DrJB

We have a disconnect here. It seems you're talking about the OUTER teeth of the hailfire wheels (those do not have the standard gear teeth geometry). The inside teeth of those hailfire wheels are of the SAME size as ALL other technic gears and DO mesh with them. It seems TLG has made a personal commitment to go after my/your and everyone's wallet every year around August.

Torsion Bar and Independent Suspension are NOT mutually exclusive. In fact, the Ford Focus SVT has an independent suspension in the rear, together with a torsion bar. The reason for the torsion bar is rather simple: It prevents one tire from lifting (loosing contact with the road) so that the vehicle retains maximum lateral grip during turns. I'm sure people with vehicle dynamics expertise will add to this, naturally. Hopefully NOT made by Takata ...

We'll call it 'anti-roll' bar then ... but I must say that in out 'loose' terminology, some people in the automotive (in the US) call it a torsion bar because it typically is a long rod that twists. Hence the name. Maybe the other reason is that the system you're talking about is 'unknown' on this side of the ocean, as I do not recall every seeing a Citroen car here. Oh yes, I thought the French call it 'Barre de Stabilité'.

With the upcoming Porsche, many are talking/speculating about what it'll have and what it won't, be it Ackerman steering, tilted kingpin axis, and else. There are features that we have never seen in Lego official cars, and while most are not feasible with the current assortment of parts, others have been completely ignored. Here's one: an anti-roll torsion bar! I can of course name other desired functions, but was wondering what the community felt were easily implementable features that have not been seen yet. For those who have not seen one, a torsion bar is a link between the left and right tires that 'forces' the two sides to have similar vertical displacement, so that the car's roll angle is minimized. It is implemented typically on mid-high performance cars where good 'handling' is a must. The smallest car I've seen with a torsion bar is the Ford Focus SVT, and I'm sure there are many more.

+1 ... Go for the pneumatic module, the pneumatic logic is fascinating.

I'm suddenly wondering if TLG 'might' issue the set with two different color schemes ... to increase sales.

We have them here ... I can send you pics of the 'real' thing.

Very nice, and I like the color scheme too. Those tracks put a lot of friction (and parasitic load) on the drive-train. I wonder if those vehicles are standard or modified.

Those tracks are best used on snow and possibly dirt. On highway, they wear rather quickly and the treads are very costly to replace. Plus, I'm not sure you're allowed to drive those tracks on highways ... as I'm not sure one can go fast enough. The main reason they're used on agricultural machines is to cause very little compaction of the dirt underneath. Otherwise, compacted dirt does not grow seeds very well.

We need more information about the project, the motorized functions ... etc. Each SBrick can run several motors. WHy do you need 3x of them?

Then I found this. The perfect candidate for those new 'light green' panels

You can always get a 20 kg bag of rice ... but then, given that the conveyors are made with track elements, small parts would fall through. That's the first mod one should do: Replace the track-based conveyors with a long piece of flat rubber.

Very nicely done. I always thought that set was more 'capable' than how it was sold. Though, the only 'weakness' is the lack of gears, as one cannot put a transmission in there (without resorting to extra parts). Nice job!

I came across this real implementation of a 'quad-track' on a passenger vehicle. The closest set Lego has released is the 42038 Arctic Truck. http://www.digitaltr...inter-warriors/ Those track elements have been known in the agricultural industry for some time. Then, I also stumbled upon a rather impressive 'Sherp' Russian-made vehicle. I must confess that, with the tall grass in the Sherp video, I initially thought those were toy-sized (small) vehicles. http://www.sherp.ru/ru/gallery/ So, which of those have you already built, or plan to replicate in Lego?

Congrats. This has got to be one of my favorite GBCs, primarily because of the pneumatic logic. It reminded me of all the various L/U cycles I studied in high school, many years back. In any event, I found the module to be rather 'finicky', and the positions of the parts activating the pneumatic switches would drift after a while. Then I found Akiyuki's description in a Japanese blog, and he too mentioned the module was rather 'sensitive'. Also, I replaced the hard stops on the turntable, that stop the top structure when it goes back and forth (180 degrees). I used instead the 2L rubber connectors (below) to soften the impacts. I got an LXF from DoktorBrick (German lego site) and thought long and hard about making this with 3 arms (instead of 2), but could not come up with a working solution given the current assortment of lego parts. I also had to reinforce the back vertical beams as they had a tendency to push away from one another, due forces in the various gears. Nicely done!

Those are rather cheap on bricklink (less than 10 cents). Of course, you might as well check the local Target, they had that set (42021) on sale for $10.00 few weeks back.

Just to give a sense of scale. The circular racks appear to have have 35 (or 36) teeth each. That's a total of 4×35=140 (or 144) teeth for the whole circumference. In contrast, the hailfire wheel (for those who have it) has 168 teeth.

That's exactly what came to mind when I saw this set ... a TBM!!

It seems you know already not to wash metallic parts. I've had some pneumatic cylibers 'rust' becauseof moisture. So, I'd cover those before washing.

I've been looking at my many sets (100+) and pondering the actual cost of owning them. This goes way beyond the actual $$ I spent to acquire them. Think about it: We have a 'dedicated' room just for Lego, it was supposed to be a guest bedroom, but we found a better use for it. At times, the room is rather busy, especially when the kids are off school. During most of the year however, and because of work and other obligations, it remains unoccupied. Yet, it is being heated in the winter and cooled in the summer ... let alone it taking a chunk of the monthly mortgage and other utilities. So, what 'other' hidden costs do you associate with your large collection?

I hope the inner workings are similar to the real thing, mainly, a boxer engine and neat suspension links, with non-vertical springs (as they did in some of the F1 cars)

Another observation: I initially thought the bucket wheel and the turntable were made of different parts, a full circle for the bucket wheel, and a fraction for the turn-table. Closer examination of the picture on the first post reveals that the bucket wheel is made of 8 segments and each circle is made up of 4 gear parts. So, the set will comprise at least 12-14 circular/arc/geared parts. I like this better as the parts appear more 'versatile' than the recent RED brackets on the ACROS.

Darn! 2016 will be a rather expensive lego year ... :(

Looks like the Bucket-Wheel Excavator IS the prime candidate to commemorate such anniversary.

This set reminds me of a quote from the Godfather III movie: Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in. Recent sets did not offer much 'appeal' to me as they all more or else were variations on the same theme, and because of this, I've been slowly drifting away from Lego (Thanks to Arduino and Raspberry Pi) ... Now, with this set, I'm definitely back! I must agree with some prior posters though. The set seems a bit 'unfinished'. From those I've seen in real life, such machine is operated by an entire control center (with many operators). This one looks like it has a cab for a single operator.