Grosse Kind

Already dispatched ;)

Just what i had lying around (gears and pin axles) though not how i'd choose to mount them if i wasn't getting low on spare axles: This is in my first 8865 and i've since deleted the middle of picture 16 tooth from the train of gears that run between the steering column and the axle that takes drive to the pinion on the rack itself. I placed a 24 tooth on the same shaft as the contrarotational 16 which sped the gearing up three times running with an 8 on the rack shaft at both ends now. Gives about 7/16ths of a turn lock to lock. The idlers on the one that was stripped in the earlier photos are about the only addition of parts i bothered to make to it as although not originally designed, just make the playing with nicer, same as when i used axles not pins on 8880's rack idlers. Good thing to do. I bought 8865 last out of my "big four" collection (8860 first, 8880, 853, 8865 and then a second of it, and yet to take delivery of a second 8860 that a friend picked up interstate for me cheaply) and i really do like it a lot.

Interested to see please. Was it like a targa?

Second pin type was 1990 intro and on my 8850 that i picked up as my last new purchase in 92. Whether your 8865 kicked around a few years on a shelf pre selling Lipko i'm not sure. But my older stuff if the pins weren't grey, they were the early friction type. And no, they never gave me any dramas. Then, now, or i suspect in the future. The trans in 8865 doesn't have the synchros of 8880, gonna call that a faulty design too because "better" came out afterward? Mail me your test car on that basis so i can save you from its inferiority.

Yeah, nah. Not swallowin it bloke. They may be stiff and abject to removal, but as a pin to add as stated "friction", they fulfill their design brief quite nicely. They predate this model by 6 years and though running changes in production occur and all as per strengthening of gears and universal joints, not all that gets superseded needs turfing. They're also period specific meaning whoever i leave my collection to can enjoy or curse the model as it was when it was made.

Alternately, don't dismantle. They're aren't that bad. If you were kitbashing to build one maybe but throwing away what works because something else might be "better", strikes me as waste for neo-retromadnesses sake. As evidenced by mine, they can release if needed, and they give good grab. My suggestion to Clive was as to his assembly method, perhaps the current pins would be less of a battle to slip it together rather than being stressed on how to get it back to base components. 8865,though ungainly in proportions, does it for me more than i had been suspecting pre ownership. Springing is great, steering is nice, gorgeous trans and the V4 seems smooth and low inertia. Very glad i bought one, happier still that i grabbed a second when i scored a cheapie. Its not my beloved 8860, but doesn't suffer for not being.

Some pomgolian dust from your 8868 Grum, and some from over there via one of the 8865's from that other gentleman Norman Hartford. One thing i love about this model is its lack of stickers and electrics so if the dust bothers me i can just drown and scrub it. Gladly theres not much to pull off the 8880 that would be ruined but can't call that ones isle-trapped seller a gentleman, and the dust can stay anyway. Not like i've finished tinkering with any of them anyway. So then, no takers on anybody having done away with the super street senso or the big black supergirls carosserie?

Hiya. By mods you mean the idler gears on the steering rack and RHD? It's a delight to put together Grum. Quite uncompromised in its functionality and with a couple of little changes here and there is an absolute sweetheart to play with. The third "idler" shaft between the in and output items in the cogbox can like 8860 lead to the occasional missed shift but the ratios and operation are great. Friction pins may stuff you a little but, though some have suggested make use of the newer style. Dust? What dust? Must be your screen cos i live in australia, a totally dust free country with a national policy procluding dirty lego punishable by sarcasm and disdain.

Was discussing with a mate the other day of maybe doing a naked version of 8880. No body, mirrors, lights, spoiler, frippery and so on. Just let the tech stuff show itself. Not done it yet, but thought as it was quick and easy to do i'd rip off the basics from 8865 to get it a little more 8860 like and see what i came up with. Sadly, i don't think they did too bad a job with the oft maligned standard panelwork. Not quite to my tastes but has me wondering, rather than adding bodies to 8860 and 853 as most seem to, has anyone built a stripped down 8880 and a 8448? Be keen to see if somebody had please. Ta muchly, glen

Nano sounds familiar. Next steps micro and mini?

8880 and 856. Both had parts included/missing that made them a nightmare. A pair of 14 long beams as the main bucket lift rather than the correct 12's meant the tip and lift mechanism refused to follow convention or work till much headscratching and repeated staring at the loaders online instructions let me pinpoint that there were wrong parts causing the drama. Right ones arrived 6 weeks afterward from russia. Interim waiting was character building to say the least. 8880, pulling half the chassis down after initial assembly to sub in beams in the right colour/reasonable condition once the seller had posted them was pretty crap. And it sat with no suspension or steering for a month as well which was depressing as buggery. Rotating gears or beams on LDD is also "interesting". Happy enough to build in 3D instead to avoid that part of the program unless it requires parts i don't already own. But by dog i still love this stuff!

Got an 8700 with an 8620 set i picked up cheaply back in june. The motor's axle cross was missing and someone had jammed a tiny nylon gear on it akin to a remote control car or electric slot car. This was more than a tad useless so i took to the gear with a sharp blade and trimmed it to suit a technic bush or gear. Seems to work ok and once i had tested the switch and wiring to the motor with three precariously mounted AA batteries, i procured some C sizers and thought i'd have a play. Following pictures are video links if clicked upon. Initial testing. Spooling up a flat 6 i made from the remnants of 8850. Impressed with the available revs. The thought of motorising 8860 as by the instructions seemed bloody awful to me. Reinstalling a radiator fan on top of a motor with nothing to drive it and losing those wondrous pistons just wasn't my sorta thing. Built an easily removable motor mounting setup out of my limited spare plates and added a few cogs to let it all gear down. 1st, 2nd, and third speeds in the trans equate to 810, 486, and 162 revolutions of the electric motor respectively to a full turn of the rear wheels. First to admit its far from fast but comfy this way as that gorgeous boxer 4 cylinder stays put and functional. Would be quite simple to remove one of the 8:24 gearsets from the primary reduction for more speed but those pistons take a fair bit of pushing and i'm lazy enough to leave it as is rather than having it buzzing round the room at three times the rate it does now. Placement also doesn't hinder rear wheel traction.

Thank you bonox. Question was in relation to "Engine: V-6 located under opening hood." where old mate has a pic of an 8 banger. I'd wondered whether mr grazi had built her with a V6 and this was an upgrade. Agreed that a 60 series or signature would be more in keeping with tradition unless as the seemingly shown by the black cat on the grille subbing for a bulldog, it could be fairly accurate to form with a bent eight as a Mack. Pleased that someone had a go at answering anyway thankyou.

Was the model it was based off only a V6?

Thankyou for the replies fellas. In order, SKAAH: i see you also thought the bullbar looked a bit weak. I'll do some looking into 8443 to see whats involved. The chain as you have it would make life more pleasant for the diff pinions through the ratio drop to 2:1 of crank to wheels. So far the rubber band on mine is holding up ok but may look into it as well should the band ever give out. Ta muchly for the pictures. CP: this is how it currently looks The earlier photos were pre cleaning and likely confused a few people. Rohan: So far i'm quite satisfied with the compressor and its output but i'm only able to compare it with my other pneumatic set, 8110 which though i've never seen an airtank, i think that could use one where 8868 seems pretty good as is. Perhaps one day i'll splurge on a tank and see the light, but then i'll need three of em ;)

Just looked through and this didn't load earlier: It was mid cleaning, and should also give an idea of the before (here) vs the after though by this stage i'd already done the battery case cover. Numerous pieces like the front guards were removed and then broken into component form to facilitate the spruce up. The thought briefly crossed my mind to drown it hoalus boalus in the bath as i did with my 8860 but the electrics and pneumatics stopped me :)

I get your mentality richard, and have seen it make otherwise rideable bikes into overly restored shed queens that clock up zero miles, cost four times what they'll ever be worth to refurbish, and often durate into decades whilst you search for that final piece of New Old Stock unobtanium that they stopped making twenty years before you were even born. I prefer to make something functional, tidyish, and reliable and get use out of it whilst i move on with other projects and keep on the boil. As such, of my fleet, none are ever gonna be concourse but they all get out and used regularly. I never polished lego components when i was ten, and unless the set was new didn't expect it would ever require to look as good as when it was. I'll always be a tinkerer rather than a restorer of lego and can live with said compromise. I'm all for seeing pristine examples of other peoples gear too, but i generally accept that their compromise of owning whilst never to use, to me comes at too great a cost. Thankyou nonetheless for your reply. If you haven't got one, get it and refurbish as its a nice set and will bring you a smile.

Nah matey, i did the full assembly from base components to where you see it in the first pic, then dismembered the cab, engine and its compartment, crane glasshouse, and some of the grottier parts and toothbrushed the suckers in tepid soapy water. Rinse, dry, and reassemble and then left it at that. Diff and transmission followed and it may very likely remain intact from here on in, bar fettles and add ons as i see need over time. Have had a look through reviews of the B model and the instructiion booklet and while nifty, i don't foresee me ever getting to it. Still pretty in love with 856 as far as mechanisms go. Theres a final 8860 set coming up for me from melbourne and then i'll be calling it quits on new to me purchases. I've now all (and then some) of what i was looking to own and will just tinker with them and enjoy as they are or i've made them cos they're great toys to play with.

Pleased that the rear sprocket is inboard of the chainstays. Frame gets wide to do so and the dropouts are a weird shape but. Looks more downhill/mountain than bmx in the frame though an outboard sprocket on the other two is too great a cost for their otherwise good looks. Kinda like putting mr potatoheads nose on his arm hole: sure, it fits but what has it really achieved.

As with my Nanomog, this comes courtesy of young GRUM64. I was offered this piece of classic wizardry for the cost of the freight across the pond and the understanding that it was a non vetted purchase that may or may not have been complete. Clive and i have some corker chats on Lego, V8 cars, motorcycles, horses being sinister sandwich thieves (!?!), and whatever common gripe we both have against the world that day. He suggested i'd likely be quite taken with this set and thought i should have one of the couple he picked up cheap over the years so the plunge was taken. Nerve wracking is the best explanation i can ever offer for waiting to see if international post arrives, what mystical form the previously rectangular prism should have taken on if it gets here, and the paranoia of whats going to be missing from it once its opened and assembly is in full swing. All, for once, totally unfounded and i slept easy in the interim. These naps of ease occurred because it was packaged beautifully by the super groovy Mrs GRUM, sent by trackable registered mail at a postage rate that makes me think she carried it here by plane and then posted it from intrastate, and i was briefed not to expect complete or pristine. Not a lot more one could ask now really is there? Well, maybe perhaps some snow and we're experiencing that down south so it looks like that order got filled too. Not made any giant alterations to it and theres to my count, a total of seven non year specific parts on it (you'll need damn good eyes to spot the last one) but its not too big a deviation from how it started and i can still live with myself. Its not finished of course, but i am for tonight. Let me know what you think. Cheers, Glen. Again, a massive thanks to Clive and the wonderful Mrs Clive. As built post arrival. Very relieved to find it was almost fully complete and everything worked. I had bunged on the grille MK1 by this point and a clear grilletop emblem/badge. Started fiddling with shortly after. Added a grille as the front crankpin being only supported and located at one end whilst in tension from the rubber band seemed an oversight to me. Plonked on a steering wheel as it looked like it ought have one and took no real effort. It's ever so slightly offset from the drivers seat (RHD of course) and doesn't turn or do anything but i console myself that the frippery of the exhaust stacks are as uselessly ornamental and they don't detract from it either. The CowWhacker on the front felt a bit weak so was braced a bit, that were wayward elk that go tiptoeing through the tulips and into the front, don't deform the bullbar whist you're raiding forests of timber in your kenworthesque black pneumatic grocery getter. As i'm in training with it insofar as the pneumatics, and a sticker kit seems extortionate, i colour coded each switch to a ram function and direction. To the lens on each of the red/yellow/green coded items extends its ram to lift/open the claw. To the orange rotates the turntable so the orange triangle swings t'ward it. Once the basics were sorted, i partial stripped it and gave a bit of a scrub to perk it up a tad. Came up alright as far as i'm concerned. With a bit of playing, i found i wasn't happy with the mounting of the rear diff. I added two bushes to the link prop shaft to limit it shifting back and forth too much while maintaining free rotation. I got these two bushes from out of the rear diffs mounting arrangement and replaced them with two grey 1 by 4 bricks and it's stabilized it beautifully (no more clicking of the pinion to ruin the fun of rolling it around or explode the somewhat precious 14 toother of which my stocks are low). At this stage i also flipped both diffs as i like the engines to rotate clockwise when looked at from the fan. As i had a bit of time to kill i also built a highrange gear for it that drops the revs at the crank from 6:1 down to 3.6:1 and makes life a lot gentler on the diffs and universals. If slipped with some care you've also a neutral between. As this counterrotated the engine again, i swapped the diffs back into their original dispositioning and regained the desired crank directional orientation. The gearing is all up the front as i'd no desire to widen that superb stiff chassis and i found nowhere else to put it. As a plus, its easy to reach and operate without inverting the truck and is just simple enough to be darned effective Above is a quick video of piston speed relative to wheel rotation, before and once shifted.

A while ago i found this litte beauty while googling: http://www.mocpages.com/moc.php/406524 Thought it was cute and was going to buy the bits to build but discovered to my dismay that although it was possible on LDD, several of the pieces didn't exist in the orange i was after. Canned the idea but a niggling irritation saw me reapproach it and i found other pieces that did, altered a few basics to suit my taste, and through the very generous assistance of Grum64 (ta Clive) and his patience and knowledge of bricklink, the parts were ordered. It consists of 33 pieces. The Nanomog and the micromog (9390) slip nicely into the tray of my minimog (8110) and the littlest one though it doesn't steer is still quite fun to play with. It's full height fits underneath the chassis rails of the 8110 and although i've deliberately caricatured it with a shortened wheelbase and tray, i'm still pleased that at least to my eye, it gives some hint as to what inspired it. Hope you lot enjoy it too.

The last knob wheel arrived and is in. It and a partner replaced two twelve tooth spur gears and smoothed and strengthened it all up quite nicely, the steering can be safely operated from the cab now with pretty well only parts i already had. Have copied the swinging tailgate and with the spares i owned added a few extra braces and mounts to keep the tray down and stiffened. Sorted a few other niggles i had such as the firing order, regearing to speed up the crankshaft, remounting one of the rams, duplicating battery and pto switches to the opposite side, and a guide and retain trap with transport locks in the tray to hold the 9390 in place and ease removal and reinserting via the pneumatic arm. Built a towball hitch and a cantilever folding trailer for it as well out of left over spares that carries a bottle of cider and folds up into a single rather than twin axle job when unloaded. Four tiny items to still arrive for an accessory i'm constructing for it and i'm done.

On a plus side, i'd like to say good words and place a recommended seller shoutout to a Norman Hartford of the UK. Pretty damn good condition of the set, surpassing the description, great communication, repacked the item of his own accord to rid 40 grams which meant the difference between £24 and £50 postage, sent a replacement gear without any drama or delays for the one that was damaged, and basically was the rarity i'd stopped believing in as far as sellers goes. Sadly, the timeframe ran over to leave him the glowing feedback i'd like to on EBAY so here it has to be. Whereas old mate in russia sent me a nice new 856. New to the point of no used parts besides whats been discontinued. Again, a nice "vintage" 1979 kit, with a pair of yellow 14x1 (1997 release) technic beams that threw the bucket geometry out to the shithouse. I didn't so much care that it was a knockoff for the price, but the word vintage still sticks in your throat when bits you need are supplanted with items that never existed till 18 years later and make it non buildable to the instructions. (More time headscratching to find that was the problem than i'd care to ever repeat)

Thanks also Alex. Might try and replicate your tailgate if thats ok? On another tact, is there a way to lock a synchro in one direction to allow the compressor to be unselected but leaving the PTO permanently engaged and just utilise the toggle for front (winch) or rear (turntable) to enact that particular function? It would be nice to be able to swivel the turntable without losing the supply of air from having to disengage the compressor.

Hi matey. Does the steering wheel turn the wheels or is it a slave function?