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Airfix A20440 Bentley 4.5 Litre Blower kit


mikey builder

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Hi, I've restarted this old kit, had it for a few years, I struggled with the kit and left it! I'm getting on with the build now, its a nightmare finding parts as they are simply numbered from say 1 to 300...no sprue refence, and often parts have wrong numbers.

The Chrome parts are terrible, and its rock hard, I cannot find anything to strip it, added to lots of flash (on many other parts) its no fun.

So...I'm getting on with it now, but need to find upgrades to do the model any justice. Has anyone found an engine upgrade kit? I am looking for distributor and plug leads, plus any other parts to make it look real!

I'm making steel mesh from a sheet of mesh I found in a glass fibre repair kit, the mesh size is pretty much spot on, made a grille, headlamp covers and now making a carb cover that's not in the kit. 

This kit was a lot of money, and its a big let down! 

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24 minutes ago, mikey builder said:

The Chrome parts are terrible, and its rock hard, I cannot find anything to strip it, added to lots of flash (on many other parts) its no fun.

Don't know if you've tried this one but I'll offer it anyway.  I've heard that soaking your chrome parts in a bath of Coca Cola for six to twelve hours will strip that chrome right off.  I've never tried with plastic parts but it makes sense to me.  When I was a kid, we used to put a bolt in a jar full of Coca Cola and be amazed the next morning when the bolt was gone!  As kids, we were fairly easily entertained.  Just be sure to use some kind of weights on the parts since the plastic will want to float.

Edited by uncletommy
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I've always used bleach, usually strips chrome off plastic in minutes, but this Airfix stuff won't budge. I'll give the cola a try, the main grille looks awful as it was held to the sprues in really visible points, so I've got a crappy looking chrome part with big bits of grey plastic in full view. 

This model cost a lot of money, no wonder Airfix stopped making it...give me Tamiya stuff any day! 

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morning mikey, i use mr muscle oven cleaner in a pie type dish and leave overnight,then wash with warm soapy water and toothbrush then wash in clean water untill clean this works for me, others may have other ideas

                         willie

                                  

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As far as the distributor goes, it never had one. There are two magnetos on brackets on either side of the front of the engine. Plug leads can be quite thick as they were generally wrapped in asbestos. One set of leads to each side.

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Hi Mikey,

                It's not a great kit, is it! I bought it when it first came out and wasn't impressed. Heller's 1/24 kit has the same amount of detail and it's half the size. You can't get away with under detailing models in 1/12.

 

I can second the oven cleaner method. It's always worked for me. It's usually aluminium plating and it's normally soluble in oven cleaner.

 

Jo NZ is right about the magnetos. The leads often went into a tube and emerged near to each spark plug. They connected to the spark plug via a little screw-on tag, not like modern plug caps. Have a look on Google. Plenty of references there. Specifically look for Bentley 4.5L blower engine. Should bring up loads of pics, including models.

 

No dedicated aftermarket detailing sets were made as far as I know. An excellent set of wire wheels with tyres is made by Fernando Pinto. They're not cheap but way better than the kit offerings. They use wire not p/e for the spokes. Otherwise you can clean up the rims yourself and hand spoke them.

 

Have fun!

Dave

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In fairness to the kit, it does date from 1971...

 

There's a number of excellent builds of this kit right here on BM, a bit of searching will find them. The chrome is renowned for being tough to shift, so you're not alone in the struggle.

 

Keep on going, more big Bentleys are always welcome!

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