ARE METAL WHEELS OVERRATED?

[dai phan]

Hi all,

I look at the wheels on my M60A3 and the majority of the wheels are protected by thick rubber rings. With that being said do metal wheels offer any advantages over plastic ones? I just cannot see how metal wheels justify for additional cost? Dai

[Rubicon99]

Hi all,

I look at the wheels on my M60A3 and the majority of the wheels are protected by thick rubber rings. With that being said do metal wheels offer any advantages over plastic ones? I just cannot see how metal wheels justify for additional cost? Dai

In regards to TD products the benefit is that the metal wheels come with bearings from the factory and plastic wheels only have loose fitting nylon bushing. The nylon makes the wheels have a bit of wobble. The TD plastic wheels can be fitted with drop in bearings and if they are they are equally good and solid running. My M60A2 has plastic wheels upgraded to bearings.

Other companies like Tamiya use only plastic wheels. Tamiya tanks like the Abrams, Sheridan, Centurion and others are all plastic wheels with copper bushing or optional metal bearings.

The nice part about TD compared to HL is that TD plastic wheels can be upgraded with "drop in" bearings and HL plastic wheels can not. So when it comes to HL it is better to buy the metal wheels with bearings.

In regards to the TD M60 there are other reasons to buy the "metal" edition. The torsion bars are set to a higher torque setting providing a proper ride height, the suspension arms are dual bearing supported and the excellent sealed metal case bearing gearboxes.

[keilau]

Hi all,

I look at the wheels on my M60A3 and the majority of the wheels are protected by thick rubber rings. With that being said do metal wheels offer any advantages over plastic ones? I just cannot see how metal wheels justify for additional cost? Dai

The answer is "YES" and "NO". The Tongde M60 plastic road wheels come with nylon bushings making the alignment of the plastic road wheels not precise and can cause premature wear. NO, the plastic road wheels are not inferior because it is precision molded to accept press fit standard size ball bearings to make the alignment precise. In general, it is better to put the tank weight on the power driven moving tracks than on the passive road wheels. Keeping the plastic road wheels with ball bearings, I avoid having to upgrade to the expensive Metal PDSGB Gearbox. The cheaper TD metal gearbox with 390 motor work very well.

I spent a small fortune to get name brand ball bearings at Amazon. You can get generic ball bearings much cheaper on ebay.

p.s. It seems that I just repeated what Rubicon99 already said.