Step nine covers fitment of the steering box, steering wheel shaft, and the stub axles. This is where you can cut a few corners if you do not wish to show the engine off and position the engine bay side panels closed.
The instructions have you attach the steering wheel to the shaft and then the shaft to the chassis. There are a few problems if these steps are followed. Firstly, you will not have the option to paint a fully assembled cab interior separately. More importantly you are at risk of damaging these parts in subsequent steps where you are to handle and turn the whole assembly upside down to work on the front suspension. I would advise waiting to fit it, along with the steering linkages (D6, D45 & D50) just before you add the cab assembly in step sixteen.
I like to
keep sub-assemblies separate if at all possible, to aid airbrushing, so adding
the steering shaft and wheel as early as step nine makes painting the whole
chassis rather difficult. If you want to keep both chassis and bodywork
separate, then keep both the steering shaft and steering wheel loose until you
do finally add the bodywork to the chassis.
Steering shaft and wheel alongside the idler axle assemblies
The double wheel stub axle arms (parts B29) did not require glueing into the chassis on my kit. They were a smooth friction fit even after ridding them of mould seams. Keeping them free of glue gives the added bonus of articulating all the wheels if you wish.
The front axle and steering components are constructed in step ten. Here you are instructed not to glue the front wheel stub (part B45) into the stub axles (parts D19 & D20) before connecting them to the axle beam. Instead, you are to trap part B45 with a pin (part B33) to allow wheel articulation Unfortunately, the resulting wheel articulation will be extremely loose as movement is not just in the horizontal plane, so once a road wheel is attached it will 'wobble' about in all directions. In essence, if left this way the wheels will simply ‘splay out’ under the weight of a finished model. Not a good look!
The engineering to enable moveable hub axles is not great TBH. In effect you must line up the holes in both part D19, D20, then insert part B45 before dropping the pin (B33) through them all to secure. The kit part tolerances are way off, and the diameter of the holes are all too small! It is all too easy to snap the pin whilst inserting, so I would recommend first opening the holes in all four parts with a micro drill whilst making sure the shaft of the pin is sanded smooth.
Having the
wheels free to position is a nice option but the design of the hub to axle fitment just
doesn’t work effectively. In addition, not all the steering linkages are engineered to rotate unless you go to the trouble of drilling and pinning them! To have a ‘working system’
requires a whole bunch of extra work.
So, what’s the solution? Simple. Turn them to the position you desire and glue them in place. Take note though, if you do decide to turn them, this impacts the layout of the steering linkages shown in the diagram in step eleven so don't glue them in place just yet.
The CAD drawing in step eleven depicts the linkage layout with the front wheels shown in the straight-ahead position. You will have to adjust the angles of the connecting linkages if you set the wheels at a turned angle. Confusingly, the CAD drawing in the instructions shows the long linkage to the hub knuckle attached at the bottom when it should be attached at the top! Looking at the Panzer Tracts CAD drawing below it clearly shows that it is attached from above.
My wheels
are turned to full left lock and the linkages adjusted to suit. The long steering link
rod is now attached correctly to the hub knuckle from above.
Step twelve deals with track wheel assembly. You have six main road wheel pairs and two idlers. The fit on mine was not the best due to oversized internal locating tabs. These tabs force the wheel pairs apart. The tubular connection points do align straight so it is simpler to cut the tabs down, or remove them all together. I then glued my idler wheels to their stub axles (as mentioned during step eight) for a stronger connection. These are engineered to slot into the back of the rearmost suspension arm plates. They are best left un-fixed as leaving them adjustable for now will allow optimum track tension come track fitment time.
Moving on to step thirteen and assembly here will depend on how you like to paint the wheels. I prefer to paint my wheels separately, but adding them after paint onto the
interleaved system design makes the process a bit tricky. To combat this I have found leaving the inner (part B22) and outermost wheel halves (WB8) separate during painting. This will make final fixing of all the wheels to the stub axles a far easier task.
The sprocket housings locate onto the chassis and orientation is dictated by
part B40 which depicts a drive shaft which locates onto a pin on the chassis
leg.
Next chapter
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