Stereo

I think it's more likely the parts are dirty and don't slide smoothly enough (probably the spring itself but maybe other suspension parts, along with usual caveats about not clamping moving parts too tightly between bushes). That style of spring puts a pretty big side-load on the sliders (since the top end axle hole is offset from the spring) A few years ago I rebuilt my 8448 and cleaned/dusted everything and the steering and drivetrain worked way more smoothly. I've had it on its wheels on a shelf for its entire 25+ year life and the springs haven't lost anything, just sitting shouldn't affect them. Track width also changes quite a bit on compression cause the control arms flatten out, so tire grip on the ground prevents suspension from returning smoothly. If it's that, you could try putting one side's tires on sheets of wax paper on carpet, so they can slide sideways, see if that helps.

Yeah, I would look at ratings more as approval among people who like the set, not comparable to all Technic. If you want to buy a Licensed Supercar you could look at how the Lamborghini, Ferrari, and Bugatti are rated to decide which one to get. But if you don't want to buy a Licensed Supercar it doesn't matter what the ratings are. For me, they're too big - along with all the halo motorized sets - 42110 is the largest set I've bought, and it's already so big that I don't want to take it apart and play with it. 700-1000 piece sets give me a much better value for money cause I can actually use them as Lego.

I think for most people it's not really 'number of functions' but about the mechanisms each one uses. An opening door that's just a loose panel attached with friction pins is not an interesting mechanism, it just makes the build as a whole more floppy. The 8880 rear hatch is "one mechanism" but it consists of about 9 moving parts that are all linked together. It's the same issue people have with the modern motorized sets that just run each function with its own motor, directly driving the actuators. It's still capable, but it's not as interesting a build or mechanism, when it's compared to one of the older sets like (iirc) 8043.

They don't carry batteries so they might trend to lighter tire loads, which limits tractive effort, they should have similar rubber tires on the track. Then again the rubber gets older and harder.

I don't know this era of box designs all that well, but everything except the tires looks exactly how I'd expect a new set to look. Maybe it's a regional thing if your other old sets aren't like that, mine had those same 3 types of bags (perforated with no printing, smaller clear plastic with no printing, and the ones printed with suffocation warnings that just cut off randomly where they sealed the bags) Tires it's hard to say from those photos, they have a lot of resolution but not much clarity. None of my old tires are that bad and I'd guess it's a problem with that range of years.

I only have 1 PF motor, but it's got the same type of code in a different spot - 48J4 between the anti-studs at one end. Probably made in 2014 for a 60051.

I found an interesting bug, if you click "Theme" at the bottom of the page and select one of the alternatives to "Eurobricks 2025 Default Theme" named "Shadowlands 2021", the website completely stops working - server replies 500 on any forum page. I fixed it by going to an invalid address to get the 404 page, (for example, https://eurobricks.com/forum/asdfghjkl) and changing the theme back while on that page. But until I figured it out I had to delete my cookies to log out so I could see the forum.

That's how I expect it works, the light over the USB port that shows what "channel" it's on is also a light sensor. Though it still leaves some questions about pairing things, like what does a light sensor+motor do? Brighter light faster motor? Can you pair 2 single motors to the controller at once, or do the sticks only both work with a 2-motor brick? If Pybricks can communicate to them over bluetooth they seem pretty useful, since the motor brick is now the complete package (bt/battery/motor) in 6x6x3 form. As for fitting that in a train, 9 plates high fits in a 4 wide space when it's on its side, so it'll need a little more vertical clearance than a plain PU battery box (4 bricks tall = 12 plates vs. 6 studs wide = 15 plates), but not much, and since parts of that are 1x4 bricks on the sides, that can be channeled downward inside a 4-wide frame.

I wonder how you 'pair' stuff without a hub, looks like the salmon brick is a controller with 2 axes and the teal ones are motors. Maybe you link them all to a phone, program the network topology and then it sticks?

Chainsaw teeth are 1 plate apart, maybe you could springload one against the round part of the shift fork to hold it in 3 positions.

Yeah, I've made stuff that's hard to assemble and it doesn't need a lot of parts, just density and structures where none of the subcomponents are stable on their own. For example this MOC is completely solid when it's done, but needs a lot of dexterity to get it to that point. And if you want it to be even harder, do like me and build it with 24316 3l axle with stop, instead of 77765 pins.

90s Space and Technic both stick closer to the original limited palette (black, white, red, yellow, blue, grey, maybe green) so probably a lot of subthemes would work depending what you want to make. Just need to come up with large neon windshield parts.

Yeah, seems like a very heavy duty joint with 2 articulations, both using clicks: Numbered in order they appear in images, 1+2 would face each other as the 2 parts of the joint, 3 sticks on either side of 1 with ratcheting functions, and the 4th piece goes through the hole in part 2 to reach the center, where an axle can lock it in. So if you ratchet both #3 parts the same way, the joint bends, and if you ratchet them opposite directions, the 2 joints rotate relative to each other. Hard to be certain about how the 4th part's connected to the 1st but I'm thinking you just run an axle through it. Also would need to see the other side of #3s to know if any connection points exist on the outward facing side. 1st part has features I'm not sure the function of - 8 splines on the inside of the side holes (which goes to smooth parts of the gears), and a pinhole down the center that seems like it should just run into a dead end. Maybe they're just reducing the mass of plastic used.

Odd numbers make more sense on their own - you can combine them to get even numbers, but you can't combine even beams to get an odd length. Inconvenient if you need the span to be a single beam, but usually Technic sets just design for those sizes to be odd numbers I guess.

Price on par with the Orient Express, which I already passed on for a 20% discount recently... I do like the look of this one more. I'm kinda suspecting "can be motorized" means the 2nd/3rd axles of the tender can be a train motor though.

Looks like around 1:12 to me, eyeballing that it's around 5.5 feet long (didn't count the studs cause it's ~190)

If you have an axle stabilizing the middle, you can use 2L liftarms: Nothing else can use the space between the turntable pinholes anyway though (3x3x3, sort of), so maybe it's simpler to just offset the clutch mechanism so it sits in that space instead of in the turntable's ring.

It's originally Orient Express side rods - https://rebrickable.com/parts/4586/technic-beam-1-x-9-thin-with-3-holes/

That one's essentially freely moving. Though there are 2 types of towball, smooth e.g. https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=15456#T=P which is the intended partner for trailer hitches, and textured e.g. https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=22890#T=P which is used for posable figures. The textured ones have more friction but not enough to hold any weight. If you put the ball in a pose where the mold lines touch the socket, it will also have a slight stick. Looks like all of them are molded so the mold line is horizontal equator when the piece is studs-up, which avoids hitting this kind of socket if both pieces are facing up.

Hmm, is this only partly completed? The submarine should add a bunch of sand blue, and 1L yellow beams.

It seems about the same gauge as the large Harry Potter train, so you can just run 5 stud wide frame between Lego wheels instead of 4?

Thanks! That seems right, goes with the Downtown Diner figure. Not sure how I missed it searching for "scared" and "open mouth teeth" heads.

I'm having difficulty identifying this head. It's the "blocked stud" mold version, two faces.

Technic plates and frictionless pins (grey, 2L) date back to the very first Technic sets, the 3/4 pin and half thickness Technic parts are about 20 years newer, so they didn't change the design to accomodate it I guess. Some parts like 3651 to 32013 did get modified to accomodate the thin/studless parts. 3176 is even older, there were no Technic pins, no axles... it's designed to fit studs or let bars hook through it.

Looks the same to me, in that a 1 stud vertical shift makes it slightly too high.