Schwimmwagen

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At the War and Peace Show in 2010 Dave Dibb was busy making a Dragon 1/6th scale Schwimmwagen kit. I'd seen the various 1/6th Schwimmwagens on the market before from the various manufacturers but was disappointed with them. In fact, one of them looked like bathtub on wheels! This model was available as a pre-built example from Modellers Loft in the UK (an exclusive?) and I'd seen it on their website and on their display stand and was very impressed with it. So when Dave started making one from a kit an idea formed in my head. I asked our man Howard if he thought it was a do-able project to make an RC model from the kit and he said he thought so. Below is the first few pictures of the project with some explanations of what's what.
 
Here we see the rear axle mounted inside the lower body of the kit. The front and rear axles are from Robbe and are designed for a 1/16th lorry models. They are quite robust with metal gears and ball race bearings. They have a 'dog bone' style drive to the diff and have been modified with 'dog bone' cups on the ends of the shortened half shafts. The rear axle has a drive in and out, this will pass the drive through to the front axle via a long driveshaft. From underneath you can see the pseudo suspension with the two rear wheels mounted... ...and here you can see the general arrangement clearer. In close up, you can see the extreme angle of the drive shafts but they do work ok. Here's the arrangement of the front axle with the Robbe axle mounted behind the fabricated double torsion bar suspension which replicates the original.
In this lower view you can see the front suspension assembly clearer. This close up view of the wheel shows the drive hub with it's 'dog bone' drive cup... ...and now with the drive shaft fitted. This is what it looks like from the front with the drive shafts fitted. Here we can see the track rod for the steering in front of the axle. We've yet to work out how to do the steering!
Short Vid
Here's the steering servo above the front axle driving a vertical shaft down through a custom made bronze bush... ...which pokes out underneath at the right height for the operating arm to bear on a short and a long track rod... ...like this. Note the straight track rod at the rear's been replaced with this revised arrangement, Mk2!! It's going to need a stronger servo (this is just a bog standard servo) as this struggles a bit. This view shows the main drive shaft with the toothed belt ready to go round the motor pulley. Note the longer bush to the rear of the model, this allows the shaft to be slid back when the grub screws are undone for removal. A short video of the model being tested outside his house ably assisted by his furry assistant who was chasing after the 40Mhz RX aerial!!! Taken on my steam driven mobile so excuse the quality.