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Gentleman,

Many thanks for all the information that you have provided, this has definitely given me more clarity on the subject. I know this subject has been on the forum before but just could not find it so the time spent responding to my query is very much appreciated.

David

Hi All,

After a brilliant day at tankmod last weekend it was back to the tank building workshop, first job was purchase some paint for base colour and put it on (as Denny said just do it).
I am pleased with the result particularly over the weld simulations.

After taking some measurements from tiger 131 when I was at the show I have decided to trim the wheels a bit. Having DRO on the milling machine has made this a much easier task especially when you have 48 wheels to do.

Regards

David

Hi All,

I have just installed the suspension into my model and have too sets of wheels made up to see how it all fits together and I was hoping someone might see if I done something wrong or is this how it's goes together.

My concern is the gap between the wheels where they overlap, the gap is about 3mm on one overlap and about 6mm on the inner wheel overlap is this normal or have I made a mistake?

I am also considering changing the grub screws that bolt down onto the flattened bars to button headed bolts to get them tighter with a bigger hex key. Any thoughts or advise on these points would be gratefully received.

Please see attached photos.

Regards

David

David,
I have a late version Tiger so don’t know the 131 kit specifically, but looks like you have the big gaps in the right places, because that’s where the track horns run through. As long as there is some clearance on the outer wheels that should be fine – it’s all fairly tight space wise.
Another thing is to get all the gaps between the wheels in a straight line on each side. To do that all the axle shafts and pivot shafts have to be pulled up tight to the suspension arms. I see you are putting your axle shafts on 'in situ' – beware that, on earlier tanks at least, there can be good half turn between finger tight and properly tight. Best way to do this is grip the shaft to be tightened in a vice (soft jaws) and tap the side of the suspension arm around.
Re the gurb screws, I found them very difficult to do up to the required tightness without either rounding them off inside or splitting them. I replaced all mine with short caphead screws and all the heads just about miss each other when set up correctly. Whatever you use you will find that initially they will bight into the torsion bars and work loose, so you will need a couple of retightening sessions before everything beds in properly.
Finally, the large adjusting caphead screws do need a serious amount of tightening to hold the end on the torsion bar, otherwise your tank will be sitting on it’s bump stops as soon as you load it up.
Cheers David

Hi David,

Many thanks for your thoughts on this part of my build, it is very much appreciated.

I have tightened up the M6 cap head and grub screws that hold the suspension arms at the right angle very tight. As you say the M4 grub screws do need tightening a bit more as the suspension arms are moved back and fore until they are fully home, having a bigger hex key does make this easier.

Regards

David

Hi All,

After looking at some of the measurements that I have taken from tiger 131 I have decided to try and make new hub caps, it's a lot of work for perhaps a small gain in appearance but hopefully worth it.

I had measured the nuts holding the outer most wheels on at 32mm so a standard M3 nuts is the closest match for these wheels, so I have re tapped out some new holes in the spacing hubs and used some high strength thread locking compound to fix some M3 threaded bar on place.

The next set of wheels were held in place with 24mm bolts, so with this in mind I have used small headed M3 bolts which have head size of 4mm. Again I have tapped out the spacing hubs to accept these bolts, these bolts only extend about 0.5mm on the inside of the hub so this give a bit more clearance over the button headed bolts provided in the kit.

I hope these modifications do not cause any problems with the structural design of the kit if should I can still go back to the original design.

Regards

David

Hi All,

Whilst I have been working on the wheels I have always felt that I was missing a bit of detail with the wheel setup. After looking at many photos that I have taken and other sources on the nets I think I have found what I was looking for it concerns the wheels that runs between the track horns, on the kit the wheels bolt together back to back where as looking at the photos of tiger 131 they are front to front so that the flange that is bolted to wheel acts as a guide for the track horns. (if that description makes sense)

With this in mind I thought I would try to replicate this setup, the best way that I could think of was to turn the inner wheel around and to try and redesign the other wheel to fit this turned around wheel. In doing this modifications I had to make sure that it all still lined up with the idler position.

This has taken me too days to design and make one, but once fitted onto the tank I was please with the appearance. So there are another 7 to make and the only downside to making these wheels is that they have to be made on rotary table as the chuck on my lathe is not big enough other wise it would be bit quicker to make.

I have had to make some compromise on the measurements that that I had taken from tiger 131 to keep it in line with the kit, if anyone thinks that this modification is a bad idea please feel free to comment.

Regards

David

lovely work, if enjoy building the kit to your standard that's good enough, thats the beauty of the Armortek kit, great project, regards simon manning.

A couple of people have done this in the past - Jeff Hyder and Roland Mann for certain.

I can't see why they wouldn't work with the flanges on the outside, as long as the track horn doesn't catch it, as the tyre has a slight chamfer, which would ease the horn into the correct alignment.

Adrian.

Hi David,

Really nice to meet you at Tankmod. Wow you have moved on a bit since I last looked in, and its looking really good, love those welds. Great work on the added detail to the wheels by the way

Looking at your suspension arms. the original Tiger 1 kits had cap head screws to hold the suspension bars and a lot of builders changed them to grub screws on the suspension arms side so you only had to undo one side and you could take the whole thing out in one go, it makes maintenance easier. it seemed to be adopted for all the later Tiger releases, so I don't think its a problem fitting your button headed screws, it will just mean more to undo when you want to remove them. The grub screws have a machined point so they slot in the the hole easier, I found grinding the grub screw end flat to the tread and adding a bit of grease when installing them worked a treat. 10 years and only an odd one of the grub screws had come loose!!

Paul.

Hi David
Yes I think what you have done with the wheels is great, I haven’t posted much and don’t whish to hijack you page but since you ask…
I have attached some photos of what I have been trying to do, the main reason for what I have done is my Tigers are both 2005’s with the wobbly wheels, and I thought that while I was fixing that I would fix the tyre that runs on top of the boss in the track for the drive sprocket, which will require you turning another wheel (3rd from the outside) and another spool. I also but collars on the inside to reduce the amount of mud that will get into the bearings.
I also remanufactured the tyres to a different profile which make it a look a little different.
I hope this gives you some ideas, else sorry for the intrusion.

Liam

Love those transport tracks Liam, tell us more regards Phil

Gents,

Many thanks for your thoughts and comments.

Simon, that's what I like about these armortek kits they are great kits straight out of the box but it's being able to carry out upgrades to the kit that I am enjoying the most and this forum has been a huge asset to me.

Adrian, That's a good point the track horn and possibility of it getting between the tire and the flange I might put a slight angle on the top edge of the flange.

Paul, It was great to meet you at the tankmod show, it's nice to put a face to a name.
Thanks for your thoughts on the suspension fixings I will probably use button or cap heads bolts as you can get these tighter.

Liam, You have a very impressive model there, thanks for taking the time to post your photos with your thoughts on the wheel layout. As Phil says they are nice looking transport tracks.

Regards

David

Thanks Phil, David
I will start a new page to explain a bit more.

Liam

Hi All,

Making steady progress on the wheel modifications and I am pleased with the overall appearance especially when I made the second wheel as I scaled all of the measurement that I had of the wheel flange and wheel to 1\6 and left all of the compromise to where the wheel fits onto axle spacing shaft.

The wheels are now countersunk when fitted onto the axle spacing shaft but this is only visible on axle 1 so I am going to try and make a flange cut it in half and try and fit around the shaft to cover this up.

I have two more wheels to make so it's back to the tank workshop this afternoon.

Regards

David