That's rather clever Hawkeye...I thought of a similar design but with motors to the rear ...either direct or with boat universal joints ...too much work thoughhawkeye3guns wrote:Hi canned I don't think the RX-18 will take the current draw from the tamiya motors of the old clutch /motor units they are nearly double the HL motors (last time I tested a HL motor it only drew 4.3 amps when stalled whereas the tamiya motors drew 9.1 amps).
I have a photo showing the first test setup of my sherman layout that worked okay, the only differance to the final layout was adding the RC5HL circuit board next to the reciever on the back wall and then the RX-18 on the side wall behind the steering servo. The speaker is an old 50mm dia speaker that came out of a old cassette player and was very slim and so mounted to the top hull under the engine covers. When I get my camera back from my son I take some photo's of the installation.
The Gepard is a similar layout except the gepard clutch / motor unit only has a single motor but the current draw is about the same, and therefore the same 10amp ESC is adequate.
The layout might sound complicated but these days I use Mtronic ESC and they are all plug and play and virtually set them selves up.
I will say in my opinion the old clutch/motor setup give a very realistic drive set up for the old tanks as they virually mimic the old clutch and brake action to the tracks and look quite realistic when being driven. Hope this might help with your ideas
regards Denzil
Simplicity is the answer for me...new gearboxes retro fitted in the hull is much easier
ALPHA
...glad you told me..the U joints I was going to use were made of metal with grub nuts to grab the pinion and whatever shafts that were going to be used...pretty good quality I think...they came in the junk box with the tanks I got at the beginning of the adventure into RC tanks....Don't like fishing for boats anymore..so I found stripping the parts a better investment in time 
