Armour Dreams

[Jonathan Moore]

As the steering box is from a 430 series AFV I needed to add a plug to the front of the hull so that I could top it up with oil.

[Jonathan Moore]

I decided to add some detail to the front of the hull while I was waiting for the vacuum components to arrive, the small maintenance hatch doesn't open, it's just there for show. The brackets either side. are to wrap a tow steel rope

[Jonathan Moore]

The locking mechanism for the drivers hatch seems overly complex to my mind but it was interesting to construct.

[Jonathan Moore]

My version. On the top of the hatch there's a square socket so that one can open the hatch from the outside, I used an old 3/8" drive socket and brazed it onto the end of the main shaft.

[Jonathan Moore]

On the inside of the hull below the drivers hatch there is a tray that, I assume, holds a rubber seal. I cant find any pictures of the open hatch showing this area, so that is purely an educated guess.

[Jonathan Moore]

On the front of the hull there are two towing hooks, one either side. On the original tank these had a tendency to brake off, apparently due to the incorrect towing procedure. As I need to be able to use these for actually towing the vehicle, they need to be strong and as I didn't have any material of the correct size available, I decided to modify a couple to tractor towing hooks.

[Jonathan Moore]

I know that they are not the same profile as the originals but I didn't want to weaken them too much. I anticipate that when the steel tow ropes turn up, the end profile might need modifying in order to get the tow rope eye over.

That's it up to date for now.

Jon