RSEA

Just a couple simple questions.

What modifications, if any, are needed to mount a set of Wecohe Late Tiger Steel Wheels on a Tamiya Panther?

Can the Wecohe wheels accept ball bearings without modification, like the stock Tamiya Panther wheels?

yellowshaker

My Feedback: (1)

I am currently waiting on the wheels to arrive from Wecohe for my Tiger 1. they are designed to fit with the stock Tamiya tiger 1 axles and bushings. I ordered a set of bearings from Mitosal and they have just arrived today. i am not sure if they are going to work because the original bushings are flanged and these bearings are not. I contacted Mitosal about this and am waiting for a response from them. I hope this helps.

Panther F

I'm not a machinist so I cannot tell you if there is enough to remove from the wheels for the bearings. I have them on my Sturmtiger and just went with the stock bushings and did not have to trim the axle length, not saying this isn't the story with the Panther. I'm using them in the last station and so far it looks good on the length.


- Jeff

RSEA

I dug up a PDF scan of the Panther manual. The Panther axle shaft part (MS2) is shorter with a different taper than the Tiger axle shafts (MU1 & MU2). Tiger uses two different length shafts, 8 of each length. Panther bushings don't have flanges like the Tiger bushings as Yellowshaker noted.

Looks like the answer to my question is probably NO, they are not compatible. Machining modifications will most likely be required to successfully mount the steel wheels on the Panther. Either mods to the wheels, the axles or both.

I'm curious if anyone has attempted to mount these wheels on a Panther though.

Panther F

I've seen them on the Tamiya Panther and the one wheel/axle I have here for the last station fits.


- Jeff

yellowshaker

My Feedback: (1)

Hmm, and as I stated the bearings I bought specifically for the Tiger 1 are NOT flanged. Perhaps it doesn't matter if they have the flange or not. Stock bushings are flanged. Of course, it is always possible they sent the wrong bearings.

Jeff489

My Feedback: (12)

I've got a loose set of the Wecohe late tiger road wheels and these use 2 ball bearings per wheel.

RSEA

I think most of the ball bearings people put on these tanks are not flanged, after recalling prior conversations with Daryl Turner. I remember him stating that the Tiger's stock plastic road wheels need to be modified, the hub reamed out some to accept the ball bearings. There might be flanged bearings available but they are probably very expensive.

It looks like according to Jeff, the Wecohe wheels will take non flanged bearings, but the stock Tiger wheels will not, so you should be ok. That just leaves the question of the Panther's axle shafts, whether they will mate properly to the Wecohe wheels..

yellowshaker

My Feedback: (1)

Well, I can tell you the diameter off the top of me head. They are 4mm. If you need measurements of length, I can get them for you too. There are 3 different lengths.

EugeniRUS

Can you make a photo of these wheels, please? On the Wecohe web site the pic is not informative at all.

RSEA

Ok, I want to solve the mystery about this so I have made diagrams with precise measurements of the Tiger axle shafts and stock bushings.

These images should be worth a thousand words, as they say. This will also help to document the specs for these parts for general reference on the forum.

The Tiger has two axle shafts for road wheels, MU1 and MU2. The only dimensional difference between them should be #D and #H. I don't have an MU2 shaft handy to measure without removing road wheels from my Tiger, so I will have to add the #H dimension later.

Perhaps someone else can provide these equivalent measurements for the Panther's axle shaft (MS2) and the Panther's stock bushings (MH2)? I have "Letter" coded the dimensions so the Panther equivalents can be listed in text format via a post with no need to mess around with diagrams like I did.

Panther bushings are not flanged so they will only have dimension #A, #C and #D.

EugeniRUS

A - 4,95 mm
B - 2,9 mm
D - 10,87 mm
C - 1,23 mm
E - 13,36 mm
F - 3,49 mm

RSEA

Are these for the Panther's Axel Shaft? Did you take these measurements with a dial caliper or slide rule? Must be one hell of a device to measure down to 1/100 of a millimeter.. I used a metal .5mm increment ruler to take my measurements.

kclank

If the Wechoe wheels fit Tamiya KT without mods they will fit a Tam. JP. You can see them mounted on my JP2 project. JP suspension arms, KT Wheels and Bearings
I used JP axles