First time poster, long time reader here. I have been reading here religiously for the last several weeks and found this place to be a wealth of information. I need some help though for anyone who has built this kit. I am having trouble with the radiator exhaust door fit. Cant quite figure out how it goes in??? If anyone could post some pics of how thiers look I would be eternally grateful!!!
If your talking about that part that go’s right in front of the back landing gear, I want to know how that go’s on too [:D]
Bud
Yup, thats the one!!
OK guys. Here’e the kicker… THAT’S NOT REALLY THE DOOR!!! Accurate Miniatures played a cruel trick on us. The “door” is actually the roof of the radiator housing. It is meant to cover the square hole. The long, flat side is to be glued on the locating shelf. the end that curves up goes up into the fuselage. The actual door is moulded into the fuselage. I’ve included some pictures to help clarify.
Hope this helps. If you have any queestions, let me know and I’ll explain the best I can
Fantastic[bow] That was driving me nuts and my whole build just came to a screeching halt at that piece, lol. Much appreciated RadMax8!!
Here are some scans from the P-51B and C maintenance manual showing the coolant and oil radiator systems and their air exit doors. The small door more forward is for the oil radiator and is not on the P-51, P-51A, or A-36 because the oil radiator was in the same air flow as the coolant radiator on the Allison powered Mustangs. The larger door is the one you are asking about, and it is shown pretty clearly in both views. The rear door is usually open for ground operations, and the pilot can set it manually open for that. In flight it is operated automatically and can be in any position. As you can see, the coolant door is shown both open and closed. It pivots near its forward edge on pins on each side. If you want a little bit better look click on the photos and they will open in another window.
Great pics, those are also very helpful. Its always good to know how this stuff works in real life when modeling it. Thanks for the scans jeaton1!
Well Photobucket is back up and running so here are 2 photo’s I found.
As you can see it is open…
Bud
The AM P51A kit lacks detail in this area.
which is much different than later models
Part make an excellent PE set for this model which has the parts necessary for showing the door open.
Great pics antoni, that last one really shows how the door supplied with the kit is suppose to be. Looks like there is always a gap there even when door is closed. Thanks![:)]
That part threw me too when I buit the AM P-51A. When I realized it’s not the door, but the part aft of the door, and that the door was molded in- it made a ton more sense.
Wonder why AM did it that way?
Not sure, but I never knew that there was always an opening back there regardless of whether or not the exhaust door was open. I guess cause you dont see many pics up this birds rear end.
Lol, this item has been driving me nuts even though I thought I finally had it right. So after more researching I found the following pic which shows this part very very clearly. Gonna post this for anyone else in the future looking for info on this part.
http://www.flightjournal.com/plane_profiles/p-51_mustang/drawing_p-51a_mustang_II.asp
Its the fourth diagram down on the page.
Finally someone has sent me a photo of the exhaust door on the P51A in the closed position. You can take a look here if you are interested.
Worked OK for me. I’ve moved it to my public gallery. Try the the second url.
Link does not work 
Bud