M4a4 Firefly resin conversion

[971wright]

Hi Frank I suppose the difference on the rear idler could be down to track tension and possibly number of track links in each side.A better measurement would be from rear boggie to rear edge of the hull, something that dosnt move .

regards pete

[frankie]

Yep precisely..mine looks about right..if someone wants to go poking around its rear with a ruler that's up to them...of course they'd have to pick themselves off the floor first as I don't handle "experts" that well...lol

[BarryC]

Hey Frankie,

Thanks for the pics and explanation. It turned out great!!

Barry

[Markocaster]

How many extra track links did you need to add?
I'm really tempted to have a crack at it w the saw

[dgsselkirk]

Frank has it about as right as you can get it without the rulers....

As with anything of detail I like the history behind it. First it was 11" longer hull than the normal Sherman. And absolutely right, the tensioners can be all over the place! For those of us building battlers and using the Mato metal adjustable idlers you will find out just how much you can play with the range...

Here is the info on the length I put up on a facebook page:

Now, to address this issue of length on the Firefly. The vehicle we are producing is the most common version used to covert the Sherman to a Firefly, the M4A4. This vehicle was produced by Chrysler Defense Arsenal utilizing their monster six cylinder engine they used on their big passenger cars. But of course 1 engine would not be enough to push a tank so they linked 5 of them together onto a single transmission to create the A57 multibank engine! As a side note the first batch of vehicles came with 5 water pumps that one of them was accessible only by removing the whole engine! CDA produced 7500 of these vehicles in a year long run. Now to the meat of this length issue. In order to accommodate the massive rads for this vehicle the M4A4 hulls were stretched 11 inches. Again, the hulls were stretched 11 inches.... This means in 1/16th scale that is just .6875 of an inch or just over 1/2 an inch. I feel that for our purposes of getting a proper Firefly kit to combat all those pesky Tiger tanks for IR battle, 1/2 an inch can be overlooked...

We did make the upper the correct dimensions for those who want to stretch the lower. We also put on 5 or 6 details only found on the A4's. Once all 50 kits are gone ( we are down to 25 left to sell) I am going to do a contest to see who can find them all!

FYI Here is a diagram of the bottom of the hull of the A4. This is taken from the bible of Sherman reference books Son of Sherman by Patrick Stansell and KurtLaughlin based on original material created by Pete Harlem. Frank has picked the optimum cut positions in my opinion.

lower hull stretch.JPG (42.68 KiB) Viewed 3796 times

Sorry for rattling on Frank, can't wait to see my Winnipeg Winnie!

[frankie]

Quick function test..excuse the crappy one handed driving...

phpBB [video]

[dgsselkirk]

Looks great Frank. You get nice elevation with that long Firefly barrel!

[Markocaster]

Quick function test..excuse the crappy one handed driving...

phpBB [video]

Well that looks awesome great job!

[frankie]

How many extra track links did you need to add?
I'm really tempted to have a crack at it w the saw

Sorry bud I didn't think to check as I did it.. I think it was about 4 each side...

[dgsselkirk]

I wondered that myself...