Okay, the cannon mod has progressed to the point that I have corrected the pivot point forward to where it should be, at the location of the lugs on the outside of the turret behind the mantlet. It was fairly easy, but scary knowing that one mistake with the dremel and I was screwed. Luckily, I was careful and had no trouble.

The most important part to this mod was to strengthen the turret walls at the front, right behind the mantlet. The plastic here is quite thin, and prone to flexing. My new gun mechanism will probably be heavier than the airsoft unit, so it needed to be done. I used an epoxy putty from Oatey, that is available at any hardware store. I simply mixed it up and pressed it into place. Before it started to harden, I used a piece of aluminum to get a flat surface to minimize sanding and shaping later on. This stuff starts to cure quickly, so work fast!

I used tiny bearings inside the hollowed out housing for the lifting lugs, a short piece of aluminum tubing as a spacer, and the original idler wheel pins. A shaft collar keeps it all in place. As you can see from the pics below, the lugs don't look quite right, but I don't really care. I'm not entering this in any contests. It works and is more correct than the aft located pivot point the HL designers devised. No disrespect to them, but it just wasn't right.

Anyway, I used the original gun mounting bracket with a small aluminum plate on each side to add strength. Unless I can find a suitable piece of hard plastic, I might try using a block of wood (oak) due to my design for the new gun mechanism.

More to follow...