[MOC] Motor grader CAT 120M2

[Jundis]

Hi guys,

I'd like to present you my MOC of a Motorgrader, which is based on a CAT 120M2. I worked on this for about 6 months since I saw this video, hence the color scheme.

The goal was to recreate as many functions of the real grader as possible, which I'd like to show in this little video.

 

There are many pneumatic and manual functions. The grader also has has pendular suspension on front axle and twin pendular on the back wheels.
Pneumatic:
- Moving of front blade
- Moving of rear ripper
- Moving of middle blade with 3 cylinders (up/down/sideways)
- Tilting of middle blade
Manual:
- Steering
- Articulation of rear end steering for tighter turning circle or grab steer
- Tilting of front wheels
- Vertical turning of the blade
- Shifting the blade to left/right side
- Spring loaded, lockable center pin for left/right swing motion of the blade attachment mechanism

One of the most challenging things has been to angle the blade for grading embankments. Therefor I needed this swing motion of the blade mechanism with the lockable center pin (notice the height difference of both pneumatic cylinders).

The whole scale has been chosen according to the pneumatic cylinders (friggin expensive 1x11), where the new 68.7 tires fit perfectly in my opinion. As the cab is stuffed with pneumatic hoses, I have dropped the idea of implementing a seat and interieur.

The scale fits nicely with the Arocs, which strangely is missing one pneumatic cylinder ...

 

[Touc4nx]

Wow, that's impressive.
So much functions and blue/black color scheme 
I just have one question, what is this 8 tooth gear used for ?
 

1 hour ago, Jundis said:



 

[Maaboo the Witch]

7 minutes ago, Touc4nx said:

Wow, that's impressive.
So much functions and blue/black color scheme 
I just have one question, what is this 8 tooth gear used for ?

I think it's used to limit the suspension.

[Jundis]

1 hour ago, Touc4nx said:

Wow, that's impressive.
So much functions and blue/black color scheme 

Thank you :-)

52 minutes ago, Maaboo35 said:

I think it's used to limit the suspension. 

It is connected to a small linear actuaor for tilting the front wheels. Mostly used, when the graders work in ditches so they 'lean' themself into the soil.

 

[Bluehose]

I did never seen this way to use pneumatic without fixing the upper end. It's nice

[1gor]

Very nice; you are tempting me to make yellow one some day and perhaps you gave an idea to LEGO company for next Volvo licensed set - Volvo grader...

[Jundis]

40 minutes ago, Bluehose said:

I did never seen this way to use pneumatic without fixing the upper end. It's nice

With brand new hoses the fit is really tight, but with older ones its perfect and there is no danger of damaging the inlet valve. Maybe Lego change the compund of the rubber or the rubber just softens over the years.

40 minutes ago, I_Igor said:

Very nice; you are tempting me to make yellow one some day and perhaps you gave an idea to LEGO company for next Volvo licensed set - Volvo grader...

Thank you Igor :-)

I learned a lot during this building process, especially the fact that stability really comes from using as few parts and connections as possible. Would be great to see your approach as there are not many technic graders. Most of them have only few basic functions, others are way bigger.

Edited July 12, 2020 by Jundis

[jorgeopesi]

Congratulations, a motorgrader is one of the hardest machines to build and you did it very well.

[Jundis]

1 hour ago, jorgeopesi said:

Congratulations, a motorgrader is one of the hardest machines to build and you did it very well.

Thank Jorge! Means a lot coming from you :-)

2 hours ago, I_Igor said:

perhaps you gave an idea to LEGO company for next Volvo licensed set - Volvo grader...

Sadly this is unlikely, as Volvo don't have graders in their current lineup.

https://www.heavyequipmentguide.ca/article/19827/volvo-discontinues-backhoe-loaders-and-motor-graders-transfers-production-to-sdlg

[1gor]

58 minutes ago, Jundis said:

Thank Jorge! Means a lot coming from you :-)

Sadly this is unlikely, as Volvo don't have graders in their current lineup.

https://www.heavyequipmentguide.ca/article/19827/volvo-discontinues-backhoe-loaders-and-motor-graders-transfers-production-to-sdlg

I totally forgot about that (even today I saw one backhoe and grader by Volvo by side of the street)...but this does not stop us mocers to make it (some day)

[Jundis]

19 hours ago, I_Igor said:

I totally forgot about that (even today I saw one backhoe and grader by Volvo by side of the street)...but this does not stop us mocers to make it (some day)

I'd love to see an approach from Lego themselves. Also, the 42030 was based on the Volvo V350F from 2007 (in production till 2018), so maybe there is a slight chance they would do it.

Also I am looking forward to see Lego use the 68.7 tires in future technic models.

[Gray Gear]

Looks pretty cool to me, even though I dont know much about construction vehicles. Is this like a precision Bulldoser?

Also, there in the front the whole front axle is held in place by a single blue technic brick. I dont like that, It looks very fragile.

[Rudivdk]

This is absolutely an amazing MOC. Looks really good, is very very functional and with relatively low number of parts too it seems. Great to see some pneumatics in there (with motorized pump I assume?), they are not used often enough I feel... This is what Technic is about as far as I am concerned. Well done!!

[Mr Jos]

Nice MOC!

I like to see technic models/machines that are not often made, certainly with pneumatics. Hope they will bring out a new set with the 1x11's to get a reasonable price for them. It's the only reason I don't own any now.

 

Does the compressor pump have some overpressure shutoff or is it manual on/off?

[Jundis]

4 hours ago, Gray Gear said:

Looks pretty cool to me, even though I dont know much about construction vehicles. Is this like a precision Bulldoser?

Also, there in the front the whole front axle is held in place by a single blue technic brick. I dont like that, It looks very fragile.

Thanks! Graders are multipurpose vehicles, mostly to level every kind of soil, so the term precision bulldozer is quite correct :-)

Bending is not a big problem, twisting is more of an issue, although the overall stability is quite good. The front axle is also stabilized by the upper liftarms.

4 hours ago, Rudivdk said:

This is absolutely an amazing MOC. Looks really good, is very very functional and with relatively low number of parts too it seems. Great to see some pneumatics in there (with motorized pump I assume?), they are not used often enough I feel... This is what Technic is about as far as I am concerned. Well done!! 

Thank you very much! The .io-file has 967 parts, although the hoses are not included. So it's roundabout 1000 parts. Yep, I used an PF L-Motor and the Small Pneumatic Pump from the Arocs.

4 hours ago, Mr Jos said:

Nice MOC!

I like to see technic models/machines that are not often made, certainly with pneumatics. Hope they will bring out a new set with the 1x11's to get a reasonable price for them. It's the only reason I don't own any now.

Does the compressor pump have some overpressure shutoff or is it manual on/off?

Thank you! I really wish Lego would also bring back the blue air tank I used in this model. There is no overpressure shutoff but due to the airtank I think there is no need for an overpressure valve. It run steadily while I took the photos and I had no problems.

[suffocation]

Love this MOC The colour scheme is my favourite and all the functions are great, especially that nifty tilting mechanism on the front axle.

[1gor]

On 7/12/2020 at 2:28 PM, Jundis said:

With brand new hoses the fit is really tight, but with older ones its perfect and there is no danger of damaging the inlet valve. Maybe Lego change the compund of the rubber or the rubber just softens over the years.

Thank you Igor :-)

I learned a lot during this building process, especially the fact that stability really comes from using as few parts and connections as possible. Would be great to see your approach as there are not many technic graders. Most of them have only few basic functions, others are way bigger.

I know what you mean; I needed half a year to make optimized chassis for my Fastrac (and now I'm stuck with bonnet; more due time limit than idea but I hope to have some extra time very soon...)

Kind regards

[Jundis]

20 hours ago, suffocation said:

Love this MOC The colour scheme is my favourite and all the functions are great, especially that nifty tilting mechanism on the front axle.

Thank you very much :-)

In the end this mechanism seems so obvious now but I tried so many different ways to get this right, working and in the tight space.

I never did an instruction, but really consider it here after all the nice feedback. Can you guys give an opinion how much work this would mean and if it is necessary at all, because this MOC used so many very high-priced pieces...?

[Rudivdk]

With all the pneumatic hoses and pumps and electric wires and stuff it would be quite some work to make full CAD based instructions, especially when you have little experience. I'd suggest going for a photo sequence (reverse breakdown) to save you some time...

I personally hardly ever build other people's MOCs (I'd rather use some photo's as inspiration to build something of my own), so I can't comment on the demand for instructions.

[ctx1769]

i got the education set 9641 from amazon about 2 years ago not opened it yet and thats got the white air tank.

 

[Jundis]

20 hours ago, Rudivdk said:

With all the pneumatic hoses and pumps and electric wires and stuff it would be quite some work to make full CAD based instructions, especially when you have little experience. I'd suggest going for a photo sequence (reverse breakdown) to save you some time...

I personally hardly ever build other people's MOCs (I'd rather use some photo's as inspiration to build something of my own), so I can't comment on the demand for instructions.

That`s my biggest concern with all the hoses... Maybe I just wait, if there is a demand.

18 hours ago, ctx1769 said:

i got the education set 9641 from amazon about 2 years ago not opened it yet and thats got the white air tank.

Ahhh! That's where these white airtanks come from! I didn't know :-)

[howitzer]

Wow, this is great! As someone said, most graders seem to either have much less functions or be much larger, so it's astonishing how you managed to implement so many functions in this scale.

When I got back to Technic after my years of darkness, almost the first thing I wanted to build was a grader, but after modeling it digitally for a while, I quickly discovered why there appears to be so few of them, as it's an amazingly complex piece of machinery.

I'd be interested in instructions, but there's the problem of those long small pneumatic cylinders, which are absurdly expensive and you used so many of them here...

 

[Pattspatt]

12 minutes ago, howitzer said:

I'd be interested in instructions, but there's the problem of those long small pneumatic cylinders, which are absurdly expensive and you used so many of them here...

I’ve got exactly the same feeling - I’d love to build this amazing model, but I might have to wait a year or two for part prices to (hopefully?) come down. Reverse teardown photos would be work for me, though!

[Jundis]

14 hours ago, howitzer said:

I'd be interested in instructions, but there's the problem of those long small pneumatic cylinders, which are absurdly expensive and you used so many of them here...

 

14 hours ago, Pattspatt said:

I’ve got exactly the same feeling - I’d love to build this amazing model, but I might have to wait a year or two for part prices to (hopefully?) come down. Reverse teardown photos would be work for me, though!

Thanks for the input, guys! I will start to take I look how hard it is to make instructions. Never did that before.

The cylinders, airtank, pneumatic switches and wheels alone are about 150€ :-/

Maybe I just send it to Lego Ideas, so they can bring these parts back into the program and the prices drop

[howitzer]

1 hour ago, Jundis said:

 

Thanks for the input, guys! I will start to take I look how hard it is to make instructions. Never did that before.

The cylinders, airtank, pneumatic switches and wheels alone are about 150€ :-/

Maybe I just send it to Lego Ideas, so they can bring these parts back into the program and the prices drop

Yeah, three of those thin 11L cylinders alone would be in the order of 100€ from Bricklink and there's not too many available. It has only ever been released with the Arocs, and there's really a bad need for another set which includes that part. Larger 11L cylinders aren't too cheap either, but at about 5€/piece they are still much more affordable. The airtank is pretty expensive too at some 15€.

Technic sets don't fare that well in Ideas, none have ever been accepted :( But hopefully TLG will come up with a set of their own design which will include at least some of these parts.