FI_Article_by_KJ

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Clutch

Our clutch doesn’t work at this time. You push in the clutch pedal and try to put it in gear. It clanks the gears together, but does not engage them. Solution: remove the transmission to get at the clutch. It's made to be do-able, but you need a crane that can lift the transmission out. There’s probably a ton of metal there, so you can’t just get a few guys to “heave ho” together.

We have gotten around this somewhat by letting the engine almost die and then quickly putting it in gear, then “hitting the gas.” Sometimes it works and we’re off. Once we’re rolling, however, we have to keep rolling because the clutch does not disengage the gears. This just calls for a little practice and coordination, and a well planned drive so that you know where you’re going and where you will end up.

Manuals

We’ve got manuals. The driver’s manual came courtesy of e-bay and a fellow in Latvia. The mechanics manual was posted on the net by a group in Finland that acquired their own T34. We have it downloaded, but both manuals are in Russian. They’re well illustrated, but until we get a professional translation, we’re still guessing much of the time. I’m married to a professional Russian language translator, but since I don’t pay her, my job goes to the bottom of the heap, never to see the light of day. A professional translation might run $2000, so if any of you tank owners want a well-written copy, its going to cost something (but not $2000). In the meantime, we have found a partial translation that was probably done for the US Army in 1943. It is very helpful, but incomplete.

Hollywood Adventures

Beerbaum's T34/85 was used in Universal Studios' The Good German, which is slated for release in Summer 2006. In the single scene where it appears it is very prominent, so we hope it survives the editing process and does not end up on "the cutting room floor." Extensive details of the movie experience will be included in an upcoming issue of this publication, along with a photo or two, once the film has been released.

Maintaining a T34 Tank Part 1

by Hans Beerbaum Article and Photographs Copyright Hans Beerbaum, 2006

Hans Beerbaum is a financial planner and investment advisor who has been collecting for 40 years. Starting as a teenager, when German militaria was plentiful and cheap (German helmets with original paint, liners and chinstraps for $50), he built a significant collection of uniforms and equipment. The hobby went dormant for twenty years as Hans searched for a career and started a family (three kids, now teenagers). However, in 1990 he was told of a company that was selling German halftracks locally (OT-810s), and he found a way to buy one. The company even delivered it for free, a round trip of 160 miles. That was the start. There are now a Soviet tank, two halftracks, at least fifteen pieces of German and Soviet artillery, several trucks and miscellaneous vehicles, at least six demilled machine guns, and many, many repro German and Soviet uniforms. For more information and pictures, visit his website!

Electrical System

The system is 24 volts, requiring two 12 volt truck batteries. There is space for four batteries but there were no connections to hook them all up, so we didn’t put that much power in. If your tank is working well and the batteries are charged, you should not need the cranking amps that four batteries can provide.

The most important purpose of those batteries is starting the engine. That means turning over a crankshaft and 12 large pistons. There is an oil pump that is supposed to run oil through the top of the engine and we hope it is working. I certainly hear it whine when I push the button.

The primary reason that our tank sat idle for four years is that the starter pooped out. With a little help and some money for new commutator brushes and related parts, our starter now works like a champ. You can tell it isn’t working when all you hear is a “click” when you push the start button. We hope that problem is behind us now.

The turret traverse is electrical. Ours didn’t work well because a key part was missing. We made a copy of the part in January ’03 (copying from a friend who has a T34). Getting it working is important because traversing the turret is a cool effect. It looks great in video and is a crowd pleaser. You can do it by hand, but it’s a slooow process and you will poop out long before you circle 360 degrees. With the electrical traverse, it just zips around. Here’s special word of warning: If you’re tall and you sit in the gunner’s seat and make the turret traverse, you’ll literally rip your legs off above the knee. The turret is for small people with short thighs. If you’re not careful, you’ll get the turret moving under power and not realize that your leg is about to come off when it hits the left side of the vehicle. You can’t stop it in time, once you realize what is happening. So, watch out.

That’s really all we use the electric for. Our lights and horn don’t work, but until we do a complete tank rebuild, we’re not going to worry about them. Right now, no one gets in our way (no need for the horn), and we don’t drive it at night. Even if we went to the trouble of making those work, we’d never use them. Later, however, they’ll be done properly in the rebuild.

Once you have a tank, and you want to keep it moving, you’re faced with some significant challenges. They are not insurmountable. I’ll describe some of the problems we’ve faced and tell you about what we have coming up as challenges in the future.

Fuel System

The T34 has four fuel tanks and two oil tanks. Ours are screwed up and do not feed fuel to the engine. So, we bypassed the fuel system and now have a separate 5-gallon fuel tank inside the crew compartment with a hose directly feeding the fuel pump. Once we remove the engine we’ll examine all the fuel lines and find out where the problem is. However, there are a lot of “systems” on top of the fuel lines and these make it difficult to get directly at the fuel lines. The bypass is a trick that would have saved us a vast amount of time and money if we had figured it out sooner. I daresay that I’ve spent hundreds of dollars paying a mechanic to fix the problem. He tried really hard, and we learned a lot working with him, but without pulling the engine he could not fix it.

The 5 gallon fuel tank is not a good solution, however. It empties fast, and if you run out of fuel, air will get into the lines causing a big air bleeding challenge. However, 5 gallons will do for a short day’s driving.

The T34 has 12 cylinders, and 12 injection lines.

A car starter weighs two or three pounds, while a T34 starter weighs nearly 100 lbs