Lego Victor Estate repairs

This Vauxhall Victor Estate looked most appealing when it turned up online. Like the Lego Jaguar E-Type, the Victor Estate was a late addition to the series, only available in the UK and Australia for a few years. (I also believe I've read somewhere these two cars were manufactured in Britain instead of Germany). 

Victors are rather few and far between, red ones even more so. But as the seller described, a previous owner had taken a white example and sprayed it red (with a speck of dirt in the paint on the roof). On the plus side, this helped to keep interest low, so I won it for a small fraction of what it would have fetched in original condition.

The Victor Estate has grooves inside the lower body that fit round the chassis, so inserting the usual thumbnail in a wheel well will pull it open. The chassis then needs to be pulled back a bit so the radiator grille can come out of the nose of the body.

Like other little Lego cars, the Victor chassis is painted in silver. However, bits of missing paint revealed it was moulded in red plastic as opposed to the transparent plastic used for the other cars. A rear bumper end was also missing on the left-hand side.

The paint on the Victor looked like it had come from a DIY spraycan as opposed to model paint. Some cellulose lacquer or maybe something for car paint repair. A first exploratory drop of Dettol on the inside didn't seem to have any effect on this paint, but then sometimes such things need some time.

Because I had never stripped ABS plastic before, I took it easy and tested first with a few broken bricks in ABS of a similar age to the Victor. Isopropanol was tried first, as being the least hazardous. The test bricks looked okay after a week immersed in the stuff, so the Victor followed (as above). With no discernible effect to the paint. 

The test bricks had meanwhile spent a week in Dettol as a next step up, again with no apparent ill-effect (Dettol is essentially isopropanol with added linseed oil as active ingredients). So the Victor was rinsed and dunked in the Dettol.

The test bricks then went into brake fluid which would have been a last resort. I had sprayed on some acrylic car paint and something else from a DIY spraycan I found in the garage, and those paints started flaking off within an hour or so. But when I fished out one of the parts (with a pair of disposable chopsticks) the test proved to have been a very good idea indeed. The surface of the brick appeared to be swollen, and came off when wiping the brick. There was also a milky swirl in the brake fluid. Basically the brake fluid had started eating up the ABS, dissolving the plastic itself next to the paint on it. Below is a before and after picture (click to enlarge).

Meanwhile the Dettol also seemed to make no difference to the red paint, so I figured I just would have to live with it. But when I had rinsed off the Dettol, suddenly some paint came off the roof while wiping it dry. There was hope yet! So back into the Dettol it went for a few hours and then I set to work getting more of the paint off. Wooden toothpicks (both point and side) proved very effective in scraping paint off.

Over the next few days, the paint was removed bit by bit, until I got some 99% off with just some remaining in a few nooks and crannies, mostly inside the roof. I did notice however that the plastic seemed to have gone somewhat soft in the meantime, and that I managed to scratch it on the inside with my finger nail while cleaning. So the body was thoroughly rinsed and set aside.

Next it was the chassis's turn. A strip was cut off a broken brick in red ABS plastic to match the material of the chassis.

The strip was cut and sanded to shape, stuck in place with superglue and then painted silver to match the chassis.

When fitting the body to the chassis it became even more apparent that the Dettol had also warped it a bit. So some glue from a glue stick was stuck inside the grooves that hold the chassis (such glue can be dissolved in warm water so can be removed again if need be). Some low-tack sellotape was wound round the car and the glue was left to set for a couple of days.

And below is the end result. The few minute traces of remaining paint look much more pronounced in this picture than in real life (thanks to the sharpen function in Photoshop) and I may still have another go at removing those some day. 

Now that I know how this went I'm not sure I'd do it again if another such repaint would present itself. But as it is I'm counting myself very lucky with this Victor and I'm very happy with how it turned out.

Small postscript: I've later discovered that Dettol will bleach the pigments in coloured ABS plastic if immersed for more than half an hour or so. I'm adding this here in case somebody would read this post and get the impression that it's safe to use on ABS other than white. Cellulose plastic parts don't seem to be affected though.