Updates con't.d - Finishing the rear deck
I now tackled completing the details that are left in the rear deck. First off I decided to add the wing nuts for the sliding radiator louvers. The wing nuts were included in the original Aber PE kit but at the time I simply lacked the confidence to fit them. Almost a year later, I have now gained some PE working skills (from assembling the latches) and good tools so decided to add them.
The wing nuts were fitted to real panther Gs simply to lock the louvers in place and prevent them from opening (or closing) while the tank was in motion. To add them I freed the vvvveeeerrryyy
small wing nuts from the PE sheet and drilled holes on the louvers where I will attach them.
And here are the pics of the wing nuts attached to the front and rear louvers. Unfortunately the louvers and screen were already glued to the tank so I cannot solder the wing nuts in place as these were very close to the plastic bolts I added to the louver corners. I feared heat conduction from the soldering iron will melt these bolts so I just CA glued them in place.
To give you an appreciation of just how small these things are, you can only see the details of the wing nuts when I enlarge the photos at 1:1 pixel resolution. Here is a photo of the front louvers enlarged at 1:1 pixels.
Finally, HL panthers are missing the cooling fan deck lifting hooks. I bought the Schumo metal lifting hooks as a kit that includes the pintle mount detail.
First I freed the hooks from the parts tree.
To attach them I marked the rear deck with pencil to pinpoint where the hooks will be located. I used many references, but these were poor as photos of real panther's rear deck top views are rare. Here the adage applies... Measure twice and drill once.
In the 2 photos below you will see I didn't follow my own advice. I can't remember now but when I drilled the holes I must have disregarded the mark I made for the hook earlier. The drilled hole should be nearer the screw bolt at the bottom left of the 1st picture. That mistake will haunt me later.
Anyway here is the rear deck with all the hooks in place.
Addendum
Here is a pic of a real panther G.(Image lifted from
http://planetarmor.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6066) Notice the placement of the hook very close to the the bolt? (see highlighted box)
And here is mine.
That sorry mistake of disregarding that one hook mark is now gnawing at me. I admit there are a lot of inaccuracies in the tank that don't bother me (like the incorrect antenna) and I will probably expound on it at the end of this build but this one is bothering me a lot simply because Its a mistake I made and its hard to 'unnotice' it. I'll probably give it a week then if it still bothers me, I'll redo it. However what do you guys think? Am I just being schizo?
The blanking cap now fits cleanly. Below is a pic after I glued the cap in place. 
I want to get them for my JP 
