Grum's Shed

[grum64]

Build Day 26 & 27 / Building Time - 8hrs / Total Building Time - 110hrs

It’s been a good deal longer than expected since last I posted due to a very unwelcome chest infection that arrived unannounced, rudely bypassed ‘under the weather’ and went straight to knocking me off my circulars completely for 10 days. I then fell victim to my own ineptitude which delayed things further.

With the cab now finished in, even if I say so myself, pretty good time (stop laughing 🫤), it and the body assemblies must now become one and hopefully reside happily ever after.

It was almost 17:00 and I was tired & about to call it a day but with the cab already atop the body of the CAT I couldn’t help thinking it would be a good idea to secure the assemblies together. After all there was only one yellow 5L Axle and four red 3L Pins with Stop Bush, two of which were already in place awaiting a push into position. It wouldn’t take long so that’s what I decided to do.

Unfortunately, this decision proved almost as disastrous as any one of those occasions when seemingly sensible women looked at Henry VIII and thought ‘that’s the man for me’.

Pushing the first pin into place it soon became obvious that it was going nowhere, at least not without a fight. I had one hand up against the front of the CAT and my other pushing the pin but it was still unwilling to move so I pushed harder. Then much harder still.

Upon reflection the ‘much harder still’ was a mistake because before I knew what was happening my hand slid up & off the pin hitting the cab and sending it bouncing end over end across the table, a trail of pieces in its wake, and landing on the chest of drawers. This sent my VW Beetle, Caterham and two Racers Ferrari Race Trucks (both awaiting disassembly!) to the floor where an explosion of colour like a firework display flew off in pretty much every direction 🤬. Also two Racers Ferrari cars disappeared down the back of the chest of drawers. On the upside, disassembling the Race Trucks won’t take so long .

Surprisingly, the cab escaped a similar fate, All it lost was the screen & instrumentation pieces from inside the cab, a few bits & pieces from the roof, both extinguishers and the ladder assembly which required a little attention. Mercifully the body of the CAT escaped damage. It travelled across the table at a rather impressive rate of knots & came to an abrupt halt after bouncing off the window. I’m sure it would’ve gone through it had the window not been double glazed

Parts from the CAT retrieved and refitted, the two assemblies secured together (according to the instructions this time) and it was time to put the ripper together which proved to be fairly straightforward. In fact it took a great deal longer to fit it than it did to build.

I can’t say I’m a fan of the false actuators. Besides having a stud length of the grey axle showing they just don’t look very good. I’m far from an expert but there must have been a better way of doing them.

I’m not blind to this being my own stupid fault (once again). Had I fitted the axle before the pins as per the instructions none of this would’ve happened. I was tired but that’s no excuse. I made a complete and utter horlicks of things by not paying attention to the instructions and taking shortcuts. Something that won’t happen again. My digits will remain hypothetically entwined.

I've recently read that the final calibration has a hissy fit if the extension of the Linier Actuators isn't correct. I don't know if this is right or not but I'd rather not take any more chances.

Because I use digital instructions I'm wasn’t able to use the respective picture in the instruction book to set the correct length of said Linier Actuators so just wound them out to their longest.

May I ask if anyone can shed some light on whether this was correct and if not what the correct length from the instruction book is please.

I'll be most grateful for any help or advice. Thank you.

 

Edited February 26 by grum64
Erroneous paragraph removed

[BusterHaus]

Hi Grum, 

I missed a whole bunch of updates, just got caught up. I don't remember any project of yours having some many mishaps, I hope you finish it without many others. By the way, don't be too hard on yourself for making assembly errors, they're unavoidable when you are excited to finish the build. 

[grum64]

On 2/26/2024 at 10:38 PM, BusterHaus said:

Hi Grum, 

I missed a whole bunch of updates, just got caught up. I don't remember any project of yours having some many mishaps, I hope you finish it without many others. By the way, don't be too hard on yourself for making assembly errors, they're unavoidable when you are excited to finish the build. 

Good to hear from you Bart, it’s been a while.

I'd not thought much about it before now but you're right, I do seem to have had a few 'incidents' with the CAT but I can't think it's any more than with any of my other builds.

I think the majority of those I have had have been a result of how I build. I think it's safe to say I'm a bit more heavy handed if that makes sense. Where most people fit parts delicately and with nimble fingers I find a lot of the time I have to use more force, more of a line it up & shove it approach. It's not quite a crude as that, at least not always, but you get the gist and it’s that extra oomph when my hand slips or something similar that propels things rather than maybe just dropping to the table if a softer approach were used 👍🏻🙂

[weavil]

Getting caught up as well. Great to see your progress. Credit to the writing of the last post. If I knocked them off like that, I would have cried.

[grum64]

17 hours ago, weavil said:

Getting caught up as well. Great to see your progress. Credit to the writing of the last post. If I knocked them off like that, I would have cried.

Thank you for your kind words. As for tears following a mishap, that's only happened once. 

 

[weavil]

So sad. Hopefully the worst is over.

[williamyzfr1]

On 2/26/2024 at 8:20 PM, grum64 said:

 

I can’t say I’m a fan of the false actuators. Besides having a stud length of the grey axle showing they just don’t look very good. I’m far from an expert but there must have been a better way of doing them.

I've recently read that the final calibration has a hissy fit if the extension of the Linier Actuators isn't correct. I don't know if this is right or not but I'd rather not take any more chances.

Because I use digital instructions I'm wasn’t able to use the respective picture in the instruction book to set the correct length of said Linier Actuators so just wound them out to their longest.

May I ask if anyone can shed some light on whether this was correct and if not what the correct length from the instruction book is please.

 

 

 

I wasn't a great fan of the false actuators so I used a Rebrickable mod that required two extra linear actuators to replace the fake ones, plus other parts.  However, these extra actuators are merely a cosmetic improvement  and only function if manually extended by rotating a gear which is incorporated into the mod..

From the printed instructions the metal part of all of the linear actuators extend by 29mm for the initial post build calibration.

My own experience suggests these lengths only work for the first calibration and won't work for any repeat calibrations. If you want to perform a repeat calibration in the future I have only been successful if I delete the App entirely and repeat the initial calibration with the printed instruction extended lengths. 

Edited March 1 by williamyzfr1

[grum64]

Hello williamyzfr1

Thank you for your very helpful reply.

I purchased A C's instructions for his modded CAT several weeks ago after seeing them on Rebrickable. I chose these as minimum disassembly is needed to implement the changes.

As it is I'm building the CAT to LEGO's instructions and will then build A C's so the false actuators will get replaced with proper ones.

Thank you also for letting me know the correct length for the Linier Actuators. I'm pretty sure mine are fully extended so I'll adjust them accordingly and then re-run the initial calibration accordingly, deleting the app and reinstalling it if necessary.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to help me.

[williamyzfr1]

16 minutes ago, grum64 said:

Hello williamyzfr1

Thank you for your very helpful reply.

I purchased A C's instructions for his modded CAT several weeks ago after seeing them on Rebrickable. I chose these as minimum disassembly is needed to implement the changes.

As it is I'm building the CAT to LEGO's instructions and will then build A C's so the false actuators will get replaced with proper ones.

Thank you also for letting me know the correct length for the Linier Actuators. I'm pretty sure mine are fully extended so I'll adjust them accordingly and then re-run the initial calibration accordingly, deleting the app and reinstalling it if necessary.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to help me.

Thank you for your kind reply.

The real actuators look so much better.