Panther A Conversion

[jarndice]

Herman, We have a TV channel on the "SKY" Network in the UK which shows racing from Mount Panorama BUT it never says how current the broadcast is,
I may well have been watching Mr E falling over into the mud and just not recognised him but then again it could have been from anytime since the invention of the wheel,
By the way, there were a lot of "Holden's" in the race a marque which I thought GM had dropped in AUS.
GM tried to drop Vauxhall in the UK but instead they sold it to Peugeot a couple of months ago,
We used to love Citroens until they went to Peugeot, never again,
From engineering innovation to crapola overnight.
Shaun.

[HERMAN BIX]

It was most likely the one from this weekend.
Rain is a great leveler & a lot of them got leveled completely !!
Im a Ford man & my guys just didnt keep the pre race form up.
1000KMs 6.3Kms at a time....................over 7 hours this time.
I too was soaked over the weekends racing action, no rain involved

The Holden brand is still here, but the local manufacturing has closed.
Both ford & Holden domestic V8 cars have been discontinued.
We have the Mustang now, nice car, but cannot hope to replace the Falcon a a family man-car.
2 doors & no boot.

Sadly the day of the Phase III, SLR 5000 Torana, and XC Coupe are long gone.................

[Estnische]

I knew there was something to like about you Herman...

I'm a long time DJR fan, and I was over the moon about Saturday, not so much Sunday . Sat in the rain under a poncho the whole time, so no slip'n'slide on my part. I do consume a bit of alcohol, but I want to follow the race, unlike my camping mates from a couple of years ago.

Still had a good time though and managed to set up some entertainment at night.

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Tired as hell though and smell like a polecat (as does everything I brought home).

[Raminator]

The Holden brand is still here, but the local manufacturing has closed.
Both ford & Holden domestic V8 cars have been discontinued.

I'm just wondering what the hell I'm going to buy next. I learned to drive in a VL Berlina, then had a BA XR6, moved up to a VE SS and currently drive an FGX XR6 Turbo.

I don't swear any particular allegiance to the blue or the red, I like 'em both. They're big, they're comfortable, they handle this country's atrocious roads with ease and eat up motorway miles like nobody's business. Our automotive industry had finally matured and was making a decent product when they pulled the plug. It's the end of an era, and a damn shame.

[Estnische]

With the upper hull essentially finished, I moved onto the lower hull. Here is where we left it:

I wanted the exhausts to match the Ausf A seen at the beginning of this thread. Thankfully, they are the same as the right side exhaust on the Pantiger, so I ordered two from ebay.

Next was the removal of the bins and old exhausts. The bins came of nicely with a few drops of superglue debonder. The exhausts however, were a different matter. The superglue laddie at Heng Long must have been feeling extra generous when he put them on and I broke them and tore plastic out of the hull getting them off.

Once I worked out where the bins and Pantiger exhaust should be placed, I drilled new holes and filled the redundant ones with plastic plugs and filler.

Here they are in place, and the bins neatly disguise the gap between the upper and lower hulls. I also added lids to the bins – a simple addition to make them more like the photo etch ones. When I work out how and where I want to place the jack, I’ll make some exhaust upper support brackets.

[Marco Peter]

I like what you did there! Really lookin' forward to seeing it painted!

[Estnische]

OK, so a bit of 'meat and potatoes' now.

I'm at the point of carving up the lower hull now, and really, there is no science to this. Its just cut and glue it back together, with bracing that I hope will do the job. Here is the main objective, to make horizontal the underside of the sponson which is currently sloping.

So I made some cuts to raise them, leaving a small segment attached near the front, from the black dot forward. I made a bit of a mess of it and could have saved a lot of pain by making a straight cut. Unfortunately I was all over the place. The battery box has also been removed and the lid glued shut.

To re-attach the sides that were then flapping in the breeze, I made some side supports from plasticard, and some steps in the sponson from leftover HL plastic. Then I glued it all together with JB Weld.

That left some very ugly scars on the outside of the hull. It took a lot of cutting of small bits of HL plastic scraps and filling and sanding of putty. I had to hide the results in primer before I showed it here. Its not perfect, but some pigment will hide any remaining flaws.

I wanted to insert bulkheads and was originally going to glue them in as hull bracing. But they still weren't going to stop the sponson sides from sagging, so I will bolt-in two bits of aluminium bracing. For now I have the bulkheads slotted into 'C' channels so they are removable so I can get components in and out easier. Nothing is fixed in place as I am waiting for 4.1 gearboxes from Forgebear.

[HERMAN BIX]

Soooo-Perb

Great idea to alter the sponsons. A bit like slicing the turret storage bin on an H/L PIV.

I get how you wanted to cover the base with primer !...........it just looks cleaner and more professional.
great work.

[c.rainford73]

This looks very very nice. I like the aluminum bracing and tidy install

[Estnische]

It's been a few weeks since I've had a chance to do some work, so here is an update.

I want to make some room under the engine hatch for some switches, but the smoker takes up a lot of space in that area.

Kevin Grannum has a video where he modifies the smoker with a quieter pump from a fish tank. I thought I could use that mod to rearrange things. Here is the new pump, a rotary unit, and the old reciprocating pump, now separated from the heater unit. I suspect that the reciprocating mechanism is a cause of the clatter from the HL unit.

I cut off the cylinder and enlarged the intake hole and glued in a small piece of plastic tube to attach the air line.

I used a length of RC fuel line as the air line, with enough length to give me some flexibility in locating it later. I tested it on my Tiger to make sure it worked, and so far its good - much quieter, although this one is not as quiet as the almost silent one Kevin shows in his video.