Improving Tank Workshop MAZ-537 wheels: (at ZERO additional cost.)

If you are like me and are building one or more of the popular MAZ-537 kits from Trumpeter you have already checked out the beautiful after-market resin wheels and tires available from Tank Workshop.

However after mailing in you hard earned rubles, dollars, yen, etc. you find that you are disappointed by the severely too small center hubs and the odd design of the wheel mounting lug nuts. (I guess you would have to say that the opinions expressed here are my personal views and no others. OK disclaimer posted.)

But what follows is a way to drastically improve the looks of the wheel hubs without spending a single additional penny other than possibly expending an excessive amount of elbow grease to accomplish the task!

COMPARISON: An original Trumpeter wheel on the left - - - - Unmodified Tank Workshop wheel on the right

Original unmodified Tank Workshop wheel on the left - - - - Modified TW wheel on the right




Begin by cutting off the rear wheel drum rings

Done - at this point the wheel hub is a bloody mess but that will be fixed later by a LOT of sanding.



(Save those cast off wheel rings, with some cleanup who knows what they can be used for. (I already used three of them elsewhere on my MAZ.)

At this point trim the wheel rim off the edge of the hub. Be careful not to cut too deep.



OK that is the rough trim, now time to file the rim smooth.

You need to add a .010 shim ring to the inside rear of the Trumpeter hub. The surprise here is that with this shim the new hub will press fit onto the old TW wheel hub without the need for gluing.

Well after some mild filing around the rim and a LOT of sanding on the back side of the hub to thin it down to the necessary thickness here is what we have:

PREPPING THE TW WHEEL:

You need to sand off the top of the original Tank Workshop wheel hub and then some. Seriously do not sand off just the hub detail, take a bit of the top of the hub off as well otherwise the Trumpeter part will not set down low enough.




You will also need to cut off the TW resin lug nuts. An Exacto knife will make short work of this step:

If you should want to add a little bit more detail to the hub then there are three deep depressions in the Trumpeter hub that you might want to open up. We should be able to see through these openings, try by drilling them out:

So you end up with these refined Trumpeter hubs that will push onto the Tank Workshop wheels and mount with or without gluing.

(If you leave them unglued it will make painting the Russian whitewalls really easy.)

FINISHED!


Above I needed to take a little bit more off the top of this wheel hub, otherwise the new hub will not sit down far enough into the wheel rim.

Here is the MAZ-537 F/A push tractor that I am currently working on. This photo shows three out of the eight wheels converted. Today I am up to five out of eight of the wheels! Only three more to go.

Excellent work there Michael.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that noticed this too. The rim detail REALLY makes a difference.





Jeff

Nice work!
That's what I like to see.

Cheers Rob.

Some reference for comparison:

I just now noticed this detail in the photo above - maybe I should be putting a thin shim ring between the hub and the wheel rim. Also notice the splits in the outer edges of both the main hub rim AND the shim ring. (Some may have noticed this in my photos already that I did model the split in the primary hub ring.)

Thanks Jeff and Rob. - Mike

If interested; a build log on the MAZ-537 F/A that I show in this article starts halfway down this Armorama page:

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/196250&ord=&page=3

Wheels after painting - again having removable center hubs sure made painting the whitewalls a breeze!

Interesting training image of the MAZ-537:

The second Disney "Cars" movie went on the International Auto Racing Circuit and involved international spies and foreign intrigue.

If only the movie had included a Russian component MAZZY here could have had a starring role!

(Illustration by S-a-p-p-e-r)

Want to test drive a 537 or 543 (at least on your computer?)

Check out a fairly recent new video game entitled "Spin Tires".




YouTube demo video at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv2-8IS-jfU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4gK9BCKGxw