jdmcm

Amen brother! I like your style!

Yeah probably not my best plan, with the amount of stuff sitting here waiting for some love I best try to focus and not add fuel to an already out of control fire. Thanks everyone for their input...Now about those turretless cents Rick....:-D

Mark, did you see the MTLB that Idaho motor pool had? Not a bad looking vehicle John

Hello guys any chance of finding a turret in the UK to turn the Centaur tank dozer now for sale on Milweb, into a gun tank? Or is this going to be harder than finding a decent US presidential candidate? (ranking that with impossible) Regards John

I thought you sold the T55 Mark? Or did you buy another?

Great project! I really appreciate your intent to keep it as original as possible. We obtained a Type 69 tank from the UK last year that was captured in Iraq by the British Airborne. We hope to return it to "as captured" condition without over-restoring it. Good luck with the turret hunt! John

Hi Malcolm any progress on the T-54? If you are ordering parts from Poland let me know, I would like to grab some clutch plates for spares Regards John

Try Brent Mullins in College Station Texas, he has an M10 turret, well most of one, some of the armor plate has been cut away leaving kind of a skeleton...very restorable, he may sell that John

I would think you should be able to machine the pressure plate pretty easily, were you able to check the springs to see how close they were to each other? Leopards plural? Outstanding! JOHN

Hi Malcolm that is interesting, I will check our clutches and see what thickness the plates are. Good lucky with the clean out if the hull, will sure make maintenance more pleasant going forward....speaking of Poland...when is the Leopard arriving? John

Sorry Malcolm, book has no spec's on spring rates or pressures... How are things coming? Regards John

fake gun fabricated and installed

Hi Malcolm away for the weekend but will check the book when I get home for you. Do you know Dave Bane at the East Indiana Armor Collection? He has several soviet era tanks including T-54's. He may also have the spares you need John

Very nice of you to share all this information Malcolm, every little bit of knowledge helps keep these vehicles going and helps others avoid problems and or troubleshoot and repair problems which occur, very much appreciated Regards John

Andrew The engine looks like a work of art, was it difficult to source a starting motor or did you rebuild the original? Regards John

As far as I know there is no updated clutch except for the upgrade from 17 to 19 discs. Any idea what caused the overheating? The clutch is almost an off/on style clutch more reminiscent of a PTO clutch than anything seen in US or British tanks prior to them all going automatic

Malcolm Wouldn't hurt to pull the oil tank even now, when we cleaned ours out you wouldn't believe the mess that came out of it. You are in a great position now to do a bunch of chores that never get done due to the cramped quarters of the T-54 engine bay. I hope I can make it out your way and come see this beast in person...I am not sure how many of this type of tank are currently in Canada. Mark Flemming from North Vancouver sold his T-55 to a well heeled collector in the Fraser Valley, we have our Type 69 captured in Iraq, there is a turretless T72 in private hands in the Calgary area, being or been adapted for fire fighting, the T-54 sitting in front of KW Surplus also in Ontario and yours. Do you guys know of any others?

Come on Malcolm the suspense is killing me!!!!

The next joke writes itself!

And they sure don't like to slip, they like off and on...hence the lurch on start out!

According to the manual the two large cut outs are designed to allow both moisture and debris out of the confines of the clutch pack. This started with the Type 69 like ours, it is also evident on the Type 69 at Marine Corp Base (MCB) Camp Pendleton. I have also seen this on various T-55's.

Malcolm those steel disks are the friction material, page 390, para 5 of the manual states: " like the drive discs, the driven friction disks are steel with ground friction surfaces. The drive discs have external teeth and the driven discs have internal teeth" In our clutch that is it, there is no conventional friction material like you see on the clutch of a car or truck. Very interested once you get yours open to see if it is any different but I suspect it is not. In our clutch we have ten steel driving discs and nine steel driven discs for a total of 19 discs (up from the previous models which had 17). You can see why when the tank sits and there is moisture in the engine bay how the clutch plates can become frozen together, I realize that is not your issue but it can and does happen. John

Malcolm here are few pictures of the clutch guts, you can see the friction disks (all ground steel) and the driven disks. Also on our Type 69 there is a clutch in the blower fan hub itself which will protect the fan drive from shock in the case of sudden RPM change or debris jamming the fan itself. After you set up the drive gears you could check that if it is still noisy. Not sure if the T 54 has that feature or not. That was a very nice tank as I recall and in great shape inside, I believe it was imported and owned by Greg Taylor, the head restoration guru at the Littlefield collection, great acquisition!

On the subject of fan noise, once your transmission is out you can thoroughly check the fan for damaged blades or areas of the fan surround that are coming into contact with the fan. On the Type 69 we have the fan is much larger than the T-54 as the Chinese copied the large fan of the T-62/64 family. Lots of tanks have the hinged panel on the right rear hull missing which allows debris to fall directly into the fan intake and can wreak havoc on the fan blades/vanes. Malcolm where did your T-54 come from? Is it actual Russian manufacture or Polish or Czech? I am assuming it is the one at the Ontario Regiment Collection? Would love to know the history of it. We have been able to trace ours back to within days of its capture in 2003.

I have a spare clutch that has been disassembled, I will try to post some pictures in the next day or so. Unlike a truck clutch, they do not seem to tolerate excess slipping, it is not uncommon to see these tanks lurch forward when the clutch is released. Is this a cause of improper adjustment or simply a characteristic of the design? David can you weigh in on this?