[HELP] Designing a Technic Car Base

[Vee]

Hi,

I am using the build below as a base for a vehicle but I am not really happy with it although it is doing its job well. As you can see, what happens is that it is necessary that the two axles for the wheels be 9.5 studs apart. Not 9, not 10, but 9.5.

The only way to shift the axle half a stud and still keep using only beams for the base was by using what LDD calls "comb wheel" (part #6575). But this piece is kind of ugly, it protrudes up and down a bit.

Is there any other better way to do this?

[McBrickington]

The plastic motor crank/cross ( part # 2853 ) would also give you a half stud offset. If the horizontal potrusion of the axle isn't a problem you could use that.

[Vee]

Thanks for the tip and welcome to the forum!

This was the best I could think of:

It looks weird, asymmetrical, and now I need a 1M cross axle.

Even if I change liftarm lengths to move that 2M protuded cross axle away from the wheel axle, I cannot work around it in the car body.

Well, I must be doing something conceptually very wrong because, I was thinking, Technic parts exist for decades and for decades Lego has not created a "jumper liftarm" (similar to what the "brick world" has, the jumper plate) to allow to have half stud shifts. If for decades a "jumper liftarm" was not needed, why do I need one in the very first time I try to design something using Technic parts?

The answer is: I am doing something conceptually very wrong...

Edited February 23, 2014 by Vee

[Vee]

Actually, I was too soon in giving up. I just tried to use the car body around that weird base above and there is hope. The wheel and the mudguard are ok, I just have to work around a minor problem. I added the part to one of my pending BL orders, let's see in reality how it goes. Hard to find part, specially in a neutral color, but I was lucky.

Thanks again!

[McBrickington]

I didn't think of this before, but it would be far easier to just use a 1x2 with 2 holes and a 1x2 with a cross axle to achieve a half stud offset.

[Vee]

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean. One of the requirements of the base is that both axles must be on holes, not cross axle, as pictured.

[cgg199]

From what I see, a lot of things in that design won't work. For instance, the chassis will be very floppy along with some of the 2L pins coming out.

[Vee]

From what I see, a lot of things in that design won't work. For instance, the chassis will be very floppy along with some of the 2L pins coming out.

In my particular build, that 2L pin would actually be locked by the mudguard in a way that it would not allow it to come out, as shown below.

but the "minor problem" that I mentioned previously has proven to be a big one (I need the space taken by the pin) so I cannot use the design, even if it was a good one, which I agree with you it is not.

I am keeping my original design for now: Its only flaw is visual, the lower part of the comb wheel is visible below the vehicle which kind of detracts a bit its overall appearance. The upper part of the comb wheel that protrudes up is not a problem, it is hidden inside the body of the vehicle.

I still hope that some expert Technic guy has a magic formula for a better solution though...

[Alasdair Ryan]

The best idea I can think off is to use a axle (5.5) and axle connecters,although this will not be very strong.

[Vee]

The best idea I can think off is to use a axle (5.5) and axle connecters,although this will not be very strong.

Interesting idea. Something like this?

It would work fine, and should be strong enough, it is a small vehicle. But there are two issues: I could not find a way to make the wheel axles go through holes and not through cross axles. I need holes. Also, one of the liftarm holes in the original base is being used and with an axle, I don't have that hole anymore.

This solves the first problem. This should be a good solution, if not for the missing hole, but still looks good. I need to try it for real.

[Alasdair Ryan]

Try using friction less axle pins turned around on ether side,with the brick in the middle.

Edited February 23, 2014 by Alasdair Ryan

[Vee]

Try using friction less axle pins turned around on ether side,with the brick in the middle.

I will try to figure out what you mean, I am too new to Technic to know things. Just yesterday, I was reading a bunch of slides that I found in the internet about Technic parts and I then learned that some pins are color coded and the color means this "friction less" feature or not. I learned this yesterday, otherwise I would have no idea what you were talking about. Still, some things to figure out left from what you said. Thanks for the tip.

By the way, that assembly above using the 5.5 axle seems very very promising, I am very hopeful.

[Zerobricks]

Just make it fully studded and use the studded bricks with holes.

[Vee]

Just make it fully studded and use the studded bricks with holes.

This is originally a fully studded MOC that uses studded bricks with holes.

Here is the whole story. I wanted to have a small vehicle from the 30's, a pickup preferably. So I searched the internet and found the MOC below, a Ford Model A pickup that was very much what I wanted, and the creator (Legohaulic) makes available the instructions to build it.

It is a very nice little car, with instructions. What else could I ask for? Then I built it virtually, in LDD, to test and have the parts list ready for BL. Upon building it, I realized a few things that bothered me, well mostly one thing: note that the build starts as a 4-stud wide vehicle and then, for the back, it moves to 5-stud wide vehicle, The transition from 4- to 5-stud wide is not seamless, there is a weird gap highly visible through the back mudguards (difficult to see from the small pics above).

In the meantime, I found that the pickup was inspired by another vehicle, a Morris Minor, which the creator (Gambort) also makes instructions available:

So, although I wanted the pickup, I decided to also build in LDD the Morris Minor, because it is built in a very different way, using the Technic beams as a base and it is modular. I liked a lot the way it was built.

While trying to make the Model A better, it was getting difficult to keep it structurally strong and then I thought about using the technique learned from the blue car where you have a strong base and you just build on top of it, with much more freedom to do things. It has proven a difficult project for me because I am inexperienced, but I managed to do it. I am very happy with what I have right now (at least virtually, parts are on their way) except for that weird comb wheel that I had to use to get the 9.5 stud distance between axles (the blue car uses 8-stud distance).

I have tried to use 9-stud distance with no success, no matter what I tried. I don't want to use 10-stud distance because then the vehicle gets too much out of scale that actually requires a 8.5 stud distance. So I stuck to 9.5 and the project is done, and I like it, and I am just trying to get rid of the comb wheel.

Edited February 24, 2014 by Vee

[Hrafn]

There are 1x2 Technic (studded) bricks with two holes in them, instead of one hole in the center. Used with standard Technic bricks, this gives a half-stud offset.

Edited February 24, 2014 by Hrafn

[Vee]

Thanks for the tip, Hrafn. I tried to use the Technic bricks with holes instead of the beams and although I didn't know I could do that to get half a stud shift (nice trick by the way), what also made me put the idea aside and try something else was that, because this is a very small vehicle (14 x 5.5 stud, < 6 brick tall), the Technic bricks look bulky; the beams give it a much more pleasant overall appearance. In the end, I am using the axle idea from A.Ryan, as shown below, that proved a very good fit.

I ended up buying pieces to try almost all the ideas I had or learned. Everything is only virtual as of now. When I have it all tested, I will post here the final result. If it ends up as good in real life as it looks in LDD, I will be very happy with this MOD.

By the way, all this trouble just to give Mr. Ole Kirk a pickup! This pickup is the final part of my Ole Kirk's house saga...

[Vee]

In LDD, you can connect the tire #61254 to the wheel #30155. In real life, I have just found that the connection is not good, the tire is loose around the wheel. Now I have 5 wheels and 5 tires that don't work together...

The MOC of the Ford model A above uses steering wheels (#30663) as wheels, inserted in an old type of tire (not the #61254), and then it uses white rubber bands to give the tire the white stripe look. I have found this is indeed possible to do but there is a very delicate "connection" between the white rubber band and the wheel+tire assembly; a light tap to the car will make the white band fall. Not good at all, only good for display and as long as you handle the car very carefully. Honestly, I did not like it at all, despite the very nice visual. Also, the connection between the steering wheel and the tire is a pain, because you need to align both manually, which is difficult. And also, connecting the steering wheel to the bar (a 4L sword that acts as an axle) is another pain because the wheel can go through the bar entirely so getting the right position/distance between wheels is another pain.

Connecting the cape to the back of the plate using minifig hands is just one more pain: another very very delicate connection.

All in all, a very difficult MOC, as built, not suitable for anything else than for a quick display, taking pictures and then disassembling it before it crumbles down by itself.

I am making changes, trying to make it sturdier, but it's been difficult due to the small scale.

[Vee]

FREE AT LAST!

I am done with my last Lego project, the Ford Model A Pickup and the Morris Minor. I finished building both.

No pictures but ... there is a movie.

Cheers.

Edited March 20, 2014 by Vee