Don, Heavy Company, 2/3 ACR 82-86. Platoon leader and later XO. Your comments on the kit, and on the real thing, are spot on. Not much for the rest of us to add! I would say I was very happy to see the detail on the mounts for the road wheel arms. They got the mounts for the torsion bar anchors just right. That whole assembly was a major weakness on previous kits.

This is a really nice kit so far, just some minor glitches
Here I temporary fit the fenders to the hull to install the fender supports in the proper position.

There are a lot of push pin marks on the Fender bottoms to fill.

That's all for now.
Donald

Thomas,
Great photo of a 1/11 ACR tank. I wish I had some photos of My M60A1 (Hotel 36) or my Sheridan (F36)but I never carried my camera to the field. Funny story though, my first "date" with my wife was in August 1977 on the Bad Kissingen hardstand, she was a DoD school teacher, and had never seen the inside of a tank before. I'm still married to her-- I doubt many folks remember the M60 the same way I do!. As I was studying the photos in this thread, I noted the photo of the torsion bars in the hull. In July 77 I was at Wildflecken, and we were traveling cross country. We hit a ditch, and "bang"! the third right road wheel torsion bar snapped. It came right through the metal housing and jammed the turret floor-- what a mess to get that thing out. I also lost a set of binoculars in the same exercise that slipped out of the mounting bracket and lodged between the capstan and turret ring as I was rotating the turret from the TC's position. It crushed those binos like an egg shell, case and all. We had the last of the early M60A1s in 2/11. They still had the steel road wheels. I'm not sure if H company ever got the aluminum wheels, the next transition we saw was to the M60A3 in the spring of 1980, by then I'd moved from H Co. to F Troop and the M551. What memories this thread has brought back for me-- so much so that I went out and got one of these kits. It's a gem (although the surface texture is a little heavy). VR, Russ

First thing I was wrong AFV does include the grill door combat locks they are added further in the build. Simply amazing detail. I will deal with the odd texture, the detail is fantastic.

Russ in 1st Squadron we called it Tank Company, it was nice getting a new tank. I PCSed in 79 to Fort Stewart and ancient worn out IR M60A1s in the 24ID. I didn't meet my wife until college after my first ETS. I'm holding the grease gun in the picture. It's a shame the kit is a fairly early M60 I'm sure more will follow but it won't take much to model my 11th ACR tank. I was the Platoon Sergeants driver for most of my tour.

I took a lot of pictures because I wanted to have something to show my kids about what I did in the Army. My father had very few pictures of his days as a Marine and I didn't want to repeat that. I went on to 22 years in the Jersey National Guard and got to TC and eventually become a PLT SGT myself. M48A5s in 82, A3s in 89 and M1s in 94. Our old OP, OP Alpha is now a museum.

Don, sorry to hijack the blog. Any further questions or info you my need ask away you have a lot of Dino Riders following this build. It is a great kit. What to do with the ESCI and Academy Kits I have left.

Tom

It's OK It's interesting to hear about experiences in the armor.
Now back to the build.
Below I have the major components added to the fenders, fenders are temporarily installed.


I have a question for those of you experienced with the M60.
In the Pic. below AFV Club has a fixture on the aircleaner.
What is it , & is it suppose to be there?


It looks like some kind of sensor, to tell when the air cleaner needs to be changed.
Thanks.
Donald

(Up Date)
I removed the sensors & cleaned up the ends of the Air Cleaners.
Donald

That is the dust indicator bulb. It was a clear piece that gauges how much dust was in the air cleaner. You'd push the black button on the end to re-set it. It was not on early top loading boxes and I doubt was ever on a side loading air cleaner box? Or could have been retro-fitted but then wouldn't they then just change the whole box for a top loading one?


The dust indicators appeared after top loading boxes were standard. Though common on M60A3's they were by no means universal. The manual had the notation in the PMCS "If equipped" so they were not universal.

Don you are absolutely right its an air flow restriction indicator. I did not see one in use until M60A3s though. It was definitely not used on side loading air cleaners in your picture.
Also unless they got wet air filters were very rarely changed. I never saw them changed. If they were dirty a crewman carried them over to the closest source of compressed air and blew them out. Didn't happen often in Germany quite a lot stateside, Less dust in Germany.

Tom

I have started the assembly of the Gun.

Assemble E43 & E44 over & arround the metal Gun Barrel.
The plastic parts have a flat area that fit the flat section of the Gun Barrel. If you glue them together you won't be able to get the Gun Barrel through the hole in them.




There is a spring that goes inside in case you want to recoil the Gun. " Another Gimick "

All ready for the Breech .
Did this Gun have a recoil cylinder ?

This is as far as the Gun will fit without reaming out the mount hole.

The Block can be left Open or Closed.


The Mg. looks a little small.

I'm working on mounting it in the Turret next.
Donald

The M73 really was that small. Tiny little piece of garbage I was very fortunate to have had only a very brief association with.

Wonder if AFV-CLub will include an M240 when they do the M60A3?

Don the M60s used a concentric recoil system, the tube that the gun tube passes through is the recoil cylinder. The spring in the middle on the kit is very similar to the way it is full size, It saves a lot of room inside the turret. The M73 and later M219 were machine guns designed for tanks and used a reciever about half the size of the M1919. It was a one shot machine gun and another failure that Uncle Sam inflicted on his tankers.

Tom

Donald There is an A1 or A3 at the armory just 6 miles from my home it also has a dzer blade on the front ( or that may be the one in MACON ) but i can go and photo any part you need just send me a message if you need I have been meaning to go and photo it so I can upload them to prime portal
ps looks like a great kit as i want to build one as well

Donald and Tom, and anyone else watching this thread.
I went out an bought one of these kits after following the thread for a while-- its stunning, but there are a couple of minor things (like the airflow indicator bulb pointed out earlier). One that I noticed while looking at the steel road wheels is the absence of the lubricating indicator on the hub for an early M60A1. As I recall, these were a clear circular glass "window" so you could check to see if the hub had lubricant inside they were about the size of a nickle inside an indentation in the hub. Not sure you'd see these in 1/35 scale after weathering, but they were there nonetheless. Prior to that, there was a metal grease gun "nipple", and it was part of PMCS to pump grease into the hub periodically, but there was no way to see if you got enough grease in the hub (Unles it came out the back, and then you knew the seal was shot). One of the first things you learned at Motor Officer School was to rebuild the needle bearings in the hub of an M60 that didn't get enough grease-- this was a common ailment of the earlier tanks. In 2/11 ACR, I remember we had a combination of nipples and window hubs on some tanks for a while until they were all eventually replaced. I agree with Tom about the M73-- it was a piece of crap, prone to jamming, and difficult to get to (but so was the M-85). I don't remember if the later M60A1 RISE tanks had the inspection window in the hub, but I suspect they did.
VR, Russ

Russ, I started out as a driver 19F10 back in the day. So I spent alot of time with a greasegun. On the RISE passive I had and the A3s later there was a grease relief valve on the opposite side of the grease nipple. To top it off you pumped grease until some came out of the relief valve. If you went in water or for a Q service you put in grease until clean grease came out. You used a lot of GAA. A weathering tip there was always grease stains on the road wheels due to that proceedure.

Guys I have to look are there grease fittings on the road wheels?

Thanks.
This kit is realy realy good.
Donald

Now for installing the Gun in the Turret.
The 2 Turret parts go together really good, the seam almost vanishes


I inserted the Gun from the inside.

Then glued it in place even with the front Turret edge.

You may have to trim the bumps on the front of the mount to get the Mantlet cover to fit properly.

Here the Mantlet cover is installed.

It attaches good with regular liquid glue, (no super glue needed)

Note detail on bottom of Bore Evacuator
Is this right ?

The completed Gun instalation.

They also give you a uncovered Mantlet in case you want to do it yourself.


I'll be working on the rest of the turret next.
Donald

Great pics of the old beast. I took basic on the A1 and had them at my first unit at Ft Carson. We transitioned to A3s in the summer of 84. When I got to Germany 2-68 Armor had A3s. I was there from 85-88. I taught the last 19E BNCOC class at FT Knox. Then I was transferred to 1st Armor training Brigade and taught National Guard troops going through basic on the remaining A3s in our unit. I switched back and forth from these to M1A1s.

Don; Thanks for the building notes. I just purchased the kit and I'm writing all of your corrections in the instructions booklet.

I don't remember if the bore evacuator had a drain plug. If it did I never saw it used. We would take it off to clean and that was a dirty job. The interior would be covered in propellant residue. The inside of the bore evacuator would be coated with grease to make cleaning easier. Once CLP (cleaner, lubricant, protectant) a silicon multi-purpose liquid came out that was used instead.

Some where in the back of my mind I remember something about rotating the plug up fill with gun cleaner spin it a few times then drain with the plug on the bottom. Again never saw it done.

Don, very informative blog, have you decided on a paint and marking option yet?

Tom

Some thing I remembered about the mantlet cover there were screw claps around the telescope and coax ports and a big one around the gun tube bellows. Small ones around the search light mounts it had to be water tight for fording. The ports actually protrude through the cover. Our tanks came with a fording kit that would have allowed them to ford to the turret top. It would have taken 12 hours to set up though.

Tom

Yea they were like big hose clamps

Don, Tom & crew,
Since I don't live to far away, I went over to Fort Lewis to get a look at the M60 (not an A1-- since they don't have one on base) and the CEV they have in the museum display. Both vehicles have the hub grease fittings as Don explained above, neither had the glass "view-ports" I remember, so either I'm mistaken (the M114 sitting next door did have glass ports, and the M551 had the retrofit grease fitting where the view-ports were, so I might be remembering it wrong. The grease fittings on the hubs are not quite opposite each other, but close enough-- the kit definitely does not have them, but then again, in 1/35 scale, I'm not sure you'd see them they are so small (about the size of a large pea). The M60 at Lewis had the side loading air filters, without the air flow indicator (which is what we had in 1977 in 2/11 ACR), but the CEV had top loading filters, along with the filter airflow indicator. The M60 has no mantlet cover, but the CEV does-- and discussion about the clamps is right on. I'd like to include some photos, but I don't understand all this "photobucket" stuff, and never had any luck downloading onto Armorama. VR, Russ

That was on the M1. IIRC it was a 1/4 inch hex key that opened it. I was on that detail and was the guy spinning the bore evacuators. Because of the MRS you couldn't take off the bore evaculator so you had to spin it on the M1.



On an M60 everything unscrewed and unclamped and you reached in with a wire brush and lots of scrubbing.

On to adding parts to the Turret.
Below I drilled out shallow spots where the hand rail goes, it's easier to position it this way.


I installed the Tow Cable ends, & support clips in position then added the Cable from some I had in the spare parts box.
For me STRING just doesn't get it for Tow Cable.

The small tie downs were extras that came from a Dragon Sherman Kit.