So one of my first tanks was MikeC's old Taigen KV-1. Dual turret motors, all metal lower, with original pot metal gearboxes...
It was my primary battler for several years.
Numerous upgrades internally as I continued to trial and error systems.

• TK-22 > TK-40 > TK-60
  
• Speaker box
  
• JCC Recoil unit
  
• Funky TBU Mount (Since then has been super refined)
  
• Aluminum component mounting plate
  
• Steel gearbox
  

But after so many years, the 10kg (22lb) KV-1 was riding it's bump stops in suspension. So it was time for a rebuild... And I decided that Father's day was a great day for rebuilding this fine piece of machinery...


Taigen KV-1 stripped down to the aluminum hull. Side hull plastic has been removed. The suspension arm outer frame pivots proved to have 4 of twelve loose and rattling... Replaced all hardware with hex socket M2 screws with blue loctite.



One of the suspension arms was broken. Go figure. It had seen ALOT of usage... Thankfully I had a few spares. Ended up replacing 2 suspension arms.




The true problem... As I was replacing the old torsion wires with new "stronger" versions, this happened... Ah FFS!
The spring clip popped off and I heard it hit something, someplace in my workroom... It's gone...
I have 2 of these internal torsion mounts broken.... Sigh.. Anyone have a junked Taigen they strip parts off of?

So my KV will be out of action for a bit longer...

Wow I have never seen that.... Usually it is the suspension arms which you can easily get replacement. I guess the new torsion bar is rated higher ?

The only place I can see you finding anything would be rctank.de. Dom might be able to help you out. Now, the Taigen bottom is actually not that much so it might be buying a new lower as a last resort.

These are great chassis. Love them to death.

Yeah. I'm going Taigen metal for pretty much anything that uses a torsion bar from now on.
I did find out last night that the Taigen Tiger metal lower uses the same torsion bar setup (and internal parts like wire, sleeves, and torsion pins..) Yay!

I actually asked Stanlley (of RC Tank Legion) first on FB if he had any and he recommended looking at RCTank.de as well.

RCTank.de wanted 30+ Euros in shipping for 4 Euros of parts... (I needed 2 replacements)

Stanlley also mentioned Forgebear, and as a result, I ordered a full set of replacements for a Tiger I from Forgebear, 15 Euro for 14 replacement torsion bar mounts (KV needs 12 total), 7 Euro shipping.

Yes ForgeBear is a good one too. 

For Dom at rctank.de, he will take the VAT off if it is more than 50 euro. So usually if it is over 50 euro your shipping is covered by the offsetting VAT which is 19%. So at the end the list price on the website is an all in price if it is over 50 euro.

Technically, Dom and every other EU supplier can take the VAT out for any export out of the EU.

VAT Zero Rate

But only if they are a registered VAT business. 
Dom's threshold for him to to that is a minimum of 50 Euro, I've talked to him before that as well. (And ordered 51 euro of stuff...)

Yes it is the paperwork. It is his threshold. He used to do it for everything but too much paperwork.

Axel and Ludwig doesn't even bother........... I appreciate Dom for doing this at least.

Axel's if you are signed up and log into your account (it recognizes you are international) it then displays all prices with VAT taken off so no need to contact him unless you are buying a full tank which you then have to email to get the correct shipping rate. Main problem with Axel's is Felix uses an up to 3kg DHL rate so minimum 40 euros that through no fault of his normally ends up on a ship. Dom uses a different rate so the small stuff tends to be around 10 euros shipping

I see. I got my German dealers confused. I think it was Asiatam that won't give you VAT regardless. BTW, why is there so many German dealers and none here ? I guess they like their tanks more than we do. Sad. Axel, Ludwig, Dom, Asiatam, AFV................

and the ultimate source for Tamiya spare parts who won't ship outside of Germany

https://www.modellbau-seidel.de/index.php?path=Produkte%2FFunktionsmodelle%2FMilit--armodelle_und_Panzer%2F_Ersatzteile.web