How can I straighten a twisted Heller bodyshell?

[LloydL]

As the title says, I have a Heller bodyshell that was twisted when I got it out of the box. Have any of you managed to straighten one? If so. how?

Regards, Lloyd

[pfuetze]

I'm with Dave, hot water is maybe the only good solution. You have to do that really hard but even more carefull. And hold the overtwisted position until the bodyshell is cooled down.

[Arkay]

Since you'll have to warp the body back a bit over the neutral point take care of the columns. They are thin and tend to be bulged sometimes. The best way to use hot water is to let it run over the necessary spots only instead of heating the complete body.
And yes, fix it after reshaping. I use an SCD jig and tape. This enables me to dip the complete, straight fixed body into hot water once more to get rid of the last tensions.

Regards,

Arkay

[LloydL]

Thanks for the replies guys. I have tried hot water once before, but you have shown me how to do it properly so I will give it another go now.

Regards, Lloyd

[masmojo]

Hot water is not likely to work on styrene, it works well on Resin. If the roof collumns are not too bad maybe you could just build the car and attach the body, over time it might relaxe a bit back to it's original shape???

[LloydL]

Thanks Mas, it is the Lancia Beta that did quite well in a couple of proxies, but has always been twisted, so cant run it with the body screws loose to improve handling!

Regards, Lloyd.

[Arkay]

[LloydL]

Thanks Arkay, I will be giving it a try when I have finished stripping the paint off it.

Regards, Lloyd.

[dr fabio]

The glass transition temperature for polystyrene is about 100C or boiling water. Should work....mind your fingers though.