Pershing.Driver

I built my first Tamiya M26 in 2005 I have battled with it heavily at Danville and have built 4-5 since and thought I would pass on the tips and tricks I have learned over the years. Also on this build I bought a almost all the aftermarket parts available from Bob at ETO

1. Gearbox modification - upgrade motors to MPI Promax 480 This is a straight motor swap you will need to trim one of the gearbox covers to make room for the other gearbox motor to fit.

Pershing.Driver

2. instead of using the screws to hold the back of the upper hold to the lower hull. I glue a styrene strip which will hook into L bracked used to hold the exhaust on. I still mount the brackets that the side screws that will keep the upper hull from slideing sideways.

Pershing.Driver

3. With Herman's help the IR emitter and flash unit will be mounted in one of his custom 105mm barrels. So I thought I would put a mini camera into the turret which will "see" through the gunsight. This wireless camera transmits on 5.8Ghz so it will not interfer with 2.4 Ghz radios. The camera is 5v and will be plugged into the tank receiver with a 5v voltage regulator inline. The video receiver will hang on my belt and is also 5volt- I will mount a 4" TFT DVR screen onto the top of the Futaba 6J I will be using to control the tank

Pzjgr

Thank you for wonderful tips so far, I was wondering if you can give more information about the IR emitter and flash unit in the barrel? You've got a picture of the Pershing barrel, recoil, mantlet and camera, but your talking about Herman's 105mm customer barrels. Isn't the 105mm on the Sherman and the Pershing have a 90mm barrel?

Pershing.Driver

The M45 is a Pershing armed with the 105mm instead of the 90mm.

Panther F

~ Jeff

Ex_Pat_Tanker

Here's one I bodged together a while back from an old non S&S Pershing and a leftover barrel from one of my many shermans...
(Pattoncommander might want to look away now...[X(])

pattoncommander

M-45 was a Pershing fitted with the same 105mm Howitzer as on the Sherman. It was used only in Korea as an inf support tank (American stug) and deleted from inventory around 1956-57. Official Military states deleted in 1954, but I saw some with the 31st Inf Regt (7 Inf Div) in 1956...VERY bad shape, but running.

Pershing.Driver

Here are some photos of the wheels and the lower hull. If you are building a Tamiya Pershing there are three upgrades that I strongly recommend. The first was the 480 motors already covered the second is Daryl Turner's quick change gearbox plate which you can get from Bob at ETO or if you have access to a mill you can make one yourself. The third must have upgrade is sealed bearings for the wheels and lower hull.

YHR

Thanks James

I am very interested in your Video installation. When you get around to that a parts list and supplier would be much appreciated, as I would like to do the same in at least one tank. Maybe we can have enough people with onboard equipment to have a battle at the next extravaganza.
Partcipants must stay at the bench and fight without any Birds Eye perspective of the battle field. You must find and fight the opponent from the on board view only.


Cheers

mcovalsk

Very interesting build, I like the camera detail would be funny.
I have been building RC cars since 1980 and was wondering if really are neccesary ballbearing in these tanks. I don't use them as porbably will turn in one year what a car does in one hour. I don't know really.

YHR

The need for bearings depends on what you are doing. In IR battling, when taking hits, the least amount of resistance encountered can keep you moving As speed is not an issue with a tank, you can usually overcome rolling resistance with gearing, and big batteries .( More amps to draw from and a geared down motor draws less amps) This combination tends to be less recepetive to rolling resistance. As the voltage drops through IR hits a geared down motor wil continue to operate as it is not near its stall point.

If you have no intention of IR battling,and are just out to run the tank, a big 7000mAh battery will give you more then enough run time to get bored. Bearings like so many other things we do to these tanks is a personal choice. Some guys really like the mechnical effiency side of the hobby, and wouldn't think of building a tank without bearings. For me, If my tank has a bearing it will be in the idler, and that is about it.

I have adopted a "replace it with something better when the stock part wears out" attitude.

Pershing.Driver

Also we play in a very dusty envrioment the bushings that come with the kit and the axles have enough space to allow grit in and will wear down the axels rim then your wheel comes off... not fun when your in the middle of a close fight with Jersey Bob's Panther.

Green Amphibian

Or anyone else for that matter. The more mobility you have the better your chances of winning the battle.

pattoncommander

OK good start....got to fill in the sides of the mantlet and add 4 inches of armor, (filling in the sides and extending a bit back will give that imprssion) add the travel lock on the blower housing and corresponding pin connection at the base of the mantlet. If you have the muffler installed, the phone has to move. TC's cal 5o mounts on an armored bracket above the gunners periscope. Did you move the coax hole?

Pershing.Driver

have not even started that kind of mods. still working on the technical parts. do you have any pictures from when you were around them?

DirtyBird69

You know what would be neat is to have a comparison test between two identicle tanks, one being bone stock and another being fully tricked out! Then you could see what the improvement really do(run time/speed/climbing ability/etc.)....i dunno just an idea...

mcovalsk

HI Bill I got a cheap HL Pershing to make the M45, could you send me by email pictures of yours and the neccesary chages also the size of the barrel. Do you have a picture about how is the mantlet.
Thanks a lot!
Shalom LOL

pattoncommander

I didn't get any photos back then...no camera at that time. For my model, I had to rely on what I remembered and offficial photos. The travel lock is the interesting one. Lays down on the blower housing, hinges up to line up with a lug hanging from the base of the mantlet....the pin on top of the lock is slid through the lug. Pretty dumb setup, as the gun has an internal travel lock..just like the Pershing's 90mm as well as the turret ring lock, all inside. I recall the coax sitting really low (set that way due to the recoil cylinders of the 105mm)...two of the 45's had cal 50s as coax, the other two running had 30s...all drank more oil than gas and had no power at all. They were old, worn out dogs that wouldn't do more than 15 mph. Korean hills really killed them, but they were a very interesting tank..As I recall, none of the M-45s, (as with the Pershings) had the aux scopes for driver-bog. The resin model showing the travel lock is incorrect in that respect.

Panther F

I always wanted to get another Pershing kit to build one of these. But, with all the new stuff that had come out in the past few years it kinda got forgotten.

Too bad ... the Tamiya Pershing was a fun kit to build.







~ Jeff

Pershing.Driver

Come on its just one more tank.....you know you want too....come to the dark side...we have cookies!

Panther F

Heck I'm on both sides James! Allies and Axis.

If I buy one more kit without as much as making a slight dent on what I have waiting my wife will have a cow. (come to think of it, that would be fun to see)

She about lost it when I had the Leopard A4 mailed to the house. (dumb move) Good thing it was under $400.

Actually, my Pershing almost never got built. I had every intention to make an Easy Eight with the BYA kit and extra Sherman. But after watching the M26 perform I changed my mind.







~ Jeff

Pershing.Driver

As long as you have the stock tank.....
test one swap out a gearbox..... took me 5 hours without DT gearbox plate .... 20 min with That gives me 4:40 extra run time or "choir practice" as NJB would say

as far as speed you will be faster with no hits then slower on a hit for hit basis until you take 7 hits then you will be a pill box while I can still manuver and climb hills.

Pershing.Driver

More photos of the build

Pershing.Driver

So today I did a bunch of work on the lower hull.

Here is the speaker modifications I did
1. normal
2. removed the cover the pen points to where I cut
3. removed all metal and duct taped the speaker box back together
4. cut box on table saw
5. speaker put back together
6. new end cap roughed out and glued
7. new end cap trimmed
8. finished