Tamiya elevation unit quick fix
 

Not sure how many others are having this issue, but after glueing or replacing the clutch gear with the "blue" gear in the tamiya elevation unit it
create's another failure spot. The main D shaped shaft that the elevation arm is mounted on starts to wear out the black plastic gear it goes through and
will free spin. This is only happening on tanks with long metal barrels and the addition of aftermarket metal muzzle brakes isn't helping. Anyways, easy fix.
Take apart the elevation unit, drill holes in the D shaft along with the collar on the black plastic gear using a 1/32" drill bit making sure your hole on the gear is going through the flat of the D on the gear and of course on the flat of the shaft which makes it pretty easy. I just clipped a piece of HL antenna I had laying around about 6-7mm long. Make sure it does not protrude past the collar on either side as it will hit the neighboring gear. Capillary your fav CA or a small smear of loctite over the pin opening will keep it from sliding out. Nothing ground breaking here, just ran out of spare elevation units to bash. Sorry for the awful pics. Bad camera as well as operator.

Great fix.

I haven't run up against that yet, just the arms. After setting the clutch gear solid, I assume something has to give when it reaches the limit. I's not like the rotation where it can skip the ring if necessary.

Interestingly I just had this fixed up before the previous Danville battle in May with a gear that thecommander spared me (thank you Bob!). As you described, it was being worn round and CA wouldn't stop it from spinning. I now have a functioning gear, but I may have to resort to this the next time it fails.

Need to grab yourself some metal arms from ETO.
http://etoarmour.com/product_detail.php?productID=DP21

I ended up just making my own, 1 out of aluminum, the rest out of brass.

I have had it happen. The Pershing and the Panther are prone to this. Nice fix Bret.

I had this happen several times on my Panther and Pershing this happens one you replace slipper clutch with solid gear then if you try to over elevate your Barrel or depress it more you end up stripping out the gear on the mech arm .
My fix was to mount a couple limiter switches in the turret so you could only go so high or low and it would stop barrel before stripping out gear .

Jimmy

That's great idea Jimmy. How would you wire it to the motor to stop it but still provide power to move in the opposite direction? I assume it's like the recoil unit.

I got the pdf instructions from the yahoo impact group site a few years ago ill add it here .

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/...upgrades/files

Jimmy

I would like to add the PDF file here how would you save it here now with the new forum I had no problem in the old forum .
I can only see were you can do pic's .
Jimmy

Impact elevation limit switch mod .
 

Ok I found out how to save a file .

[ATTACH]2006228[/IMG]

Jimmy

Thanks!

As an alternative to modifying the Tamiya elevation unit, I just replaced it with a servo.

So far I've fit them in the Tiger (easy), Pershing, and Panzer IV (both kinda tight).

The fist Tiger turret show the original Tamiya unit, the 2nd pict is with the servo. When the turret is tight, the small the servo the better. For the Panzer IV and the Pershing I fabricated a mounting plate similar in shape to the old elev unit. The existing hardware was use to attach the plate, and silicon adhesive to hold the servo to it.

(double post removed)

@ksoc, So did you rewire the servo to fit the connector for the original Tamiya elevation gearbox or did you bypass the MFU and connect the servo into the radio receiver?

Thanks, Rudy

I got the wiring diagram from the guys at HEAT. (trouble linking to their website so see the attachment. No rewiring required, just the use of a 'Y' connector. This allows the Rx to control the servo AND still send a signal to the MFU to generate the turret motor sound.

Instead of the servo rate reducer they recommend, I got the Camera Position Controller because I use the stock Tamiya Tx stick arrangement.

Ratcheted stick - Servo Rate Reducer

Self Centering Stick - Camera Position Controller

http://dionysusdesign.com/product_in...roducts_id/190

Thanks Kevin!!!