The original upgrade, a nylon bearing:
- Nylon Bearing
Having seen the new Tiger with a lazy susan annular bearing and been impressed by how low a turning force is required I have worked how to retro fit it to my Early Tiger.
- Armortek Instructions Page 29
I needed to order from Armortek the Bearing CE2103, the Lower Spacer CE2173 and finally a new Gear Ring CE2409. The old gear ring does not register with the holes in the new bearing assembly, so in with the new! There was another spacer required to sit between the the deck and the Bearing CE2103, so I purchased off ebay a cheaper bearing of the same size as it was dismantled to use the outer ring as the spacer required. This is because a recess needs to be made to accommodate the depth of the Turret.
The first thing was to register the Bearing CE2103 on to the deck and drill through 5mm holes and countersink them to attach the bearing and spacer to the underside of the deck:
- Bearing Attachment to Deck
holes
The next thing was to line up the bearing to the Turret, using 3mm drill bits as pegs in the old Gear Ring bolt holes, I drilled through the new Bearing to create location holes for the 5mm dome headed nuts that secured the stack of Bearing CE2103, Spacer CE2173 and Gear Ring CE2409:
- Bearing Alignment
- Bearing Alignment Dome Nuts
- Turret Bearing Location Holes
The Turret Motor mount had a spacer block fitted between it and the deck to lower it and to allow for a change of position owing to the larger diameter of the Gear Ring CE2409:
- Gear Mount Block
To secure the Turret Down I have fitted two Catches:
- Turret Catch
The Spacer and Bearing needed the fore and aft edges filing down so that it cleared the deck support beams, otherwise the overall width was to great to fit in between. The height of the turret in the recess can be adjusted by adding washers under the dome nuts. All in all it turned into a straight forward job, and is a neat upgrade.
