Amateur Build. HAYA Centurion KIT

[zooma]

The last part of the chassis build was to fit the two mounting lugs into the front inner corners of the lower chassis. These mouldings fit perfectly into the front corners and provide a nice alignment guide when fitting the "top deck" onto the chassis. I had chosen to cover the "Kermit Green" plastic inside the chassis, so I scrapped away the paint in this area before super-gluing them into position to give a good bond.

As far as I know these will be the last two parts of the lower chassis construction.

Two moulded plastic "wedges" are screwed onto the moulded pillars (that they neatly fit onto) at the front underside of the 'top deck". At first I screwed these into position with the most commonly used 2.6 x 6 STS, but looking at the widened recess for the screw heads, and thinking about the fact that these "wedges will be continually put under pressure as they are constantly used to remove and fix the top half of the tank, I took them out and used the 2.6 x 6 STS with the "flanged" heads (like an inbuilt washer) and they fitted perfectly.

I used six of the same 2.6 x 6 "flanged" STS to hold the cast alloy rear body mounts into the rear underside mounting points. These castings have a machine screw thread in the downward facing legs that will eventually be used to secure the top half of the tank onto the lower chassis after the battery has been fitted prior to every use.

[zooma]

Exhaust Covers and tools in place

AB891595-8A35-4013-BD3F-9E65D608E2DD.jpeg (668.4 KiB) Viewed 654 times

The top side of the 'top deck" is really only "decorating" (adding the scale details) with no constructional parts to be added to it after the body fastening mounts, turret turning motor and on/switch - (as well - as the two front light bulbs that I forgot to fit before glueing on the front light covers!) are attached.

At this stage the included HAYA RTR Centurion handbook can come in handy as it shows the positions of the various parts that fit onto the "top deck".

Both lamp covers were fitted to the glacis plate and the two opening doors were assembled and fitted onto their hinge mouldings and carefully super-glued into position. These two front hatch covers that are also used to cover the on/off switch have hinges formed from some clever little eyelet shaped mouldings that have a tab to take the glue and slide into matching slots on the deck.

Both doors open and close freely and the two door "scoops" also turn freely so only the minimum amount of glue was used where necessary.

There are two small armour plates that are added to each side (as shown) and these can then have the small fire extinguisher handles added into the vacant locating hole. These plates were not fitted very accurately on my RTR Centurion, but there are a very god fight fit (no gaps) so I may try to prise them off of my RTR and glue them back on nice and square (with no gaps).

The two large square holes on each side of the glacis plate are to hold the spare track link retaining brackets. I will fit these after painting the complete top deck assembly.

The exhaust pipes and pipe covers were glued into place - but not the silencers. These have two large holes in them to accept a pair of pillars that are moulded onto the left and right silencer covers. These silencer covers are screwed on from underneath with two 2.6 x 6 STS so that they can be removed to change or service the exhaust smoke tubing- quite a clever idea - so no glue here!

For those that enjoy a puzzle, the two small exhaust pipe covers have two long mounting studs moulded onto the top and two shorter mounting studs moulded onto them at 90 degrees. Despite the elongated slots to engage with the two longer moulded studs I found it impossible to fit them when I tried to fit them on my RTR Centurion (they do not come fitted). After may attempts to 'spring" these small exhaust covers into place, I finally gave up and clipped the length of both sets of mounting studs until it was possible to "snap" them into place.

My Centurion KIT gave me another chance to try to fit them "properly" (as the manufacturer intended). After many frustrating attempts to fit them with the full length mounting studs I finally gave up and again clipped the length of both sets of mounting studs until they could be snap-fitted into place. My shortened studs are plenty long enough as having "snapped" them into place, I then wanted to remove them again to glue them down properly. They were less than happy to be removed form their new home and put up such a good fight that I was tempted just to leave them without glue - but having been defeated by the fit these two mouldings (twice!) I was determined to get them off and glue them down.

The two small exhaust mouldings were finally prised back off of the "top deck" and were snapped back into position after some super-glue has been added to them. I think it unlikely that they will fall off in use.........!

The rear bracket assembly for holding the two tow ropes can have the base glued onto the back of the "top deck", but the end cover will have to wait for fixing until after the tow ropes are located. Fixing the tow ropes at this stage would be a nightmare as they would be constantly flapping about and getting in the way - best leaved until last IMHO.

The rear plate of the top deck also had the radio, rear mounting lugs and two top support brackets fitted.

Lastly, the various deck mounted tools (shovels and hammer etc) can be positioned ready for painting to complete the external "top deck "fittings.

The "top deck" takes very little time to finish when compared with the time taken to complete the chassis. If I had fitted the two light bulbs before gluing down them to the glassis plate this part of the build would have been finished!

Andrew at HAYA has been able to sell me a pair of replacement light covers that he managed to remove from a used glassis plate for a little under £5.

....one of these used lamp covers is complete and one has some “legs” broken off, so if I can extract one of my two covers complete I will have two complete lamp covers to fit again AFTER remembering to fit the two light bulbs!

No pressure Herr Prof.....I hope the de-blonder idea works.........

[zooma]

......and it was all going so well..........

I fitted the two headlamp covers onto the glassis plate and secured them with super-glue. Apparently I should have fitted the LED lights into them first and now I cannot remove them to fit the bulbs!

There is no obvious way of fitting a bulb without removing the lamp covers as the covers are also the bulb holders!.

I will see if I can buy a pair of replacement lamp covers. If I can, I can cut these off and re-establish the mounting points so I can just "push-fit" the replacements in next time. This will allow for any bulb replacements that may be needed in the future..

......or I can just carry on without having any working lights on the glassis plate.........I think I will contact Andrew at HAYA and see if I can buy a pair of replacement parts.

This is just the sort of problem that can so easily happen when there are no building instructions and no building sequence instructions - but it is not really a big deal, and so far I have been lucky to avoid any other pitfalls, but I wanted to mention it here to help prevent any other Amateur Builder making the same mistake

[Herr Dr. Professor]

I am not sure if by "headlamp covers" you mean the green plastic parts or the clear lenses. For (green of any colored) styrene plastic parts I use cyanoacrylate debonder: there are various brands and, in fact, I keep two or three brands handy. Just search the internet for "Cyanoacrylate Debonder."

However, I have not tried such a debonder on clear plastic (as for lenses), as I avoid CA (cyanoacrylate) glue on clear plastic. Rather, I use a special adhesive for clear lenses or even a PSA--pressure sensitive adhesive--for clear lenses. It's good, but removable. Do you have a nearby hobby store? (My "nearby" hobby store is 65 KM away.)

[zooma]

The Mk5 turret top is the painted one.

51B43AC4-B485-4BEB-AC1F-BB81F1A55C76.jpeg (998.21 KiB) Viewed 617 times

If you have been following this build blog you will know that I chose to spend another 20 quid with Andrew on a Mk5 turret top - so I will be using this instead of the Mk3 turret top that came in the kit. You will be able to see from the pictures that it looks almost the same (!), and it fits exactly as the Mk3 turret top would do (no surprise!).

The Centurion turret basically comprises of three major parts - the top, the middle section and the base.

My first part of the turret build is to use this new Mk5 turret top to mount the commanders rotating cupola, the barrel elevation unit and the BB chute (this has no use on my Centurion)..

I chose to fit the BB chute first - mainly to get it out off the way - every part used is one unmade part less to sift through the bags and try to find a home for! This sits on three moulded Pilars and is held onto them by three of the 2.6 x 6 STS.

Next I sat the underside of the commanders cupola inside the turret top and screwed it to the top half of the cupola whilst it was held in place outside of the turret top. These plug nicely into each other and are held together by four of the most commonly used 2.6 x 6 STS. When screwed together I noticed that this was a nice free turning unit in the turret top moulding.

The drive motor that turns this cupola was fitted next. This comes fitted with a worm drive pinion that engages with the ring gear that is moulded into the outside of the inner cupola base. This motor is located in an integral moulding on the underside of the turret top that is made for the job, and is held in place by a moulded bridging plate that is secured by two 2.6 x 6 STS.

This bridging plate spans across the bottom of the open cupola and has a moulded switch mounting position in the middle of it. The other end of this moulded bridging plate fits onto two moulded pillars. On top of these two pillars (and the end of the bridge moulding) sits one end of the elevation unit and it is secured on top of these pillars sandwiching the end of the bridging plate and is retained by two more 2.6 x6 STS. The other end of the elevation unit sits on another moulded pilar and is secured to it by a single 2.6 x 6 STS.

This completes all the parts that are secured to the underside of the turret top.

[zooma]

The middle section of the turret is another circular moulding that has the important job of holding the gun barrel.

The barrel pivots on a moulded axle that is held in position and pivots on a left and a right trunnion mount. These trunnion mounts have two moulded location pillars on each of them that fit into two large matching holes that are on either side of the opening for the gun.

These two locating holes are large enough for the pillars to slide into nicely, but there are no screws in the kit that have big enough heads to cover these holes, so the trunnion halves just fall out as there is nothing to hold them onto the middle turret section moulding.

I looked for either a pair of flat "blanking plates" with a pair of drilled holes (for these screws) that would cover these two positions on the inside. These could then be screwed through into the each trunnion to hole them in place - or a pair of large mudguard type washers that would do the same job.

There are no flat plate mouldings in the kit to do this job or any large washers, so at this moment I am temporarily 'stumped". I can make a pair of screw retaining plates from Plasticard, but I am sure that I must be missing something.....?

I messaged Andrew at HAYA and he referred me to the online videos showing this kit build - but having watched them several times over, I cannot see any method shown to hold the gun trunnion mounts securely in position.

I will move on to another part of the build, but at this moment I can find nothing in the kit that will fit or anything on the build video that shows how the gun mounting "trunnions" are secured to the turret.

[zooma]

I cannot fit the gun to the turret yet, but it still needs to be assembled - so I will assemble it ready for when I can fit it!

A green moulded servo mount screws to the white moulded gun mechanism with only one 2.6 x 6 "flanged" screw to secure it. To stop this mount moving it is super-glued to the side of the mechanism moulding.

Once secure, the servo can be screwed onto this mounting using four 2.6 x 6 'flanged" STS.

The servo arm is secured to the servo as shown using a regular 2.6 x 6 STS.

A small alloy tube spacer fits into the "ring end" of the recoil operating rod and is secured to the servo output arm by another 2.6 x 6 STS.

The two sections of the gun barrel are unscrewed and the smaller piece is slid onto the alloy output shaft of the recoil mechanism shaft. The other "ring end"of the operating shaft is secured to this short barrel section by a special "custom" Allen headed bolt assembly (much better than a cross screw head).

The gun mechanism is now ready for mounting - just as soon as I find out how!

[ongbenghui]

There are no flat plate mouldings in the kit to do this job or any large washers, so at this moment I am temporarily 'stumped". I can make a pair of screw retaining plates from Plasticard, but I am sure that I must be missing something.....?
I messaged Andrew at HAYA and he referred me to the online videos showing this kit build - but having watched them several time over, I cannot see any method shown to hold the gun trunnion mounts securely in position.

I replaced that screw with a pan head 2.6mm self tapping and put an additiona, 2.5mm plastic washer on it to secure that two section.

IMG20240915005115.jpg (53.08 KiB) Viewed 567 times

At the same time, I find that some of the soldered wired joint might be a bit fragile, hence, I hot glue on the joints. Especially the one to the small motor from the small board to servo cables.

[zooma]

Thanks for that ongbenghui.

There are no parts provided in the kit such as flat plates or wide washers to stop the barrel retaining brackets (trunnions) simply falling off the front of the turret,

.... so overnight I came up with a similar plan to your solution - to find some wide washers and/ or a larger size screw with a bigger sized head to stop the moulded pillars simply sliding out of the mounting holes..

I also mentioned previously making a pair of square plates with two holes in each to hold the provided screw heads in place - but I think the much simpler solution of using a bigger screw is less hassle and a lot easier.....just need to find some suitable screws....

.....I also considered gluing the “trunnions” on as well as finding a mechanical fixing, but like my earlier mistake with gluing the glasis plate light covers on - I would then loose the option of removing them if (for any reason) I needed to replace them in the future.

My other thought was to strip my RTR to see how the factory did it as the method shown on their video and with the screws provided will not work.

I didn’t know that you had built you HAYA Centurion from a kit - I thought you bought yours as an RTR ? ......... If it was an RTR did the factory use bigger screws or washers to stop the gun barrel assembly falling off?

So far I have resisted the temptation to take my RTR apart to see how the factory did it as I have enough bits of tank on my desk already (!) but they could not have used the screws provided in the kit as they simply wouldn’t work!

......and in any case - I want my tank to be built with no risk of the gun assembly falling off....and coming up with a simple helpful solution will benefit any future builders of this kit as well as myself.

[ongbenghui]

I didn’t know that you had built you HAYA Centurion from a kit - I thought you bought yours as an RTR ? ......... If it was an RTR did the factory use bigger screws or washers to stop the gun barrel assembly falling off?

So far I have resisted the temptation to take my RTR apart to see how the factory did it as I have enough bits of tank on my desk already (!) but they could not have used the screws provided in the kit as they simply wouldn’t work!

I almost rebuilt that tank and added additional modifications. But I thought it does come with some screws with attached washers type.

IMG20241001180255.jpg (4.43 KiB) Viewed 547 times

I prefer screws with hex head and I replaced most of them when possible.

I went back to your earlier pic and found this. Any chance if you can locate this bag in red square.

8A201732-B972-42D4-8C8C-8519A57AB90C.jpeg (170.55 KiB) Viewed 543 times