Second amendment or no, you can't have your tank sent over before someone strips out the machine guns and cuts a hole in the cannon. Take the opportunity to ask for an English translation of the tank's factory service manual-the original will be in Czech or Russian. Repair work picks up after export clears and usually finishes up less than two months later. Ordering starts with a 30 percent deposit and a two-month wait as the Czech authorities work through their end of the paperwork. There's at least one T-34 medium tank disguised as a Tiger heavy rolling around Europe, terrifying the elderly into thinking the Germans are back. You're free to swap in better seats from another tank to please your backside, change to a more powerful engine, or create a lookalike of a rarer tank. Using refurbished parts can cut the bill down and is necessary for oddball pieces or complicated systems that aren't made anymore, such as tracks, transmissions, and diesel engines. Stockpiles of newly manufactured parts mix with those made decades ago, but stored neatly on warehouse shelves since, never having been installed. Obsessives can pay for a full restoration, wherein the dealer completely dismantles the vehicle into crumbs and skeletons. Dealers run through the hydraulic, electrical, braking, and steering systems, tune up the engine, change out the rubber and fluids, and wipe it in fresh military olive paint before it heads to you.Įverything comes scratch-and-dent, so while $50k buys you a runner, refurbishment adds up to $30k if you want your T-72 looking brand-spanking-new. Rubber hoses dry out and fluids grow stale, paint fades under years of sun.

Forty years of military service and sitting in an outdoor lot waiting for a buyer does a job on components. Anything crucial that needs replacing gets fixed as part of the base purchase price.

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