Well, the dreams of a brushless Abrams made some major steps forward tonight. A long time ago I purchased the original gearboxes that DKLM was selling for the metal lower chassis designed for the HL Leos. I thought how hard can it be to adapt to an Abrams? I found out...it didn't work. That was of course after I gutted all the standoffs and supports out of the stock chassis. So I decided to redeem myself and get the combo to work. What was killing my build was the length of the brushed RS-550 motors. The were 65mm long which made them too long to fit in the Abrams chassis and maintain the correct track spacing. I saw a brushless conversion of the DKLM gearboxes online and felt like the shorter brushless motors would allow me to mount the gearboxes. I didn't want to go the same route as the other person that converted to brushless since he drilled new holes for the motor mounts. I wanted to use the stock mounting holes. After and exhaustive search and a 3 week wait from China, my 550 brushless replacement motors arrived. I ended up going with a 1650KV 3650 (36 is the diameter and 50 is the length in mm) brushless motor. The motor also has the same 3.175mm shaft so the pinions moved over to the new motors without issues.

Top view.


Front view.


Mocked up height.


Shaft support.


New motor up close.


Old Motors


Length comparison.