Topic: Hen Long tug rebuild (Read 7436 times)

HRVI · « **on:** September 11, 2012, 06:42:44 pm »

Hello my name is Adam.
My Forum name is because of a virtual company i had on another forum making recovery trucks (Heavy Recovery Vehicle Industries)

I bought this Hen Long tug for £30 of ebay. I think the Hen Long one is older than the Dickie version.
I used the boat a couple of times & it was great apart from a water leak in the join of the pipe for the cannon on the mast making the bridge fill with water. One day about 3 years ago at a friends house playing/trying to play in the pond with his speed boat & my tug she just wouldn't go. it had about 2 feet of range on all new batteries & then after drifting just out of reach it rolled over for no reason

. My friends dad did recover the boat later in the night with the LED nav lights still lit up but i never got chance to pick it up so it was left outside for a month with a hull full of water

Recently i decided to get it working again after giving up on my scratch built Nitro powerboat. I ripped all the old radio gear out & then found the stern tube leaks because its a really bad design & the motor had corroded. I stripped everything out of it & got a new motor stern tube 50mm nylon prop instead of the 45mm plastic prop & a heavy duty UCJ. I added a 10 amp Viper Marine speed controller & a HiTec 2 channel receiver. I removed the back of the cabin & made it further back & put the funnels on the corners & turned the original position of them into doors.

I then decided that the water ballast tank used up alot of room for not alot so i smashed it out

Then i put a 15amp plug n play Viper Marine speed controller & added a lot of steel to the bottom of the boat.

I am waiting for a small water pump to arrive with a water cooling coil, 1 meter of silicone tube, 10 bright white LED's, 10 red LED's, 10 green LED's(So many LED's because they come in packs of 10 except the bright whites come in 5's so got 2 packs)

I am going to make a small water tank to the bottom of the speed controller & then have the speed controller & motor water cooled. I am probably going to wire the pump in with the motor so the faster it runs the faster the pump pumps

I also have a little 10amp fuse waiting to be wired to the speed controller before final assembly as the instructions suggest.

You will notice i change my mind allot about things. the current motor is its 3rd because the second was still its 1st really it just got a new 5pole shaft thing instead of th eorigional 3 & a new metal case. I also nearly bought a Johnson 600 motor but decided not to

I hope you like it & its way of finished.

EDIT: You may notice i put RNLI stickers on it witch will be removed & i named it "THE SALVAGER" although i think a better name is needed & in the 1st pic you can see the bow of my B-Square Racing yacht that has never seen water except in a bath tub in the time i have had it (About 5 years)

Stavros · « **Reply #1 on:** September 11, 2012, 07:32:04 pm »

Firstly welcome to the forum and what a tidy job you are doing on this tug

One little problem I can see is that the speed controller is sitting on top of the motor and is not good practice to do this.As regarding water cooling the speed controller I personally dont think it is needed,as for watercooling the motor then defo this is a good idea

Dave

Martin (Admin) · « **Reply #2 on:** September 11, 2012, 08:26:57 pm »

Yes great job Adam,

How did you hack away the old water ballast tank?

Martin

Stormbringer · « **Reply #3 on:** September 11, 2012, 08:29:32 pm »

welcome aboard

theres a lot of conversions in this section

HRVI · « **Reply #4 on:** September 11, 2012, 08:50:34 pm »

Thanks guys

(Stavros) I know about the speed controller positioning. water cooling would be because when i tested the boat on 4 AA batteries it lasted over 1 hour & the batteries are in use in another RC boat now so it runs along time & the speed controller got a little warm. not water cooling it doesn't really matter but i just like to do things differently. it will be easier not doing it though.

(Martin) I used nitro to burn the glue out of the screw wholes on the top of the tank holding the lid on then I ripped the lid off & then used pliers to just tear the rest of the plastic off. the nitro didn't go quite to plan as it also spilt into the keel under the UCJ & I hadn't noticed it was on fire. the UCJ was fine because it was nylon but the hull bulged a little bit & cracked near the bulge

HRVI · « **Reply #5 on:** September 11, 2012, 09:58:27 pm »

I never realized how many of these things there wore still in use

or how 'rubbish' the original radio gear is. There are some beautiful mods of this boat around here though

So lots of competition

i know most i wont be able to out do but i would like to make it look realistic.

Off topic to this thread i still have 1 kit i am 99.99% sure is the last surviving one in the world even more so the fact it is still unbuilt so when i get time i will dig it out & get a pic of it.

Think my Grandad said its at least 50 years old too

Back On topic
Not decided on colours yet ether. I was thinking brighter blue hull with red bottom, white cabin, grey decks, red stacks & orange roof but still not sure.

I read about earthing the motor to the shaft or stern tube. Do i need to do this or dose it not really matter. I have never done it before & had no trouble with anything.

Martin (Admin) · « **Reply #6 on:** September 12, 2012, 02:45:28 pm »

Re: Earthing the motor. I've only ever earth the motor ( shaft, links, rudder ) if there have been interference problems but
I've never had to, not after putting proper suppressor capacitors on the motor.

RFI Suppression Kit – Regular (up to 600 size motors) and NEW Large Capacitors (700+) RFI £1.00 (Either type)
http://www.action-electronics.co.uk/pdfs/prices.pdf

HRVI · « **Reply #7 on:** September 12, 2012, 03:25:17 pm »

Quote from: Martin - Admin on September 12, 2012, 02:45:28 pm

Re: Earthing the motor. I've only ever earth the motor ( shaft, links, rudder ) if there have been interference problems but
I've never had to, not after putting proper suppressor capacitors on the motor.

RFI Suppression Kit – Regular (up to 600 size motors) and NEW Large Capacitors (700+) RFI £1.00 (Either type)
http://www.action-electronics.co.uk/pdfs/prices.pdf

Damn, i had loads of interference from the little tug in my pic until i swapped the motor for a less powerful suppressed one.
My current motor said there is no need for suppressors. It is a Torpedo EM400 6-15v 1.4A loaded 5 pole

HRVI · « **Reply #8 on:** September 12, 2012, 11:48:24 pm »

2 days untill i get my parts for my tug :)

10 red LED's
10 Bright white LED's
10 Green LED's
Plastic box sections
10 meters of 0.4mm white wire
water pump
cooling coil
1 meter of silicone tubing

probably some other stuff i got too that i don't remember. The joys of having a BOG (Bank of Grandad)

HRVI · « **Reply #9 on:** September 15, 2012, 03:37:06 pm »

Quote from: HRVI on September 12, 2012, 11:48:24 pm

2 days untill i get my parts for my tug :)

10 red LED's
10 Bright white LED's
10 Green LED's
Plastic box sections
10 meters of 0.4mm white wire
water pump
cooling coil
1 meter of silicone tubing

probably some other stuff i got too that i don't remember. The joys of having a BOG (Bank of Grandad)

aprox 4 hours until i get my parts

HRVI · « **Reply #10 on:** September 16, 2012, 05:56:02 pm »

Drilled some wholes for lights. Got half a mast made & made a bulkhead. the bulkhead was mainly to mount things to

Got the old pump working because the one i bought was about 3X bigger than it looked in the pic, has a huge heavy bracket on it & doesn't work properly so i dumped it in a corner.