tiger suspention reinforce strips

[tiger205]

i see you done it the posh way rob, with a proper bit, i done it the poor way with a 8mm bit and a stanley knife

            Tony

[fv432]

nearly lost 2 fingers and 3 toes with that milling bit

Note to self buy some clamps ya tight git lol

[tiger205]

well i nearly took the top off my thumb, and cut down to the bone on my for finger, but the worst bit was having stitches :-\ :-\ that hurt more than the accident, and i'm still to tight to buy the clamps and drill stand

            Tony

[tunisian tiger]

Thanks fellas!

all is now clear! i'm not looking forward to drilling the gearbox housings, i'm hopeing that my new 3;1 boxes might already be pre drill because all asiatam tigers come with the strips in place.
I was going to do it tonight, but i got clamped at my mums, and ive got to write to them first, wish she was a real tiger tank, try and clamp that!!!!!

>:(

[tunisian tiger]

hi guys
well i put them in, just a cuple of observations

1. my right gear box was a git to put back in ~(had new 3.1 boxes, already had drilled holes, woopie!), had to pop it back onto the plastic mounting, was waiting for the crack of plastic! i'm guessing it was my woopsie that it did this. all is inline and square looking
2. went to put the plastic arms back on and realised that there was alot of play in them, and the spring would pop out when i would eventually replace the wheels, tightened up the screws hard to try and stop play /(this didn't work), and realised when i unscrewed the arms to put washer spacers on,  id unscrewed the brass bushse from inside  :-\, tank apart again!!

so the question i have is, do you need the metal arms as well as strips, and has anyone else put the old arms back on to the new strips and found the same problem???

looking forward to your replys!!!

[tiger205]

hi tunisian tiger
                      you dont need to have new metal arms, though in my opinion it best to have them, i had something similar happen when i went to put the strenghening plates in the 1st time, in the end cos the spigots were working loose like you had, i took them all off with the plates, and i thread locked them all in place, this pretty much cured the problem, i think the play you are on about, may be due to the fact they are plastic, and the hole may off worn away abit, making it looser, though without seeing them, i cant be sure.

            Tony

[Ex_Pat_Tanker]

Mine came thru today, expect more tales of misery and woe to follow

[mickyb]

I am putting together a full metal upgrade Tiger at present, I had problems with the springs popping out  and cured this by bending the long end of the spring (which fits inside the suspension arm) away from the tank side panel by a few thou only. This prevented it popping out whilst assembling the suspension.

I too found that there is a little play in the suspension arm  where it fits on the brass ferule that screws to the steel chassis strengthener. Unfortunately the suspension geometry magnifies this play. The fact that there is a long axle and a plastic wheel which also has a little play in its axle bore adds to the overall play, this causes the wheels to rub against each other when the suspension moves up and down, not a big problem.

My new Tiger straight out of the box has plastic suspension and has  the same amount of slack, so I guess that the metal upgrade only adds strength to the tank it certainly did not sort out any of the inherant issues with the tanks that I have bought.

If you check out my suspension upgrade posted on here, I used brass ferrules in the wheels, stainless steel bolts through the ferrules  and  I threaded them into the suspension arm. I thought that I has covered most of the "slack" in the geometry.....nope.

I guess you gotts live with it. I hope everything goes together just rite for you................Mike 

[tunisian tiger]

Right fellas i,ve finally fixed them in, and please please take the brass bushe off the reinforce strip and remove the fricking duble spacer washers, and the arms fit virrually perfectly back on the tank when the strips are fitted in, and the bushes being brass tighten much better onto the alli? strip. Also an idea to test tighten all the screws for the arms first in the brass bushes so they go in easy when you fit them.
and make sure that the bolt fixing the thing in is flush with hull tub, or arms will hit it  :-[ my fault! didn't want to go right though!

My heng long is one of the first s&s tanks 3 to 4 years old ?, so i dont know if thats why it needed the spacers taken out, or i cocked somthing up, most likey the latter!  ::)

Good luck all! and thanks for the help

[Ex_Pat_Tanker]

My kit came up short 2 sets of nuts and bolts to hold the frames in place - I found suitable sized substitutes in my box of old screws, but you don't need (or want ) to see what Mr Dremel had to do to the metal suspension arms to make sure that they cleared...

I didn't have a problem with the spacers, tho I found either the screws were a little too big or the threads in the bushes were a little to small - so I swapped out all the screws for some of my other stock (thankfully I have M3 screws coming out of my ears after years of screwing around with computers). I also stuggled to get the bushes aligned - drilled just a bit too big of a hole for them (so once again, Mr Dremel to the rescue to widen the axle slots :-X )

I found the quality control on the axle splines was a little lacking - either they fell into the hole in the arm, or I had to pound them in with a hammer!
Still its all over and done with now, I just hope I never have to take it apart again ::)

Next up - steel gearboxes from Bill, fill in the holes left from ripping of the exhaust covers, quick mantlet flip (I've given up trying to get the corrected one from Matomart, they appear to have had the cowboys in when they redid their site!), and then into the paintshop!