Heng Long Tank Mods and Fixes, ... especially those for the M1A2 Abrams

[Jib]

This is an awesome resource. I have a HL Abrams and I’ve done quite a few of these, albeit with an Elmod MFU. I’d like to put gun smoke on, but I melted a couple of the wires on my slip ring when I was figuring everything out, and I don’t have enough to do it with the Elmod gun smoke mod.

Also, you touched briefly on doing the gun smoke mod with BBs (I love actually shooting things, so I’m unwilling to give this up for flash), any chance of elaborating about this further, specifically where to drill and how to attach a hose? Or point me in the direction of someone else who has done this and posted about it? I’ve see on ToucanHobby’s videos their gun barrel/mantlet units actually have a little nub that sticks out that they attach their hose to, but it does not appear to be stock, at least on the one HL I have. Any idea about this?

I may go back and replace the 24 wire slip ring with a new one at some point in the future, but it’s a ton wire crimping work that I’m just not mentally prepared to repeat at the moment.

Also, I went crazy with FPV cameras and have not one but seven on my HL Abrams. I’m new here, so I haven’t had a chance to search to see if anyone else has done a write up on that yet, but I could, if no one has beaten me to it yet.

[Herr Dr. Professor]

"I went crazy with FPV cameras...seven on my HL Abrams." Wow! Are you able to switch among cameras as your M1A2 runs? Or can you watch all seven simultaneously? Do you make videos from the cameras?

[Jib]

Yes, no, and yes. I did a brief look around and it seems like a lot of the people here that have installed cameras on their tanks are using the dinky things that ToucanHobby sells and installs on their tanks instead of what I would consider true FPV. I’ll try to start putting together a post on the what and how of this kind of a setup.

[Meter rat]

Aurelius, has a piece on how to install cannon smoke and retain the BB facility.
viewtopic.php?p=351248#p351248

[Jib]

So it’s been a while, but I have done a couple of things. Here is the post I made on FPV of you haven’t already seen it

https://www.rctankwarfare.co.uk/forums ... hp?t=36049


I also figured out how to get smoke AND airsoft without a ton of custom modification. HL sells a kit (albeit expensive) that is relatively plug and play. I already made a post on it, so here’s that if you haven’t already seen it.

viewtopic.php?t=36216

I’ve scheduled myself an hour each morning to start working on some of this stuff again, so I’ve resumed trying to make the barrel recoil accurate. The timing itself was simple to fix with a servo and the Elmod Fusion X, but to fix how the barrel recoiled itself, to get it to recoil into the mantlet instead of into itself, took some doing.

So I think Sir Tanks a Lot did something like this by carving out the piece of the barrel he needed from a spare HL mantlet. I opted to buy a new barrel from Special Ops.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/114980627706? ... media=COPY

Only problem is that the metal tube this barrel is molded on to is too small to fit over the HL airsoft
mechanism barrel. Here is a post on how I removed that barrel and put in a larger tube

https://www.rctankwarfare.co.uk/forums ... hp?t=36233

This morning I put my proof of concept barrel together with all the parts and adjusted the recoil parameters on the Elmod app. Here’s a video of the result.

https://youtu.be/Ua4raoDLTEM?si=I84PXcGWCy0ZN1_k

I’m pretty happy with this. Now I need to cut down the metal tube a bit, assemble the barrel, and dremel the end of the barrel so it fits in the modified HL mantlet.

[Spudwhip]

Are there instructions on how to open the tank to expose the internals?

The 6 screw holes at the bottom of the tank have some special sort of screws or bolts that aren't flat, cross or hex screws.

[Meter rat]

Are there instructions on how to open the tank to expose the internals?

The 6 screw holes at the bottom of the tank have some special sort of screws or bolts that aren't flat, cross or hex screws.

May be some pictures would help, showing the type of fixing? Mine has 8 fixings, all cross heads, highlighted in red.

IMG_0794.jpeg (326.36 KiB) Viewed 1495 times

.
If this is new, then you are correct that sometimes the battery is placed inside, for customs reasons, as some companies, including the post office, do not ship batteries. The only other fixing I can think of, is they are Torx heads.

[Jofaur86]

Hello, battery location circled in blue, but I think you know that? For the screws, you sometimes have to sacrifice a small screwdriver, in order to adapt it to the type of screw, sometimes, and with a bit of luck, you can do it with a normal mini screwdriver

[Spudwhip]

Are there instructions on how to open the tank to expose the internals?

The 6 screw holes at the bottom of the tank have some special sort of screws or bolts that aren't flat, cross or hex screws.

May be some pictures would help, showing the type of fixing? Mine has 8 fixings, all cross heads, highlighted in red.
IMG_0794.jpeg.
If this is new, then you are correct that sometimes the battery is placed inside, for customs reasons, as some companies, including the post office, do not ship batteries. The only other fixing I can think of, is they are Torx heads.

Hey, many thanks for responding!

Yeah, the store said they put the battery inside the chassis for customs purposes.

Sending some photos here...

The "screw" in one of those holes at the bottom (in your photo, this is the one in the top right circle)...

[img]

The battery inside the chasis (it's not secured and it rattles around inside)...

[img][

[Spudwhip]

Are there instructions on how to open the tank to expose the internals?

The 6 screw holes at the bottom of the tank have some special sort of screws or bolts that aren't flat, cross or hex screws.

May be some pictures would help, showing the type of fixing? Mine has 8 fixings, all cross heads, highlighted in red.
IMG_0794.jpeg.
If this is new, then you are correct that sometimes the battery is placed inside, for customs reasons, as some companies, including the post office, do not ship batteries. The only other fixing I can think of, is they are Torx heads.