Armour Dreams

[Jonathan Moore]

A mans got to eat and my wife doesn't like cooking so needs must when the devil drives.

Although I had drawn the suspension arm location shafts on CAD, I decided that I would make a set just to make sure that some plonker, that,s me, hadn't cocked up. Well it turns out that I hadn't. The outer bearing housing retainer has an oil seal pressed in to stop the ingress of dirt. Then there's the complete set, bearing housing retainer, shaft, bearings, the relevant spacers and finally, the complete set installed in the hull. The hole in the end of the shaft is for a greasing point that I have to make, see below. I am not going to weld the arm to the shaft until I make the wheel axles and I don't think that I will do that until I have made a wheel. Only 9 more sets to make.

[Jonathan Moore]

A couple more pictures.

Jon

[Jonathan Moore]

Evening all,


I have managed to finish the 9 remaining suspension arm shafts and associated components and the spring retention rollers, well that's what I am calling them. As I don't have any technical construction details of these, this is my version. The spring retainer rotates as the spring is flexed by the suspension arm, the unit consists of a shaft on a back plate and a housing. The housing contains an oil seal at the inner end, followed by a bearing, then a spacer followed by a second bearing. This is the pressed onto the shaft and held in place with a washer and a bolt. Another spacer is followed by a 3mm section o ring and an end cap, all held in place by a circlip. The last picture is an original unit. The original has an oil / grease point in the centre of the end cap, on my version this is just a dummy that can be unscrewed and replaced with a grease nipple so that the unit can be filled with grease on final assembly.





Jon

[Jonathan Moore]

a few more

[Jonathan Moore]

and finally.

Jon

[Jonathan Moore]

I have at last, managed to fabricate the suspension arm travel stops / bump stops and attached them to the chassis. It seemed to take ages to complete these items but we have been in a perma frost for a week, that seemed like a month, snowed in and the workshop was frozen up, thats my excuse anyway. They are not perfect but as near as I could get them, the grey one is from the Bovington tank museums PZ2.

For my next trick I am going to make the track return rollers, now that will be fun.

Jon

[James P]

That is very, very, impressive work and fabrication you are doing

[Jonathan Moore]

Evening All,


I have made a start on the track idler wheels, the initial piece of 180mm dia solid, has been following me around for the last 16 years, many times I have been tempted to scrap it but I could never quite bring myself to do it. It has survived a divorce, I have tripped over it, stumped my toes on it and used it for no end of things but at last it's true purpose has been revealed. How it gets from this bearing house, to the idler wheel requires a lot of work, a cunning plan and some imagination

[Jonathan Moore]

Look what the Birthday bunny bought me today , as to how its going to be fitted, i haven't got a clue but time will tell. What I need now are two drive shafts.



Jon

[Ganmain Tony]

A final drive unit Jonathon?

Whats it out of?

[Jonathan Moore]

Not quite, It's a steering unit out of a 430 series tracked vehicle and it's heavy.

jon

[Jonathan Moore]

Evening All, again,

I haven't got a big press or indeed any of the tooling required to produce the cone needed for the idler wheel so I decided to make it in 8 individual pieces. I used what I could find a real bodge it and scarper set up but it worked. I used a very old and hard as nails piece of oak, that I planned to the form that I required, as a press form tool. What can I add, I use what I have and none of it is modern or complicated. I am doing quite a bit of machining as I go along to make sure that it all runs as true as possible, so its taking a bit of time.

[Jonathan Moore]

But it's getting there.