Panzer II “Luchs” - Weeks 13-16

Week 13 to 16 of the Double Luchs build. Alpha & Omega. This takes us up to February 17th 2025

Firewall is in Omega. Transmission is in the wrong location. Durrrr. Dreading splitting it away from the engine. Gets complicated quick.

Eddie did successfully weld the exhaust turndown pipe to the exhaust flange using only his mind. We've been practicing and think were on to something.

Eddie's work. Now for the intake part....

Dave is still struggling with "mind welding". He sat like this for 3 hours and only made this fitment lug warm to the touch.

Michael Jumping into the crazy nonsense that is the Panzer II "Luchs" floor arrangement.

This is a photo of an original Luchs floor and wall. It has taken hours of study to figure out how all this goes together. It must have been designed by drunk wannabee panzer workers at 3 a.m. using scrap they found laying around..... it almost makes no sense.... which is unusual when digesting Panzer design.

Jumping in.

Wait, what was I doing?

Oh yeah... I was making one of the many boxes for Alpha's floor.

Coming along. There is almost no room for people here.

Floor taking shape. There are storage boxes in most of those rectangular spaces.

Pretty cool. Starting to feel like this is going to turn out to be something.

Trays and boxes. The tray on the left is to accommodate the radio power supply units. They hang lower than the general floor level so this accommodates.

Okay... Poo! It's time to tackle splitting the manual transmission away from the motor and figuring out the clutch part of the deal. Ughhhhhh...

This is fun stuff. I made this press back in 2017. But with some work were going to improve the wheels over Panzerfabrik Luchs 1.0

This is the master. An original Luchs wheel. Shape, depth of wave and steel thickness are the focus.

With a 500 ton press it was like folding paper.

and Ta Da !!! It hits the original wheel's contour and feel "dead on" in any way we can measure. Success !! So now I can sleep at night.

OH.. well maybe not. Michael is still standing there as of this moment waiting for inspiration on the clutch arrangement. Dang. No sleep yet.