Armour Dreams

[Jonathan Moore]

I have been putting off adding some of the strengthening for the radius arm mountings, no particular reason, there just always seemed something more important to do but I have at last added these today.

[Jonathan Moore]

And finally for now, I have made and fixed in place, some covers over the maintenance holes in the base of the chassis. These holes line up with the engine oil drain plug and such like.

Jon

[Jonathan Moore]

Evening,

I have been working on the engine and radiator bay surrounding walls, if that's what they are called.
I have had to make a modification to the area of the fire wall where the gearbox protrudes into the crew compartment, originally the gearbox was a separate unit situated next to the driver. In order to be able to remove the engine and gearbox, I have had to put a removable section in this area of the wall. I don't think that it will be noticeable once the interior details are added.

[Jonathan Moore]

More pictures of the same area.

[Jonathan Moore]

These pictures show a little hinged door, behind which sits the radiator. The door can be folded to change the air flow in to the radiator. Also, in the engine deck above this area, is a hatch for the radio operator that has adjustable baffles incorporated into it so that the amount of cool air can be regulated.

[Jonathan Moore]

Sorry for the amount of pictures but hopefully they will help explain, what I have no doubt failed to.

Jon

[Ganmain Tony]

Great to see the project going well Jonathan.

Just a thought - are you going to put some sort of insulation on the inside of the engine covers?.

There is a type of fabric that is used to line steam locomotive fire boxes.

If it didn't do the job I don't know what would.

Really enjoying this build. Easy when I can watch from afar.

[Mike Cecil]

Hi Jonathon,

Like the progress images: looking good.

A thought: the hex-head bolts used to secure the hull access plates on the underside seem quite deep - might they catch when running over rough ground, making them at least hard to remove, or at worst, torn off?

AFVs usually have a countersunk fastener of some sort that sits flush with the plate, and the plate is usually countersunk/sits flush with the surrounding hull plate.

Regards

Mike

[Lynn Eades]

Mike, Carrier access plates had hex bolts up from the underside. Maybe the thinking was that they would be removed quite often and an eye kept on the bolts and replaced as required.
Everyone seems to be using this line all the time around here: "It is what it is"

[Jonathan Moore]

Morning,

Tony,
I hadn't planned on putting any insulation on the fire walls and as far as I can tell the original didn't have any but I may need to. If I do, the only wall that it would make any sense to insulate would be the one that faces into the crew compartment.

Mike,
I Have to agree with you but somewhere, I can't find it at the moment, is a picture of a Panzer II that has been blown upside down and there are hex bolts on these covers. The other thought would be that the counter sunk screws would have been slotted and would have become filled with all types of shti making them very hard to undo.

Thanks for the interest,

Jon

[Jonathan Moore]

Evening,



I have been working on the radiator / fan assembly and it's become quite interesting, if that's the word. I am making it as one unit, so that it can be removed as one unit, once the coolant has been drained, leaving the oil coolers in place. There's lots of parts, so lots of pictures but we are bit limited on MLU with pictures.

The first pictures are of the fan outer bearing housing

[David Dunlop]

Jonathan.

Nice looking progress. I am curious about the interior colour scheme of these earlier German tanks. The later, bigger models typically had a two tone interior finish with a white/cream turret interior and hull area down to roughly the sponson line, and then just the red primer below that level.

What was the thinking in this regard with these earlier marks?

David

[Jonathan Moore]

This is then welded into the fabricated fan housing.
The fan isn't attached I just placed it there so that you can see where it will go.

[Jonathan Moore]

The actual fan bearing housing, which gets bolted into the outer housing. It's made using the same sequence of processes as the outer housing but is machined all over.
As a complete unit it has a bearing and oil seal in each end.

[Jonathan Moore]

The beginnings of the cooling unit.
The oil coolers will sit under the radiator.

I can't do much more until the fan pulley turns up, when that appears I can make the fan assembly shaft and the get the position of the fan pulley in line with the engine pulley, then I can finish the main unit. Other than that, there are a myriad of holes to be drilled for the coolant pipes etc. and of course, all the air ducting covers.

Jon

[Jonathan Moore]

Morning David,

I have no hard evidence but I think that the crew compartment, above a certain line, would have been ivory, I cant remember the paint number off hand and everything else would have been red primer or grey. It would seem to make sense that the crew compartment needed to be as light a colour as possible so that it gave the crew a chance of seeing what they were doing. I have been sent some pictures of the interior of the Tank museums Panzer II, which appears untouched and this backs up this theory. However, where I have painted the inside of the mantlet ivory, theirs appears to be Panzer grey.

Jon

[Jonathan Moore]

Evening,

A few more pictures from todays playtime, all self explanatory but if you have any questions then fire away.
Once the warm air is blown out of the rear of the cooling unit, it is blown up this channel and out through a vent in the hull roof.
There's still a lot of missing pieces to add to the jigsaw in this area but I have it all planned.

Jon

[Mike Cecil]

Jonathon,

As I said, just a thought in the light of AFVs such as Centurion, M113A1, etc. I think I'd rather scrape crap out a screw slot than have to try and extract a bent/deformed bolt, but interesting that the German (and Australian?) designers didn't consider it an issue. Wonder how many German and Australian mechanics cursed that decision!

Great job, outstanding skills displayed, enjoying this thread very much.

Mike

[karlos59]

Looking good Jonathan keep up the great work.

[Jonathan Moore]

Morning All,

Somewhere in this thread, I said that I didn't want to have too many engine electrics in this project, just hold that thought.

I have been plodding along manufacturing the cooling unit, although I had made the bearing housing the other components needed to be manufactured.

The fan shaft.

[Jonathan Moore]

A few more.

[Jonathan Moore]

The original cooling unit appears to have had a fly screen, for want of a more descriptive word, in front of the radiator. Not wanting to restrict the air flow, the one that I have made has a bigger mesh size and in reality is there more to stop the radiator from getting damaged by the movable cover in front of it.

The other items that I have been trying to finish are the air ducts in the main cooling unit, so far I have only finished the rear one.

[Jonathan Moore]

I have been dealing with a company called Alders Classics in Norfolk for the engine and transmission, I think they were a bit surprised to find out what I wanted the components for but they have been really helpful. And the electrics...….. Anyone good at jigsaw puzzles.

Jon

[Jonathan Moore]

Evening All,

The cooling unit is complete, although quality control, the wife, has questioned my decision of not welding every join. It all fits ok as does the drive belt. I will now have to make the tensioner.

[Jonathan Moore]

Next on the list was the exhaust which entailed replacing the stripped manifold studs. Out of the three that needed replacing, one came out ok, the others had to be drilled out and re-tapped.
I centre popped the broken stud, drilled it with a 5mm drill before opening it out to 8.5mm and re-tapping the hole to 3/8" UNF.

[Jonathan Moore]

I haven't got any of the original components for the exhaust, so I am making it from scratch, although I will be using flexi pipe to join the manifold to the silencer. First, I needed to make two flanges to suit the manifolds. I marked around the manifold flange and then cut the flanges out with an angle grinder and ground them to shape. Then Marked and drilled the bolt holes and using a Sandvik hole saw cut the main hole.

[Jonathan Moore]

Then on to the exhaust pipe. I am using sections from a cut up Land Rover exhaust as these are the cheapest source of ready bent material that I can find.

That's all for now folks.

Jon

[Jonathan Moore]

Evening All,

The two into one manifold is all welded up and ready to be assembled onto the exhaust manifold. The cooling unit now looks more like an air conditioning unit and I have completed the airflow tract around the rear of the engine bay.

[Jonathan Moore]

To complete the exhaust I need a silencer, here goes, although silent probably won't be the word.

[Jonathan Moore]

I have been having problems finding information and pictures of the silencer retaining brackets, the Tank Museums Panzer II is a later model, so the silencer is different. Armed with the information that I do have and some artistic licence this is what I have come up with.