Why walk, when you can ride in a...

Building your FV432s

Track construction

In addition the tracks have been made in white metal and require some construction. This is very simple but it is important that the tracks are constructed before being mounted onto the vehicle or it will be difficult to fit the upper track unit.

The sprockets and wheels are placed as shown in the picture above and the tracks then added with the short track at the top and the long track at the bottom. Please do make a dry run first to make sure you have everything properly aligned before gluing.

Arm yourself with a bit of blu-tack because it will help!!

Make sure you assemble the whole track section before sticking it to the hull, other wise you will have immense problems trying

to make the track units.

Use a slower setting gel type superglue, rather than the bonds in a nanosecond thin stuff, as you will need to manouvre the bits around before the glue goes off. Better still for fixing the wheels and sprockets we would advice an epoxy glue or miliput rather than normal superglue.

The bottom run of the tracks is made to bend, run your fingers along the track you will notice that the middle it smooth, and at each end there are some bits that stick out, find where the last one is at each end, that’s where you bend the track.

Take the road wheels first, glue them all into place, try to keep them all straight, it helps if you lay the wheels face down on a flat surface, or lay a steel rule across the front when you've glued, let the glue dry. Then stick the two return rollers at the top.

Now position the sprocket and idler wheels at each end, use a bit of blutack to secure them, take the top run of track, it’s the shorter one of the two, and lay it across the top of the return rollers, you can then turn the sprocket and idler wheels so the match up with the track, once you are happy about how they match up, glue the top track length onto the return rollers. Now take the bottom length that you bent about earlier, adjust the sprocket and idler again so they match the top track, and hopefully the bottom track should now match up as well, you may need to adjust the track bend a bit.

Once you are happy, glue the sprocket and idlers into place, them glue on the bottom track length.

Once the track assembly is constructed and stuck to the body, the rear mudguards can be added.