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2GodBDGlory

[MOC] Ford F-Series 7th Gen (Added fifth and final variant)

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[EDIT] I build five significantly different variants of this truck, so feel free to take a look under the main one!

Well, I'm back with another MOC, in a similar vein as many of my older ones: Large scale, LBG, flimsy and unreliable, but with some interesting never-before-done functions.

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In writing you're supposed to have a "hook" to draw readers in early on, so I'll quick hint at the highlight features (in bold), and then start explaining my intentions for this model.

Features:

Opening stuff

Rear-wheel-drive with I-6 piston engine

Twin I-Beam front suspension

Leaf-sprung rear live axle

Three-speed automatic gearbox (Only two worked:pir-bawling:)

Steering with working wheel

Pneumatic rear differential lock

Pneumatic bed dumping

Realistic disc/drum brake setup, using a master cylinder setup rather than a valve.

 

So, this model was built for a few reasons. I wanted to try making a three-speed automatic gearbox using a Servo motor and switch, I wanted to try building Ford's unique Twin I-Beam suspension used on rear-drive trucks, and I wanted to build something with easy bodywork to build. As many of you know, I am not a fan of building bodyworks, so on this model I devised a little scheme to get the most out of a single bodywork. Namely, I will be building five different trucks with the same basic bodywork, so as to minimize the amount of bodywork I have to build. The five models planned are as follows, with the '83 F-150 being the next one planned.

1982 F-100 (4x4 truck with lots of complex functions)

1984 F-350 (4x2 truck with lots of complex functions, as seen here)

1987 F-250 (High-performance off-road crawler)

1983 F-150 (High-performance, high-speed off-roader)

1980 F-100 (High-performance street truck)

 

Aesthetics:

I like the way the truck looks, with the blocky front, pronounced "dually" bulges, and especially the black stripe, but I know it's far from world-class. One detail I like is the use of a sideways 20T clutch gear as the Ford emblem on the front. The rear tires are different than the front ones mainly because I only have four of the tires used on the front, but also because a lot of the junky old rear-drive, dually trucks I see (usually rotting away, unused) have all-terrain tires on the rear, but street tires on the front, and this allowed me to replicate that. The rim size difference is unfortunate, though.

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Opening Stuff:

The hood, doors, glove box, and tailgate open.

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Interior:

The interior had quite a bit of attention to detail, with an opening glove box and working steering wheel.

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Suspension:

I put quite a bit of effort into my attempt to provide realistic suspension on this truck. The front end has Ford's unique Twin I-Beam suspension design, used on many of their rear-drive trucks over the years, and even on their new rear-drive F-250/F-350s. (Although these are popular trucks in Canada, next to no-one buys rear-drive here, and the ground clearance is low, impeding my view, so I've never actually observed it on a new truck). This suspension is something like a swing-arm or Tatra design in that there is only a pivot at one end, so the wheel camber changes through the suspension travel, but unlike a Tatra design, the pivot is not placed adjacent to a central differential, but is placed on the far side of the truck, creating a very long swingarm that minimizes the undesirable camber change. My setup has not only the basic I-beam, but also longitudinal radius arms and an anti-roll bar, and is coil-sprung by a long hard shock. According to my Wikipedia perusing, this year of F-350 actually had a simpler leaf-sprung I-beam setup without radius arms, but I wanted to build the complex one used on lighter-duty trucks anyway (later in the generation, Ford switched to a solid front axle on rear-drive F-350s). The suspension ended up being quite close to bottoming out on the final truck, but still retained a little travel.

The rear had a simpler design of a leaf-sprung live axle, but maintained the added complexity of an anti-roll bar. This also ended up being very close to bottoming out.

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Drive:

Drive was done by two PF L-motors through the three-speed transmission, to the rear axle, where a planetary hub reduced speed prior to the new HD differential. An I-6 piston engine, replicating Ford's durable 4.9L design, was included to add some variety over the V-8s more common in trucks. Speed was low, but it drove on flat surfaces without complaint (Obstacles caused skipping between the 12T double-bevel gear and the new differential in the rear H-frame.

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Steering: 

Steering was rather complicated, using a PF L-motor under the hood, which drove the steering wheel, but also sent a shaft straight down into a small linear actuator, which moved a couple linkages to steer the wheels while allowing the suspension to work independently. I found I was having trouble with the linear actuator's clutch slipping, so I grabbed a fake one I bought a while back as being too cheap to pass up, popped it open, found where the orange shaft compresses for the clutching, and stuffed a wad of paper inside to essentially override the clutch. It worked better thereafter, though it still made nasty clicking noises sometimes. There was castor angle, kingpin inclination, and the rather undesirable reverse Ackermann geometry.

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Note end of small LA in upper center.

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Good instructive picture salvaged during disassembly. You can see the LA and the links that connect it to the wheels.

Transmission:

The transmission was built to be three-speed automatic design. Physically, it was very simple, with the three gears being 1:1 (16T gear to 16T clutch gear), 3:5 (12T gear to 20T clutch gear), and 1:3 (8T gear to 24T differential), which was shifted by a PF servo motor using wave selectors. The more unusual part was the automatic setup, where a PF switch, spring-loaded to stay at one end, was driven through an 2008 28T differential hooked up to the truck's drivetrain, such that high resistance routed torque to the differential housing instead of transmitting it through the spider gears, flipping the switch, and hence the servo, shifting into a lower gear. It sort of worked, but the friction in the switching mechanism caused problems. If I set the rubber band stiffness high enough to overcome the friction and flip back into third while cruising, it ended up being high enough that the 12:28 gearing in the rear differential would skip before shifting into first, while if I set it to allow shifting into first, it would no longer shift into third on flat ground. In the end, I settle for having just third and second work, though first could be activated by manually holding the switch back. Apart from switching woes, the tranny worked well.

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Note differential in center. This sends power to either the rest of the drivetrain or to:

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This switch, which was spring loaded by rubber bands (before I ripped the floor out for pictures)

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Which controlled the Servo in the bottom left, which shifted the gearbox in the middle.

Differential lock: 

There was a basic rear differential lock, powered by a small pneumatic cylinder. This was powered by a PF M-motor under the hood running a compact autovalve. This means that the motor was continually running a 6L pump, but would flip a switch one way or another depending on direction. It proved to be a convenient way of control.

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Bed Dumping:

The bed could be tipped using two large pneumatic cylinders, and was controlled using a Servo motor flipping a valve (using a method I discovered the other day in a sweet Air Claw Rig-inspired MOC on here). The pressure came from the diff lock's autovalve, so both levers had to be pressed to dump the bed. In the end, I had to resort to using only one port on each cylinder, so the bed falls uncontrollably when released (Like the 2005 Mobile Crane's boom). This is undesirable generally, but in this instance I simply had no space to put any hoses on the top, because the first stud of hose off of the port would interfere with the bed. It took a few seconds to build up pressure, but worked satisfactorily.

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Brakes:

The brakes were extremely complicated, requiring a PU hub and three motors to function. The basic brakes were fairly simple, with a small pneumatic cylinder per wheel, providing front disc brakes and rear drum brakes, but the control was something else. Rather than using a typical compressor-valve setup, I opted to aim for something more realistic. Real cars have hydraulic brakes, of course, and are controlled by moving a master cylinder connected to the brake pedal, which forces hydraulic fluid through the system, activating the brakes. To simulate this, I hooked up a PU XL motor to a medium linear actuator, which was connected to two large pneumatic cylinders, such that running the motor extended the cylinders, adding pressure to the system. In order to work properly, though, there had to be the right amount of pressure in the system to begin with, so I used a PU L-motor to run another 6L pump to pressurize this system. In order to make it make the right number of pumps, though, the program had to know the current pressure in the system. To do this, I hooked up a red cylinder from the original pneumatic system (The lack of an upper port means that there is no rubber seal at the top, lowering friction) to the braking circuit, so that it would expand as pressure increased. It was spring-loaded, though, to stay contracted until the pressure went up, and was then geared to a PU L motor working as a rotation sensor to let the program know an approximate pressure (and friction in the motor did make it very approximate). The brakes sort of worked, but were far from strong. Nevertheless, it was quite an interesting engineering exercise.

Spoiler

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Drum brake undeployed

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Drum brake deployed

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Brake Compressor

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Master Cylinder mechanism

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Pressure sensor

Fun Fact:

Of the ten pneumatic cylinders used in the truck, only one of them (the diff lock one) had hoses connected to two ports!

 

Overall, the truck's reliability was annoying, as usual, but I liked the look and the advanced features.

I've got pictures at: https://bricksafe.com/pages/2GodBDGlory/miscellaneous, though there's a bunch of other stuff in the folder, since I accidentally put them in my miscellaneous folder...

Edited by 2GodBDGlory

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Thanks for sharing! I especially like the frond grill and that this MOC is packed with an unbelievable amount of functions.

Also downloaded your book, going to enjoy it!

 

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I really admire your MOCs as you try do realize all the real-world functions at ones and really push the boundaries.

But this actually is just too much for plastic bricks I guess :D

Because of the size of motors and actuators, the whole structure has to be bigger, increasing weight even further. Just out of curiosity: How much does this MOC weight? My guess is > 20 lbs / 10 kg?

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What should I say - I like old american trucks, vans and these pickups!

Here's what genuine technic should be: complex, ugly and messy, overfunctional, all covered with a bodykit to start looking as a vehicle.

Like the original steering wheel very much!

From the other side the rear axle is too wide, unrealistically wide, comparing to the original. Looks like threecycle.

 

Please keep building!

 

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7 hours ago, GerritvdG said:

Thanks for sharing! I especially like the frond grill and that this MOC is packed with an unbelievable amount of functions.

Also downloaded your book, going to enjoy it!

Thanks!

I am noticing a lot of embarrassing mistakes in the book, but I plan to fix them when I add the 2021 sets in a month or two.

6 hours ago, Jundis said:

I really admire your MOCs as you try do realize all the real-world functions at ones and really push the boundaries.

But this actually is just too much for plastic bricks I guess :D

Because of the size of motors and actuators, the whole structure has to be bigger, increasing weight even further. Just out of curiosity: How much does this MOC weight? My guess is > 20 lbs / 10 kg?

I agree, it would have to be bigger to improve structural integrity, but then weight would be an even bigger problem. I always find that I need all available space for the functions I have planned, and then have no room to reinforce stuff properly. I can't tell you how much it weighs though, because I already took the chassis apart...

 

4 hours ago, Aleh said:

What should I say - I like old american trucks, vans and these pickups!

Here's what genuine technic should be: complex, ugly and messy, overfunctional, all covered with a bodykit to start looking as a vehicle.

Like the original steering wheel very much!

From the other side the rear axle is too wide, unrealistically wide, comparing to the original. Looks like threecycle.

 

Please keep building!

 

Thanks for appreciating my focuses (foci?). I think the wider rear end was a direct result of Lego's tires being too wide. Originally I built it with the 81.6 tires from the front all around and built the rear axle so that a single-rear-tire version would be flush to the side of the standard bed, and then just added the width of a second tire to the bulges. I guess my reasoning involved the fact that I'll be building other variants with single rear tires and I wanted it to fit that (rather than having a recessed inner tire). If this were my reasoning, though, it would be flawed, since my other variants will have different axles anyways. Oh well...

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On 9/2/2021 at 4:59 PM, 2GodBDGlory said:

building other variants with single rear tires 

Good solution! Or try some 3rd party tires...

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I'm back with my first variant based of off this bodywork. This time it's a Ford F-150 with long-travel independent suspension all around and high-powered rear-wheel-drive, using my quasi-hobby motor setup!

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This makes it reasonably fast (I clocked 10 km/h in an informal test), though not amazing (My burnout/donut dreams were crushed :pir-bawling:) The most interesting performance characteristic for me was the suspension. There was dramatic body roll in corners, and you could definitely see the suspension working over speed bumps and such. It was a lot of fun to drive, and helped confirm the hypothesis that a fast, good-looking (relatively..) MOC is the one best suited for use as a toy.

Here are some mechanical pictures:

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Suspension:

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(The front uses two long hard shocks and four small hard shocks, while the rear uses two long soft shocks, two long hard shocks, and two small hard shocks)

Steering:

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Drive:

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There are some more images at: https://bricksafe.com/pages/2GodBDGlory/ford-f-series-7th-gen

 

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The "realistic" movement of the truck is very impressive.

How I wish that there were trigger style trigger style controllers to use with lego motors.

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Here's variant #3!

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This time I tried to make a crawler F-250, using the quasi-hobby stuff again. There was more gearing down than the previous truck, but it ended up being way faster than I anticipated, and probably needed a bit more torque to really crawl. The suspension was also a bit too uncontrolled for crawling, and the center of gravity was too high. Almost any downgrade made it do a somersault! Despite its failure at its intended purpose, it did end up having a very fun personality! The body roll was probably even more dramatic than version #2, it could do mild off-roading effortlessly, and it was enjoyably fast! The center of gravity even allowed it to do "stoppies" when I braked at high speed! The model was based off of a single cab shortbed truck, but the bed was replaced with some sort of tube assembly for some diversity in the aesthetic of the trucks in this series.

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Here are the functions:

Drive:

Drive was by my quasi-hobby motor, geared down through two sequential planetary hubs, moved downwards using doubled 24T gears driving doubled 24T gears. The front axle then used a HD U-joint to old, heavy-duty red 9T gears in the axle, followed by Lego's new CV joints, and then 24:40 portal gearing, which made for huge ground clearance. The rear axle was driven by a new multi-piece heavy duty CV joint I designed, followed by the 9T gears and portal gearing.

I should also mention that I was using MouldKing carbon fiber axles in several places, and the fact that I managed to snap one right as I finished filming is a testament to the fact that Lego ones wouldn't have lasted a minute!

Spoiler

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Steering:

Steering was using a PF L-motor running a large linear actuator. It ended up being a little slow for the model, since I was expecting a crawler, rather than a frisky little puppy of a truck! It was controlled off of a separate battery and receiver

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Suspension:

Suspension was fairly basic live axles front and rear, with the front using two long hard shocks and two long soft shocks, and the rear using two long hard shocks. Earlier, I tested it was two hard ones in the front and two soft ones in the back, but the torque effect was far too pronounced! It was a fun little mess though :wink:.

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This model was lots of fun!

https://bricksafe.com/pages/2GodBDGlory/ford-f-series-7th-gen

 

Edited by 2GodBDGlory

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Time for variant #4!

This version attempted to model a single-cab, short bed Ford F-100 modified to be better on-road. The external modifications included less obtrusive rear-view mirrors, a body color bumper, the short bed, the rims, and the lowering. Mechanically, it used my quasi-hobby motor for rear-wheel-drive, and the servo for tight steering with Ackermann geometry.

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Unfortunately, just as I was about to begin filming yesterday, I started having battery issues. Upon inspection, it seems that the middle of the three cells in my battery has died. I rigged it up to run just off of the other two, for a nominal voltage of 6.4 versus the original 9.6. This is enough to spin the rear tires in the air and steer, but the truck will not drive unless I push it up to speed with my foot and then hit the throttle, and even then it struggles just to keep moving.

Because of all this, I have no footage of it driving, and it will be taken apart long before I get a new battery.

I've got more images at: https://bricksafe.com/pages/2GodBDGlory/ford-f-series-7th-gen

Here's my video, disappointing as it was.

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On 9/5/2021 at 3:13 AM, 2GodBDGlory said:

I'm back with my first variant based of off this bodywork. This time it's a Ford F-150 with long-travel independent suspension all around and high-powered rear-wheel-drive, using my quasi-hobby motor setup!

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I think this is the best look up!

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Here is the fifth and final version of this truck:

It is a shortbed, 4x4 F-100 with a focus on functionality over performance.

The biggest standouts among the functions are in the drivetrain, which includes an RC clutch, a 4+R RC manual transmission, and manual disconnecting front hubs, as well as the unusual Twin Traction Beam front suspension.

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Features:

Aesthetic:

It looks essentially just like my previous F-Series MOCs, which is good enough for me. Unlike other ones, the body could easily be removed!

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Opening stuff:

The hood, doors, and tailgate open

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Interior:

The interior is fairly detailed, and includes an opening glove box, a working steering wheel, and a gearstick that moves along with the joystick on the remote control

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Suspension:

The rear suspension is a simple leaf-sprung live axle, and though it was a touch soft, it was nicely responsive.

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The front suspension is the unusual Twin Traction beam design, used on light-duty 4x4 Ford trucks in the '80s and '90s (Maybe a little into the '00s too). It has a long beam connected to each wheel with a pivot point on the far side of the center of the truck. A differential is incorporated into one of the beams, and transfers drive to the other beam through a CV joint. Because of space constraints, I wasn't able to put the shock absorbers in the ideal places, so while the suspension worked, it had more friction than I would have liked.

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Manual Locking Hubs:
This is one of two functions in the truck that were new to me, and was quite satisfying!

Real 4x4s generally have RWD/4WD transfer cases, with RWD being used on pavement. This prevents the driveshafts from winding up because of the lack of a center differential, but it doesn't greatly improve efficiency, because the front differential and driveshaft is still turning, because the front wheels are driving it. To gain efficiency and reduce wear, many older 4x4s used manual locking hubs on the front wheels, so that by manually rotating a knob, the front wheels could be disconnected from their axleshafts. Thus, the front driveshaft and differential would not be moving at all. (Such systems have fallen out of favor because of the inconvenience of manually locking hubs. Other solutions have been used since, but I think these are the coolest!)

My solution to model this was to mount the wheel to a small turntable, and then have it driven by an axle through the center. Pushing in the axle caused it to mate with the male end of an old CV joint used for steering, while pulling it out disconnected the hub. The system worked pretty well, except that the wheels continually fell off, because the clutch power of two friction pins (even with bars stuck inside of them) was insufficient to hold them on for long. Still, I loved having this extra level of control over the drivetrain.

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Drive:

There was four-wheel drive with two XL motors, and a V8 piston engine was also driven. It drove in all gears, though it struggled somewhat in the higher ones.

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Steering:

Steering a Twin Traction Beam axle can be tricky, and this was reflected in the high slack in my system. It used two main links, a linear actuator, a lever, and a PF M-motor, and also drove the steering wheel. There was castor and kingpin inclination, but no Ackermann geometry.

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Transfer case:

Another PF M-motor shifted the transfer case through 2H, 4H, and 4L. I even got to use an axle as a gear to drive a 12T gear for the first time in a MOC!

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Clutch:

A PF Servo motor flipped a wave selector through a 20:14 ratio to disengage the drive motors from the transmission. Additionally, a 12:36 ratio allowed it to simultaneously flip a switch on. This switch powered a receiver (a 2.4 GHz Chinese one) hidden under the floor, which controlled the two servos used for the transmission. Because of this, the transmission was inoperative unless the clutch was disengaged. Now, a few of you may be wondering how I managed to turn off the receiver. Usually, a receiver runs on the two constant power wires in the PF system, which are not affected by switches at all. What I did was complicated, but it worked. I attached a 20Cm PF extension wire to the battery, attached a 2x4 9V plate to it, and then attached another PF extension wire to that. This brief foray into 9V-land served to entirely wipe out the two constant-power wires (This is why receivers don't work on old 9V batteries). Then I hooked up the extension wire to the switch, which then was able to completely stop all current past it. Then, I used two tiny pieces of aluminum foil pressed between the switch output and the receiver wire to bring power back to the constant power lines by way of the motor wire contacts. (Sort of like how some people would run receivers off 9V battery boxes). I had to be careful that the current couldn't be reversed, but it worked flawlessly once I got it set up. It allowed me to do some cool things. For one thing, after selecting, say, second gear, I could release the clutch, and then move the shifting joystick on the remote back to the center without affecting the model. This allows me to save remote batteries by not having the shifting remote sending commands the whole time. Perhaps even cooler, I could preselect gears opposite of the one it was in! If I were in first with the clutch engaged, I could put the stick on my remote into the second position, then disengage the clutch, and watch it automatically carry out the shift as the receiver came back online!

Spoiler

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Gearbox:

The gearbox was a very similar design to the 5+R (R after 5th) designs used in my 9th-Gen F-150 and my Fox-body Mustang, but with a few changes to improve efficiency and a 16T clutch gear put on backwards to prevent fifth from being engaged, making it a 4+R like the real truck. This transmission is unusual in that it really only works well in one direction in half of the gears because of a certain gear meshing (one way, they push into each other, while the other way they push apart). Fortunately, there is a reverse gear, so this can just be seen as an excuse to work the gears more and actually use it! Also, I came up with the medium-friction axle extender setup I shared with @npicard recently over in the Generic Building Help topic, keeping the driving rings from drifting into gear as they would with the smooth 3L extenders, while allowing the shifting motors to fully disengage gears without worrying about the resistance of the ridged 3L extenders.

Anyways, the shifting itself was also improved over the previous designs to minimize interior intrusion. One Servo motor ran a 12T single-bevel gear against a 36T gear that then moved the gearstick from side to side, while another Servo motor ran a linkage under the floor to move the stick forwards and backwards. With a joystick on the remote, this made for convenient and realistic control. I think stick-shift cars in real life are really cool, but over here in Canada they are quite rare! I've only gotten to drive one a couple times off-road in a Jeep YJ, since I can't yet afford a car of my own (well, really it's the insurance I can't afford...). Models like this help me get a bit of that mechanical involvement in a (much) cheaper package.

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Overall, I was very pleased with this model! I think it may be the first car I've built with a legitimately strong frame, it looked fair, it drove reliably, and it had a very complex and cool drivetrain.

More images: https://bricksafe.com/pages/2GodBDGlory/ford-f-series-7th-gen

Edited by 2GodBDGlory

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