42177 Mercedes G500 4X4

[Urbal]

@Ngoc NguyenI agree, Hi-LO will do the job just fine for an offroader model, I much prefer locking diffs in it... ideally with some kind of a way to see them working (other than obvious rolling resistance). Newbie here, so didn't come up with the idea, so if more experience comrads had a thought on what kind of mechanism might show the actual wheel speed/torque distribution - please do share! I think it might be much more satisfying feature than fake engine ;)

[damian_kane_iv]

not gonna lie, it would have been nice to see some of the the new P1 control arms in the IFS of this model, but I understand for the sake of scale why not.

Edited July 11 by damian_kane_iv

[zonoskar]

There seems to be a new piece in the suspension, check this video @ 4:09  It looks to be a trailing arm of some sorts.

 

[dabo]

41 minutes ago, Urbal said:

@dabo looks like it is indeed Defender model 1:10 scale replacement, with very similar dimensions (Brick Fanatics mentioned negligible 1cm difference)

So, having watched the aforementioned review along with Lego official materials.... comparing to Defender we will be missing  4 speed gearbox, instead we are given  locking central and rear diff locks. Honestly, I think that this is the spec Defender should have had with its smaller(ish) 2-door footprint, there was no real need for the gearbox... This time however, I have a feeling that while Defender was almost overpacked with features), Gwagen might feel be a bit hollow - not much use of the increased 4-door chassis with the actual gearbox removed, and less parts for the B-models... Thoughts?

Thanks, will probably look good next to my Land Rover then.

[StudWorks]

Glad there's no transmission like the Defender (which was broken, useless IMO, and took up most of the interior room) but why would a non-motorized model need differential locks?

[Urbal]

@StudWorks well, that's the thing - I assume that having the diffs locked would stiff the rolling on the surfaces with good traction, while keeping it on a blanket... But you need to be quite focused to feel the difference. Hence my question to the community on the obvious solution to demonstrate torque distribution (i.e. without motion sensor on every wheel). Anyone?

[gyenesvi]

I don't mind the removal of the gearbox either. But the rear suspension could have been a proper 4-link instead of this simplified 3-link one, even though it's a nice part usage.

The door locks are just gimmicks for me. Would have preferred nicer doors. The front shaping is nice though.

Pity that even at this large scale, there was no space for front diff lock, even if operated from the bottom as the rear one. They could have used 5L suspension arms with the 5L driveshaft from the Ford GT to make 2 studs of space for the diff lock using the new 2L driving ring..

28 minutes ago, StudWorks said:

but why would a non-motorized model need differential locks?

Because the 3 diff locks are the essence of a G-wagen?

1 hour ago, zonoskar said:

There seems to be a new piece in the suspension, check this video @ 4:09  It looks to be a trailing arm of some sorts.

Check the P1 thread ;)

[msk6003]

Connector is definitely new.

[valenciaeric]

34 minutes ago, StudWorks said:

Glad there's no transmission like the Defender (which was broken, useless IMO, and took up most of the interior room) but why would a non-motorized model need differential locks?

In theory to improve the turning circle and reduce stress on the axles but in practice it makes no difference as the turning circle on Lego 4x4s is so bad.

[StudWorks]

29 minutes ago, valenciaeric said:

In theory to improve the turning circle and reduce stress on the axles but in practice it makes no difference as the turning circle on Lego 4x4s is so bad.

Hence why I was hoping the set would be motorized. Whamp whamp.

[NV Lego technic]

I will try to add it, not sure if it would fit though 

[Unbrickme]

https://youtu.be/4YCk9u2N0-U
 

That guy strikes again

 

Anyway, I vastly prefer the shaping of this set as opposed to the defender. I don’t wanna see so many specialized panels, and the aesthetic feel much more like late 2000s or early 2010s technic 

[1gor]

2 minutes ago, Unbrickme said:

https://youtu.be/4YCk9u2N0-U
 

That guy strikes again

 

Anyway, I vastly prefer the shaping of this set as opposed to the defender. I don’t wanna see so many specialized panels, and the aesthetic feel much more like late 2000s or early 2010s technic 

Is it possible to put new suspension arm (the one that holds rear axle from above) over light bluish frame 7 x 5?

Thanks in adwance

[NV Lego technic]

17 minutes ago, NV Lego technic said:

I will try to add it, not sure if it would fit though 

The 4 speed gearbox 

[dhc6twinotter]

This set looks like an excellent parts pack.  A lot to like here.

My biggest complaint is the design of the rear suspension.  I’m ok with using the new control arm on the top of the axle, and using a sort of triangulated upper link like this is common on large trucks and rock buggies. My complaint lies in the lower links.  The links are connected to the chassis using pins.  Pins don’t allow full movement of the links when the rear axle is articulated.  When the axle articulates, the links will want to go / \, or given it pivots around the upper link mount, probably more like / / and \ \.  The pins don’t allow free movement.  The springs don’t allow full movement either.  Live axles should always have ball and sockets at both ends of the links, with the exception of a single triangulated link similar to what is used  on the top of the axle here.  TLG has never built a proper live axle.  The front axles on the Arocs were the closest they’ve come to a well designed live axle. 

[Lipko]

20 minutes ago, dhc6twinotter said:

This set looks like an excellent parts pack.  A lot to like here.

My biggest complaint is the design of the rear suspension.  I’m ok with using the new control arm on the top of the axle, and using a sort of triangulated upper link like this is common on large trucks and rock buggies. My complaint lies in the lower links.  The links are connected to the chassis using pins.  Pins don’t allow full movement of the links when the rear axle is articulated.  When the axle articulates, the links will want to go / \, or given it pivots around the upper link mount, probably more like / / and \ \.  The pins don’t allow free movement.  The springs don’t allow full movement either.  Live axles should always have ball and sockets at both ends of the links, with the exception of a single triangulated link similar to what is used  on the top of the axle here.  TLG has never built a proper live axle.  The front axles on the Arocs were the closest they’ve come to a well designed live axle. 

I may be wrong, but real cars also don't use ball joints usually, just hinges, though the bushing is partly made from rubber to account for the sligth lateral motions. So I would argue which Lego solution is more realistic.

[Zerobricks]

6 minutes ago, Lipko said:

I may be wrong, but real cars also don't use ball joints usually, just hinges, though the bushing is partly made from rubber to account for the sligth lateral motions. So I would argue which Lego solution is more realistic.

Agreed and there is plenty of slack in LEGO pieces for slight sideways motion. Also notice that the 5L suspension arm is attached to the 5L beam with 3 pins for extra strength.

[gyenesvi]

8 minutes ago, dhc6twinotter said:

My biggest complaint is the design of the rear suspension.  I’m ok with using the new control arm on the top of the axle, and using a sort of triangulated upper link like this is common on large trucks and rock buggies. My complaint lies in the lower links.  The links are connected to the chassis using pins.  Pins don’t allow full movement of the links when the rear axle is articulated.  When the axle articulates, the links will want to go / \, or given it pivots around the upper link mount, probably more like / / and \ \.  The pins don’t allow free movement.  The springs don’t allow full movement either.  Live axles should always have ball and sockets at both ends of the links, with the exception of a single triangulated link similar to what is used  on the top of the axle here.  TLG has never built a proper live axle.  The front axles on the Arocs were the closest they’ve come to a well designed live axle. 

This, exactly! The Zetros had the same problem. I don't know if it's Milan or his originally better designs are always dumbed down (though his arctic explorer also uses the same technique for live axle suspension..). Btw, using (frictionless) pins would not be a problem if the links were long; then it would even be realistic; buggies with semi-triangulated 4-link suspension employ that technique, when the shocks are attached to the links themselves, to minimize the pivot at the base of the link, and maximize the pivot at the axle end, so that the links themselves don't try to pivot the shocks. But that's not the case here. Proper 6L links could have been used. That upper link would be enough to keep the axle centered. But to go even more realistic, two more parallel links and a panhard rod would have been better. This is what I found about the G-class rear suspension:

Also, there seem to be variants with only 2 lower links, that are restricted to sideways pivot at the axle end to avoid forward rotation of the axle. That's also something that would have been interesting to see, as it's hard to build in technic form (never really seen).

So again, as usual, many missed opportunities to BUILD FOR REAL!!

[nerdsforprez]

32 minutes ago, Unbrickme said:

I don’t wanna see so many specialized panels, and the aesthetic feel much more like late 2000s or early 2010s technic 

Hmm... I would love to hear you expound here.  Love that you actually posted a comment as opposed to just a link to your videos, which seems to be what occurs most of the time we hear from you.  Seems like the bodywork is mostly stacked LAs to me, which I don't mind b/c it suits the actual vehicle.  

How does the " aesthetic feel much more like late 2000s or early 2010s technic"?   The complaint of the "specialized panels" sure doesn't seem to jive with the comments you so graciously provided in the P1 thread when you bombed the tread with your video about that model and raved about the new panels.  But hey, sorry for being such a cynic, because you did provide some comments when you so graciously blessed us with your presence once again, wait for it....  when you posted another of your videos about 42174's release....

 

[Lipko]

1 minute ago, gyenesvi said:

This, exactly! The Zetros had the same problem. I don't know if it's Milan or his originally better designs are always dumbed down (though his arctic explorer also uses the same technique for live axle suspension..). Btw, using (frictionless) pins would not be a problem if the links were long; then it would even be realistic; buggies with semi-triangulated 4-link suspension employ that technique, when the shocks are attached to the links themselves, to minimize the pivot at the base of the link, and maximize the pivot at the axle end, so that the links themselves don't try to pivot the shocks. But that's not the case here. Proper 6L links could have been used. That upper link would be enough to keep the axle centered. But to go even more realistic, two more parallel links and a panhard rod would have been better. This is what I found about the G-class rear suspension:

Also, there seem to be variants with only 2 lower links, that are restricted to sideways pivot at the axle end to avoid forward rotation of the axle. That's also something that would have been interesting to see, as it's hard to build in technic form (never really seen).

So again, as usual, many missed opportunities to BUILD FOR REAL!!

Guys, those are not ball joints on the pictures.

[gyenesvi]

7 minutes ago, Zerobricks said:

Agreed and there is plenty of slack in LEGO pieces for slight sideways motion.

I actually checked this on the Zetros and found that it is limiting (the axle binds when the shock absorbers are removed). The reason there was that the 3rd link at the top is fixed very high on the axle, which causes a lot of sideways movement upon articulation (another unrealistic detail). I guess it will be the same here. Of course if you push it down with your hands it will work :) But it would not articulate smoothly under its own weight, as the Zetros demonstrated.

5 minutes ago, Lipko said:

Guys, those are not ball joints on the pictures.

But it must allow for some tilting motion, no? Anyway, the point was to illustrate the suspension geometry.

Edited July 11 by gyenesvi

[Zerobricks]

Just now, gyenesvi said:

I actually checked this on the Zetros and found that it is limiting (the axle binds when the shock absorbers are removed). The reason there was that the 3rd link at the top is fixed very high on the axle, which causes a lot of sideways movement upon articulation (another unrealistic detail). I guess it will be the same here. Of course if you push it down with your hands it will work :) But it would not articulate smoothly under its own weight, as the Zetros demonstrated.

It depends a lot on what's the high difference of the links. The closer they are, the less sideways movement of the links, but then the axle has less rigid mounting... It's a compromise.

[howitzer]

19 hours ago, gyenesvi said:

Well, having mixed feelings so far.. On one hand, I like the color (though was hoping for purple), at least with the space sets, this color can have a decent part selection, not sure though if they complete each other or if there's a large overlap in the orange parts. I also like the larger tires with offroad pattern, that's a good scale, the Defender would have also benefited from it, and the model looks beefy with them. Btw, these larger tires, even 95mm ones work well with Defender fenders, so I was hoping for at least those in black (or even better, a new fender part that's not so overly wide). These beam built ones are out of scale in height and boring in terms of building technique.

Now the bad part.

This. The overall proportions are not bad (not hard to do), but I just don't get people when they look at a model like this and say, "whoaa, that looks awesome". Even a jigsaw has a smoother finish when fitted properly. The doors look just crap to me with all those connectors and panels randomly added. When will Lego realize that such doors desperately need 5x7 panels? Even the rear door could have just been built with a 5x7 panel with a single 5L small wing panel attached to it vertically instead of those cluttered connected small panels.. And the windows. Not yet completely convinced on the new angled connector, but if they went on to produce that, then why couldn't they use this  connector instead of this  to make the window frames look uniform? It is available in the new color, at the bottom of the rear door. It all looks so random. Furthermore, I find that angled connector to be a not so great way of building these kind of things, because (irrespective of the angle), it makes the looks cluttered anyway, it can rarely fit the context smoothly, which is definitely not the case here. And the rest of the doors are equally cluttered. I can see at least 2 or 3 places where a 6L beam could have been handy (or even a 4L). When will they realize that producing those parts could pay off quite fast? So kind of underwhelming for me on the looks part.

I don't yet want to say too much about functionality yet, as we don't know what's inside, but that bottom operated diff lock does not sound too promising so far.. This is pretty large scale, many things should be possible to fin in there..

Anyways, of course I am going to get one.. :D

My thoughts exactly on the door design. They look very busy and cluttered with all the stacked liftarms and those axle/axle connectors instead of pinhole with axlehole connectors. The other parts of the exterior aren't as bad, though I feel the roof could also use some smoothness. 5x7 panel would indeed help here a lot.

Btw., as 4L and 6L beams can be made with doubled thin liftarms easily I wonder why they didn't do that as it would be just a recolour instead of a new part.

---

I like the colour, as it really stands out and introduces enough parts in the new colour to be usable in some builds. The bottom-operated difflock feels cheap, and while I wouldn't want to see the Defender fiasco repeated, I'm kinda bummed that there's no proper gearbox here, considering it's an offroader at fairly large scale.

[Lipko]

2 minutes ago, gyenesvi said:

I actually checked this on the Zetros and found that it is limiting (the axle binds when the shock absorbers are removed). The reason there was that the 3rd link at the top is fixed very high on the axle, which causes a lot of sideways movement upon articulation (another unrealistic detail). I guess it will be the same here. Of course if you push it down with your hands it will work :) But it would not articulate smoothly under its own weight, as the Zetros demonstrated.

But it must allow for some tilting motion, no? Anyway, the point was to illustrate the suspension geometry.

Yes, that's why it's a rubber bushing. But it cannot be a ball joint on both ends, because the longitudinal rotation would not be restricted and would cause extra wear when the socket is in its extremes position in relation to the ball. Sometimes it cannot be avoided to have ball joints on both ends, steering link for example, but that is usually one of the first things that fails in the suspension due to wear.

[dhc6twinotter]

13 minutes ago, Lipko said:

I may be wrong, but real cars also don't use ball joints usually, just hinges, though the bushing is partly made from rubber to account for the sligth lateral motions. So I would argue which Lego solution is more realistic.

That is true.  My vehicle is a Toyota 4Runner with a live axle.  All five rear links use rubber bushings to allow flex.  Factory live axles with rubber bushings don’t flex as well as live axles with custom links and ball joints though, so many people who are into the whole rock crawling scene swap out the factory links.  Links with ball joints are also common in the custom car or racing scene where people are building custom suspensions. 
 

The Technic pins are only designed for a hinge type movement.  Using them as a sort of ball joint is just more stress (although negligible), and just relies on loose tolerances to work.  If TLG used some sort of rubber joint or even used the 1x2 rubber lift arm, like the rear suspension on the Arocs, I wouldn’t have an issue.