Renault Magnum AE500 6x4

[aqaz]

Finished my Magnum!

Retired at New Year, took up Lego again after nearly 40 years, used to do a lot with my son.

Anyway, I always wanted to build a remote control big scale Magnum after having an AE450 6x2 in the late 90's... Was going to do Tamia or Wedico but they don't make a Magnum and I don't have the equipment to manufacture all the parts, and they are just so so expensive..... So, decided to try it with Lego.

Scale had to be 1:17.3 by working back from the size of the only realistic and correctly proportioned wheel and tyre, took a couple of weeks gathering pics working out dimensions and so on. Then a month back in China, then three months trial and error, build and rebuild, give up and make a trailer, buy more job lots off e-bay, wait for vital bits from bricklink (best discovery ever) research how others solved particular problems then adapt from there, that's how I found this site,...... etc, etc, etc.

I could not tolerate a lack of windscreen or mirrors so I made these and the suzies but all the rest is purely Lego. Oh, I had to halve some 'treads' for the footsteps, and back the lights with kitchen foil. I also had to make all the stickers my own 'company' real Magnum panel. This was far and away the hardest part, cutting 4 mm strips of high conspicuity foil and applying it to my reefer van took quite literally hours.

I will do another thread with the trailers built so far.

Feel free to comment.

Andrew.

Just discovered that I can not upload my pictures. I will join MOC pages or Brickshelf and put them there.

[Nazgarot]

Welcome! This is looking good. Can't wait to see more pictures.

Can you say some more about functionality? Does it have any suspension, is it RC and so on?

-ED-

[Someonenamedjon]

Welcome to Eurobricks!

You truck looks very good, as i can sort of read Chinese, the front says China Dragon and something else

P.S. Are you from China?

[aqaz]

I joined Brickshelf....

The pictures are there, truck, trailers and the whole setup.

Here: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?m=aqaz

Thank you both for the comments...

Nazgarot: Full independent suspension on everything, since leaf springs are not an option, I made it up as I went along.... The drive axles are train units in the chassis and a spring from a grey shocker mounted on a vertical axle at each corner of the diff frames. You would not believe how many rebuilds to come up with something that handled the correct scale loading. (5.79 Kg), Main drive if PF XL, steering is PF Servo. Control is with a IR speed control. The kingpins are inside the front wheels so that I could build the wheel arches to scale, the steering is Ackerman.

The only thing not to scale (Given that one must round up or down to the nearest whole stud) is the distance between the second and third axles, it was simply not possible to get it right.

Jon: Correct, China Dragon and Phoenix... Zhong Guo Long Feng. Although I am not Chinese, I spend a lot of time in China, more now that I am retired. I married there some years ago so we go back to our family a couple of months each year.

[Someonenamedjon]

Learn something everyday! (or two days) 凤=phoenix