RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

For as long as I've known a close buddy of mine (well over 10 years by now) he's had an old, first-edition Tamiya KT standing on a shelf, gathering dust. He knew I was into the hobby, and with my birthday looming he plunked it down in front of me and basically told me to go and 'have fun'.



It's a KT alright! And painted with camo, too! It's the Henschel production turret model which I think looks so much better than the Porsche pre-production turret.



One of the exhausts is missing ...



So's the headlight, and there's a huge seem visible on the flimsy, plastic barrel.



The inside is gutted, and ...



... parts of the running gear simply aren't painted at all but left as bare metal.

The paint is old and discolored from two decades of tabacco smoking, there is residue of bird doodoo from the two pet canaries they have flying around, the camo is very basic, the decal is flaking off, there is no weathering whatsoever and the tools are just painted in the most basic of colors. So all in all it's a big project, but it's a fun project, and one I wouldn't have if not for the thoughtfulness and generosity of a close friend.

What I plan to do: (When I get around to it)

- Replace the missing headlight and exhaust stack
- Fix up the barrel or just up and replace it
- Since I'm poor as heck I can't afford proper Tamiya DMD electronics, so I'm probably going to try and get it running with aftermarket Mato and Heng Long bits
- Possibly zimmerit it
- Light battledamage
- Additional stowage / detail parts
- Repaint
- Weather

Yay, a project!

Right now on ebay there's some Tamiya electronics going for a bargain with 2 days left.

I am on disabled benefit and can't do online payments - <edited to remove rudeness Billpe really did not deserve> ... so what I can afford is very limited, and requires lots of time to save up for it.

Ok, I just thought I'd mention it given they're listed far less than the normal asking price.

It is appreciated, but not something I can take advantage of.

o7

Hi lert have you seen the ibu boards from tank bear on here I have one in my tamiya kit much better and affordable sounds are brilliant

That's a beauty alright! Some things pertaining to what you mentioned you will do on your oroject-someone called blueslateman on ebay sells a Zimmerit applique for about $10. I bought my tiger 1 Zimmer it from welsh dragon for $25. I did the zimmerit that way to avoid the mess and chance of botching things and I'm happy with the way the tiger cane out...I must admit I've only seen a picture of blueslates' zimmerit...but I'm ordering it for my own HL KT.

I have no idea how your existing motors work but, I have the heng long 2.5 ghz radio system and love it. Works great. Costs about $80, amazon has it. I believe it's similar to the taigen system.

Which ever HL radio system you use, I believe strongly it's wise to add a fan to the receiver box. Or just buy the ready made receiver box with fan already on it. I bought a 25 mm 8000 rpm, 5 volt fan from amazon, removed the board from the box and cut a dime sized hole in the top. Then just glued on the fan with gorilla super glue. I spliced in a split wires from the positive and black wires from the power switch. I also spliced in a 5 amp fuse, after having fuses blow twice already when the tank had dirty twigs caught in the idlers driving in deep grass etc. you could actually hear the strain on the motors- I'm a believer in fusing that circuit.

Lert,
It is a princely gift! Take your time and enjoy! ( Happy Early Birthday as well )
regards,
Painless

Marc780 wrote:I have no idea how your existing motors work but ...

It's a single, standard 540 type motor (wound 27x1) operating a clutch drive (operated by servo) to both drive shafts. Very ingenious, really. Modern Tamiya tanks use two separate gear boxes and 380 type motors, driven by a patented Dual Motor Drive electronics suite. HL also uses two separate gearboxes with 380's, so whichever way I'm gonna go I'm gonna have to wrench out the original clutch drive and fiddle in two separate gearboxes, driving either the drive sprockets directly, or hooked up to some part of the clutch drive system. I'll figure it out when I get to that point.

It's going to be a significant operation either way.

PainlessWolf wrote:Lert,
It is a princely gift!

I know, right? His reasoning was that it was just collecting dust on his shelf and he wasn't going to do anything with it anyways, and he figured I could make it into a nice project with a nice end result.

The original turret turning gear on this model was bolted to the floor (those three screw holes that are visible). It takes up a bit of room in the hull, but might be easier than trying to fit a more-current rotation unit to the underside of the upper hull (since there are no gearbox or roller mounting points there). I see that the turret has the parts that went to this. Did you get the gearbox for it with the tank? If not, I think I can help. -Mike