Working on heng long, 1/16 RC Abrams

[keilau]

I received the Abrams from Toucan Hobby through FedEx today. It arrived in good condition. It comes with the original Heng Long Abrams manual showing battery cover at the tank bottom.

While the HL tank box arrived in good physical condition, the Abrams inside came with a turret split open.

I am very concerned, not knowing if it is repairable. I do not want a turret with a twisted lower half.

I examined the broken turret and try to figure out whether it is repairable or not. Some of the screw holes were molded incorrectly. The turret half may be permanently glued together, but not using screws.

I got an email from Toucan Hobby that they have sent a replacement turret shell to me on June 18. If the turret lower closure plate is molded correctly, I should be able to repair the turret easily. Figure crossed.

Did anyone else receive a Torsion Bar Abrams with a split turret?

[Rubicon99]

I examined the broken turret and try to figure out whether it is repairable or not. Some of the screw holes were molded incorrectly. The turret half may be permanently glued together, but not using screws.

I got an email from Toucan Hobby that they have sent a replacement turret shell to me on June 18. If the turret lower closure plate is molded correctly, I should be able to repair the turret easily. Figure crossed.

Did anyone else receive a Torsion Bar Abrams with a split turret?

That's a head scratcher.....I don't think I have ever seen a HL Abrams with that issue even going back several years to the 5.2 original version.

[keilau]

That's a head scratcher.....I don't think I have ever seen a HL Abrams with that issue even going back several years to the 5.2 original version.

Good to hear this. A correctly molded turret closure lower half should allow me to do the repair satisfactorily.

[tank_me]

Never seen that either in shipping. As I said before though, I modified mine so that the lower angle of armor is attached to the top so that I can open the turret without removing the bustle rack.

[keilau]

Never seen that either in shipping. As I said before though, I modified mine so that the lower angle of armor is attached to the top so that I can open the turret without removing the bustle rack.

In the email, Toucan sent only a picture of the top of the turret. Abrams has no auto loading (no tilting of barrel). I am ok with the trigger motor recoil. I have no upgrade planned for the turret. Just a quick fix to eliminate the open gap.

If the replacement turret lower half still had the same molding error. I can copy what you did to cut it into 2 pieces.

[keilau]

It is very disappointing since it has been a full month since I placed my order. I am still looking at a broken RC tank on my work bench, Finally, I got a 17track link on 6/26 morning US time from Toucan customer service, I got several confusing updage messages about emails. Can anyone help me to interpret what they mean? I only recognize "Dongguan City" as a major industrial city where Heng Long located in China.

2025-06-25 13:56
Dongguan City, the email left [Dongguan International Company Directly Affiliated International Business Department] and is being sent to [Guangshang Center]
2025-06-25 13:49
Dongguan City, the email has been sorted at [Dongguan International Company Directly Affiliated International Business Department] and is ready to be sent
2025-06-25 11:45
Dongguan City, Express delivery processing center [Dongguan City]
2025-06-25 11:35
Dongguan City, Express delivery arrival processing center [Dongguan City]
2025-06-25 10:46
Dongguan City, China Post has collected emails

[Evan D]

While I’ve had good customer service from toucan I have better from Motion

[SoCalBobS]

Keilau, from my experience it hasn't left China yet. It will have to get to Hong Kong for customs and a flight. I'm told that since China Post doesn't send to the US, it will have to wait until there is enough stuff to fill a charter cargo jet. 17Track seems to be the most thorough tracker. I do get occasional "suspicious link" notices when I use them, but since my firewall catches it, I don't worry too much. You know my opinion, none of this is the fault of the sellers, it's the new bureaucratic international maze we are now experiencing.

[keilau]

Keilau, from my experience it hasn't left China yet. It will have to get to Hong Kong for customs and a flight. I'm told that since China Post doesn't send to the US, it will have to wait until there is enough stuff to fill a charter cargo jet. 17Track seems to be the most thorough tracker. I do get occasional "suspicious link" notices when I use them, but since my firewall catches it, I don't worry too much. You know my opinion, none of this is the fault of the sellers, it's the new bureaucratic international maze we are now experiencing.

I finally am able to verify that the tracking that Toucan Hobby provided is a DHL tracking number. DHL is waiting for the package. I am very happy that they are using DHL.

[Meter Rat]

May ask? Do you have a link to the Heng Xin gearboxes? I seem unable to find them in the UK.

[keilau]

May ask? Do you have a link to the Heng Xin gearboxes? I seem unable to find them in the UK.

I consider the Heng Xin gearboxes to be a best value in ball bearing steel gear ones, but they are getting difficult to find. I got mine from Toucan Hobby:
https://www.toucanhobby.com/products/hx-dgb-s-ml59-bearing-dzn1?variant=44507354661114
https://www.toucanhobby.com/products/hx-dgb-s-ml59-bearing-dzn1?variant=44623837757690

I ordered them at US. The gearboxes were shipped from China. Postage to US is about $10 per pair.

If you have not use the Heng Xin before, be forewarned that they use a separate mounting plate making the installation very tricky. I like the mounting plate approach. While difficult to stall, once done, it provides the most sturdy mount and allows fine tuning of alignment. I have share my trial and tribulations with the Heng Xin in many posts. You can use the forum serach to find them.

[Meter Rat]

Thank you.

[keilau]

I gave up on the Mato sprocket and ordered an unassembled Heng Long sprocket from BangGood. $18 shipped from China.

I like sprocket comes in 2 half making track installation much easier.

The shipping of the sprocket from China took a little longer than I expected. I painted them and went on summer vacation. I started earlier this week to install the Tamiya tracks on the Abrams.

1. I noticed that the Tamiya track is about half inch longer than the plastic track from the HL Abrams. I removed 2 links from the Tamiya track to match the HL track length. It does not install because it is too short. The Tamiya track has thicker links which, I suspect, makes the effective length shorter.
2. I added back the 2 removed links and the track is too long even after I moved the track tension adjustor to the most outward position. The fact that HL have only 2 return rollers per side did not help.
3. I removed one link from the original track and the track is running very well. I like it much better than the HL plastic track.

[keilau]

Since DKLM currently do not ship to the US, I made the loudspeaker enclosure out of plastic project box from Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CL92X9WM?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1

The box is much sturdier than the DKLM enclosure. I lined it with 3M vibration damper.

[keilau]

Where can you put a 40mm thcik loudspeaker in the HL V2 torsion bar Abrams? The turret of the Abrams is sitting very low, making the space between the gearbox and the battery compartment not possible.

[keilau]

I received the Abrams from Toucan Hobby through FedEx today. It arrived in good condition. It comes with the original Heng Long Abrams manual showing battery cover at the tank bottom.

I just noticed that Toucan offer the original plastic version for $24 less. The listing does not show the torsion bar picture.

While the HL tank box arrived in good physical condition, the Abrams inside came with a turret split open.

I am very concerned, not knowing if it is repairable. I do not want a turret with a twisted lower half.

I tried to take the Abrams apart for a closer inspection but could not. The Abrams' bottom has 7 screw holes. I could only remove the screw nearest to the rear. It is a typical M3 self tapping anodized black Philips screw. The other 6 screws holes looks silvery at the end. It may be a flat head with a slot. But a flat head driver did not extract anything. I need firsthand experience help.

I examined the broken turret and try to figure out whether it is repairable or not. Some of the screw holes were molded incorrectly. The turret half may be permanently glued together, but not using screws.

I got an email from Toucan Hobby that they have sent a replacement turret shell to me on June 18. If the turret lower closure plate is molded correctly, I should be able to repair the turret easily. Figure crossed.

Did anyone else receive a Torsion Bar Abrams with a split turret?

I received the replacement turret parts a few weeks ago. The parts look good with no crack or other defect. But I was not able to assemble the turret properly. They just wont fit. At first, I blamed the design. The lower half of the turret is too flexible. I am replacing the barrel recoil unit with a servo recoil and no BB shooting which is much more compact than the HL original.

For more than a week, I looked for any interference from the new metal servo recoil unit with the torret and couldn't find any. I put back the original HL BB shooting unit and found the same problem that the torret will not close properly. Finally, I traced the problem to a mismatch of the shaft diameter (5.5mm) of the recoil unit elevation and the semi-circle opening (5.0mm) of the molded support on the torret. See picture below.

I used a rotatory tool grinder and enlarged the support hole to match the recoil unit shaft. The torret finally closed properly without any gap. It took almost 10 days to find the source of the problem, but took only 5 minutes to fix it.


I suspect that this is the same problem that made the HL assembly worker to force the torret and ended up cracking it.

I fixed the torret gap and eliminated the BB shooting unit protrusion. The next task is to build a platform for the 2.5" speaker.

[keilau]

Once I replaced the original HL BB shooting unit with a compact servo recoil, there is no protrusion from the torrent. I cut a small platform from an 1/16" thick plywood, mounted on the shortened poles of the original battery. The speaker is hot glued in place. The 2.5" speaker drive renders much better sound for the Abrams' gas turbine engine.

[keilau]

Once I replaced the original HL BB shooting unit with a compact servo recoil, there is no protrusion from the torrent. I cut a small platform from an 1/16" thick plywood, mounted on the shortened poles of the original battery. The speaker is hot glued in place. The 2.5" speaker drive renders much better sound for the Abrams' gas turbine engine.

I have a properly closed Abrams torrent and chassis. They look very good. I lost the BB shooting which I do not miss much. But I do not have barrel recoil because the HL Abrams came with a TK-7.0 MFU with no servo port. I cannot upgrade to TK-7.1 without spending another $90. I just spent $100 on a Tamiya Abrams track to replace the Leo2A6 Tamiya track.

[keilau]

I have a leftover Tongde radio system from the Patton M60A1 which has 2 servo ports. I put the Tongde TDC-X radio on the HL Abrams. Everything works as expected, but it has NO turbine engine sound. It defects the whole purpose of putting in a better sounding speaker. I guess I will have to get a TK-7.1.

[keilau]

I have only one HL TK-7.1 main board on a Leopard2a6 which needs diesel engine sound simulation. I came up with this brilliant idea of swapping the Tongde radio to the Leo and use the TK-7.1 on the Abrams. The Tongde radio has 2 servo ports which I need for the Leo.

The Tongde radio driving quality is as good as the HL TK7, but its range is much shorter. I swapped it out of the TD Patton M60A1 with a TK71 when I get tired of having to go to the edge of my lawn to pickup the M60. I may eventually put a TK71 back onto the Leo. For now, I want to finish my work on the Abrams first.