RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Herman, good afternoon,
Looking at the picture, it seems that the sprockets are sitting kind of far out. How about the idlers in the rear? Are they also out of line with the road wheels or is it just the sprockets. Plenty of track width room there to bring the sprockets in rather than try to move multiple bogie\ road wheel assemblies out. Which ever way you go, fair fortune to you.
regards,
Painless

PainlessWolf wrote:Herman, good afternoon,
Looking at the picture, it seems that the sprockets are sitting kind of far out. How about the idlers in the rear? Are they also out of line with the road wheels or is it just the sprockets. Plenty of track width room there to bring the sprockets in rather than try to move multiple bogie\ road wheel assemblies out. Which ever way you go, fair fortune to you.
regards,
Painless

Yes mate the idlers and returns line up with the sprockets so I'm confident it's the suspension

Im having problems with my Asiatam Panzer IV Suspension too. Alignement is OK, but it does not work well, and I have my wheels splitting.

Im considering to buy the very expensive suspension Tamiya parts, and I need to find somebody able to install the bushings in the wheels for me.

Has anybody done it before?

Well, I just took all the suspension off and looked again one bit at a time.

The idler IS out to far. 3.5mm in fact.
I cut that much off the boss that carrys it and this bought the idler in line with the return rollers.
So, reassemble the roadwheel arms.
Checked clearances & they do seem to be a bit far inboard.
So, tried all sorts of spacers etc but it made the arms somewhat flaccid so went back to standard fitting.
Mounted a pair of wheels at the idler end & got out the straight edge.
Bang in line
So, the sprocket drive shafts need 4mm off them(no idea why), the idler needed 3.5mm off the mounting boss, and things should be in line.
With tyres fitted to the roadwheels there is only a fine amount of clearance from them to the travel stops, so I still feel the arms are to far in.
Moral is to check the alignment of aftermarket running gear BEFORE getting to far advanced like I foolishly did.

Probably the most idiotic question in the history of idiotic questions, but do you have short shaft gearboxes in there, or the long shaft ones fitted to the US tanks and the Jagdpanther?

From memory the longs, but they are correct as the shorts I had were way to short.
I looked in my box of left over parts at the gear sets & com[pared the standard plastic ones to the short steel set I have & they are more than 4mm shorter.
I think its a combination of the metal parts adding error.
The idlers have a 2mm raised face on the back of them, and that pushed them out to far.
I took 3.5mm off and its bang on.
I will deal with the drive shafts somehow, but I dont want to split the tank again.

Another round of assemble/disassemble...........
The standard plastic suspension and other bits fit perfect.(with washers to compensate for the trimmed idler mounts)
Change to the metal,- arse.

The Taigen suspension arms and the wheel spacings from inside on the spindle to the correct centre line are where the problem lies.
Once I get to a washer shop tomorrow I will space the wheels out more & see how things look.
This is without doubt the worst one I've had to deal with yet....................

STOP PRESS...................its IS the %^%$@# wheels.

I am mucking around with three of the only plastic wheels I did not wreck during the dismantling process to use as hull mounted spares. No point wasting $50 bucks on a set of metal roadwheels, only to use three of them & bung the rest in a box.
Of all the combinations I hadnt had a go at, placed a standard wheel on the metal suspension and badda-boom.....offset to the correct centre line.
Now I need to figure out how to get the metal roadwheels out to that same line, plus now I have to space the idlers back out to where they were

Herman, we should rename the wheels as metal down-grades.

Sometimes you wonder why you try to improve things!!!

John

Bogeyman wrote:Herman, we should rename the wheels as metal down-grades.

Sometimes you wonder why you try to improve things!!!

John

That Sir, is the most apt thought of the day by far !!
I have no idea why the differences, or what combination is supposed to work, but this lot I have, does not and cannot without much alteration.

The metal wheels have significant recesses on both sides, I have tried both sides to see if there is only one way they go.
The plastic ones have a raised boss on the inside which brings them out to almost the perfect line.
The rest of the error is in the metal suspension arms themselves which are about 2mm too far inboard.
Yet the return rollers on the standard mounts are good

With the track on, the inner edge of the track is over the square edge of each suspension arm where the spring pack is cast. On full oscillation of each arm, the track hangs up on the arm, or the end of the leaf spring..............

The damn track is to far in.

I am resigned to the fact that I may have to box my metal suspension set, buy new plastic ones, and run it that way