I've finally managed to get through the first stage of the conversion project, which was to give the vehicle a a main armament, in this case, the American version of the FN Mag General Purpose Machine Gun, (GPMG) which was first produced in the late 1950's and is still being made, and being used all over the world. The Canadian Army calls this weapon the C6, whilst the Americans call it the M240, but whatever designation you give it, it's one of the best, most reliable weapons of it's class ever built.
Page_1 by Gary Menten, on Flickr
The gun itself was bought parted out from Monkey depot, while the gun mount, is an Armorpax resin casting of the British Army's GPMG softskin vehicle mount for the British version of this gun. They use it on the land rover and other vehicles.
land rover with GPMG by Gary Menten, on Flickr
Overall, this is a very big gun and mount for such a small vehicle as the Tonka, which is one reason I chose to mount it on the roll cage instead of on the passenger side. The other reason is that on a narrow-bodied lefthand drive vehicle such as the Tonka, the ammo can would severely impair the driver's view if the gun were mounted on the right hand side where the front passenger sits. This meant that I had to cut a hole in the roof for the gunner. I considered two approaches; the more expensive but faster approach which was to buy a 2 1/4" hole cutting bit for my power drill and just bore a two inch hole in the roof or cutting away the roof altogether which I eventually chose and don't regret as it makes it much easier to get the figure in there. This as a time consuming and imprecise thing to do as the plastic roof was likely ABS and Tonka tough and my cutting technique with back saw, hack saw and coping saw was imprecise and messy. The grey putty which I've applied and was still hardening will help cover up some of those uneven cuts once sanded out and painted.
The Armorpax mount I should point out, being resin cast is much more fragile and prone to breakage than any plastic parts and will come off the scratch-built brass mounting post seen in the photos, built from brass tubing and strip brass from a local hobby shop. I have yet to paint it. Because of it's fragility, the mount will be removed whenever the vehicle is stored and not in use. I still have to install the bungee cord retaining clip that holds the ammo can securely in it's tray. I also need to get a scale 7.62 mm ammo belt section to put into the can and gun.
I've never seen a gun mount like this before where the ammo can is tilted at such an angle from the horizontal, but I suspect it's to ensure the smoother feed of the ammo belt into the gun's feed mechanism.
Future improvements on the vehicle will include adding extra lights to the front roll bar, and some sort of passenger side MG, possibly the M249 or Minimi, which is a 5.56mm scaled down version of the MAG and where the ammo box is actually slung down below the gun rather than to it's side. I'll also put some removable roof panels over the driver and passenger as the position of the gun on this small vehicle would mean both would likely be hit by ejected cases and belt links every time it fired without these being in place.
Page_1 by Gary Menten, on FlickrThe gun itself was bought parted out from Monkey depot, while the gun mount, is an Armorpax resin casting of the British Army's GPMG softskin vehicle mount for the British version of this gun. They use it on the land rover and other vehicles.
land rover with GPMG by Gary Menten, on FlickrOverall, this is a very big gun and mount for such a small vehicle as the Tonka, which is one reason I chose to mount it on the roll cage instead of on the passenger side. The other reason is that on a narrow-bodied lefthand drive vehicle such as the Tonka, the ammo can would severely impair the driver's view if the gun were mounted on the right hand side where the front passenger sits. This meant that I had to cut a hole in the roof for the gunner. I considered two approaches; the more expensive but faster approach which was to buy a 2 1/4" hole cutting bit for my power drill and just bore a two inch hole in the roof or cutting away the roof altogether which I eventually chose and don't regret as it makes it much easier to get the figure in there. This as a time consuming and imprecise thing to do as the plastic roof was likely ABS and Tonka tough and my cutting technique with back saw, hack saw and coping saw was imprecise and messy. The grey putty which I've applied and was still hardening will help cover up some of those uneven cuts once sanded out and painted.
The Armorpax mount I should point out, being resin cast is much more fragile and prone to breakage than any plastic parts and will come off the scratch-built brass mounting post seen in the photos, built from brass tubing and strip brass from a local hobby shop. I have yet to paint it. Because of it's fragility, the mount will be removed whenever the vehicle is stored and not in use. I still have to install the bungee cord retaining clip that holds the ammo can securely in it's tray. I also need to get a scale 7.62 mm ammo belt section to put into the can and gun.
I've never seen a gun mount like this before where the ammo can is tilted at such an angle from the horizontal, but I suspect it's to ensure the smoother feed of the ammo belt into the gun's feed mechanism.
Future improvements on the vehicle will include adding extra lights to the front roll bar, and some sort of passenger side MG, possibly the M249 or Minimi, which is a 5.56mm scaled down version of the MAG and where the ammo box is actually slung down below the gun rather than to it's side. I'll also put some removable roof panels over the driver and passenger as the position of the gun on this small vehicle would mean both would likely be hit by ejected cases and belt links every time it fired without these being in place.
Page_1 by Gary Menten, on Flickr