Hi!

I recently started working on Dragon's M4A3E8 Sherman (#6183) and it looks like it'll make a nice and relatively trouble-free build, and I found some good articles and references on building it as Colonel Abrams' Thunderbolt VII.

However, there's one thing that I've found puzzling, that being the transmission housing and the final drive covers.
I'd love to hear from you who have tackled the kit, before I introduce any glue to the hull and suspension components.

Okay, here we go:
If assembled following the instructions, the final drive covers are to be glued into recesses:

I'm no shermaholic (yet... ), but shouldn't the sides of the transmission housing be flush with the hull sides?
Looking to a couple of reference books as well as photos found by googling around, there doesn't appear to be any kind of recess there: -1-

Kit parts A13 & A14, marked as "not used" in the sprue map in the instructions looked like they'd fit right in the aforementioned recesses after some trimming at the top and rear:


Lo and behold, looks much closer to reality now:

Now all it takes to bring the sides of the transmission housing nose flush with the sides is to glue in some styrene sheet to the sides and trim off the excess.

But now that brings up a few more questions:
1) Shouldn't the final drive cover attach right on the front edge of the transmission housing instead of slightly back when assembled out of the box? Like this: -2-

2) With the final drive housings now extending further out than OOTB, I presume the rest of the suspension system will also need tweaking to make everything line up correctly?

3) Is it just me, but looking a head-on photo of the real McCoy and comparing it the kits parts, doesn't it seem that the drive sprocket is extending further out?

So trimming the sprocket mounting peg might be enough to compensate for the extension plate (A13, A14)...?

I checked out both the kit review on PMMS and the very useful build article right here on Armorama, but neither said much relating to the transmission housing.

I'd be very grateful of advice from those of you more accustomed to Shermans.


Ps. Oh, one more thing I almost forgot. Are the engine access hatch handles fixed or collapsible? I got a funny feeling of seeing someone commenting on a sherman build that the access door handles weren't fixed. Or is I just me thinking up nonexistent stuff?
Photos of museum vehicles seem to show fixed handles...

No, no! The transmission housing was machined to fit within the hull plates, like so:



Quite often it's hard to see, but it's there.

Jim

Oh yeah, the final drive cover appears to be the too small one Dragon used in some of their kits. See this PMMS review .

Jim

Hi Eetu

I believe this is the thread you have in mind (no need to call a psychiatrist )
http://www.network54.com/Forum/110741/thread/1303110664/Dorable+June3+%281-35+Sherman%29

HTH

Frenchy

I'm actually in the middle of building the same kit.

On the Prime Portal website... looking at the various M4A3 based tanks, looks to me like the handles don't fold down.

For example:

http://data.primeportal.net/tanks/dan_reed/m4a3e2/m4a3e2_22_of_47.jpg

Thanks for the advice and clarifying pics! Those pics of the hull and transmission cover without the suspension and stuff obscuring the view are kind of hard to come by.

I checked around for reviews of other kits and this one of Dragon's M4A3 (76)W adressed the transmission cover and final drive housing issue in much more detail than that of the easy eight kit in question.

Funny thing about the undersized final drive covers. Thinking about it, I realized I had pair of unused AFV Club parts in my spares box. Turns out they're even smaller than these earlier undersized Dragon efforts in the #6183 kit!



Thanks! Good to hear I wasn't hallucinating after all. That discussion might have been just the one I came across, though I remembered it being right here on Armorama.



Noticed that too, guess I'll go with the majority and do the handles fixed then.

Thanks again for the help everyone.

One more silly question, if I may?

Fiddling with the hull components, I noticed this thing that I find weird: notches in the lower hull, apparently meant to mate with the mounting pegs moulded inside the upper hull.


If the hull is to be assembled like it seems to have been intended, with the lower hull fitting against the mounting pegs inside the upper hull, there forms a step in the rear. Of course, assembling the hull this way will tilt the rear of the upper hull down.
Is it supposed to be this way?


Not being that accustomed with Shermans, I was under the impression that the hull bottom line and the lower edge of the upper hull would be parallel to each other. Or that at least there wouldn't be a step like that...
Should there indeed be a step like that in the rear?

Out of curiosity, I dug out the earlier "Battle of the Bulge" Dragon Sherman from my stash for comparison. Turns out the components have been tweaked somewhere along the line, as the neither the rearmost mounting pegs in the upper hull or notches in the lower hull are present on this earlier kit. I wonder why they'd make such alterations if it throws the hull alignment off kilter?

I did some googling around for photos but didn't come across any showing this particular area.

Hints and pointers will be greatly appreciated.