Panzer 2 turret

[johann morris]

On 1/27/2023 at 1:30 AM, markyakyak said:

https://themilitariashop.com/collections/vehicle-parts

Thanks Mark, I had already found the site but I am not sure that they are worth the price being asked. I have previously contacted the person concerned but he said that he wasn't sure that they would be any good for what I wanted.

Evening all, it's only little old me coming out of hibernation. I thought that I would give you a quick update. I have been making quite a lot of changes as the assembly progresses, some out of necessity, others because I wasn't happy. I have changed most of the crimp connectors in the wiring for automotive connectors that won't pull apart easily. I have cut out any wiring in the old Jaguar system that aren't  absolutely necessary and rerouted a lot of others. The light switch failed before it was ever used properly so had to be replaced. I couldn't find an all metal one apart from in the USA but in the end I settled for one out of a Jeep, not exactly what I was looking for, because of the push down button but after some modification it looks perfect. I had to make a new back plate for the switch that was a bit more in keeping.

I designed what I thought an original one might look like, printed on to water slide transfer paper and applied it to a aluminium plate that i cut out of a piece of old Land Rover body work. I applied the transfer and when dry, gave it a coat of vehicle paint lacquer.

And in it's final resting place.

 

One part that I hadn't made, were the cones that go on the idler wheel centers. A very enjoyable bit of fabrication.

 

I have removed all the copper coolant pipes and replaced them with steel and rubber bends and joints, as I was worried that the soldered joints, in the copper pipe work, would fail through vibration. The plastic pipe clips that held the coolant pipes in place, have been replaced with stainless ones.

The exhaust has been wrapped and I have added a remote oil filter for easy access, along with a drain pipe from the engine sump, so that both are easily accessible. The pies from the engine and gearbox to their oil coolers now have quick fit couplings in the pipes.

I was always wondering where to put the fuel filter as I didn't want to put it in the engine bay and eventually decided to put it under the floor panel in the crew compartment.

I wanted to put a stop tap either side of the filter so that when the filter was changed I didn't end up with a big puddle, so I ordered two taps online at the beginning of January. They turned up on Thursday this week, all the way from Manchester. I wen't to fit them yesterday afternoon and instead of being 8mm, as I had ordered, they were 6mm, bugger. Wales is a lovely place to live but getting anything locally is neigh impossible.

Now you can say what you like about Amazon but I ordered two replacement taps yesterday and they were delivered before lunch today, now that's good going.

Other than that, I have spent many cold evenings painting labels on many different internal boxes, brackets etc. and attaching leather retaining straps where required.

 

That's all for now.

 

Jon

 

[johann morris]

Evening All,

It doesn't  feel like I have achieved much over the last month but I have been laid up for the last 3 weeks with a Bladder infection which entailed a nice nurse having to insert a catheter, a most unpleasant experience, the catheter I mean.

 

The cooling assembly is finished awaiting installation but I am not convinced that the radiator will have sufficient cooling capacity, time will tell and I have made it so that it will easily accept a deeper radiator.

 

  

I have made some instruction plates for the false gearbox casing,  as I can never remember the lever positions and I keep forgetting that It needs to be in neutral to start the engine.

I fitted all the floor plates only to find that I had forgotten to modify the one just behind the drivers seat so that the false gearbox cover can be bolted in place. That had to come back up to be modified and repainted which I had planned to do today but in the end I didn't have the energy.

Keeping the batteries in my vehicles charged is always a concern to me as they are not used that much, so they all have trickle chargers on but getting to the battery on this is a right pain. I decided to incorporate an access plug under the lift up part of the floor just behind the drivers seat so that I could plug in a trickle charger or even, if needs be, jump start leads. Maybe a bit over the top but while I am doing it I may as well do it as I see properly.

That's all for now.

 

Jon 

[67burwood]

Really starting to come together now Jon, attention to detail is spot on as usual 👍👍

[Enigma]

Excellent idea to install a plug for a charger/start leads. It may avoid a lot of grief in the future. Well done.

[eddy8men]

absolutely love it

[John F]

Is there a reason you decided to fit an auto box instead of the original 6-speed manual, Jon?

[welbike]

Better read the whole story John.

Cheers,

Lex

[John F]

Just now, welbike said:

Better read the whole story John.

Cheers,

Lex

I have read the whole story, I suppose I must have forgotten!

I'll go back & re-check...

[johann morris]

Evening All,

Thanks for the comments it all helps to keep me going.

I have had a really productive weekend for once, I have done masses of spraying Panzer grey and then lots of assembling.

The engine came with a set of electrics that were supposed to be ok to use but by and by most have been replaced which left the fuse / relay panel.

It was in a state to start with being 30 years old and I used it to cobble something up to get things started but there were always connectivity problems so I decided to bin it, also I wanted a separate  mains feeds from the battery to the starter and one to the rest of the electrics, meaning that all the internal electrical connections would be in one convenient place if something went wrong.

I bought a new fuse / relay module and made a new panel to affix it all to. This will be bolted by the side of the ECU's on the wall of the upper hull.

The radiator is in place and piped in.

The fly screen, or what ever it's called and the baffle have been fitted.

 

The exhaust and rear light have been sprayed and fitted.

The prop shafts on, the false gearbox cover is bolted in place and a lot of the internal fittings, boxes have been bolted in.

 

I have still got a couple of retaining straps to fit and a wooded toolbox to make but it's getting there.

Lastly, I decided that where I had fixed the charging socket was a silly idea, as every time the cover was opened the wires were pulled taught, so I made a bracket and fixed the socket to one of the floor supports.

Tank wise, that was my weekend but I still have a load more bits to assemble next week.

 

Jon

 

 

[Highland_laddie]

please give lots of notice for it's first public outing.  I want to be there to shake your hand.  It's been stunning to watch this come together.

Kudos for keeping going.

 

Julian

 

[teletech]

The audacity to build a replica tank from scratch is astounding and amazing to me.  The sheer number of parts and hours is beyond my comprehension, it's taken me years just to fully disassemble a CVR(T) and start going the other way and yet here you are!

That said, I can't imagine putting a British engine in even a pretend German tank.  Organ rejection seems likely.  The Jag motors were objectively pretty bad anyway.  I'd have suggested the Ford I-6 300 as a much more robust engine and Ford was a supporter of Germany at that time, so it's at least not in direct opposition.

[johann morris]

Just now, teletech said:

The audacity to build a replica tank from scratch is astounding and amazing to me.  The sheer number of parts and hours is beyond my comprehension, it's taken me years just to fully disassemble a CVR(T) and start going the other way and yet here you are!

That said, I can't imagine putting a British engine in even a pretend German tank.  Organ rejection seems likely.  The Jag motors were objectively pretty bad anyway.  I'd have suggested the Ford I-6 300 as a much more robust engine and Ford was a supporter of Germany at that time, so it's at least not in direct opposition.

I used what was available at the time and time will tell how well it will work. I was amazed when I tried it in, how well everything lined up, in both height and side to side, it makes one wonder was there a common design in use.  I thought the CVRT' s used a JAG J60 engine unless yours is a diesel, not that I know much about CVRT's.

Jon

[teletech]

7 minutes ago, johann morris said:

I used what was available at the time and time will tell how well it will work. I was amazed when I tried it in, how well everything lined up, in both height and side to side, it makes one wonder was there a common design in use.  I thought the CVRT' s used a JAG J60 engine unless yours is a diesel, not that I know much about CVRT's.

Jon

I understand the allure of the available and sympathize.

They did use the J60, and they were awful, part of the reason there were several replacement powerplants used.  They derated the motor in the CVR(T) to make less power, and that did help.  The Jag motor was brilliant and far ahead of it's time when it was designed and originally produced, but as it grew from a 3.4L to a 4.2L motor without any real redesign and Jaguar was always lacking the funds to recapitalize, so the design and tooling didn't improve.  The result was a motor with major problems with overheating, block-cracking between the cylinders, and a pronounced tendency to chuck the #4 conrod through the side of the block. 

Edited March 19, 2023 by teletech

[Fatboy]

Isn't the engine Johann is using the later AJ6/16? Which iirc has a much stronger block than the old xk6? Designed to be the base of a diesel unit that never was iirc...

jaguar AJ6 on Wikipedia

23 hours ago, teletech said:

I understand the allure of the available and sympathize.

They did use the J60, and they were awful, part of the reason there were several replacement powerplants used.  They derated the motor in the CVR(T) to make less power, and that did help.  The Jag motor was brilliant and far ahead of it's time when it was designed and originally produced, but as it grew from a 3.4L to a 4.2L motor without any real redesign and Jaguar was always lacking the funds to recapitalize, so the design and tooling didn't improve.  The result was a motor with major problems with overheating, block-cracking between the cylinders, and a pronounced tendency to chuck the #4 conrod through the side of the block. 

 

[teletech]

10 minutes ago, Fatboy said:

Isn't the engine Johann is using the later AJ6/16? Which iirc has a much stronger block than the old xk6? Designed to be the base of a diesel unit that never was iirc...

jaguar AJ6 on Wikipedia

 

Ah, that may well be, pardon my ignorance of the "new" model then.

[johann morris]

Evening All,

My first choice of engine was a Land Rover 300TDI but space was an issue and the question of where to put the inter cooler so i started looking around and came across the Jag 6 cylinder engine. I have no experience of Jaguar engines but I found a man that did and he steered me towards the engine that I now have. 

I have been doing a little wood work. I think that it was the last internal item that I was missing, a Werkzeugkasten 1.

I managed to find a couple of different ones on the web and decided to use this one as a pattern.

 

 

I have used a different design of catch, although the same pattern as I have used, were used on the other version of the box. The box above is obviously painted in sand colour and would be late war, I have assumed that mine would have been black but who knows.

Before painting.

 

 

And the finished item.

 

 

 

Jon

[John F]

Excellent work as always, Jon. If you're unsure about any of the wording on items in the vehicle please feel free to get in touch, as I think you know I'm a German technical translator with particular interest in the equipment of WW2.

[johann morris]

10 hours ago, John F said:

Excellent work as always, Jon. If you're unsure about any of the wording on items in the vehicle please feel free to get in touch, as I think you know I'm a German technical translator with particular interest in the equipment of WW2.

Morning John,

No I didn't know that and I wish that I had earlier but I do now.

Jon

[John F]

3 hours ago, johann morris said:

Morning John,

No I didn't know that and I wish that I had earlier but I do now.

Jon

Ah, I touched on the subject back in November 2020 when I offered to translate some documentation for you (but you said your wife would do it for you).

[NZM305]

So how does the progress continue Jon? 😁

[Niels v]

Jon you might already have these but otherwise https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0G8U4yj9yTdP6mkRFsa2bGSoAjUEsvb8mXCTk5Q5assyU2TgFaAF4o6B7eoPPMhZ1l&id=100013240741307

[johann morris]

Evening All,

 

I can't believe how long it is since I last posted anything, Life has been very busy, obviously not with the tank and a lot of it not very enjoyable but I have still found time to make some progress.

Niels, thanks for information and the link but social media is not a world that I enter into. However just as the project nears completion and on a totally unrelated search, I came across a German web site that has masses of different manuals including most of Panzer II ones but it appears to have disappeared from the internet.

As I said there has been progress but not that much and it mainly relates to the upper hull. I still had a few pieces to make such as the vision port covers and all the associated hinges, brackets etc and as I had made various modifications, the whole lot needed repainting. The vision port covers really caused me a mental block, I had already made three sets for the turret, I knew how much work was involved and I don't know why but it stalled the project for weeks.  Then by chance a cheap CNC milling machine came up for sale, much the same as I started programming in the early 1980's and as I had parts that I needed to make for my work I bought it. It made making the parts very easy and much more enjoyable.

This week I finished the upper hull and lifted it on but I can't bolt it in place as I need make a rubber gasket for the fuel filler which will entail lifting the upper hull up again to fit the gasket.

 

 

 

 

And that's it for now.

 

Jon

 

[67burwood]

Progress is still progress Jon no matter how slow and the attention to detail takes time, you know you won’t be happy if it’s rushed and not quite right. Keep up the good work, looking forward to the next update. 
 

Seamus 

[Rednjoey]

I see Ukraine is having a fire sale on used tank tracks at the moment. Surely something there might fit?

[johann morris]

Where did you see that advertised? I haven't found anything yet that would fit, maybe I am not being imaginative enough. A member of the MLU forum stated that there were loads of tracks about that would fit in the construction industry but when I sent him a Picture he went very quiet. 

 

Jon