RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

( I moved this post from another thread.) I recently gathered the Classy Hobby PzKpfw II L luchs plastic kit and the 35rctanks rc conversion kit. I'm going to start posting occasionally about this project. let me know if it's of interest!
First off, here's what you get in the conversion kit, from top left across:
> turret assembly with rotation motor, elevation servo, and a control board.
> humungous speaker!
> turret ring, torsion bars, assorted small parts.
> solenoid operated recoil main auto-cannon.
> main control board.
> motors and gearboxes.

The most critical step is the installation of the drive gear, which requires some surgery. It's gotta be aligned correctly.
A hole must be ground out on the hull side for the gearbox assembly to fit through. The hole in the transmission cover has to be enlarged. There is an adapter cylinder that fits on the gearbox axle and is glued onto the sprocket wheel.

The gearboxes have a plastic part that is to be glued onto the hull side to position and secure the gearbox. The plastic part is bolted onto the gearbox frame so so it can be removed if necessary.

I’ll grab a large bag of popcorn


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Do continue It's an original project, and certainly a welcome foray into non-mainstream builds

The electronics:
MTC; Main Tank Controller (their terms). Five wires plug into Receiver.
Receiver; 4+ channel. Fifth channel used for GSU; Gyroscopic Stabilizer Unit, not on this tank.
Battery. 2S lipo. MTC cuts off power at 6V, saving the battery.
Motors/Gears. Plug into sockets on MTC.
ACU; Auxiliary Control Unit. Four wire connector plugs into MTC. ACU runs guns and turret.

I have a Luchs as well as some other small 1/16 static tank kits. Who knows, maybe someday.... So I am watching, too.

Coordinating the construction requirements between the model and the conversion takes some thought! Here is some important info about the running mechanisms:

Earlier I showed how the gearboxes fit into the hull. Eventually they will be glued onto the hull sides, but not yet! Right now I'm doing a lot of valuable dry fitting. The conversion has a functional torsion bar suspension, and the many components have to be lined up precisely. The "bars" themselves, actually spring steel strips, have to be threaded through many holes, and of course have to be aligned correctly.

The bars go through the side wall, through a conversion kit black strip, through the model kit gray strip, across to the second gray strip and finally to a slot in the second black strip, where it is glued. the strips are not symmetrical, either in shape or placement. There is a left and a right. All need to be lined up correctly before being glued so that the bars are free to twist. The bars should not be glued yet, because the swing arms that go on the outside ends need to be attached and the wheels need to be lined up to align with the tracks. You can see that if the motor had been glued, it would have been very difficult to assemble the suspension. One diagram in the conversion manual shows the plastic section of the gearbox glued onto the sidewall, but the gearbox removed. This can be done because the box is bolted into the plastic part, but it's better to just wait until the suspension is placed and glued. Just another view. This thread is not meant to be a complete "how to", but simply spots where I think additional explanation is needed.

And we all appreciate your doing it I’m sure !
These kits have been around a while and now are starting to become hard. To get, the conversion kits might make that availability worse

Yeah, it's an older production run, but some folks still have them. I did buy mine just a month ago, online. I do have an online buddy following my steps for his build.

Next step, actually continuing the torsion bar assembly: the conversion manual is sparse, so I took a couple photos to flesh it out.

The original torsion bar and swing arm is one piece. Conversion requires cutting off the rod part and making a hole and slot for the steel strip.
Original rod on left, cut off swing arm with hole and slot, and the strip inserted in the swing arm. Drilling and cutting has to be done carefully, I used a small drill press and a dremel. Notice I numbered the swing arms. They're not all the same, and not readlily so apparent. It'll get wiped and painted over later.

Time for a break! Torsion rod/swing arms completed, next up would be to attach wheels. But they have to be painted first, as well as the lower hull, which means detail pieces have to be attached. I'll return when that is done.