Henglong 1/8 Scale Abrams Breakdown

This is a short slide show of me working through how to open up the Henglong 1/8 scale Abrams tank. You might need to pause to read my comments on some of the pictures. I couldn’t figure out how to lengthen the duration of the slide show on the app I was using on my phone.

To be clear, there were no instructions or schematics included with the tank, and nothing to be found online. Their customer service has not been responsive lately, but I will keep trying them.

So, I had to figure this out on my own. Becuase I saw screw underneath the tank, and also because a lot of the design features are the same as the 1/16 Abrams, I assumed that this was how you opened up the 1/8 version as well.

This was completely wrong. All of the internals dropped out of the bottom like I was field dressing an animal, and it got me no closer to figuring out how to get the upper hull off.

I re-examined the upper hull, and finally saw that there were a bunch of hidden screws keeping the upper hull secured to the side and rear plates. After a lot of trial and error and prying with screw drivers, I finally found all of the screws, removed them, and the upper hull/turret lifted off no problem.

Next, to get into the turret I assumed I had to take the turret off from the turret ring and access the screws from underneath the turret, like with the 1/16. This was also wrong. I found that you can remove four screws from the tour side of the turret sides and the turret roof lifts off. Very convenient now, wish I had looked earlier.

Also, from my antics in the last video I had discovered I slipped the tracks on one side. After a lot of trial and error, I found that HL installed two screws in lower part of the glacis that can be used to loosed the track tension. So you can adjust track tension without having to open the tank. To reset the track I just loosened it all the way, then I had enough slack to fix it.

The MFU is interesting, it seems like a version of the TK 7.1 built for high voltage applications. The slip ring in the turret has four unused wires. I’ll be able to use it to install their gun smoke mod in the turret, as well as run power to a VTX for a camera. I won’t be able to do multiple cameras like on my 1/16 scale Abrams until I replace the MFU with on that lets me use my own RX/TX.

If you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments.