Vintage Revell tire and chassis "fused" together; how do I separate?

['70 Grande]

I am restoring the 1/25 trailer from the vintage, 1/25 Revell Mickey Thompson Attempt-I Land-Speed record car kit.  I have plans for modifying the main trailer piece, and got a second one off of Ebay.  The one from Ebay was built, and the ancient Revell tires have chemically-bonded themselves to the inner portion of the trailer's fenders.

Any idea what would be a good way to separate them without doing major damage to those styrene fenders?

Thanks for the help.

 

[Don Sikora II]

The plastic the tire has melted into will be soft and probably beyond saving. I'd just try to pull the tire loose with your fingers, or if that fails some kind of needle-nose pliers. The main thing I'd worry about is not breaking any of the rest of the trailer.

The areas with tire damage may need to be ground out with a Dremel and filled with some kind of non-shrinking filler...think of it like a dentist grinding away before filling a cavity. If that won't work, you might need to cut away the damaged area and splice in some new sheet plastic as a type of patch panel. Good luck!

['70 Grande]

Okay, so I got the parts separated without major damage, but the styrene on the fenders is incredibly soft, flexible and easily-distortable.  Can anybody let me know if it will ever harden-up again, and if so, approximately how long will that hardening-process take?  (Or is it gonna remain soft styrene forever?)

[peteski]

The plasticizer  (chemical which makes the vinyl tires soft) has leached out of them and got absorbed into the polystyrene fenders, making them soft.  I don't believe it will ever harden. Like Don said, the only good way to deal with the problem is to remove (grind away) the softened plastic and repair the damage using new styrene or putty, or both.  Just like a dentist cleaning out a cavity before applying the filling material.