I've begun to build my Tasca (Asuka) M4A1 Direct Vision Kit and have a question about the two of the suspension arms. The directions shows outside arm pieces B5 and B4 that include the axles that go through the bogie wheels being mounted outside the bogie wheel:

https://www.scalemates.com/products/img/0/6/1/144061-95-instructions.pdf

(These are the correction instructions; the 35-025 uses the instructions for the El Alamein Kit with a two page addenda for the special features of the 35-025 kit).

The instructions also show the end of the axle pin extending through the hex nut on B5 and B4 so that the pin protrudes from the hex nut.

However, on pieces B5 and B4 in my kit, there is a circular recess in the middle of the hex nuts on B5 and B4 and the axle pins extends from hex nuts of the inside arms B15 and B14.

I've checked other Tasca Shermans I VVS I have with the vertical volute spring suspension, and the exterior arms in their instructions include the axle, as B5 and B4 do, but the pins extend from the hex nuts of the outside arms on the other kits.

So I think B5 and B4 are supposed to be mounted oustide on my model. However, I wanted to make sure I have the correct B5 and B4. So I would appreciate it if anyone who also has this kit can confirm that their pieces B5 and B4 also include a recess in the middle of the hex nut.

My Kit 35-025 had a different sprue E than is shown on any of the reviews of this kit I have seen on-line (my kit 35-025 has rear hull piece E4 (which does not included a contoured upper part) instead of piece E3 (which includes a contoured upper part) shown in the instructions, so I'm now curious if I also have a non-standard set of sprue Bs as well.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide.

Hi Mark,

Not sure if I understand fully, but on all the Tasca VVSS that I built there are two pins on the "outboard" arm that fit into shallow circular sockets on the inner face of the "inboard" arm - nothing passes through completely. The hex-nut detail on the outer faces of both arms is just for show, and is pretty much identical. One of the pins is the wheel axle, while the other is the pivot for the arm itself (on the real thing at least) where it mounts in the bogie casting.

Tom,

Thanks for commenting. Sorry for the confusion, I could not find a good picture of what I was talking about until this morning. Fortunately, I think I found my answer and it's an answer I'm happy about:

http://www.militarymodelling.com/forums/postings.asp?th=64620&p=2

If you go down to the post at 01/02/2012 04:-1:17 with the pictures, go down to where this modeller show the M3 type HVSS both as an image he found on the web and how he removed the bolt cap from and drilled a 0.25" into what I was referring to as a hex nut of the outside suspension arms, but appears to actually be a hexagonal bolt head.

The "hexagonal bolt heads" on my model already look like his do after he has removed the cap and drilled the 0.25" hole, i.e., just like this:

I plan to build this kit soon. Thanks for the post and pointers.

Cheers,

Christophe

Christophe,

Something you may need to wrestle with and that I am currently wrestling with is deciding which features of the Sherman M4A1 DV your care about, and which you do not care about being accurate for the particular tank you choose to model.

I got started down this path, as I mentioned above, by the fact that the rear hull plate included in my kit 35-025 was rear hull piece E4 (which is in the Tasca kits for the M4, the composite hull Sherman and the Firefly IC (which uses the composite hull), as opposed to rear hull piece E3 which is shown in the instructions and in every review of kit 35-025 I can find.

I, of course, did not notice the difference in the rear hull parts until after I had built the lower hull, in part, because the instructions for the 35-025 kits are mainly the instructions for the 35-014 kit and I therefore figured that the pieces in the 35-025 kit might not be an exact match for the 35-014 kit pieces shown in the instructions.

In addition, I would advise on deciding which particular M4A1 you are going to build. For example, despite the instructions only showing the 3-part differential cover at the front, it appears that some M4A1 DV tanks had the 1-part differntial cover. And, this is not a problem, if you find out that the tank you want to build has the 1-piece differential cover, because Asuka has actually included the sprue for the 1-piece differential cover in kit 35-025. Also, if you use the 1-piece differential cover, you need to make sure to the proper riveted joining piece when assembling the lower hull, i.e., piece J24 instead of piece C43 for the three-part differential cover as shown in the instructions.

The instructions for the Eduard Profipak Kit 3716 (which includes Asuka-Tasca plastic) for the M4A1, available at the link below, show how to assemble the 1-piece differential cover:

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/538064-eduard-3716-m4a1-sherman

If you can find the information on the rear hull of the tank you want to model (and that's a big "if" in many cases), you may need to decide if you want to take the trouble to make the lower rear hull rounder with putty or a cut up large diameter plastic rod.
Although many M4A1s have the straight and slanted lower rear hull, some are curved. See for example what this modeller did:

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/163768

You also get to decide how much you want to sand down the road wheel seams, because the real tires did have seams. The question is, how visible were they, particularly after weeks of use:

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/105273&page=1

Also, one great site I learned about for Sherman minutia that I highly recommend:

http://the.shadock.free.fr/sherman_minutia/

Even if you don't use all of the information, it's nice to know it's there.

Never in my wildest dreams before starting this project would I have guessed there was so much variation just among Sherman M4A1, much less the different types of Shermans.