RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

I decided to go ahead and tear down the Tiger again to last night and this time it's a pretty drastic mod. I first removed the stock battery compartment and the adition I had made to it as well.


I also wanted to correct an alighnment issue I've had with my Mato 3:1 gearboxes. You can see how far off it is. and it needs to go down about 3mm too as it drags on the chassis exit.




Then I sealed all the old holes in the bottom of the hull with styrene.

I then glued an equipment tray over where the battery box was. This raised the tray up about 8mm from the deck so if water does penetrate the hull while fording at least my gear isn't going to get wet


And now I've begun locating all of my gear. I'm trying to get all the highest heat gear in front of the cooling fan

Thats a nice job you have made there of your Tiger 1.
Stevie

Why thank you Sir! I also bought some .5mm styrene which I will use for sealing the chassis up fairly water tight. I will glue some over the suspension travel limiter slots in the sides. I am also going to make some sheilds over the gears to keep the grease where it belongs and some mounting points for my RX18 and Vtx

I did get the chassis sealed and some attachment points made for my electronics. I still need to build my gear box mounts. I plan to either off-set one of the motor mounts or I will rotate one of the assemblies. As soon as thats done I will paint the interior color which will be either the "correct" interior color for the early Tiger or the red primer color from some of the later models.

I had noticed an alignment issue with using the Mato gearboxes on an aluminum plate. I also wated to use some 400 size motors but the length wouldn't allow me to use them without some modification. So, to solve these issues I decided to remove the mount lugs from the chassis and replace them with "Plastruct" Styrene. This stuff is great to work with. It can be cut, sanded, drilled bent with a little hot water and glues easily with Cyanoacrylate adhesives.

first i made some stanchions to elevate the mounting plate for the port side box by gluing several layers of different thicknesses of Styrene together then using my Dremel I even up the layers like the ones in the first pic some before and some after.


next I cut a plate to mount the motor to and drilled pilot holes for the screws.


Then I made two stanchions with enough angle on them so that my Permax 400 size motor cans would clear each other. I attached them on their edge and glued a gusset between them to make them a bite more rigid. I also have the two mounts attached together for strength.




Finally is a picture of the gearboxes attached with the 400 sizes motors installed.

...one more pic tonight. I started reinstalling the electronics earlier and got quite a bit done now I just need to build up a fastening system to make the hull easy to access. I havent totaly figured out the details for that fix yet

Next I worked on a system to attach the top but stay fairly easy to access. I have had to open my HL Tiger I so many times it was apparent that PMCS (Preventative Maintenance Checks and Services) is the key to 1/16th scale tank operations as it is to the full scale variety. I first removed the hull side foremost attachment point from the hull and sealed the remaining hole with polycarbonate and CA. Then I made a new attachment point using more of the polycarbonate. I used a small .5"x.5" peice directly attached to the top side mount with a screw. I then used a peice of my daughters Play Dough to mark a location for fixing the hull side attachment point.


Now I made an antenna lug as I still have 72mh radio gear. I'm ready to try out Dragon Link UHF http://www.dragonlabs.net/dragonlink" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; for long range and it won't interfere with my battle buddies 2.4G video feeds.

...OK, so I think the issues I had with my tracks has been resolved. It's similar to a full scale, try not to neutral steer in the really loose terrain and it's fine. I even terrorized my neighbors rock garden with no trouble.

Now I have another issue, either I'm getting "hits" on my Rx, voltage is dropping and messing with the DBCRC2 or the Rx, I'm really not sure. I even used a new Rx to see if it would help with no luck. I even considered adding caps on my motors?

I'm running stock motors and caps on Mato 3:1 brass gears
72mhz radio gear. because some of the guys at the feild have 2.4G video
I really wanna go with Dragon Link http://www.terranova.net/~winger/RCVide ... onLink.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
T9CHP Tx 168DF 8ch Rx
DBCRC2

Anyone have an idea?

Those Mato gearboxes are very noisy too I guess I just need to get out and buy some valve lapping compound for them and break them in... does this make a noticeable diferance?