[MOD] 10277 Another crocodile MOD

[Duq]

My mods to the Crocodile set sofar. I started at the front:

10277 MOD 1 by Duq, on Flickr

The first thing thought when building the croc was: those corners are ugly! You don't need that second clip. So I cleaned up the corner and changed the headlights. In the process I dropped the flag by a plate so it's not as close to the middle headlight.

Then I saw @Sérgio's wheel guards and decided to add them as well.

Moving back a little I put in a solution like many have done, to fill that awful gap. Using bricks with double side-studs means that all the plates have two studs to connect to. The studs facing the cab don't bother me, you barely see them. The fact that the plates and cheese sloped sit half a plate below the top surface of the nose section doesn't bother me either.

10277 MOD 2 by Duq, on Flickr

What did bother me was that the running board now stopped short so I extended that by a stud. That in turn meant a few more changes, like swapping the round studs with centre hole for jumper plates but none of that required any special parts.

Finally I replaced the red ball-joint pins with black ones. The set already contains black ones (like the one you see in the photo, that I pull out of the Technic brick every time I separate the sections) so I really don't understand why the ones in the wheels are red.

More changes to come....

[ALCO]

I like the wheel guards!

[tinusk]

Nice mods, I like what you did with the corners and the lights. Ultimately, I'd like to mod a couple of working lights in there, although I'm not sure using 88005 will be the route for me.

22 hours ago, Duq said:

Finally I replaced the red ball-joint pins with black ones. The set already contains black ones (like the one you see in the photo, that I pull out of the Technic brick every time I separate the sections) so I really don't understand why the ones in the wheels are red.

More changes to come....

I suppose they did this to accent the drive shafts. Also, I think it gives the set a slight "model train" vibe, matching the colours to the rubber bands on the wheels. Personally, I've replaced them with black pins as well.

Edited July 14, 2020 by tinusk

[Sérgio]

On 7/14/2020 at 2:26 AM, Duq said:

 

Nice job!

If you want to level the fillment with the hood you can put that brick with studs on side, down two more plates :)

 

[Carefree_Dude]

So these gap hiding mods, do they stop the train from going through curves at all? I just did the above one and it looks very close. Don't have track set up to test now.

 

 

[Phil B]

Jang did this mod and it worked perfectly through all his curves.

[tinusk]

The gap mod doesn't seems to have any impact on curves so far. I'm curious to see if it does anything to its climbing abilities, as the cheese slopes seem to touch the front of the cab when the motor section is angled upwards. I guess if you don't have any steep inclines, there will be no problems.

Edited July 16, 2020 by tinusk