Thanks for the comments so far. This build will take a little time since my work involves night shifts and I don't get to spend as much time at the workbench as I would like. Moving on........When attaching the suspension units to the hull I first attached the central axle stubs with masking liquid (Humbrols Maskol) These pieces will need a little movement when placing the suspension units over them. Secondly you will probably have to open up (I had to) the lower square recesses on the hull slightly to allow the suspension unit square lugs to fit in.

The suspension is almost complete. Undercoated and painted with A.Mig-931 Russian Dark Base which I use for most of my Russian builds. Apart from the 2 centre wheels, which are rigid, I have left the remaining 4 off along with the steering arms which I will cement in place once I have decided on the angle of steering that I want to create.
The photo shows the amount of steerage available, the hull/suspension steering linkage arms and the linkages themselves.
Photos of 'Gecko' with wheels turned are hard to come by but I did find some accurate CAD drawings showing them off very well.

Thanks Birdaj2.

It's the ugly but mean look I like about Soviet/WP vehicles of the 60/70s. As you say they have a certain appeal to them which more modern vehicles don't have for me. On British armour I don't model anything later than Chieftain which still had sufficient angles & external additions to make it interesting to the eye. Once they started putting reactive armour over everything it all started to look similar.

Apart from that, I was a 60s - 80s Cold War Tankie and was starved of all the new(ish) cold war armour at the time.

Next on the to do list is the Drivers/Commanders cab. The instrument panel has been hand painted with the dials cut from the larger kit panel decals.
A mixture of Humbrol enamels were mixed to make up the bulkhead colour although I think it should be a more sickly green colour. The remainder was painted in acrylics.

Impressive work, looking great....

Regards

Alan

There are a few internal upper hull details that need to be addded but these are straight forward and few in number.

I'm not sure what parts E26 to E28 (sub assembly [J-J]) represent but since I intend to fit it with it's external door (E1) open I cemented parts E26 & E27 together. Spray painted the interior and backplate E28 separately. If this is attempted after installation it will be difficult to get the paint coverage inside the unit.

During this week I have been toying around with the upper radar array. The kit does not allow the radar dish to rotate and therefore if assembled as the instructions show the radar dish will be permanently fixed facing the rear. I wanted to be able to position the radar in whatever position I felt showed it off to it's best.

On viewing videos on U-Tube and googling the 'Gecko' I found that kit parts C86 & C87 are not fitted to working radar arrays. They are probably locking bars to hold the array whilst traveling inactive.

Internet browsing also showed the point of where the rotating head is attached to the fixed base. This area is on parts A11 & E9 once cemented together. Having found this point, using a thin razor saw, I carefully separated the pieces on the line as shown in the photo. i Added a thin shim of plastic card to replace the cut away portion of the rotating base. Now it was just a matter of drilling a hole from the top of the mounting, through the shim and on through the top of the fixed base and adding an appropriate length of plastic rod.

Here's hoping the pictures will show the process.

Nice little mod Rich, look forward to more of this one

Steve

Moving along, I have now completed the work and undercoated the Radar Dish. Although, the mounting is designed to elevate & depress I have cemented it in the upright, roughly horizontal, position. This allows me to add a few wires to the rear of the mounting. This does not affect the dish rotation. The following photos show both the completed Radar Dish/mount, with a note as to where I added the extra wiring, and the remainder of the Missile launch platform.

Instead of following the kit instructions I added the outer radar array mounting pins to the inner plate rather than the outer. Here I found another error in the instructions. Radar Mounting Pin, parts D50 (x 2) and D52 (x 2) need to be swapped over with D50s on the outer edge and D52s o the inside.

Care needs to be taken when constructing the Missile Box carriers. Wherever possible leave cementing as much as possible until the whole unit can be attached to the launch platform. This will allow you to get the boxes lying horizontally. Once happy with the fit and angles cement it all in place.

Last on the list for today was to give the front radar arrays a coat of the peculiar tan/brown colour on the inside surface. Following the photos from http://www.dishmodels.ru/wshow.htm?p=1080 which appears to be an in-service 'Gecko' I mixed paints in the following ratio.
Vallejo Model Colour 70875 Beige Brown - 10
Vallejo Model Colur 70.911Light Orange - 15
A.MIG-047 Satin White - 5

This gave me the approximate colour of the radar array as can be seen in the photo within a photo. I do understand that copying colours from a photo can give a false colour but it matches with other photos from elsewhere.

More to come next weekend.

Now thats starting to come together nicely with some stirling work to get it to this standard, nicely done