Hi, my son recently got a VSTank 1/24 King Tiger as a gift. I believe in the course of driving it one of the metal wheel rods (not sure the exact part name) has become bent causing the wheel and tread to slip.

At the time he received it I did not know that VSTank appears to be defunct, at least in the USA, otherwise I would have requested it be returned and a supported brand be bought instead.

Anyways I have tried looking on google for replacement parts, I've found a handful of parts across Ebay and other stores, but I was wondering if anyone knew a site that has supplies for these still, if such a site exists.

If not are mechanical parts from other brand 1/24 tanks usable or modifiable to make work? Many of the parts like the suspension seems similar between brands, but I don't have experience with R/C Tanks.Or would a wheel from the VS Tiger work on the King Tiger? They look pretty similar.

Also my son wants to try the IR battle function, but we obviously don't have another tank, nor do I know anyone who even has an R/C tank. Is the tank battle IR system somewhat universal, or does each company use it's own IR?

Finally if we wanted to stay in the 1/24 scale is there a brand that is still in production? Everything I see seems to be 1/16.

Thanks for the help.

Hi, and welcome to the Forum. I'm pretty sure Waltersons bought out the 1/24 series from VSTank so they might be able to provide you with parts.

As for the IR features, I don't think that they are compatible from one brand to the next, but a new Waltersons tank in 1/24th scale might be compatible.

Try contacting Waltersons here: Radio Controlled toys & hobbies - Enthusiasm beyond compare - Waltersons and see if they have some parts still available. VS will be making a come back for sure Waltersons also purchased Forces of Valor which was one of the other major 24th scale brands and some of the IR models are out now. The last time I checked in with the VS/FoV update they were updating the molds and other parts to get the best of the best from both brands. We actually have some of the FoV 24th tanks they offer in stock now on our site.

Thanks for the replies, with the end of school and a upcoming vacation I didn't get a chance to take apart the tank till today.

The issue was in the gearbox, on one of the reduction gears the inner set had become almost completely stripped off causing that side to operate very intermittently and becoming progressively worse as it lost more teeth.

I e-mailed Walterson's inquiring about replacement parts, but from what I've seen VSTank only sold the gearbox and motors as a whole, which is fine, but if I could just get extra gears I'd prefer that.

I was thinking of taking a chance on a pack of DIY toy/gearbox building gears, some of them appear to be pretty similar to the broken gear.

I'm fairly certain that all gear boxes are sold with the motor attached. I doubt you'll be able to find a replacement gear in a hobby set because of all the variables. I mean, not only does it have to be the right thickness and the right diameter it has to be the right pitch and have the right number of teeth and on and on. I'm assuming that the gears in the tank now are made of plastic so I would recommend that you upgrade to metal gears. I'm not sure exactly what fits in the vs tanks but Erik might be able to help you with that.

I wish I could help but I'm not up to date on the old VS Tank stuff. Waltersons might be able to help though as they are the one that acquired VS Tanks and they might have spares if you are lucky.

Thanks for the input guys, I did reach out to Waltersons but I did not receive a response. I'll probably just buy the motor/gear box module off of ebay and keep the broken one for spare parts.

Just an update in case anyone comes across this thread, DO NOT buy an old VS Tank. I can't speak for new ones because I think the issue might be the age of the plastic, or they maybe they used really cheap plastic for the molds. Basically if a tread seizes for any reason your gear is instantly stripped, and you can't buy a pack of gears by itself.

Hopefully with the re-release of the 1/24 tanks I'll be able to mod it or get better quality parts in the future.