Armour Dreams

[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

[D Ellery]

Hi Jonathon. Love the concept of imagineering especially using David Brown final drives. What will you be using for track, cast copy's of the original or something available. Awesome project and work.
I look forward to your next update.

[karlos59]

Looking good Jonathon do you have estimated finish time or is it when its done its done.

[Jonathan Moore]

Evening All,

After my last post, fate intervened and stopped me getting to the victory show or really achieving much at all, however on Friday I decided to do something to take my mind off of life. I have started tackling the steering brake mechanism, obviously it's not going to perfectly replicate the original but I will make it look as near to the original set up as I can. I still need to machine the ratchet teeth in but I will wait until the whole mechanism is bolted in place, to see where they need to go,



Jon

[Jonathan Moore]

I had a very informative and enjoyable conversation with a forum member this morning, the reason for the phone call was to give me the benefit of his experience regarding the brake / steering levers, in other words I had dropped a boo boo. I had produced the levers to operate as a standard handbrake does, in other words the ratchet locks as the lever is raised, to unlock it you depress the knob on top. I didn't realise, because I have never driven a tracked vehicle, that the levers are free running, for the application of the handbrake, once the levers have been raised into the correct position,you depress the knob on top which locks them into position. The assembly has now been modified and I would just like to thank said gentleman, for his time and extensive knowledge.



Jon

[Jonathan Moore]

Thanks Karlos.

I managed to get the brake drum cover finished today.



Jon

[Jonathan Moore]

For some reason I can never load 5 pictures at a time, so this is the bit of tube before I started the canister.

I managed to complete the brake drum linkage, that is apart from 5 springs, which are currently inbound.

[Jonathan Moore]

Evening All,

I have managed to get the drive shaft cover finished. It took two attempts, as I decided that although the first design looked more in keeping with the original, it would have been a right pain had I had to take it apart for maintenance.

Jon