SimonCK

I have both and I loved the build process with both of them. I don't buy many big lego sets so they were a treat to myself. It's interesting that the mod/improvement thread for the Defender was circa 30 pages I recall with lots of brilliant and clever improvements. In fact I would really recommend building the improved Defender model from that thread which fixes the gearbox and has a cool quick body-off mod. You need to buy around 100 extra parts but it's well worth it. In my view the gearbox in the original is not fit for purpose. Improving the model doubled the fun for me easily. The G500 mod/improvement thread is very small by comparison. It's a great model with cool functionality and nothing really wrong that needs improvement. My only modification is adding a lighting kit. What's nice is they are the same scale so make a great pair to display together.

I was thinking of improvements where you can use additional pieces. Not so many that it's a fundamentally different base model but say up to 150 extra pieces, the sort of thing people can buy on Bricklink for a little extra spending. They don't have to be complicated mods, simple things like adding extra roof lights to match the real one in your photo, maybe a winch....etc.

Great job, this is fantastic, easily one of the best alternative C models I've seen. I'm excited because I've got 42177 sat under the christmas tree as a self present. I'll definitely be building this to go alongside my 42110 Defender. You mention there's a few small sacrfices, I'd love to see a "mods and improvements" thread for this Defender model. I really enjoyed improving my 42110.

I went to the online shop and selected "sets by theme" and counted them up, there are 45 themes listed! Of which approx 25 are licenced themes. So technic is just 1/45 themes in the big picture. Many of these themes only have a handful of sets, often display based models aimed at adults and priced accordingly. And that is what worries me with technic, do any children still move on from regular lego to technic? My 3 children haven't. They regard technic lego the same way they regard scheduled television - a thing for boring parents. The majority of the technic range is licenced and subsequently priced beyond the aspirations of kids. It's evolved into an adult display theme. My teenage son is motorsport mad but doesn't care in the slightest for lego technic F1 cars, he'd rather play PlayStation F1 game. Models with cool functionality appeal to the inner child in us all, and they have their roots in being educational toys for young teenagers. If technic has either lost or abandoned that age group then there's little economic reason to make those models. Which is a shame because they're my favourite too.

I'm a fan of lego but only have small knowledge of the vast inventory of technic pieces in existence. I simply buy a model because: 1. It will be fun to build and potentially modify 2. Looks cool and I can display it easily 3. Has interesting functions Excluding speculators, surely 99% of buyers are like this.

Well done, that's a really cool little hot-rod. I find the lack of official B-models very sad. B-models help give kids confidence to take a model apart and build something else.

To Pizza12 - I also did this change to 16/16. It doesn't really help with the friction and the cracking, I believe it speeds up the engine in relation to the wheels. 2 things I changed which helped with the cracking were: Try fliipping the front and rear differentials 180 degrees. If you have cracking when pushing forwards, but much better when pushing backwards direction, then try this. It improved mine a lot. I have to be honest I don't understand why but it worked. Changing the in-line 6 engine to an old fashioned technic v6 one. this took some reconfiguring of the engine bay but was a fun challenge.

My wife and I had a good look at the set yesterday and have decided against it. We have many WV sets already but not the fantasy sets and I think this set would be great if you already have the Santa's workshop but would look a bit random alongside the other "real life" based sets. A couple of others factors have also helped swing us against this release - seems a little small compared to other WV buildings, and as usual the UK pricing isn't great. I note Lego is still selling the WV Gingerbread house and fire station on the website, I wonder if those weren't great sellers first time around. The gingerbread house is priced the same in the UK and looks a better set for the money if I were going to spend £85. Starting to feel a bit out of love with the WV releases the last few years. There isn't any consistency in theme or design. Eg the fire station vehicle isn't same time period as the other WV sets, and little things like all the lampposts have different designs, and the endless inclusion of xmas trees in every set.

Getting the Christmas lego out at the start of December and building it all up is now a tradition for us that everyone loves (not just the kids). I take it all down usually end of January and we store each major set in it's own plastic food storage box. then it's easy to build each set one at a time or give a box to a child to build. The best thing we did was to motorise the train with remote controller and get a whole load more track. We have the train going round the edge of a table with the village inside. It's a real attraction to anyone visiting over the festive period. However we'll need a bigger table soon... I'd prefer a real world set this year, not too bothered with the fantasy ones, and please re-issue the bakery.

thanks Dr Jimbo for sharing the door lock pictures, I've copied it and it works nicely.

There is a thread on here called "Defender improvements and mods". On there several people have added the v6 engine and there are photos showing the engine bay which should help you see how they installed it. I put a v6 in mine but I have lost the connection to the interior steering wheel.

Reversing the diffs transferred the cracking / tension issue to pushing backwards which is preferable for me because usually I want to push it forwards. Pushing backwards should use reverse gear which I think isolates the gearbox.

Jaromir - mine had a lot of friction in the gearbox too, however I noticed that when pushed backwards (whilst in the same gear) it worked far better. I notice a few others have said the same thing. If you have this problem then simply reverse the front and rear differentials - basically rotate them 180 degrees so the big cog is on the passenger side of the car (hope that makes sense).

Nice engine bay there Alademann. Can I ask, did you manage to keep the steering connection to the interior steering wheel? When I put a v6 in mine I had to lose that steering link. By the way, for anyone with issues getting the gearbox to run smoothly I found 2 things helped hugely: 1. reversing the front and rear diffs. My car worked well when pushed backwards but far more friction when pushed forwards for some reason. Reversing the diffs cured this. 2. Swapping out the inline 6 for the old fashioned technic v6 which is much smoother.

StudWorks - from the reasons you provide, sounds like it may not be the best buy for you. For me, it's been fantastic fun. The first set over £100 that I've bought, I've enjoyed the old school engineering of it and the fact it you're not paying a large amount because of power functions. I think it's a good base for modding, whether small little mods or bigger projects. I'll have it as a display piece that I gradually mod. I built it with my 6 year old daughter who insisted on helping even though she can't connect some pieces together but she got upset if I pushed on without her, so it took us over 3 weeks to do it together, but was great fun in doing so. I don't build big MOCs so not sure whether it is a good buy from the point of view of sourcing pieces, the colour probably doesn't help in this respect. Maybe try and pick up a used one in a few months.