Can anyone verify the direction the rear transmission/fan cover hinges on a T-34/85?? Does it hinge at the 3 door-style hinges forward at the engine deck, or at the rear at the piano hinges?
I think I messed up my 1/16 T-34/85 and hinged it the wrong way. Fortunately, it’s early enough to correct.
Thanks,
Jeff
I just used Google, punched in t34/85. nothing with an opened engine bay, sorry.
Hmm, sorry not even in Squadron/Signal’s “T-34 In action”, I couldn’t find a photo of the cover in open position.
If memory serves from when I crawled around on one sometime ago: I think it hinges both ways actually. It has to, at least logically, otherwise it would get damaged when trying to take the rear plate down, considering that everything is connected to each other as they are.
It would be cumbersome to have to take off the front hinge pins just to open the rear plate, only to have the fan cover still connected to said plate, and crews trying to get around it whiile getting to the engine. By hinging the front too, it seems to me that easier access to the whole engine can be gained with minimal effort or “parts footprint” on the ground whenever the rear plate is opened up.
Amazingly, very few photos exist of T-34’s in any sort of a maintenance cycle. There are gobs and oodles of photos of Panthers, Tigers, and Shermans undergoing maintenance. Almost every T-34 photo, it seems, is either in parade formation, in attack formation, or abandoned/burning.
Apologize if I rambled, and HTH,
I know this sounds like a traitorous thing to say, but in the highly unlikely event that you don’t get a satisfactory answer here, try Missing Lynx – their Allied forum has many serious T-34 wonks. Zaloga posts there, for instance.
I’ll check the Osprey book tonight just in case it has some pics.
T-34 Wonks??? [(-D]
Thanks guys, I think I’m going to hinge it forward just to be safe. Besides, I’ve already mangled one of the piano hinges anyway…
Jeff
Hey Jeff, I’ve found a pic…
You can actually hinge it both ways, it seems that the pin of the “unused” hinge was removed.
On the picture you can see that the piano-hinges are still there, but obviously the pin was removed to open it using the front hinges.
Of course this is a captured vehicle, so I don’t know if this was standard procedure.
www.battlefield.ru is a wealth of info on Soviet tanks, and sometimes drawings from the repair manuals are posted there. The lone maintenance type photo I’ve seen of a T-34 opened as I explained (or failed to as the case is with my writing) is here:
http://www.battlefield.ru/t34_76_4.html
While marked for the t-34-76, it has shots and drawings of the 1942 and 1943 models, which had the egine deck config of the T-34-85 for the most part.
Again, HTH,
You know, like Panzer wonks … the guys who sleep with PzIV wheel bolts under their pillows and get married at the Munster museum (to the extent they ever know the love of a woman in the first place!) … [:p]
that’s a pic of a mod’43 76. the 76’s DEFINITELY had hinges at the front, at least the earlier models. the 85’s might’ve had the hatch redesigned. they didn’t latch the same way after '43 so maybe they didn’t hinge the same either.