Pack 5 consists of the axel supports, three assemblies on each side. The photo shows - on the left - the parts for a R/H and L/H assembly. The middle shows the axles and bushes being assembled, and on the right the pair of built items.

The manual suggests ensuring that the axles & swivel pins can be freely screwed home, and a couple indeed did need minor attention, being a bit stiff. Also, the lips to the holes in the suspension arm castings needed just a small filing to get the bushes to fit smoothly.

The bushes (the axel bushes are slightly smaller than the swivel bushes - the manual is clear which is which, and which way they fit into the arm) were given a smear of superglue and pushed in. The axles and swivel pins were also given a dab of locktite on the threads to prevent any loosening in normal use, and screwed tightly home into the swivel arms. At this stage, the pins are only loosely held in the bushes by the swivel nuts, as they will be painted separately from the suspension arms.

Packs 6 & 7 are the track wheel leaf springs. As long as you don't get the individual leaves from the two packs mixed up, these are simple to put together.

Tip: assemble the leaves in order and lightly hold together with a small G-cramp, clip or even elastic bands. This will allow you to adjust the positions of the leaves to an even spacing without the whole lot flying apart (unless, of course, you have three hands!) before bolting together the support plates.

The photo shows the parts (top) and made-up units (bottom) for Pack 6 (left) and Pack 7 (right).

Pack 8 consists of the front axel, its support yoke, brass axles ends and leaf spring.

The spring unit makes up exactly as for packs 6 and 7. And before anyone emails me, yes I know the spring support plates are upside down! They'll have to come off for painting anyway.

The yoke parts simply fit together. I filed small notches out of the ends of the yoke to allow the spring support brackets to screw in tightly in the correct orientation. Without this, they would either be loose, or tight but 90 deg out of alignment. YMMV.

The brass end pieces, according to the manual, are to be fixed in place with loctite (superglue). Discussion on the Armortek Forum is dismissive that this will not last the first time the steering is used, and it is suggested that the parts are silver-soldered and/or drilled, tapped and screwed through the axel to hold them in place. At the moment mine are still loose, as I don't have the tools to do either method. I may just put a bolt through.

Another point noted was that in position on the model, the yoke is not horizontal, so the axel-ends should not be fixed at 90 deg to the yoke, but in a true vertical on the model. Another reason for delaying permanent fixing until the assembly is dry-fitted to the chassis.

Pack 9 is the winch and idler axles. OK, nothing to do with suspension, but the back-end of Stage 2.

Here we have the two idler arms on the left together with the winch parts.

Unlike the main drive housings (see Pack 3), this bearing is a perfect fit, and only needs a smear of superglue to hold in place.

The worm gear is held on the drive shaft by a M4x5 grub screw. This is far too long and so needs about 2mm cutting off (the non-socket end) so it will be flush with the collar. Be careful doing this, it's a tiny part and will disappear across the room, never to be found again, if you don't look out! I suggest clamping the socket end in a small vice and slicing the tail off with a Dremel slitting tool or similar.

The shaft seems to go too far into the housing, causing the non-geared collar end to jam up the main gear in one direction. This was easily cured by putting a thick washer on the gear end of the shaft.

The top plate only fits one way, as there is a 'missing' hole above the worm gear. I found the plate too tight, so filed a touch off the edge. I then found that the underside of the plate was fouling the worm gear, so I had to grind off the angle until the plate could sit flush and the gear able to turn freely, as shown in this graphic:

With these adjustments, the top plate fits snugly and the gearing runs smoothly. A drop of 3-in-1 light oil and the housing was bolted together.

In the photo, the winch drum is also attached, but that will come off to be painted later. Also, you can see the wire rope around the drum. This is not part of the kit, but a 2m length of 1.5mm was bought from a DIY chain; this is perhaps not exact scale, but at 1/6th would be 9mm dia. which I think is close enough. The loop is temporarily made using a small 'chocolate block' electrical wire connector with the plastic cover removed. I drilled a 2mm hole from the outer edge of the drum through to one of the central holes - the other end of the rope is pushed though and another connector forms an anchor, small enough to sit in the hole, so you can't see it. Part of the motor coupling from OP1 is also here fitted to the input shaft.

At this stage, the idler axles were just dry-fitted to the support arms (see Pack 2) to check that they fitted freely, which they did.

A couple of weeks away from the build due to a business trip to the Netherlands, followed by a few days' holiday in Cornwall..

Back to modeling, the assembled suspension units were partially dismantled for painting. All axles were masked and holes stuffed with tissue. The suspension springs were completely disassembled and the winch drum removed from the housing.

Here, the parts have been painted and re-assembled. Note that I have not painted the leaf springs. The restored vehicle in the "Sd.Kfz.7 in detail' book seems to have every square inch painted in the base colour, but I doubt whether the original would have had painted leaf springs - these would be heavily greased so the leaves can slide over each other when flexed in use.

Having dry-fitted the assembled Pack 8 (steering wheel axel & yoke) to the chassis, the axel ends were set in place vertically to the model with a smear of fast-setting two-part epoxy. When hardened, the axles were drilled through and bolted, the excess thread cut off flush with the nut and filed down a little to ensure they won't foul the steering joints.

The Pack 8 assembly was then painted and finally fitted to the chassis as shown in the photo.

At this point I fitted the winch and also the motor from OP1.

Borrowing a feature from the 'Sd.Kfz.7 in detail' book (pages 8-10) which shows guides for the winch cable, I added a loop of 2mm rod to prevent the cable falling off the drum when slack. This piece is highlighted on the larger photo.

If painting the motor, I've done, be sure to mask off the 'business end' so as not to get any paint into the electrics. As can be seen, I used a plastic bag to tidy up the wire at the same time.

Finally, the track wheels suspension system and idler axles were fitted. This photo shows the finished items from the side and underneath.

The elastic bands are to hold the suspension arms in place, otherwise they flop down when the model is lifted off the bench. While the foremost pair of leaf springs are fixed in place on their swivel pins, the weight of the vehicle is all that hold the rear springs in place. Since picking the chassis up resulted in the springs falling out of place (despite the elastic bands), I fixed them to their support brackets with a drop of thick superglue.

The nuts to the idler axles shoudn't be tightened right up, but left with minimal slack so that the axles can freely rotate. The nuts were fixed in place with a drop of loctite on the threads.

Here endeth the second stage.

Total elapsed time from the boxes arriving: 10 weeks

Total model attention time: approx 25 hours

Total build time: approx 15 hours