Upgrade 1/16 Heng Long standard to sealed gear box

[Broffermoon]

New to RC tanks, studying durability issues and strength questions on a Heng Long 6.0 M1A2, discovered that to put metal gear and metal tracks requires a motor upgrade. Decided to go with sealed ones. Using all Heng Long parts from Toucan Hobbies. Anything I need to be aware of in doing this upgrade? Thanks in advance.

[Rubicon99]

New to RC tanks, studying durability issues and strength questions on a Heng Long 6.0 M1A2, discovered that to put metal gear and metal tracks requires a motor upgrade. Decided to go with sealed ones. Using all Heng Long parts from Toucan Hobbies. Anything I need to be aware of in doing this upgrade? Thanks in advance.

The 6.0 Abrams should come standard now with steel gears. All you really need is the drive axle bearings. You can spend money on a HL upgraded gear box but you are still getting the same gears in a nicer wrapper.

For motors the HL Red 390s really help the Abrams with smother turning and top end speed.

The all metal HL brand tracks offer little in the way of better grip but are stronger then stock plastic tracks. IMO look for aftermarket sets that have rubber pads. There are a few types of these all are reasonably good but the absolute best are Tamiya Abrams tracks which are $$$$$$$ to say the least.

An alternative is to use Tamiya Leopard 2 tracks. These are almost as good as their Tamiya tracks yet less expensive.

[fuchstraumer]

toucanhobby sells a full set of the rubber tracks (mato style, rubber inside and out afaik), I have those on the way but they've been stuck waiting to ship. they're fairly affordable, but be sure to find a good rubber-metal epoxy. I have some of the special hard-to-find MxBon stuff coming from Stanlley at rctanklegion, but out of curiosity (and because I do need some good CA glue sooner rather than later), I also ordered KBL-500 CA from starbond. It's apparently pretty good at that kind of use as well. I'll probably post about it somewhere on my blog once this hardware comes in, since I've been meaning to do an easy-to-google roundup of more RC tank topics.

I also ordered two of those sealed gearboxes, out of curiosity. They weren't that much more expensive than the naked steel ones and do seem to be a little more robust, namely having a thicker steel frame and better mounts for the bearings

Otherwise totally echo that you should be looking at drive axle support bearings. Those are really the best long-term investment for reliability in your running gear, and for keeping your gearbox working optimally the longest (my old walker bulldog from ~2010 eventually bent the gearbox out of shape after a few months - wish I knew about DAS bearings back then!). I got the sealed gearboxes mostly to see if it affects noise levels and helps keep dirt/dust out of them, but DAS bearings are really super great and I put them in all my tanks as the first mod out of the gate - even on tanks I don't plan to modify at all beyond cosmetic stuff, like the Haya Chieftain. It's just a really good and solid mechanical thing to do! Definitely not as entertaining or cool as those gearboxes, but I'd argue it's essential.

also fwiw - ToucanHobby sells a package deal of rubber tracks + rubber tire + bearing roadwheels + nice idlers w bearings + nice sprockets. you could also probably ask for them to include the idler support bar for a bit extra too: the language barrier can be difficult but they're super easy to work with on package deals like that. unfortunately ebay killed the ability to offer more than the buy it now price though, which was their main method of providing those deals to consumers. I had to go through a whole thing with them on communicating this, ultimately they just sent me a paypal invoice. Depending how much you trust them, it works.

[Broffermoon]

Thank you for your information. Very exciting to enter into a new realm of FUN. The DAS sounds important. Any reliable source for DAS?

[Broffermoon]

Off topic a bit, have friends who were tankers in Iraq. They took off rubber off the tracks to enhance traction in the sand. One tanker happens to be a RC drag racer. I peaked his interest in tanks. May have another convert to the world of RC tanks. Interesting times ahead.

[Rubicon99]

Thank you for your information. Very exciting to enter into a new realm of FUN. The DAS sounds important. Any reliable source for DAS?

The 6.0 Abrams comes with the support last I checked. What is needed are the bearings that go in the supports.

With RC tanks there is no issues with traction in soft “fine” sand so things are a bit different. That said it is fun to find what tracks work better where and with what tanks. Kinda mix and matching to find the absolute best performance envelop for a given tanks type and the level of modification it has.

[fuchstraumer]

Thank you for your information. Very exciting to enter into a new realm of FUN. The DAS sounds important. Any reliable source for DAS?

The "Tank Zhang" store on AliExpress has them. Link

They look like they come with the support that you don't need, though? Might also just be able to find bearings of the right dimensions online... but I don't know what those dimensions are, unfortunately. Been meaning to figure that out myself but just been swamped with work and things going on in my city.

For adjusting tank tracks on RC tanks, I doubt you'll need to remove the rubber. The most I do is adjust the springs on the suspension - on my Challenger 2 I adjusted the suspension near the gearbox to use the stiffer setting (less compression when accelerating, less chance to throw a track). That does enough, but you can go further and stiffen one of the ones near the front (I did second from the front), and then soften the rest by just drilling your own suspension holes. I found that this gives a good mix of nice responsive suspension that's fun to look at (and which responds well to rough terrain, especially with the Chally's HUGE travel) but is also stiff enough where it counts to not throw tracks in tricky terrain or under load.

That being said, I know things like the Leo 2 tracks sold by some vendors can have metal ice cleats installed instead of the rubber. I really don't see when that'd matter though, and I think it'd end up being unduly pricey for any advantages it may offer (and even then only on limited terrain types)

[Beeg]

Yes. Takes a couple weeks but Tank Zhang is about the only place to get them. Just got a set from them last week.



Hopefully this will all be much simpler when Motion RC gets their shipment of tanks and spare parts. I'm assuming the drive shaft bearings are a "Heng Long" part and not a 3rd party aftermarket option.

[Rubicon99]

The "Tank Zhang" store on AliExpress has them. Link

They look like they come with the support that you don't need, though? Might also just be able to find bearings of the right dimensions online... but I don't know what those dimensions are, unfortunately. Been meaning to figure that out myself but just been swamped with work and things going on in my city.

For adjusting tank tracks on RC tanks, I doubt you'll need to remove the rubber. The most I do is adjust the springs on the suspension - on my Challenger 2 I adjusted the suspension near the gearbox to use the stiffer setting (less compression when accelerating, less chance to throw a track). That does enough, but you can go further and stiffen one of the ones near the front (I did second from the front), and then soften the rest by just drilling your own suspension holes. I found that this gives a good mix of nice responsive suspension that's fun to look at (and which responds well to rough terrain, especially with the Chally's HUGE travel) but is also stiff enough where it counts to not throw tracks in tricky terrain or under load.

That being said, I know things like the Leo 2 tracks sold by some vendors can have metal ice cleats installed instead of the rubber. I really don't see when that'd matter though, and I think it'd end up being unduly pricey for any advantages it may offer (and even then only on limited terrain types)

The 6.0 Abrams and Challenger now both come with idler track tensioning systems similar to the Leopard 2. So there is now far less need to tighten/stiffen the suspension springs. Though it is a good practice especially on the larger and heavier modern tanks to stiffen the last two road wheel arm springs to keep the rear end from sagging.

“Tank Zhang” is the name I suspect Heng Long uses for their factory store on Aliexpress. The shipping address I have received on packaging slips just so happens to be the same as the ones I have received direct from Heng Long. Were the items “drop shipped” maybe, maybe not. What does this mean? Absolutely nothing as long as we can get the parts we need in a timely manner!