King Tiger wobbly axle shaft fix with photos.

[John Glover]

I went to assemble my King Tiger road wheels [56018FO] with bearings I got from Mitosal and found the axle wobble just as bad as the kit supplied bushes'.I thought that with upgrading to bearings, this problem would no longer exist. Wrong.I now realize that it was not just the early King Tiger kit[56008] that had sloppy road wheel kit bushes but the late[56018FO]as well .Schumo had made two replacement wheel bush kits with tighter tolerences.KT0028ST for the early King Tiger and KT0028FO for the late kit. If I had realized this I would have purchased one of these but E.T.O armour, Elite and Axles have no stock and will not be restocking. I went back to the bearings and found KYOSHO make a shim kit 4x10x0.15mm [Part NO 96775] which was perfect for my needs. The after market inner bearing you use on the wheels has a flange for it to sit in the plastic hub but only measures approx 9mm OD where the original bush has a 10mm OD flange. Also the thickness of the flange on the bearing is not enough so when the wheel is assembled the rear section of the wheel is not applying enough pressure to the bearings flange face for a snug assembly so now we have a wobbly axle. Slide one of these shims on to the axle so it sits on top of the flanged bearing and assemble wheel, now the flanged bearing is properly supported and no more axle wobble. My thoughts are if you leave this axle sloop, the flanged bearing will chew up the plastic section of the wheel it sits in as it can move in its seat and if the axles are not running true, this must put a lot of strain on the transmissions,especialy running metal tracks. I have seen these shim kits as low as $3.00 U.S and you will need two kits. I hope this is of help to some one. Reference to the picture below. From left to right.1 is the kit supplied brass bush 10mm OD. 2 is the Flange bearing 9mm OD.3 is the 0.15 mm shim on top the flange bearing then assemble wheel. Note. Do not use rubber sealed bearings with this mod. In the way they are constructed the rubber seal is flush with the inner and outer edges of the bearing and the shim will rub on this for a non smooth rotation Trust me you will like this mod. Regards John.