Vince's Tiger 1 late variant 2017

[Brian Ostlind]

Nice work. Your technical prowess is way over my head!

[Vince Cutajar]

These last couple of days I came across a couple of posts regarding the taper lock bushing.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2250

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2210

These tell you how to fit them and the do's and don'ts. There is also a particular statement which I found interesting which may be of use to the new builders. It mentions a distance between the inner face of the sprocket and the side of the hull. As these posts were eight years old and I could not find any mention of this dimension on the assembly manual, I thought I would ask Armortek if this dimension can be used on my version of the Tiger. Monique confirmed that this dimension is still applicable.

So today I made some 16.5mm spacers for when I come to fit the sprockets.

Vince

[Armortek]

Hello Vince

I had considered replying to this post before, but those two references were good advice at the time and remain good advice now. One thing I would add is that circlip grooves and circlips are not a good idea. A perfectly machined circlip groove with an absolutely correct corner radii will produce a stress raiser factor of about five. This means that the shaft will be subjected to stress five times as high as the continuous shaft. Any imperfections in the groove can raise this factor by many many times. Worst of all is that the stress is being raised at the worst possible place. Best advice is to follow the instructions and glue the shaft in place.

Apologies to Kian and Monique for not clearing this post with them beforehand, but I felt it was important to get the message out.

Mark

[Vince Cutajar]

Hi Mark. Thank you for your observations. Wish that message was as clear in the assembly manual. The deed has now been done and hopefully the Tiger will outlive me.

Vince

[Vince Cutajar]

Still waiting for some things I ordered to arrive from the UK before I continue with the tracks and sprockets. In the meantime I started work on the sprocket hubcaps. These are meant to be held to the sprocket by a push fit. I am making an alteration so that they will be held to the sprocket with the middle cone bolt.

The cone bolts are meant to be glued to the hubcaps but they are so cute that instead gluing I will be threading them into an M3 nut. Opened up the back of the hubcap with a 6mm slot drill to accept the M3 nut.

Made an adaptor with an M5 male thread on one side and an M3 female thread on the other side.

Which will fit in the sprocket shaft like this:

At the moment looking for a good photo of the hubcap for the late Tiger to see the detail of a small bolt which is close to the middle bolt.

Vince

[Brian Ostlind]

That adapter is great. I think the armortek hubcap looks pretty neat even if it’s a rough interpretation of the original.

[Vince Cutajar]

Brian, the hubcap for the late Tiger is quite different from the earlier version Tigers. Unless I am missing something, I thought that the hubcap we have is a good representation of the original. In fact the only things I added (not shown in photos) are the lock washer/tab for the middle cone bolt and what looks like a grease nipple.

Vince

[Brian Ostlind]

Ok in that case even better. I haven’t looked too closely and I didn’t know the later tigers had different hubcaps. I will definitely pay closer attention to that.

[Vince Cutajar]

I have received the stainless split pins and whilst still playing around with the sprocket hubcaps I also started the slow process of assembling the tracks.

The thing that takes the most time is the cutting of the split pin legs and the neat folding of said legs.

Vince

[Vince Cutajar]

Sprocket hubcaps finished.

Vince

[Vince Cutajar]

Finished both track loops. I was only meant to do a length of track just to check the running gear for alignment after I fit the sprockets but ended up doing the whole lot. 96 track links per loop (as per instructions) but I suspect that some will eventually be removed. I discarded two track links as the holes for the track pins were too close to the edge of the material. No problem as these will be used for the turret spare links.

And thank you Armortek as I ended up with some spare track links and track pins. That was very thoughtful.

Vince

[Vince Cutajar]

I don't know why I was hesitating but today decided to fit the final drive cases to the hull. Cleaned up the gear and shaft from some surface rust and wiped them with some grease (not recommended by Armortek) for rust protection.

These were attached to the side of the hull with some studs I had previously made.

Some of the studs were made longer so that they would protrude on the other side of the hull.

Casing fillet (CE2602) fitted using these long studs.

Vince

[Vince Cutajar]

I am having an issue with one of the sprockets and am in communication with Kian about it.

I have been collecting Steve Winstone's parts to complement the Armorpax parts and today I received the exhaust heat shields. To pass the time whilst waiting to receive some info from Kian, I cleaned up and etch primed both shields before they start to rust.

Vince

[Vince Cutajar]

I am happy to say that with the help of Kian I am back in business and the sprocket issues have been solved. My first issue was with the 16.5mm distance between the sprocket and the hull. In my case, I noticed that with this distance, the sprocket teeth were just missing the swing arm.

I had a 16.5mm spacer held by a clamp on the left side of the photo. So, I asked Kian whether it would make a difference if I used 17mm instead of 16.5mm to have a little more clearance. He said that it would not be a problem.

My next problem was a bit more serious. I tried the other sprocket but I could not get this sprocket close to the hull as the other one. On examination of this sprocket, I noticed that the tapered hole on the inner face of the sprocket looked smaller when compared to the other one and it was fouling with the final gear drive case.

Scratch mark where it touches the drive case.

After a series of emails with Kian, he sent me the diagram with the dimensions of that tapered hole and I could than confirm that it was undersize. Kian asked me to send the sprocket back to them so that they can fix it. As I had invested a lot of time and effort in assembling that sprocket, I decided that I would attempt the repair myself without any disassembly.

I used the taper lock bush and a 15mm shaft to be able to hold the sprocket in the lathe.

Using a boring bar, I increased the depth of the hole and also machined the tapered wall to get it to the proper dimension.

Test fitting of the repaired sprocket was successful and now I need to repaint that tapered hole.

Vince

[Vince Cutajar]

Early start today to paint the sprocket. Whilst the etch primer is drying I thought I would fit the other sprocket to the tank. It did not take long to do.

Quick test fit of the track. Seems straight so no alignment problems.

Vince