8868

[Grosse Kind]

As with my Nanomog, this comes courtesy of young GRUM64. I was offered this piece of classic wizardry for the cost of the freight across the pond and the understanding that it was a non vetted purchase that may or may not have been complete.

Clive and i have some corker chats on Lego, V8 cars, motorcycles, horses being sinister sandwich thieves (!?!), and whatever common gripe we both have against the world that day. He suggested i'd likely be quite taken with this set and thought i should have one of the couple he picked up cheap over the years so the plunge was taken.

Nerve wracking is the best explanation i can ever offer for waiting to see if international post arrives, what mystical form the previously rectangular prism should have taken on if it gets here, and the paranoia of whats going to be missing from it once its opened and assembly is in full swing. All, for once, totally unfounded and i slept easy in the interim. These naps of ease occurred because it was packaged beautifully by the super groovy Mrs GRUM, sent by trackable registered mail at a postage rate that makes me think she carried it here by plane and then posted it from intrastate, and i was briefed not to expect complete or pristine.

Not a lot more one could ask now really is there? Well, maybe perhaps some snow and we're experiencing that down south so it looks like that order got filled too.

Not made any giant alterations to it and theres to my count, a total of seven non year specific parts on it (you'll need damn good eyes to spot the last one) but its not too big a deviation from how it started and i can still live with myself. Its not finished of course, but i am for tonight.

Let me know what you think.

Cheers, Glen.

Again, a massive thanks to Clive and the wonderful Mrs Clive.

As built post arrival. Very relieved to find it was almost fully complete and everything worked. I had bunged on the grille MK1 by this point and a clear grilletop emblem/badge.

Started fiddling with shortly after. Added a grille as the front crankpin being only supported and located at one end whilst in tension from the rubber band seemed an oversight to me.

Plonked on a steering wheel as it looked like it ought have one and took no real effort. It's ever so slightly offset from the drivers seat (RHD of course) and doesn't turn or do anything but i console myself that the frippery of the exhaust stacks are as uselessly ornamental and they don't detract from it either.

The CowWhacker on the front felt a bit weak so was braced a bit, that were wayward elk that go tiptoeing through the tulips and into the front, don't deform the bullbar whist you're raiding forests of timber in your kenworthesque black pneumatic grocery getter.

As i'm in training with it insofar as the pneumatics, and a sticker kit seems extortionate, i colour coded each switch to a ram function and direction. To the lens on each of the red/yellow/green coded items extends its ram to lift/open the claw. To the orange rotates the turntable so the orange triangle swings t'ward it.

Once the basics were sorted, i partial stripped it and gave a bit of a scrub to perk it up a tad. Came up alright as far as i'm concerned.

With a bit of playing, i found i wasn't happy with the mounting of the rear diff. I added two bushes to the link prop shaft to limit it shifting back and forth too much while maintaining free rotation. I got these two bushes from out of the rear diffs mounting arrangement and replaced them with two grey 1 by 4 bricks and it's stabilized it beautifully (no more clicking of the pinion to ruin the fun of rolling it around or explode the somewhat precious 14 toother of which my stocks are low). At this stage i also flipped both diffs as i like the engines to rotate clockwise when looked at from the fan.

As i had a bit of time to kill i also built a highrange gear for it that drops the revs at the crank from 6:1 down to 3.6:1 and makes life a lot gentler on the diffs and universals. If slipped with some care you've also a neutral between.

As this counterrotated the engine again, i swapped the diffs back into their original dispositioning and regained the desired crank directional orientation.

The gearing is all up the front as i'd no desire to widen that superb stiff chassis and i found nowhere else to put it. As a plus, its easy to reach and operate without inverting the truck and is just simple enough to be darned effective

Above is a quick video of piston speed relative to wheel rotation, before and once shifted.

[RohanBeckett]

glad you gave it a good dust.. did you pull apart, wash, and rebuild? it's a great build.

Also.. make sure you build (and tweak) the B-Model.. it's a great mechanism!

[Grosse Kind]

Nah matey, i did the full assembly from base components to where you see it in the first pic, then dismembered the cab, engine and its compartment, crane glasshouse, and some of the grottier parts and toothbrushed the suckers in tepid soapy water. Rinse, dry, and reassemble and then left it at that. Diff and transmission followed and it may very likely remain intact from here on in, bar fettles and add ons as i see need over time.

Have had a look through reviews of the B model and the instructiion booklet and while nifty, i don't foresee me ever getting to it. Still pretty in love with 856 as far as mechanisms go. Theres a final 8860 set coming up for me from melbourne and then i'll be calling it quits on new to me purchases. I've now all (and then some) of what i was looking to own and will just tinker with them and enjoy as they are or i've made them cos they're great toys to play with.

Edited August 6, 2015 by Grosse Kind

[Richard Dower]

If it were me....i would take it apart, wash it, dry and polish......then swap out as many of the old parts with new ones as your stockpile of spare parts would allow.

Like...if it were me, i could swap out alot of the black parts for brand new....i'd try and get the set to as close to brand new in box as possible.

but that's me........

[Grosse Kind]

I get your mentality richard, and have seen it make otherwise rideable bikes into overly restored shed queens that clock up zero miles, cost four times what they'll ever be worth to refurbish, and often durate into decades whilst you search for that final piece of New Old Stock unobtanium that they stopped making twenty years before you were even born.

I prefer to make something functional, tidyish, and reliable and get use out of it whilst i move on with other projects and keep on the boil. As such, of my fleet, none are ever gonna be concourse but they all get out and used regularly.

I never polished lego components when i was ten, and unless the set was new didn't expect it would ever require to look as good as when it was. I'll always be a tinkerer rather than a restorer of lego and can live with said compromise.

I'm all for seeing pristine examples of other peoples gear too, but i generally accept that their compromise of owning whilst never to use, to me comes at too great a cost.

Thankyou nonetheless for your reply. If you haven't got one, get it and refurbish as its a nice set and will bring you a smile.

[zux]

Like...if it were me, i could swap out alot of the black parts for brand new....i'd try and get the set to as close to brand new in box as possible.

But-but-but....you would ruin the feel of that old set . I mean that clutch power, unavailable these days, that squeak sound when you put parts together or pull apart Well, unless parts got discoloured or yellowed pretty bad.

[Grosse Kind]

Just looked through and this didn't load earlier:

It was mid cleaning, and should also give an idea of the before (here) vs the after though by this stage i'd already done the battery case cover. Numerous pieces like the front guards were removed and then broken into component form to facilitate the spruce up. The thought briefly crossed my mind to drown it hoalus boalus in the bath as i did with my 8860 but the electrics and pneumatics stopped me :)

[skaah]

I made some changes to my 8868 too, I recommend copying the grabber from 8443 as the one from 8868 is not really up to any task. I modded the engine to use a chain for driving the fan.

https://imgur.com/FyYiZUe,2nA4H1c

I also tried to modify the compressor by moving the mounting point of the pump half a stud. Unfortunately, I could not get it to work reliably. Anyone any succes improving the pneumatic capacity of this set?

Edited July 16, 2015 by skaah

[CP5670]

I would wash or at least dust off the parts. Your copy seems to be in good shape otherwise, judging from the bricks on the bottom. Still one of my favorite Technic sets ever, even though it's been surpassed by modern sets in terms of complexity.

I also tried to modify the compressor by moving the mounting point of the pump half a stud. Unfortunately, I could not get it to work reliably. Anyone any succes improving the pneumatic capacity of this set?

I tried doing this once but couldn't find a good solution that fit into the existing space. It really needs more gear reduction to work well. Even as it as, the motor slows down and stalls quickly as the pressure builds up. An airtank will keep the pressure up but makes precise control harder in practice.

Edited July 17, 2015 by CP5670

[RohanBeckett]

I put 2 airtanks in place of the fake ones, and I recall it made it a lot more playable... just being able to use more functions, one after the other, without having to wait for the pressure to build back up again.

Also old valve/pump/cylinder parts could be a bit leaky these days, compare to brand new...

[Grosse Kind]

Thankyou for the replies fellas.

In order, SKAAH: i see you also thought the bullbar looked a bit weak. I'll do some looking into 8443 to see whats involved. The chain as you have it would make life more pleasant for the diff pinions through the ratio drop to 2:1 of crank to wheels. So far the rubber band on mine is holding up ok but may look into it as well should the band ever give out. Ta muchly for the pictures.

CP: this is how it currently looks

The earlier photos were pre cleaning and likely confused a few people.

Rohan: So far i'm quite satisfied with the compressor and its output but i'm only able to compare it with my other pneumatic set, 8110 which though i've never seen an airtank, i think that could use one where 8868 seems pretty good as is. Perhaps one day i'll splurge on a tank and see the light, but then i'll need three of em ;)