allanp

I would try to have all your gearing down right by the gear rack, move the CV joint back to give you some room to have it between the rack/pinion gear and cv joint. This should eliminate some of it.

m-motor will be enough with gear reduction. Standard the wheels don't steer very far but you can improve that by removing 4 darg grey pins in the differencial housing.

baaaaaaa!

I own both and it's difficult to suggest which one is better for you so i'll just go over some of the pros and cons you already mentioned. You only need one RC motor for an RC car for drive. It is very powerful, according to philos' website it's more powerful than the XL motor because it has a much much higher output speed, over twice as fast as the m-motor, which if geared down efficiently to the same speed as an XL motor should give you roughly the same amount of torque if not even more. The RC motor also give you the added excitement of all those fast spinning gears and so on. The 8258 does indeed have more interesting gear arrangements, sadly it's effect is to move a crane that can lift very little weight only a fairly small distance, but it is still great to see how neatly the crane arm folds up behind the cabin. The double extention of the boom of 8421 is also very impressive and it's boom can lift more weight really high. However due to it's very long length when fully extended, it's lifting capacity is also limited when fully extended. If left up for a long time it will eventually come down. This only really becomes a problem if you wish to display the model with the boom up. However if this is the case then you only have to insert a pin or axle or beam somewhere to prevent it coming down whilst it's sitting on the shelf. The inclusion of pneumatics is great, however you don't get very much tubing. Only the upwards movment of the boom is operated by air pressure, the downwards motion relies on gravity and therefore has no tubing. Whilst it does maintain quite a bit of complexity in it's gear trains, they do not compare to those found in 8258. They both come with a good range of parts and are both very big and impressive looking models and I think you will get lots of joy from either one, 8258 for it's complex gearbox and motorised neatly folding crane arm and 8421 for it's impressive motorised double extending boom and pneumatics.

I also found this set to be a pleasent surprise.

The steering is just about strong enough to cope with it's weight and size but it does leave you with the feeling of weakness. I don't think you have built it wrong, that's just the way it's been designed. Look through the Unimog changes and improvements thread on this site, there you can find some things you can do to improve the steering. Personally I might try to add some extra gearing down or mechanical advantage just after the CV joint as I feel that part to be not well suited to high torque situations and do not want to increase the load on it by having extra gearing down before it.

Glad we could help I need more batteries for my Mog, been playing on these ones for a very long time (during all the ad breaks on telly and whilst watching special features on DVDs). I even used it this morning to load up a plate of food from the table filling the bed with sausage rolls, scotch eggs, mince pies etc I'm impressed at how long these cheapo batteries have lasted.

Well you now i'm partial to pointing out what I feel is wrong with Technic and one or two minor flaws I noticed with 8110 is the steering is not so good. They could have designed the steering better to cope with the weight and size of the Mog. Secondly, under heavy load whilst rotating the crane, the CV joint driving the rear PTO pops out of it's socket. I fixed it by placing a half bush on the shaft behind it, seems fine now. Apart from that it's all good, the pneumatics really do work great, easily outperforms my mates 8043 (with the newer LAs) and the 8258 which can't lift a wet fart! Of course it would be nice to have even more power, and for the crane of the unimog to have a greater range of movement so that it can fold up better *cough* longer pneumatics *cough* but as it is it works better that the previous two flagships by miles.

8421 is also a very good set. The next years sets don't look that good on first sight (shame about there being no pneumatics, at least not longer ones ) but they never do in these prerelease pictures. Even the unimog looked underwhelming the first time I saw it. It looked to me like just another, slightly bigger 8436. Not even pneumatics could save that set! If only the first picture showed that it had 4WD, suspention and a motorised compressor. And next year there is a chance that I might get the servo and L-motor i've been banging on about in the RC car. I really do hope so as the current motors with their really slow geared outputs are boring and a proportional servo motor (not just left/middle/right) is a fairly basic requirement for RC vehicles.

Do the competition sets from the late 90's count?

Thankyou for the mention Dluders

Possibly the best technic set ever released! Never before have the workings of a real life vehicle been so realisticly recreated. The complexity of most if not all recent sets relied soley on complex gear tarins (which are great) but 8110 has some of that and more with it's realistic suspention and pneumatics. There are sooooo many other toys, some are construction toys, there are a million others that are RC (with actual proportional radio control and have proper servos) and have lights and sounds and so on, technic is unique and about something else more than being just a toy, it can be like owning a real digger or whatever only smaller, which is why realistic mechanics are so important for technic in my opinion. As a kid I had lots of toys, and an 8880 super car, which to my 9 year old self was not a toy, it was a real supercar that was mine. The unimog demontrates that kind of realism like nothing else in many years. Oh and yeah, the pneumatics work like a dream. I was surprised when it had the power to lift a rather heavy and plush slipper into the bed and modile phones and TV remotes and and even other smaller technic models. So yeah, I love it!

8110 is the best. It's mechanical realism is pretty much unrivaled in Legos history. 8258 and 8043 both have complex gear driven (and unrealistic mechanicly) functions, but 8110 has everything, gear driven functions, pneumatic driven functions, suspention and so on meaning that whilst it may not have as many gears as the other two (almost as many though), it is actually the most complex and exciting becuase it has much more than just it's gear driven functionality, and it really is huge, much bigger than it looks in the pictures. Containing such a variety of different things and also the most amount of parts ever in a technic set also makes it a great source of parts. The only things it doesn't have is the flex system (not used for many many years) and RC, which for me is not even an issue because they currently don't make a servo motor which I think it really needs. 8258 is still a good set however and getting hard to find now.

For it to truly be flight, then it must ALL be off the ground, the countereight and framework included. This plane is like a see-saw or teeter-totter. Weight on one side makes the other side effectively weightless, requiring only a tiny push off the ground to lift. That is not flying, but that is exactly what is happening here. They have plenty of power THEORITICLY to lift there own weight, it's a question of efficientcy. Using a gear rack or winch, a lego motor can lift itself plus a substantial weight added too it. Bear in mind that with Eric's ideas i'm not talking about using propellers or turbines or wings to generate thrust and lift. That requires huge amounts of power for lego. Eric was talking about centrifugal forces and precession. If you put a power puller tyre on an old ungeared lego motor and spin it up, you will see there is enough centrifugal force there acting an all directions to stretch the tyre increasing it's diametre quite alot. If there was a way of redirecting all those outward forces into one direction, like up for example, I think you would see it take off quite easily! Seeing as it's the festive season, I urge you to watch Erics christmas lecture on the matter. Some very interesting stuff.

Having the differencial the wrong way can certainly cause this problem. However, whilst you are in that area, you may want to check the series of light grey and darg grey 16t gears that run verticly above the centre diff to make sure there isn't a light grey one where a dark grey one should be and vica verca.

Sounds like the problem freakwave mentioned. Make sure that the front and rear differentials are opposing eath other, so one of the outer gears is on the right, and the other is on the left. Hope this helps.

Got the unimog, YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY, had it built in time for crimbo dinner!

@ aposaric Well first, my apologies. My language was hardley grown up (which I am BTW, so feel free to abuse me back if you think I deserve it ). Working in factories (similar male environment to a pub!) you talk like that to your best friends and we all laugh at each others put downs, so please don't take offence, this is me being polite! . So whilst my social skills are well suited to my surroundings, I admit I should probably make more of a conscience effort here But I do still stand by my points and there will still be a need for paper. Back when offices first started using computers people were cheering and saying all the same things you are now about how there will no longer be paper everywhere now that we have computers with their hard drives capable of storing vast amounts of data. It is easy to see why they would think that, it was obvious to them. But as you have probably guessed, the opposite has happened and there is now more paper in offices than ever before. Paper and other wood derivatives will always be in demand, and so trees will always be cut down. But you are right in saying growing a forest somewhere so you can cut down another is not the solution. But then I didn't say anyone was doing that. They are growing new forests so they can use those new, sustainable forests for paper and so on, eventually (hopefully) removing any need to cut down older forests that are home to many living things. In America this has worked well as far as I know, South America needs to catch up but they have made a start. Besides, whilst Lego is made of plastic, the production of which has lead to things like the BP oil spill, the harm caused by making paper from sustainable tree farms is nothing in comparison. @ zewy623 Well I too have a computer and a TV to myself and so on, but some people don't. And one of the things I find beautiful about Lego is that it keeps children (and us adults!) away from TVs and computers. Personally I think that's a very good thing as most of us (including me) waste too much time in front of them. From a 2d printed image we have to concepualise a 3d object in our minds, which is simple enough, but it's something that works the brain, which thrives on work and goes dead without it. Instructions are already too easy by anyones standards with mistakes coming from a lack of concentration (probably because it's too easy!). Digital instructions could lead to there being as many steps as there are parts, and 3d models we can rotate would be easier still. Maybe i'm just biased cos of wanting everyone to rediscover the world beyond their computer screens. Maybe I should get off the bloody thing myself.......

Ah HAAAAA! What's that writing I see beside the motors? Could it be "Servo MOTOR" and "L MOTOR", I can only hope! Also why does the helicopter have a batteries not included sign?

Maybe an 8 wheel trial truck, or a huge american semi truck!

Too soon for me to have a proper judgement, but from what i've seen so far, not excited. They look like MOCs and contain little functionality for their size. But like I say it's too soon to tell. Maybe there is more sophitication to the helicopter rotor blades that enable both cyclic and collective control, but it looks very over engineered and bulky. It is odd that instead of showing three m-motors in a line on the off-roader box, they are showing 2 + 1. Maybe there is a new kind of motor that has not been fully designed yet, and the m-motor is a place holder image on the box, for a servo used for steering maybe? Remember the first images of the 8258 showed a m-motor instead of an XL-motor so it's possible. This would be fantastic, but still, highly unlikely there will be a transmission leaving this flagship with only drive, steering and suspention, which is a function or two short of a good flagship. Would have prefered a monster truck with servos to control both a transmission and steering remotely and a proper tubular looking frame.

Replace the coffee with some southern comfort and your in heaven my friend!

Ah well that's cheating! The clock starts the moment you open the box

I don't know, i'de rather not have to rely on hogging the TV/computer for 5 hours while I build a lego set. Like I say as long as they keep the paper instuctions, at least for the A-model, then they can add whatever additional digital instructions they like, that way I guess everyone is happy. Besides I think we can all agree that we don't need that many steps of building instructions, 1 or 2 pieces per step is rediculous! They could cut their instructions costs right there.