The Cent got driven around the arena many times today to train some people to drive her. Good news - the new gearbox and final drive oil seals didn't leak. Bad news - one of the rads is quite badly plugged so she's running a bit hot. We have spare rads but they need repaired. It would be boring if she ran perfectly, I guess.
A personal comment on driving these tanks: the increasing turn radius in higher gears is a given for this design but isn't impressive. Even second gear requires quite a large radius. So these tanks were not that maneuverable in my opinion, and hard work for the driver who's busy shifting to deal with varying terrain and corner radii. For tight maneuvering, first gear or neutral steering is required.
I haven't heard this criticism applied to Centurions so maybe I'm too harsh here? But it must have been so much easier for the later Chieftain drivers who had the same gear ratio to turn diameter limitations, but a transmission that was so much easier to select up and down.
Malcolm
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