Stayed in today and worked on the PIV a little bit. I had added a set of the Mato 2.0 TU's to this tank because I had them laying around. When this model first came out, I remembered Phil telling me that updating the gearboxes was quite a pain in the rear. Well, he was right, at least without purchasing monting hardware for it. I opted to set it up on my own instead. First problem I had was the new boxes set the sprockets out way too far and the track was nowhere near straight. So, I took off the stock metal sprockets and set the Asiatam units in place to gauge what needed to be done to correct the problem. Both sides needed to be moved in as well as shimmed to get the output shafts centered through the hull. I cut out two pieces of 1/8 aluminum plate and drilled and tapped for the screws. I decided against bolting them to the plastic lower hull because over time the plastic would not hold up well. One tank I built before with a similar problem was a mato sherman. I set the gearboxes up the same way. Drilled and tapped the plates, and then atatched the TU's to the plates. Then I centered them in the hull and temporarily CA glued the plaes in place. I removed the TU's and used JB weld to permanently mount the plates where they need to be. Solid as a rock. That sherman is still going strong after about 3-4 years.So, I did the exact same thing here.
One more thing I wanted to note about this build. I opted for the Asiatam late return rollers, as the new set was not out at the time. Well, one word of caution with these rollers. They are spli wheels, like most of Asiatam's poorly made wheels. They are supposed to be press fit which work great until the tank is running around, at which point they have a habit of seperating and falling off...never to be found again. For the price of the parts, I would have expected better. I have glued the two halves together, but if they are anything like the late Tigr wheels, it is only a matter of time before they go missing. If this happens, I will buy the Schumo rollers for the tamiya tank and modify them to work on this model.
