Chieftain build by Phil Woollard.

[Phil Woollard]

Interesting day, I think I've cracked the non slip surface coating conundrum, and although I was not planning to start on the bazooka plates.....I have! The front plate front bracket is in the wrong place. All the plate brackets will be removed, new ones made and soldered in place with an overlap to look more like the 1/1.
The visible m3 fixings on this build will all be replaced with very much smaller fixings where ever possible.

[Richard Goodwin]

Phil, you may find that the first tie down from the front on the bottom row of tie downs shouldn't be there unless of course you have a picture that says otherwise. My urban camo pics show nothing there!

[Phil Woollard]

Thanks Richard I will take a look. Getting on with making the new brackets and the soldering of the lower ones.

[Richard Goodwin]

Phil, since your using grease, is there any need to use a liquid gasket on the mating surfaces to seal it all in?

[Phil Woollard]

Use the grease for the gasket as the mating surfaces are very good indeed, the internal grease is very viscous so it won't migrate.

[John Clarke]

Richard's right about the holes, I've not seen that pair at the front on any bazooka plate in my library unless there bullet holes

[Armortek]

"A tip, use the grease to hold the gearbox shaft bush in place, I managed to slot it all together first time but be careful not to drop the bush in the final drive casing."

CG0704 should be loctited in place into ES0243.

[Phil Woollard]

The grease only holds it whilst it is slotted into position. A good day spent on the bazooka plates.

[Phil Woollard]

Today I have been making new bazooka brackets that attach in a more correct way over the fender/hull fillet, also installed the hull/fender fillet and some more stiffning strips the entire length of the fender, all hard to see but it is tbere.
I have tried to keep the bazooka plates nice and evenly hung but after lots of research it seems the plates were far from straight and true.

[Phil Woollard]

The other brackets which are to fix the fenders to the hull, these are a little fiddly to make but do look the part.I have used 2mm rivets for the fillet strip as the bolts would have been tiny.
Now onto the rear bin.

[Phil Woollard]

Working on the other side of the vehicle now.

[Phil Woollard]

The rear binz , well one of them. I did try riveting the hinge once more but the hinge just gets knocked out of line everytime, your better off bolting or using threaded rivets so you can get those shut lines right.

[Phil Woollard]

The off side nearly complete, now do I add the wading hooks?

[Vince Cutajar]

Enjoying your out-of-the-box solutions.

Vince

[Phil Woollard]

Thanks vince, and many many thanks to Gill and Mark for all the help over the years, God bless you Gill. Kian and Monique you have much to live up to but I think you are doing just fine!
Today I have been making small parts as in the wire ropes brackets, not my favorite pass time but very necessary indeed.