While I'm waiting for the paint to dry on the idlers.
I thought I'd share a "Proplexing Moment" (angle pun intended) a Bogie Mystery and I don't mean the Maltese Falcon.
Has anyone noticed that the Bogies are unidirectional. Meaning the leading swing arm on one of the tank side is the trailing swing arm on the other side of the tank.
Now because of the construction of the swing arms in each Bogie, one has (I will call them prongs) one prong and the other has two prongs supporting and compressing the spring assembly. The single prong allows full rotation of the swing arm and will hit the bump stop when fitted, but the other swing arm with two prongs will collide into the Bogie housing way before hitting the bump stop.
Which means travelling forward the tanks suspension can travel further on the left hand side compared to the right hand side.
or in reverse it's the other way round.
In reality, the model, it shouldn't make much difference due to the relative low speed.
But, there's a further restriction with the dummy damper pivot arms on the front Bogies, which will only allow so much suspension travel due to the limited length of slot in the linkage. Therefore If the front Bogie bottoms out it will be against the linkage and not the bump stop on either swing arm.
I have spent a fair amount of time looking at armortek tanks running around on the tube and it's clear most of suspension travel is on the front road wheels.
So I'm in the process of making a few minor alterations to the front Bogies so that they will have full suspension rotation on the swing arms allowing the bump stops to hopefully do their job.
This is not a life or death mod, it will just mean the front Bogies will be better balanced travelling forward.
Pictures show actual max visual travel angle and the simple mod to the front Bogie, right hand side two prong swing arm, I don't need to do the left hand side swing arm as I'm only interested in the forward motion. Both damper arms, both sides will need to be looked at I think.
Unless of course it's meant to be this way
Limited travel on the right hand side.

- SAM_1832.JPG (155.06 KiB) Viewed 3193 times
The prongs hit the housing showing gap between bump stop.

- SAM_1829.JPG (117.8 KiB) Viewed 3193 times
Fettle the prongs

- SAM_1824.JPG (137.04 KiB) Viewed 3193 times
Linkage limiting swing arm travel.

- SAM_1831.JPG (179.97 KiB) Viewed 3193 times