The Phoenix - Tiger 131 #12

[Adrian Harris]

Named by the previous owner, seems more than apt.

This will be a thread of my rebuild of this fire damaged Tiger.

Adrian.

[Adrian Harris]

Audio Module pics moved to end of thread and updated.

Adrian.

[Steen Vøler]

wauww - thats amazing that it still works after all that heat.

well done recovery work

[Adrian Harris]

Going to work on the Motion Pack over the weekend:

Adrian.

[Vince Cutajar]

This is really going to be interesting. Will be for sure following along.

Vince

[Brian Ostlind]

Hahaha Adrian you are a real wizard. Or should we just call you the “Tank Whisperer”?!

[Robert E Morey]

A 1/6 version of Combat Collector. Adrian do you think the tracks will be salvageable? Do you plan to bring this back to RC capable?

[Adrian Harris]

>

do you think the tracks will be salvageable? Do you plan to bring this back to RC capable?

No and Yes

One set of tracks was melted beyond repair - and actually stuck to the shelving unit in the shed. The one I did get is only 75 links, and some of those are warped. I think it's safest to just to buy two new sets, then I know there isn't any risk of them snapping out at a show.

I had hoped to salvage the motors, but seeing how much melted plastic there is inside the tank, I think that might be optimistic.

Once i get a copy of the manual, I need to do a full inventory and work out what's there, what's damaged and what's missing.

I've spent this evening getting the parts off the rear hull plate, and cleaning up the Motion Control Module. More on that later.

Adrian.

[Adrian Harris]

The idlers are off.

All four bearings are shot, and although the idlers rotated stiffly, I think the bearings were just rotating on the shafts.

Everything looks straight though, so hopefully four new bearings will see them back in operation.


(19/11/18) These are the idler arms after blasting with glass:

I spent some time over the weekend watching YouTube videos of people doing media blasting and found them using aluminium tape to protect parts which were not to be blasted. I know I have some somewhere but for now I'm using Frog decorators tape. A few layers seem to be able to cope with the blasting without being destroyed.

Adrian.

[Adrian Harris]

Motors are off. Looking a little sad though.

The brush housings, being plastic, have come off worst:

And the amazing thing - it still works ...



At least, this one does. The other one seems to be dragging on something inside, which I'm hoping is just the brush cover having sagged due to the heat. The shells are thick steel, so I doubt they would have melted, given the only moderate damage to the brush housings.

Adrian.

[Adrian Harris]

I finished removing the lower hull details, removed the sprockets, road wheels and made a start on stripping out the suspension last night.

Even though all the tyres had burnt off, the road wheels and spacers all still seem to be true and free from distortion. When moving the tank around, the road wheels still turned freely but most their bearings had been destroyed and came apart as I tapped them out of the spacers.

In order to get to both sides of the suspension system, I removed the equipment tray and the floor, and this has turned out to be the worst affected part so far. The tank was sitting on a small scissor lift which itself was sitting on a hydraulic lifting table, and the combination of the heat from the fire and the weight of the tank has caused the centre of the floor to bow upwards quite significantly.

As the sides and ends were pinned in place by fasteners, I'm guessing the that floor, which is a fairly soft grade of aluminium to accommodate the bends at each end, has actually stretched. This means I wouldn't be able to hammer it back flat without forcing the edges out of square. As the floor is integral part in holding the tank square, I think it's safest to just replace it with a new one

The pannier floors have also distorted slightly due to the weight of the turret pressing down on the front hull support cross member, but it's only in the region of a couple of millimetres, so I'm hoping this will just fit back into place once everything has been cleaned up.

Adrian.

[Vince Cutajar]

At least for me, I am getting addicted to this thread. When I come on the forum I always wonder if Adrian has posted any news on the Phoenix. Thank you for the detailed reports. Keep it up and fingers crossed.

Vince

[Adrian Harris]

One of the current problems is that there is a large amount of melted plastic in the hull, which is gluing some of the suspension parts in place.

This is how it looked with the equipment trays still in place:

And with them removed:

With the hull floor removed, I can get to both sides of everything so hope to have the hull plates broken down today.

Adrian.

[Adrian Harris]

I think the smoker has seen better days...

Hopefully the shell with still be OK.

Adrian.

[Adrian Harris]

The hull and turret are now all broken down into their constituent parts.

I've found two places which are reasonably local which will glass blast the parts. The cheapest one is the furthest away, so I'm going to take the parts to the closer one and try and haggle on the price

I've also ignored Robert's advice and bought a cheap blasting set up of 90l cabinet, 3HP compressor and 10 gallon media tank.

I'm hoping my large VAX hoover will keep up with things, and have ordered 25kg of fine glass media to get started.

I think it will save money in the long run doing the smaller parts, and I can go slowly with the fragile parts, which may get overly blasted at a commercial firm. Plus I have other projects on the go which may benefit, and it'll save money on the tins of Nitromors I keep buying

Adrian.