Last week I finally purchased LEGO Technic Excavator set 8043. This set has been around for a couple of years and I had seen it around locally and thought it looked quite cool but other sets and life always seemed to get in the way.
With the news that this set has been made end of life and with me having some time off work I grabbed it.
The building process was quite enjoyable and took me about 5 hours with a couple of breaks during this time, the steps were all well explained however as it is quite a complex set (it has over 70 gears) it is important to make sure you get these aligned well and that they are all installed the right way. My previous experience in building LEGO Technic sets (over 55 so far in my life time) really helped and I was able to work out how it was going together and what the next step would be.
After finishing the building process and playing around with it I decided that I was not really happy with the bucket and that a claw which can be used to pickup items would be better. I have quite a limited stock of spare parts so this was made using what I had on hand.
Video on my blog at the URL below:
http://mizibunktechnic.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/lego-technic-excavator-8043-with-moc.html