something you'd like or consider? I'm NOT trying to make more work for you-honest!

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Excellent Roy. I prefer these older cars to the modern ones. Although the Lambo was very good it didn't look as real as these do.A big Burrago. Perhaps because the new cars look like they're plastic (and are kind of) in the flesh. The engines on cars like the Rolls,Alfa etc. were not covered in sheets of plastic,C Fibre or sheet metal so the components can be seen,much better look and for detail freaks to do their thing

I bought that Sabre Dance 7" by Love Sculpture ? Not sure, anyway that one by you stayed so close to that version,its uncanny.I haven't heard it for 40 odd years.

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If you can point me to any reference pictures etc, I'd like to give it a look....

Roy.

Glad you're interested.

'The Complete Car Modeller' Volume 1, by Gerald A. Wingrove. Pages 126 and 127,

The dinner bell is ringing but right after I'll scrounge for a photo in my old archives.

If you go night-night, it will be there first thing in the AM.

CAUTION: You'll love it....

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Many thanks all you guys.

The Alfa engine is:

BIG bits - (block, head, manifolds etc,) plastic, smaller bits - metal. That probably doesn't help much, but it would take an age to try to list the relevant bits.

Re: Sabre dance.... It took me about 6 weeks to get it 'reasonably' ok, then the next few years gigging to clean it up a bit.

As it happens I'm gigging this Saturday, on the strength of that one number - somebody heard me play it, passed on the info, and now I have a 45 min cabaret spot at a club...

Good fun.

Roy.

PS.... I'll be looking for the Wingrove pics.

.

Edited by roymattblack
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Here you go...

First off, for the Wingrove drawings you must beg / borrow / steal the book. Perhaps another serious modeller friend has a copy to borrow. They are still in print and available as far as I know. Failing that, I will try to scan the 2 pages and post here-if acknowledging him as the source is acceptable (Moderators - Acceptable?). I do not have his permission but you may be able to contact him in London. I hear he is responsive to email.

From my recent research here is a vivid example of what I mean. Note the on-track frontal shot shows this best. See the fenders have a 'cut-back' outer edge, not covering the sidewalls. The whole car, with an average sized adult in it looks almost tiny - the model seems ponderous to me by comparison. Also note the tucked-in, swiveled headlights for on-track!

BTW- that is the 'correct' Alfa red. It has a 'dried blood' deep look as opposed to Ferrari reds. (Like I did my model).

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Lastly, here is a scan (so old!) of my build in 1979. You can clearly see how bulbous the fenders look, overhang the tire sidewalls and look (to me) husky. The 1:1 car looks far more graceful and trim-exactly what a lightweight, supercharged sports car should look like:

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You decide-am I just nuts???

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No - it looks like the kit parts are indeed poorly shaped.

When I get around to that area I'll look closely to see if the wings/fenders can be 'cut back' at the edges, without making them look 'narrow' from above.

Many thanks for the heads up.

BTW... Love your Alfa.

Roy.

Edited by roymattblack
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Right – as I said before, I’m leaving this kit for a while to build a small scale car – maybe a Revell 1/24….

So, I’ve started on the chassis frames. Blasted Pocher kits! Can’t leave ‘em alone!

The chassis side rails were cleaned up and some pretty big sink holes filled. Lots of flash everywhere so all that was cleaned up as well. Thank heaven for the Dustbuster!
Many fitting points on the frame needed grinding out and re-shaping as the cross members don’t fit straight otherwise. Also, the steel cross tubes don’t fit in the locating holes so these have to be enlarged as well.

One BIG problem with the Alfa kits is that the entire engine/gearbox assembly actually sits too far forward in the chassis. This is a Pocher blunder of BIG proportions.
If real car pictures are looked at, there is a roughly equal space between the front of the engine and the radiator, and the back of the engine and the firewall.
On the kit, the engine pushes hard against the radiator, and there’s a huge gap at the back.
The discrepancy is about 10mm.

Does it matter???

I've posted a couple of pictures below to show the difference.
The built Monza kit picture and the real Monza, are both pics from the Pocher DVD - No copyright worries.

Well, yes, it matters – If the engine is fitted as per instructions, there’s no room for the radiator to lean back at the top – which it must, if the bonnet and bodywork is to fit and line up properly.
Also, the steering arm fouls the side frame, the pedals enter the floor of the car too far forwards and the floor panel shaping doesn’t match the mechanicals beneath.
With the Monza kit, it also means the exhaust exits the car bonnet too far forwards so the lower panel doesn’t fit, and the bonnet side-halves don’t meet. Also, it makes the bonnet fasteners totally out of alignment so they don’t work. Look at how the exhaust exits the bonnet/hood in the Monza kit picture below - Way up tight at the front, massive gap at the back.

Numerous Alfa builders have completed the kit without sorting out this issue, but only after a lot of tweaking, fiddling and cursing. Even then, the engine placing will still be wrong, as will the pedal and gear lever/brake positions inside the car. On the Monza, the exhaust will look daft, touching the bonnet panel at the front, and having a huge gap at the back.

Solution – move the engine.

This involves relocating the mounting holes in the side frames 10mm further back and fabricating an extended front mounting plate to support the engine just behind the radiator.
The lower front corners of the firewall need to be trimmed back and re-shaped and the radiator hoses need to be 10mm longer. Also, the firewall mounting screws need to be discarded, and new firewall mounting holes drilled through the frame so that the firewall can be bolted in place from the outside, as opposed to the kit method of trying to do up tiny screws from the inside of the firewall.

Easy…. (He says through a BIG glass of Chardonnay)

Roy.

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Edited by roymattblack
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its nice to see a comparison pic. its the you realize how damn good these kits are (when you have tidied them up anyway :goodjob: )

Even my 'Tonka Toy' - like build in the '70's still brings a tear to my eye, flaws and all. You're right, they are really nice things to see in model form. It's we anal fanatic modelers who strive for 1:1 exactness-not always a good thing.

Looking at my model and the 1:1 above it, I was always dissatisfied with the height of the coachwork above the fenders. The 1:1 looks as though the body were 'channeled' into the fender / running boars. As though the model's hood and cockpit should be about 5 to 8mm less tall.

But the work involved would be beyond stupid. Perhaps resin parts of the correct aspect but that is no walk in the park either...

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Looking at your model and the picture of the real car above it, it does indeed appear that the running board is too low.

There is a small gap between the bottom of the door and the running board on the real car.

On the Pocher, the space is considerable.

I'm not sure how that could be changed without a fair amount of butchery - but I'll definitely look when the time comes.

Would it be possible for you to post a good 'side-on' view of your model?

I could then scale the pictures, add transparency to one, and overlay them to see the differences.

Roy.

Edited by roymattblack
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I apologize because these are probably useless for you but they're all I have. Thirty-four year old shots taken on print film and scanned-horrible. But I'm giving all I have. Didn't do WIP's in those days........

A possible resource (I haven't looked yet) is Marvin's 'Finished Alfa Romeo Gallery' at Modelmotorcars.com.

It's a wealth of visual info on how other builders finished this car.

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Here is the wonky engine installation with associated horrors. It's a wonder I even got the thing together looking back...

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Many, many thanks for the pics. A lovely model.

I'll have a peep on the Pocher websites.

You've piqued my interest now - so I might just have to alter my wings/running boards/bodywork.

So... It's only 'time'.

Instead of finishing the build in 'X' weeks/months, it will take 'X' + a bit more......

To all you 'tempted' people... THIS is what makes Pocher kits so ACE!!!

As I've already said - they are a PROJECT.

GET one!

Roy.

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