EdmanZA

I'm afraid to say that those are the first parts that sprang to mind when I read the OP.

Do you actually need the axle to span the whole distance, or do you just need something to plug the gap? If the latter, why not cut a piece of 3mm rigid hose to fill the gap? Or just roll up some small pieces of paper and stick them in one or both ends as spacers.

Seems I made a bit of a mistake and left out a couple of yellow hose. I've now updated the list. A question for Blakbird or anyone else who's built this: On p81 of the instruction, a 0.5L piece of dark gray rigid hose is placed in one end of a 180° angled connector. It seems to be used as some kind of internal spacer (the axle it connects to only sticks out by 0.5L) and I was wondering if it's really necessary?

I'm not that clued up on these things, but would it help to find somewhere with a calibrated printer and monitor to do the final colour tweaking (even holding up a panel next to the screen)? At the least, it may cut down on print iterations.

I see Amazon (UK,DE etc.) no longer sells the Unimog. It's only available from Marketplace sellers at about 10-20% more than Amazon used to have it. I fear the Unimog may now be EOL on Amazon - rather disappointing since I was on the verge of buying one.

Just watch out that Rebrickable makes no distinction between gray and bluish gray parts. It's not such a problem if your collection consists only of newer parts, but I was caught out the first time when I was comparing a MOC that contained a mixture of gray bricks and liftarms. Roughly half the gray and dark gray parts it found came from my older kits, while the rest came from bluish gray kits.

The cheapest ones on Bricklink were going for around 230EUR without instructions or box. I bought one cheaper one and then spent a extra to buy a second with box and instructions.

I've just noticed an small error in this file. You have a couple of yellow 1x6 thin liftarms at the bucket and at the joint between the two boom sections. These should be 1x5 and 1x7 liftarms, respectively. I really wish they were 1x6, since those are rarer than hen's teeth.

I've started my Bricklinking for this project and I have a couple of observations: Based on average inventory prices for used parts, it would cost around $1450 to buy all the parts individually. This is broken down roughly as: Wheels and tires - $380 Pneumatics - $250, of which $110 is for the cylinder brackets Technic parts - $210, most expensive part is the yellow 1x6 Liftarm at about $5/part Bricks, Slopes etc. - $170, 1x6x3 arches and chromed bricks make up $70 of this Plate, Tiles etc. - $160, nothing really expensive here, just a large number of them Electrics - $115 (excluding wires -add roughly $35-$50 for these) The rest - $165, Large doors and windscreen from 5571 make up $80, 1x16 lattices add $25 If you find an alternate method to mount the pneumatics, you could save about $120 by eliminating the cylinder brackets and yellow 1x6 liftarms. Buying 1x 5571 reduces the needed parts price to $937. Buying two reduces it to $675 and you could, theoretically, sell the left over parts for $400.

I haven't actually downloaded the LDraw files, but the parts list in the PDF looks like it's from LDraw. You can, however, find some file in Grazi's Brickshelf folder: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=74562 You're right about x325c01, it's a pump and should be x191c01. I'll go back and update the file.

This is a generic name for the electric wires. It's actually the LDraw name for one end of the wire, rather than the complete wire assembly. It does not include any specific length. hose100 etc. are the LDraw names for the Rigid 3mm hose. They are listed in LDraw units: 20LDU = 1L = 1 stud = 8mm. So, hose60 is the same as 'Hose, Rigid 3mm D. 3L / 2.4cm '. The parts list is generated from LDraw, so some of the part numbers didn't match the Bricklink numbers. I also converted some generic LDraw parts to specific Bricklink equivalents. I pasted it into Excel, converted to a TSV, imported into BaseBrick, exported as an XML and then edited in a text editor to convert to the Brickstore XML format (If someone knows of an easier way to convert between inventory file types, please let me know). It's entirely possible that some errors have crept in, so please point them out if you find them.

Just noticed there's an pneumatic airtank in the model that's not included in parts list. Don't forget it.

I've made up a BrickStore file with most of the needed parts. The only thing missing are the electric wires and the pneumatic hoses. The instructions don't specify what lengths are needed, so I left them out. Perhaps someone can clarify what wire lengths are needed? Note: this file will not import import correctly into Rebrickable, since that site only allows bluish gray parts. Edit: 22/2/2013 - Updated BrickStore file, new file is r1. Changed some parts with multiple mold revisions to use most common version. Corrected small pneumatic actuator to be small pneumatic pump. Andrea Grazi's Lego Technic 5571 Tow Truck_r1.zip

I might be interested in taking you up on that offer.

Thanks. Any chance of a .csv or .xml parts list?

Also have a look at the Ultimate 8043 mod and Jennifer Clark's JS220 for some other ideas on turntables and taking drive through them. http://www.jurgenstechniccorner.com/8043.html http://www.genuinemodels.com/jcb.htm

Drop him an email through his website. I got my Zorex instructions over the weekend.

I had a brief look on Rebrickable and Bricklink. It looks like the rear wheels will be expensive and the tyres just aren't there at the moment.

The black tubing for the black railings on top of the superstructure would also need to stay black. I had no trouble finding this, but it could also easily be replaced with any from of black round rod of the same diameter e.g. Evergreen, Plastruct etc. I'll second that

I plan to do both builds in a few weeks time, once my JS220 parts arrive. I'm thinking of doing a build log for the JS220 and maybe a comparison. I can comment on the Bricklinking, though. I got the 8043 while I was in Germany in June, I think for around EUR 140 (I was travelling, so able to reclaim some VAT). I didn't want to split any of my current sets, so I Bricklinked all the additional parts for the mod, except for the . I also bought only new parts. The total price for parts in June last year (excluding shipping and fees) was about EUR 145, with major costs for single items being: - EUR 50 - PF Rechargeable battery - EUR 29 - PF Receiver and remote - EUR 22 - PF Motors - EUR 9 - PF Lights - EUR 6 - PF wire These were not necessarily the cheapest part prices, since I was also considering shipping costs and order consolidation when hunting for parts. Overall, the hunt was pretty straightforward since most of the parts are current and readily available new. I don't remember any particular part being very hard to find. For the JS220, the shear number of parts required (almost 1700), forced me to relax my set splitting requirements a bit, though I still set myself the goal of being able to build the JS220, U8043, 8265, 8275 and 8455 at the same time (betting a bit of a yellow earth mover theme going). This one proved a bit challenging and I quickly decided that I would accept used parts in some area to reduce costs and make the search easier. I already had almost all of the pneumatics, Technic bricks and beams, but none of the electrics, bar two switches, one battery box and a couple of wires. My total parts price for this build was almost EUR 210, with some cost highlights being: - EUR 82 - 5x 9V motors - EUR 43 - 300x track links - EUR 11 - 2x electric switches - EUR 10 - 3x 162L wires - EUR 5 - 1x small pneumatic pump - EUR 4 - 8x grey 40T gears In addition, I spent another EUR 18 to get 10m of generic tubing to use for the umbilical. In general, it wasn't too hard to find new parts for most of the external bricks and good used parts for rest. The biggest issue was trying to consolidate everything into as few orders as possible. In light of this, the following parts proved troubling: - Motors - there's a fair number of used ones out there, but the only stores that had them in quantities greater than one or two wouldn't ship to South Africa (though I manage to make an arrangement to get some shipped to my sister in London). - New blue bricks - these are dispersed enough that I ended up buying used ones. - Yellow 8 x 4 wings - lots of stores have left or right, but it proved hard to find a store (or combination of stores) that had both. - Dark grey rigid tube - this is quite expensive and hard to find in bulk - Black 40T gears - there are 23 on Bricklink, ranging from EUR 2 to EUR 8. No store has more than two. I went grey, with a view to possibly dyeing them. - Trans Clear 1x1 Tile - lots around, but only at 12 stores and going for over EUR 0.5. I skipped this one. The other rigid and ribbed hoses were also a bit tedious, simply because the vast multitude of available lengths makes it hard to set up an easy wanted list search. I'd work out what lengths I needed in a spreadsheet, look for them on BL, find some missing, go back and adjust the lengths, check BL again, find other lengths missing, recalculate, etc., all while trying to fit them in with other parts orders. Finally, there're a number of parts substitutions that can be done to make the search easier: - I relaxed the colour requirements on the controller. I'll have mismatched pumps and a couple of the grey plates instead of black, as well as a mixture of greys, but you could go all-out here if you wanted. - You probably need to stick to the 3x older, heavier versions of the motor for the excavator (for weight balance), but you could get away with the lighter, newer version in the controller. - Grey and bluish grey parts are pretty interchangeable, since the only place where large numbers appear next to each other is on the controller. - The only place where you really have to have dark grey rigid tube is for the two 3L control levers in the cabin. All the rest is hidden, or in areas where black works just as well.

I've started Bricklinking my parts for this build - always a 'fun' exercise when shipping costs to the southern tip of Africa make it imperative to consolidate parts into as few orders as possible. Those black 40T gears are rarer than hen's teeth. I'm going to have to go for grey ones. Painting them won't work, I think, but does anyone have any experience trying to dye grey parts to black?

The pneumatic hose length seems OK, but the others are out by 50% or more. I made up a BOM for all the hose lengths that I counted and used a conversion of 1LU = 8mm, but I may well have missed something: https://docs.google....MUtMZk9PcjBJcHc

Are these lengths correct? I went through the instructions, calculating lengths and I get much higher totals for the excavator for ribbed hose and flex hoses.

I got this model as a Christmas present shortly after it was released (one very happy 11 year old ). I recall that the original tubing wasn't cut and just came in a single long piece. There were some additional lengths that had to be cut just for the B model, but there was enough tubing provided to cover both models, but a fair amount left over. You'll probably find that the seller forgot to include the extra tubing required for the B model in your set.

The overall part tolerance is influenced by other factors, such as shrinkage, dropping etc. so the actual part tolerances will be wider than that number even. The resolution really just gives the smallest detail that the printer is able to resolve. (source)