Chieftain build by Phil Woollard.

[Mark Heaps]

Hi Phil,
By taking the belt out of one box and putting it in another, they could also check for damaged rounds and mis-fitted or damaged links which could have caused stoppages. I also saw some crews re-arranging the end of the belt from 1B1T to have a section towards the end such as 5T5B to give a visual indication whilst firing that the belt needed to replaced without the commander having to stick his head out of the cupola to physically check.
Mark

[Richard Goodwin]

Phil, a little while back, you were saying to make sure the hull was square and cyno the joints. Here's a typical newbie question; by cyno, do you mean liquid metal in this instance between where the plates join?

[Daniel Brooker]

Phil did you use M3 bolts and Nyloc nuts for the roadwheels looking at getting some

[Phil Woollard]

Richard, I always use cyno (the industrial grade) to further stiffen the bolted joints, you don't have to but I have to keep to a high standard. Just run it down and in between the joints and anywhere else you think it will help, do be careful not to get a run on the face of a plate as it's a bugger to remove.
A tip with cyno, get yourself some cyno remover it works a charm.
Daniel, yes hex heads with lock nuts, and go for good quality. Ebay for those. Measure your hub to wheel length and factor in that the nylocks are considerably longer than standard m3 nuts, don't just order the kit size replacement or they will be to short. I have just ordered another 100 m2 hex and nuts for extra detail fixing of the smaller parts, any smaller and it gets a bit fiddly!

[andymusgrove]

Hi Phil

Excellent work as usual.
If you’ve not found this site before it’s well worth a look. Here’s some photo’s from it.

Look it up on Facebook. Chieftain 03EB59 restoration group, it’s a great thing they are doing.

Cheers

Andy

[Phil Woollard]

Many thanks Andy they are great! Any one thought about these sprocket retaining bolts? The kit manual says use only HT cap head bolts ( m2.5 x10) but I can only find the bright cap heads, not that I want to use them. Have I missed a special bag of HT?

[Mark Heaps]

Andy Musgroves photos show a very thin wire winding its way around the pack bay. The first photo shows it top left and top right, If you look closely you can see it in the other photos.
This was the fire-wire and one of the bits I looked after. A co-axial wire whose capacitance would change according to temperature and trigger the fire alarm signal in the crew intercom in the case of an engine compartment fire. Both ends were connected into circuitry in a box so any single break in it would have had no effect whatsover in its detection capabilities. A second break would have cut out sections and degraded the system, so a test switch on the FWCB ( Fire-Wire Control Box ) checked for continuity from end to end of both inner and outer.
Standard practice when the pack was lifted was for the Fire-wire to be checked and if a break was indicated, I had time to get in the pack-bay, identify the damaged section(s) and replace it(them) before the pack or a new one was dropped in. Telling the VMs to lift the pack so you could replace a fire-wire element when they had lifted the pack very recently was not appreciated.

[Phil Woollard]

Mark, on the rear engine bay wall there seem to be vertical louvres towards the top half, is that what they are and what was their purpose?

[Mark Heaps]

Hi Phil,
I was responsible for looking after and fixing the electrickery and electronickery so can only speculate on the purpose of the louvres that you mention. They do seem to vent out to the exhaust boxes so maybe intended for more air-cooling there to reduce the thermal signature of the tank and make it less detectable to thermal imaging sights.
Mark

[Phil Woollard]

That makes sense Mark, I think I shall be replicating those if they are to be on show when the hatches are up.

[Phil Woollard]

The lovely steel sprocket tooth rings.

[Vince Cutajar]

Hi Phil

Are those steel sprocket teeth?

Not envying you regarding the square headed bolts. Found some on ebay which could be modified but smallest size is 6mm which I suspect is too big for you. Still it would be a laborious process.

Vince

[Mark Heaps]

Hi Phil,
I think the lock nuts securing the sprocket rings to the hub were indeed two nuts locked together. I seem to recall the first nut was tightened using a torque wrench. The second nut was then tightened using the torque wrench in combination with a torque multiplier.

Changing sprocket rings was a crew job and not a REME job, so John Heaps is some-one who could provide confirmation or clarification.

The "lock-nuts" on the inner hub are castellated nuts that would be secured using lock-wire to prevent them vibrating loose. I seem to recall that lock-wire pliers were not a standard issued item in the VM ( Vehicle Mechanic ) toolbox but rather a special issue to support specific vehicles. They had a habit of getting "lost" or "damaged" requiring replacements to be demanded resulting in every VM in the fitter section having one in his toolbox.

I have not yet unpacked my kit. Does one tooth on each sprocket ring have the wear dot ?

Mark

[Richard Goodwin]

Phil, I might know a person who can make those for you; he has already confirmed he can make the M3 x 8 with a 7BA Hex head. If you let me know material and dimensions/sizes etc, I can enquire if interested?

[Phil Woollard]

Thanks Richard, I have had a go using the m2.5 HT cap heads. Also added the rest of the final drive details. When you read the photo text you may wonder why I mentioned using a chainsaw flat file on the HT buttons, well an ordinary file although hard would be damaged by the hard high tensile screws, the chainsaw file is mega hard and cuts the material with ease! Worth keeping one in your tool box