Heavy duty suspension springs

[Martin Donnison]

Morning Tankers,
I have read this topic in our section but I just can’t find it anywhere. My question is as I am putting the suspension springs into the bogies how do I stop the springs from falling out. Is it just the weight of the tank and the tracks that keep them in place.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Many thanks Martin.

[David Battson]

Hi Martin
The loose suspension springs is an accepted feature of the kit design. The spring units can't escape from the bogie housings and they will, as you suggest, get gathered up by the swing arms when the tank is on the ground. I have shown some alternative ideas in my Chieftain Mk3 thread, but the easiest solution for the kit whilst it's on the workbench is to use elastic bands to hold everything together and keep the swing arms in contact with the springs.
Also you may want to check if you can get full articulation of the swing arms without the spring contacting the inside of the bogie housing - if not you might want to get a die grinder or similar to trim out a bit of the inside of the housing.
David

[Charles A Stewart]

Good afternoon Martin.

After our first test runs we found the spring units had come away from their mountings. Some one suggested fitting rubber stops, might have been John Clarke. Anyway, so far so good as when the wheels are off the ground the springs and housing are all in contact.

I've cleaned the mud off since, honest.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Charles

[John Clarke]

Great picture Charles, true, it's on a topic of it's own way back. The mod prevents the spring unit dropping out of position if the track is fitted or not.
I was worried that if the track went slack around a bogey, Ruff terrain etc, a spring unit could potentially fall out of position.
I added an extended spring tie rod too. extending the spring unit, Only 8mm extra. But the spring unit won't fall out now under any circumstance.

[Martin Donnison]

Hi John,
So are you saying you extended the springs along with the stainless steel rod inside the spring. Did you stretch the springs ?

Thanks Martin.

[David Battson]

Hi Martin,
You can't simply stretch or extend the current springs because with the swing arms at full drop the spring bottoms out in the middle of the suspension housing forcing it off the pivot points at either end. Looking at the photo, you will see that John has cleverly added foam pads to the top of the bump stops which restricts the drop of the swing arms so that they don't loose contact with the spring.
David

[John Clarke]

Hi Martin
No spring stretching.
Mods, Just rubber blocks to reduce swing arm downwards movement, tie rods lenghtend 8mm to extend spring unit length to maximise rotational swing on the upwards arc and a small amount of fettling of the internals of the bogie mount to prevent spring unit binding when horstmann unit reaches its highest points.
I think the original has wider rotational range than the model. So building something more accurate is a whole new world. See David Battson's build.