HL/Trumpeter Panzer IV Beob ausf J Hybrid

[MonsieurTox]

Good Day Mr Tox
Wondering if you could expand on your method you used to raise the H/L gearboxes in the H/L hull to get the drive sprocket height right ?
That is an ongoing issue for anyone that wants to build a half -descent Pz4 , with our without a Trumpeter upper !

Could you explain how you did that please Sir.

Cheers

Hello Herman,

It has been a pretty straight forward job. I glued 3mm styrene plate under the gearboxes, I enlarged the the side holes of the shaft on the chassis. I had to grind the HL gearbox frame and remove one of the shaft that links both sides of the gearbox frame, you can see the front on is missing in one of the pics I posted earlier. It doesnt affect the strenght of the gearbox, sides dont split and gears dont fly over !

I did some comparison with the Trumpeter chassis moving it up by 3mm on the HL was matching the Trumpeter shaft hole. However I noticed that the first 3 return rollers were about 0.5 mm lower on the trumpeter hull. But I did not want to move them all just for 0.5 mm, it doesnt show that much (it looks much better than the stock HL sprocket !) and I could not raise the gearbox more (even if 0.5mm doesnt sound to be a lot, I actually grinded as much as I could on the inner upper Trumpeter hull so it does not touch one of the motors.
Ah yeah and I also raised up the sprocket gear hubs by 3mm too, I may end up using the Trumpeter ones as they are a tad better.

[HERMAN BIX]

Good Day Mr Tox
Wondering if you could expand on your method you used to raise the H/L gearboxes in the H/L hull to get the drive sprocket height right ?
That is an ongoing issue for anyone that wants to build a half -descent Pz4 , with our without a Trumpeter upper !

Could you explain how you did that please Sir.

Cheers

Hello Herman,

It has been a pretty straight forward job. I glued 3mm styrene plate under the gearboxes, I enlarged the the side holes of the shaft on the chassis. I had to grind the HL gearbox frame and remove one of the shaft that links both sides of the gearbox frame, you can see the front on is missing in one of the pics I posted earlier. It doesnt affect the strenght of the gearbox, sides dont split and gears dont fly over !

I did some comparison with the Trumpeter chassis moving it up by 3mm on the HL was matching the Trumpeter shaft hole. However I noticed that the first 3 return rollers were about 0.5 mm lower on the trumpeter hull. But I did not want to move them all just for 0.5 mm, it doesnt show that much (it looks much better than the stock HL sprocket !) and I could not raise the gearbox more (even if 0.5mm doesnt sound to be a lot, I actually grinded as much as I could on the inner upper Trumpeter hull so it does not touch one of the motors.
Ah yeah and I also raised up the sprocket gear hubs by 3mm too, I may end up using the Trumpeter ones as they are a tad better.

Thanks for the reply, I sort of get it, I will have a look back over your pictures to try to spot the missing strengthening brace.

[MonsieurTox]

Good Day Mr Tox
Wondering if you could expand on your method you used to raise the H/L gearboxes in the H/L hull to get the drive sprocket height right ?
That is an ongoing issue for anyone that wants to build a half -descent Pz4 , with our without a Trumpeter upper !

Could you explain how you did that please Sir.

Cheers

Hello Herman,

It has been a pretty straight forward job. I glued 3mm styrene plate under the gearboxes, I enlarged the the side holes of the shaft on the chassis. I had to grind the HL gearbox frame and remove one of the shaft that links both sides of the gearbox frame, you can see the front on is missing in one of the pics I posted earlier. It doesnt affect the strenght of the gearbox, sides dont split and gears dont fly over !

I did some comparison with the Trumpeter chassis moving it up by 3mm on the HL was matching the Trumpeter shaft hole. However I noticed that the first 3 return rollers were about 0.5 mm lower on the trumpeter hull. But I did not want to move them all just for 0.5 mm, it doesnt show that much (it looks much better than the stock HL sprocket !) and I could not raise the gearbox more (even if 0.5mm doesnt sound to be a lot, I actually grinded as much as I could on the inner upper Trumpeter hull so it does not touch one of the motors.
Ah yeah and I also raised up the sprocket gear hubs by 3mm too, I may end up using the Trumpeter ones as they are a tad better.

Thanks for the reply, I sort of get it, I will have a look back over your pictures to try to spot the missing strengthening brace.

I will post more pics soon to show you, Im currently grinding the HL suspension housings and dampers in order to use the Trumpeter ones. As I am removing the suspension arms and wheels, I'm machining some new shafts for the suspension arms to wheels because the mato wheels where wobbling too much on the HL metal suspensions arms and the shaft was not long enough. I did one proto and the wheel has now no play and since the new shaft is brass it has much less frictions with the alloy of the wheels.

[MonsieurTox]

Greetings guys.

Modified Heng Long gearbox

Next step was to remove most of the details on the side of the Heng Long chassis.

Most details have to go

I can't focus on one task, while I had the suspension removed, I thought it was about the right time to fix them. I'm using the Mato wheels with the Heng Long metal suspension. HL suspension shaft is too short and is only supporting half of the lenght of the wheel assembly and diameter is too small which induces lot of wobble. To fix that, I redrilled all the wheels once glued together (6mm) and I reduced 6mm brass tubing to 5.9mm on the lathe and cut them 13mm long. I cut 16 of them and glued them on the HL suspension shafts. No more wobble and it will last longer than if it has been cast alloy (wheel) on cast alloy (suspension), cast alloy on brass is much better for durability and friction.

Trumpeter fuel hatches have been used. The Trumpeter kit is well worth the money. I got it for about 120€ shipped and used it for that Panzer IV but I also mold and cast a lot of parts for the Hummel.
I removed the last return roller support in order to lower it. I was going the plastic Trumpeter part but it is hollow, afterthought I used a solid cast of the trumpeter support.

Like on the Hummel, I milled an adjustable track tensionner. The shape was eyeballed so it's not perfect but it works and its not that visible.

[MonsieurTox]

Then it was time to modify the rear of the tank. Heng Long got most of the details but they are too thick, too simplified and I had to do good use of the Trumpeter parts as much as I could.

So once again, most of the detail have to go.

Before/after pic

Some parts have been shaved from larger parts, several were separate parts in the kit so it was easy. The rectangular plate with round corners should be flush with the surounding plate but I have been lazy

[MonsieurTox]

Some general pics with the Trumpeter suspension housings and suspension stops in place.

[c.rainford73]

Good looking tank well done

[jarndice]

Greeting Sir,

I have nearly the exact build planned. I will be using a complete Taigen lower, metal wheels and tracks.

I'll be following along withe great interest!

Barry

Do you mean the Taigen Metal Hull and running gear because it really is a disaster in accuracy.
I had to shave the rear idler mount off then using a "Long Drill Bit" fitted a proper idler adjuster as well as lower the rear roller and fix the front sprocket mount,
I buy cheap Heng Long Abs Hulls now and cut out the battery box and lower the rear roller and I am still able to afford the Shurtzen armour as well as the Taigen metal Turret.
I prefer metal hulls BUT I have yet to find a decent PZ4 metal hull apart from Tamiya's overpriced but very accurate Metal/Abs variant.

[MonsieurTox]

Hello guys,

I've done a lot of progress in a few days, unfortunatly I did not take pictures of all that work.

What I've done :

Installing the elevation unit
Intalling the rotation unit. I had to designa support turret ring for the HL gear ring that also lock the turret on the hull.

Unfortunaly there will be no recoil as I dont have muche room in the turret and I'm using a TK7 borad then I can't use any servo for that.

I drilled the small MG. I still have to insert a fiber optic and put the LED. I only have red LEDs right now and I wouold prefer to use an orange or warm white LED instead. Much more realistic.

I finished to glue on the hull and turret most of the details.

I cut off the battery box of the HL hull. It was very flimsy after that so I had to reinforce it to remove any flex. It also solved the looking issue of the inside, now it's super neat ! I'll take pictures if interested later.

I have the chance to have the STUG III from Heller (but made by Trumpeter), it has tracks with hollow horn, I'm mixing some of those links with the solid horn tracks of the Panzer IV kit for the spares, I found some pics of a Panzer IV Beob with mixed spare links. Pictures of that later.

I had to make the rear mud flaps movable like the real ones, otherwise I could not remove the upper hull (because of the rear hook brackets that I have yet to glue ). I used brass tubing to make the hinges of the flaps. They can stay in the upper position thanks to the real tiny springs included in the kit.

I've spared a coat of Tamiya Red Oxyde primer. I was going for a winter camo (to make the 201 Beob) but now I think I will go for the B1 Beob with a 3 tones camo, it's almost impossible to find pictures of Panzer IV Beob anyway, for example, pictures of the 201 show it after it has burnt. So I'm pretty free to do what I want as long as it is realistic

Now some pictures of where I am, right after the primer coat.

[MonsieurTox]

Some more pics