Armour Dreams

[D Ellery]

Hi Lynn.
Ha ha yes, iv'e not been cured.

Got anything I can play with ?

Jon I take it that you are looking to get track cast or use something similar ?

Cheers. David.

[Jonathan Moore]

Evening All,

Today I trial fitted the first final drive unit, it all lined up as anticipated.

The original had an armoured cover over the final drives, obviously my cover won't be armoured but it will hide the castings and make the area look roughly like the original.

The big question is, can I get my welding to look like the original?

[Mike Cecil]

Thanks Jonathan,

Mike

[David Dunlop]

Wow! Quite a range of welding quality in that one photo, Jonathan. Interesting. If vehicles could only talk, sometimes.

David

[Jonathan Moore]

Evening All,

Just a quick update, in truth there's not much to tell, I seem to have spent the last week doing everything other than the tank.

Getting the final drives inline with the steering box took quite a lot of time and I lost count of how many times I had to remove the steering box to make alterations but the easy side is almost complete apart from the drive shaft cover.

The right hand side has been a right pain because of the limited space and the need to have the longest possible splines on the drive shaft. Time has moved on from when I was a full time machinist, had someone brought us a hardened shaft and asked us to machine splines on it, it would have been a no go but I bought a carbide cutter and even my old milling machine made easy work of the job, impressed, I should say so. In my opinion this is still the weak point in the drive chain but time will tell.

I fear that things may slow down even further in the near future as I have some rooms to refurbish in an old rectory.



Jon

[Jonathan Moore]

Evening All,

I have been making the flanges for the final drive housings. On my tank, the covers are really for aesthetics, however the flanges will actually add some rigidity to the area
Picture 1: The outer profile of an original housing
Picture 2:The profile of my housing
Picture 3:The flanges were made by piecing sections together then welding and grinding them to finished shape Picture 4: .The area concerned on an original tank

[Jonathan Moore]

The final pictures are of the Flange welded onto the Hull and the housing flange bolted to the hull flange

Now all I have to do is fabricate the housing cover.



Jon