Tamiya M551 Sheridan

[tomhugill]

Hi folks,

I picked this up as a static on eBay on a bit of a whim, was already built (not to the highest standard). I wasn't sure what to expect but hoped that like other tamiya statics you would get the gearbox frames at least. Sadly this wasn't the case.

Luckily Louis has already been through this process so I have been able to use his build to help me (thanks Louis!)

I've done a few cosmetic thing but the photos are on a hd some where. Here I'll deal with the mechanical and electrical side first.

I was lucky enough to pick up some 5:1 gears very cheap from Carson at dklm.

I used Louis method of retaining the original tamiya shafts but making extensions so the fit the gearbox frames (the tamiya ones are too short even for the 5:1s). In this case I cut the end off the 5:1 shafts to the length I needed. This was then joined in the final drive gear. The fit is really tight so with a little glue the shaft stub has plenty of strength. The tamiya gear is then held in place by two grub screws.



The gear boxes were then bolted to a styrene plate on the hull floor



There was some mild grinding of plastic pieces to get the clearances but the fit wasn't quite as tight as I'd feared and the sprockets line up perfectly.

At this point a put in a spare tk40 to make sure everything ran ok

On the wet muddy grass of my lawn (always a good yard stick especially for rear drive tanks) it performed flawlessly, no hint of tracks walking off, control was great turning nicely from a pivot to wide sweeping turns. I'm running it on 3s as having absolutely tiny drive sprockets it needs a little speed boost. Overally really pleased with it.

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[tomhugill]

Next up was getting the upper hull functions sorted, the m551 uses the same rotation unit as the leopard 2, abrams and type 10. Unfortunately on the static kit it's missing the mounting plate of the full option. I instead used plastic computer stand offs cut to size and glued to the upper hull. Took a little trial and error to get the right mesh buy works nicely now.

The recoil and elevation use standard size servos; thankfully the static kit uses a lot of the full option pieces so it's a case of fitting the servos to the mounts and then making the correct linkage in the case of the barrel and on the elevation I made up a custom slider arm for the servo for the elevation.

A standard Clark 3mm flash led unit was made up, although I think I'll replace this with a 5mm bulb as it will stop it getting pulled down the barrel as well as a bigger flash!



Next bit was adding lights. The headlights on the kit are a clear piece that sits in the headlight surround. The bulb faces upward and is transmitted through the clear piece through 90 degrees.



The rear lights are a clear piece with a 3mm red led inserted. Most of the piece will be painted to make it opaque with the small bit of clear allowed to show through.

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[tankme]

With the track splitting issues the Sheridan has I think the speed you have it running at is great. It may be a little slow for it's scale speed, but it looks good at that speed in my opinion. Looking good so far.

[Jimster]

Certainly looks like a good smooth runner! Your engineering skills make it happen.

[tomhugill]

I've been a bit remiss with my updates on a few projects. I finally got my replacement commander and glazing through from Germany. I've also scratch built a few other missing parts as the sprue coat for replacement was insane. Nothing too fancy, just styrene sheet and rod to mimick the originals as closely as possible. I also made some new scope guards out of brass rod which was soldered together.

Currerently I'm waiting on a Clark tk40 and a suitable speaker before I can continue

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