[MOC] Toyota Land Cruiser FJ40 - Ford Raptor alternate

[gyenesvi]

 

Hi Guys,

Here is my second alternate model out of the Ford Raptor set. I finally found an orange subject to be replicated in lego form from the set, that also matched some of my ideas for building something technically interesting out of it. Here is the real car (more images here), a perfect color match, not only the orange body but also the black wheels and front grille, roof/rollbar:

 

Features

- Live axle suspension both front and rear

- Working steering wheel through linkage mechanism

- Functional V6 engine under the hood, rear wheel drive (though I know an FJ should have an inline 6 engine, but not possible here)

- Openable doors, hood and tailgate, foldable seats and windshield

- Buildable with roll-bar or roof, clean interior, including the bed area

As I noted previously when presenting my Class 1 Buggy alternate, I was looking for a way to build a more interesting suspension than the standard independent front. Naturally, I considered building a live axle, and quickly realized that it is not possible to make it driven for the obvious reason of a 4x4 Raptor being 4x2 in the official Lego set.. So it's less interesting, but not a big deal, however, the second problem that struck me is how to build the steering without any joints (only 1 u-joint in the set, used in the drivetrain in the ball joint). This is when I started to think that replicating a linkage based steering mechanism for a live axle could be a fun challenge. Such a mechanism works best if the linkage goes from one side to the other (not from the center), which is ideal when it has a working steering wheel (which is offset to the side) instead of a HoG steering (which is typically centered). And since this car has a removable roof anyway, a working steering wheel is even better suited. So my goal was to make a playable steering mechanism that does not interfere with the front suspension (besides replicating the body).

I have to note that the RC models of @rm8 and @Madoca 1977 did inspire me. Madoca's version is based on the original of RM8, and it's a slightly larger scale crawler version of it. What I really like about the original version already (besides being an incredibly dense, cleverly motorized build) is that the RC steering is based on a linkage mechanism (even though its geometry is not perfect). My model in scale is closer to that of Madoca, with slighly smaller wheels, but bigger than that of RM8, so my wheelbase is somewhere in between the two (I scaled to the real car).

Chassis

So when using a linkage mechanism to steer a car, a steering link typically runs from driver side to passenger side. The longer the link, the better, as it eliminates bump steer better. Furthermore, to minimize bump steer, the angle of the steering link should be such that it is horizontal about when the suspension is compressed halfway. This ensures that in the two extremes, there's minimal length change in the steering link caused by its pivoting, that would result in unwanted steering. So I wanted to get this right, and it is quite easy to do with lego springs. This is because the springs have 6.5 studs uncompressed and 5.5 stud compressed length, so when a spring is attached to the body vertically, as typical for a live axle, it creates a half stud offset to the body's "coordinate system" (position of pinholes) in its uncompressed and fully compressed states. So if one end of a steering link is attached to the body, and the other to the front axle (without any offset), the link can easily be made such that its maximum deviation from horizontal is only half a stud. Given that you have a sufficiently long link, the length difference generated by such pivoting becomes negligable (about 1-2% of a stud), so bump steering will not be noticeable. (Unfortunately, in the build of RM8, the steering link is too short, and it's not angled properly, but of course it is because the servo can only be placed to the center due to lack of space).

Even though my model does not have a driven front axle, it was a challenge to build the steering. This is because I wanted to keep the V6 fake engine in the front, and that takes up a lot of space relative to the width of the car (the axles are 13 studs wide, and I did not want to make the disproportionately wide). So the steering linkage had to bypass the engine, the chassis itself and the suspension links as well. Luckily, the set comes with a few gears and framing parts that allowed me to angle the steering axle, and also add some down-gearing to make the turn of the steering wheel more realistic. Because of all the gearing, the direction of steering came out such that if I ran the steering link in front of the axle, it would have been reversed. So I had to run it behind the axle, which meant that I had to put the upper suspension links in front of the axle, which is not too bad because it resembles a bit the leaf springs of the real car. Also, this way the nose could be built as short as it should be according to the real car (barely reaching the front of the wheels).

The rear suspension is simple, using the ball joint, but I used the hard springs for the rear, as there I was able to move them more towards the center, which makes them behave a bit more softly.

Here is an image of the steering and drivetrain:

And here is the chassis with the axles included:

Bodywork

When building the bodywork, one key part was the long wing-shaped panel that can be used to replicate hood, as already seen in Madoca's version. However, I had to simplify some shapes there as it was not possible to replicate the detailed shape of the hood using only the parts in the set. The same goes for the front, since the Raptor has only stickered lights, so I had to use some gears to replace the round lights. Luckily, some black beams could be used for the front grille, which looks okay-ish, but nowhere as detailed as it could be built from Lego. Another interesting part was the angling of the front of the side, including the doors. After a lot of juggling with parts, I was able to make it look smooth and stable without colliding with the internals (steering column mainly). The small wing-shaped panel is really handy for cutting off the body near the front fender. Finally, some sloped system parts came also handy for building the rear wheel arches. I did not want to use the wheel arches of the Raptor as they are too bulky (protrude too much) and virtually impossible for me to incorporate them smoothly to the rest of the body.

In the end, besides building a roll-bar, I was also able to use the remaining large black panels to build a simple roof and mount it on bars. It looks better than I expected, I'd even say with the roof it does kind of resemble the real car with the full body. I'll let you guys be the judge, here are some photos of it, this time I'll use them instead of renders as I feel like I am getting better at making clean photos :)

You can find more photos and renders in my Bricksafe.

Building instructions are available on Rebrickable.

Let me know how you like it!

Cheers,

Viktor

Edited January 27, 2022 by gyenesvi

[proran]

Nice and elegant build. My favorite picture is the last one. The tapered profile makes it instantly recognizable as fj40, despite the headlights. Special thanks for the write-up, I've enjoyed reading about all the difficulties getting the steering right. I really like the render of the chassis - it's so clean and "simple". Everything just feels right.  Very nice job!

[1gor]

Great work with limited parts from 42126 Victor, I really like those classic cars; they are like evergreens and when replicated with LEGO parts they are even more interesting.

[gyenesvi]

19 hours ago, proran said:

Nice and elegant build. My favorite picture is the last one. The tapered profile makes it instantly recognizable as fj40, despite the headlights. Special thanks for the write-up, I've enjoyed reading about all the difficulties getting the steering right. I really like the render of the chassis - it's so clean and "simple". Everything just feels right.  Very nice job!

Thank you, that's the image I was also referring to :) Glad you like the summary, and that you appreciate the clean chassis, that's something I do try to achieve and do miss in some official sets even!

19 hours ago, 1gor said:

Great work with limited parts from 42126 Victor, I really like those classic cars; they are like evergreens and when replicated with LEGO parts they are even more interesting.

Thanks Igor, we agree on those classic evergreens, it's a pity that TLG chooses to model the modern versions nowadays in their new sets like the Defender and the Raptor (for example, the independent suspension is more boring on the new ones). One of these classics could be a good excuse to introduce leaf spring parts..

[1gor]

1 hour ago, gyenesvi said:

Thank you, that's the image I was also referring to :) Glad you like the summary, and that you appreciate the clean chassis, that's something I do try to achieve and do miss in some official sets even!

Thanks Igor, we agree on those classic evergreens, it's a pity that TLG chooses to model the modern versions nowadays in their new sets like the Defender and the Raptor (for example, the independent suspension is more boring on the new ones). One of these classics could be a good excuse to introduce leaf spring parts..

Lego had a chance with Jeep (it has classic suspension). That is why I don't like modern cars; you can not fix anything by yourself and you depend on mechanics and coachworkers who have 50% profit on parts and leaves rost under fuller and just paint it over, thin sheets of metal like paper...and I don't want to discuss about design...

[Jurss]

Chassis, front axle with that steering is brilliant.

[rm8]

Well done Viktor! I love your alternative builds, and this one is special, cause when I see LEGO x Toyota, I feel

[gyenesvi]

On 1/28/2022 at 6:50 PM, Jurss said:

Chassis, front axle with that steering is brilliant.

Thank you!

13 hours ago, rm8 said:

Well done Viktor! I love youк alternative builds, and this on is special, cause when I see LEGO x Toyota, I feel

Glad to hear you like them, and thanks for the inspiration, due to your builds as well, I started to really like the medium scale (especially for RC)!