Nice picture there googly! He he he......

Back to the tensioners....

On the model Ihave, backing out the screw (i.e turning it left)is tightening the track. Its visibly tighter when Iturn the screw left. If Iturn it right (i.e. drawing the metal bar it screws into towards the back of the tank), the track flops down onto the road wheels.

Turning left, it pushes the bar towards the forward of the tank. The problem is, there is a spring along the screw the idea of which is to push the bar towards the forwards. Eventually that gives up and teh screw starts coming out of the assembly and extending towards the back of the tank and into the rails that the back panel fits into.

Ican push the screw (ie. pushing the tensioner bar forwards)and get a very nice taut track but letting it go.....the tensioner bar just returns and the screw moves out again.

Im attaching a rough picture. When Iturn in the direction of the red arrows, the track slacks off as you can see in the inset. The screw pulls the torsion bar towards the framw (back of the tank) and the track loosens.

If Iturned against the red direction (anti clockwise in this picture) Iwould expect the torsioner bar to move in the direction of the blue arrow. And it does. Tightening the track.

The more Iturn however, the torsion bar eventually stops moving in the blue direction and instead, the screw moves in the black arrow direction out into the way of the back panel of the hull.

Which limits the whole thing in its usefulness.

In my mind the screw should be attached to the frame giving the torsion bar something to push against. As opposed to just pushing against what is a fairly weak spring. Itried replacing the spring, but its a murderously fiddly job and didnt work in the end.

Short of finding an appropriate nut and welding it to the frame ..... the torsioner is of very limited use indeed. And finding such a nut and doing such welding........its a nasty job.

All of which is compounded by my not being able to get a pin out to shorten the track. It also makes it very painful to do any work with the wheels. But Im willing to take a light hammer to that in the near future.

Adding that to problems in alignment of the gearboxes (a common problem), Iam totally unconvinced of the worth of metal hulls at all.

Ilike them....but they are a serious pain in the ass to get working right.

p