Hetzer sprockets / locking bush issue

[Daniel Scholefield]

A postscript to all the issues I had with the Hetzer. Tankfest was a blast and the bushes held after an initial failure, What happened next was three days of frequent running that caused a lot of stuff to come loose. This included one of the idlers and the track tensioner on one side. This in turn led to a thrown track on the Saturday which I was able to re-fit. What I hadn't noticed was the wear on my drive sprockets. It's pretty obvious now I look at the pictures I took but it wasn't until I got home and was warned to check them that the full damage became apparent. To put it bluntly the drive teeth were virtually destroyed on one side and merely very badly damaged on the other, how it kept running is a marvel. Now I freely admit my track setup with the wonky idler and variable track tension contributed to the damage as did my 'enthusiastic' driving but the end result is I will need new sprocket plates. Also means the sprockets have to come off and the saga with the bushes will begin again.

I have been in touch with Kian and he indicated that on top of my 'abuse' the material for the sprockets may be on the soft side for the purpose so there is the prospect of steel replacements, watch this space.

[Brian Ostlind]

Liam Mahoney is on top of it. I haven’t built my hetzer but I anticipated the sprocket issue after seeing Dave M’s.

liam@lsm.net.au

Good luck!

[Liam Mahoney]

Thanks Brian, yes I have 8 sets instock ready to send.

Liam

[Derek Attree]

Hi Liam
I am interested in a set of sprockets and an email
sent.

Regards

Derek

[Liam Mahoney]

Morning all
I am cleaning out the workshop and have 3 sets of drive sprocket left in anyone is interested.

Thanks
Liam

[Daniel Scholefield]

Damage assessment now the sprockets are apart. Laid on top of their steel replacements are my tortured drive sprockets just to show the extent of the damage incurred at Tankfest.

Having taken both these and the idlers apart I found the root cause of my track tension issues. On one side the retaining screw was missing so the idler kept sliding on the shaft, on the other the tensioner turned out to be installed by me in reverse (don't ask) so it was doing nothing. Rookie mistakes I can now fix

[Daniel Scholefield]

Inspired by Tony Devlin I got my Hetzer back on the lift and fixed all the issues that it had. The destroyed Aluminium sprockets were replaced by the steel replacements and thanks to my version of Chris Fry's resistance tool I was able to get the locking bushes, the bane of my life last time on with little issue.

Test runs today went smoothly and just some tensioning of the tracks (the tensioner being something else I fixed) needs to be done. The side skirts, exhaust and the Armorpax MG mount got added and I fixed the issue I had with the servos and recoil mechansim that I had at Tankfest.

All being well it will get a thorough run out this weekend.