Dissapointed with Tamiya Quality.

[Rad_Schuhart]

First things first, I dont want to start another Tamiya VS the rest of the brands war, but I just want to let off steam.

I have a Sherman and a King tiger, and I've found problems in both of them. I wont begin talking about the (IMHO) very outdated and overpriced electronics, or the very very low detail in the year 1975 made molds. I will talk about the problems or the issues that really screwerd me in my tanks and what most people complains:

First the Sherman.
1) It does not have gun recoil, I can live with it but it sucks.
2) Rotation turret unit. Sometimes jams. (Tip, I glued the clutch)
3) The return rollers are prone to jam, and due to the friction with the tracks they wear very fast. (My tip if anyone reads me, I put some black shrink tube around the return rollers tire. Unnoticeable to the eye and last for years)
4) Some people had problems with the tensioners, due to they bend and break the hull. It goes worst with metal tracks and running over rough terrain.
5) Some other people needs bracing for the gearboxes. (I think I dont need it on my sherman... Yet)
6) But what really killed me is what I found in my tank yesterday: the idler wheel has worn. I mean, all the road wheels and the return rollers have bushings (or you can install bearings) but the idler wheel, the one that keeps the tension of the tracks has NOTHING. Is just the plastic wheel over the metal axle. I did not know it because that wheel comes assembled. That's a big mistake that Tamiya is making since 1975.

So now Im running with a worn idler wheel with a hole that day by day is being bigger and bigger and I dont know what to do. I found that tamiya used to sell an aftermarket metal idler with bearings, but its discontinued everywhere. Also I found that mitosal sells some upgraded idler but it does not align well so I have to discard it. The last option might be the "Daryl Turner" idler, but it costs 90 bucks which in my opinion is A LOT for what it is.

So if anybody has an idea of what can I do with the shermal idler, it would be very apreciated.


With my king tiger I had another bunch of problems.
1) First of all, a faulty gearbox. One of the gearboxes makes noise and I have to trim a lot the tank if I want to run straight. I might upgrade to a DKLM if they lower the price, lol.
2) The rotation unit that gave me sometimes problems with the sherman turret, gives me a lot of problems with the king tiger turret. Glueing the clutch is a must.
3) The plastic elevation arms breaks (mine is ok for now)
4) Track tensioners, when it looks like a great idea, they are not effective. I saw a lot of people changing them to daryl turner, henntecks, or replacing the springs inside of them with putty.
5) The tracks are extremelly fragile. Very light plastic tracks with open pins, so for a lot of people they break at the first run (I must say the sherman tracks works great)
6) Due to the size and weight of the tank, the aluminium hull is too thin and fragile, so a gearbox brace and bearings in the axle would help.
7) All the hatches are molded closed, and even the tank commander hatch sould be glued open or closed, or be modded to be able to open at will (Not everybody has the skills for doing it)
8 ) The tank has no lights, so no stock running at night.

I dont know if the new tamiya tanks are better or not, I've heard good things about the Leopard, but you never know, maybe Mr Tamiya is reading me and he takes note of our needs to improve the kits for the future. For what they cost, specially in places like australia or so, they should have better quality.

And again, if anybody has an idea about what could I do with the Sherman Idler, would be really apreciated.

Hope the mods wont close my thread. Is not a troll post against tamiya fans, it is just my experience.

EDIT: Now I have to add another massive design failure. All the gearboxes in WW2 tanks (except pershing) are bad designed and faulty, so they wear very fast. Explained here: http://www.customrcmodels.com/files/RCP ... PGRADE.pdf

I wonder how many meters those people that say "I run my tank for the last 20 years and no issues so far" have run their tanks.

[PainlessWolf]

Good afternoon,
For the Sherman idler, you could take some brass tubing and make up a couple of bushings like the ones that the road wheels use. Your Tamiyas are a couple of the older ones and everything you mention has been noted before. They take extra work and some great combo tanks have been built out of them. Even the Tiger 1 has no headlights ( I had to add a set of Taigen LEDS to the stock Tamiya housings to get working headlights. I think they picked that feature up with the Pershing. Let us know how the Idler fix goes. ( Also, buying a Tamiya parts sprue to get new idlers and putting the bushing in those before they have use to wear them might be the way to go. )
regards,
Painless

[tomhugill]

I was going to suggest adding a bearing to the idler! I think the king tiger and Sherman suffer from being based on the older model. The elevation and rotation are weak points but can be improved with little work.

The other tamiya are much better mechanically it must be said. The Pershings marvellously engineered.

[Rad_Schuhart]

Installing a couple of bearings on the sherman idler sounds good but I think it wont be possible. The double idler wheels comes already installed on the axle which has an "L" shape so I dont see a way to remove them.

It might be disassembled somehow, but I dont know if it os possible or how to do it. Also I dont think I can put the bearings on the wheels and not having them misaligned, but Im sure I can find somebody around here able to install it in case the wheels are removable.

[Rad_Schuhart]

Take a look at this http://www.tamiya.com/english/products/ ... ls/top.jpg

Those are the discontinnued sherman metal idler wheels with bearings. The stock ones are like that, but the wheels are made of plastic. The cap is made of metal and is attached to the axle and I dont now if it could be removed.

[jackalope]

Have to sell a kidney to afford one of these damn things and they're poorly engineered? Truly a shame.

[Tiggr]

Have the Sherman and the KT been updated now to eradicate the problems that Rad lists ?

[tomhugill]

Have the Sherman and the KT been updated now to eradicate the problems that Rad lists ?

Nope. Not to do Rad down, but the Sherman idler issue doesn't seem common, anecdotally I have 4 which are regularly bashed and no issues. I would think it would be a "Danville issue" if it was more prevalent.

[Rad_Schuhart]

Have the Sherman and the KT been updated now to eradicate the problems that Rad lists ?

All the issues I mentioned have been long documented a lot of times in multiple forums, it seems Mr Painless has seen it too. The idler issue is the lest common, but well, it happened to me and I dont run too much with my tamiya tanks because I know they are fragile and expensive. If you dont run your sherman a lot, and you always run indoors I think your idler might last long, but three times running outside were enough to kill all my return rollers and idler.

But when Tamiya itself releases a piece for preventing that failure makes me think that It might be more common than it seems...

[tomhugill]

They also made metal tracks which weren't needed, I think at the time they were getting on the hop up market. What you describe on the Sherman seems very much out of the ordinary, mines run outside on all surfaces and never had an issue. Out of intrest have you had the impact upgrade and had issues or is it documented else where. (As an aside I've been told impact made the tamiya metal tracks and upgrades).