Birthday present - “some assembly required”

[BCNewell]

Well - the spousal unit just gave me a birthday present. Black box with “Zylegen” meant nothing to me. Opened it, and started pulling bag after bag of what appeared to be Lego-looking pieces out …. Then found the assembly book. Is a build kit for a model reverse trike similar to the F3 series. There’s somewhere between 103 and 16 million pieces! Will post back in the following months with progress reports …

[racoon]

Cool. I love building blocks and Legos.

[Cobwebs]

Motorsickle tyres.............. that's different. I like your table too, what species is that?

[BCNewell]

Cobwebs - table was built by a friend of the wife’s. I ‘believe’ it is mesquite wood.

[ARtraveler]

Keep us posted. Can't do them anymore. The cats would steal the pieces and destroy the project.

[BCNewell]

Hmmm … I consider myself a pretty educated fellow, but these “instructions” seem to be the worst I have ever seen. Not a single word - in ANY language - in the instruction book. Apparently, there are 3 ‘groups’ of parts, plus the wheels/tires and a bag full of some kind of connector pins (all same size) in an unmarked bag. Looks like everything in the seven bags marked “1” are used to comprise the initial assembly. This assembly is laid out in the first 30 pages, comprising 73 steps.

Judging by how long it took me to figure just THIS much out … this could be quite the adventure! Have a feeling it may actually go together pretty straight forward - now that my initial shock of the procedure has kinda passed. Think that I can see a “Ages 8+” printed on the front cover, but mostly obscured by the brand sticker.

[Peter Aawen]

....... Think that I can see a “Ages 8+” printed on the front cover, but mostly obscured by the brand sticker.

Are you sure that doesn't say 'Years' not 'Ages'??

As in - it'll likely take you 8+ YEARS to assemble this??

Looks like it'll be fun tho, and quite a challenge

Which as we all know while we work hard at aging disgracefully, is a good thing; essential for keeping the mind active and all of your brain working!

[BCNewell]

True that!!

Decided to put off opening the 7 bags marked “1” until I can put a couple hours into it. And - don’t want parts scattered all over Hades.

[Cobwebs]

Just in case you can't work it out.............That's a nice clock base you've got there.

[BCNewell]

Spent about an hour and a half on the new ‘toy’ tonight. Nine pages, 27 steps, and I have a nearly complete front end. Has working steering and suspension, complete with control arms, shocks, ball joints, drag links, even a u-joint on the steering system. Didn’t all go perfectly smoothly, as there were several pieces I had to disassemble to orient an earlier part correctly. But nothing major.

Next assembly is the rear swing arm assembly. I see it includes a chain that I have to assemble with 39 individual links. It appears this unit can be upgraded with a remote control steering and propulsion system - all sold separately, of course. Amazing, for something near a Lego kit!!

[Cobwebs]

Coming along nicely. What scale is that, does it say?

[BCNewell]

No scale mentioned.

[racoon]

Looks like fun.

But then I'm kind of a Lego fanatic. ;D

[Jdr00ejr]

Got one for Christmas 2 years ago. Was a fun build. Now it's collecting dust.

[BCNewell]

^^^ … sadly, true about many things in our lives …

[racoon]

I've been curious about this, so did some searching on Google.

To me, it appears to be a model of an Spyder F3-S.
The Can-Am website says the F3-S dimensions are:

L x W x H: 104 x 58.9 x 43.3 in.

The information online says the model is:
Measures over 8.26''*16.5''*19.5”

So if we switch the model dimensions around, to show them in the shortest to longest dimension, in order to match the Can-Am information, the model is:

19.5 in x 16.5 in x 8.26 in.

If I did the math correctly that's roughly 1/5 scale.

I say roughly, because if you convert the actual F3-S dimensions to 1/5 scale the numbers don't exactly match the model size, especially the width:

L: 104 = 20.8
W: 58.9 = 11.78
H: 43.3 = 8.66

Yeah, I'm bored and retired, and have too much free time.

[BCNewell]

Worked on it another ~2 hours tonight. Got the complete swingarm assembly put together - 140 parts to just that segment. Then started the process of mating it to the front suspension assembly. Again, some better instructions and clearer diagrams would help. Ended up having to disassemble quite a bit of stuff to get the rear suspension oriented correctly with the lateral tie rails. But all’s good now. So far, haven’t broken any pieces (though I have had to jiggle/wiggle/press hard a few times!), and have not come up short any pieces … let’s hope that holds out for the remainder of the build.

Looking at diagrams, looks like up next is … the building of a reciprocating V4 engine! Appears there is no head on any of the cylinders, so you can see the pistons moving while the machine moves! Crazy …

[Cobwebs]

We need a bore and stroke measurement please. Racoon's nodding off.

[racoon]

Lego makes a little plastic tool to help in disassembling/disconnecting their bricks when you need too.

A faster choice would be to go to an auto parts store and look for a trim removal tool set.
They come with several plastic tools with slim tips that make it easy to get between the pieces to pry them apart.

[BCNewell]

Got to work on the kit again tonight. (Drat!! - forgot to take measurements for bore & stroke!). You can see the yellow pistons in the cylinder bores of the V4 engine. Worked about another hour, and am finally finished with ‘subassembly 1’. Have some parts left over, but think that is by design … don’t think I forgot/missed something. Would venture to say there are close to 750 individual parts installed to this point. Now … on to the bags marked “2”.

Edit: using my high-dollar, highly accurate instruments (a toothpick and the cm scale on my Leatherman!), I come up with a ~1cm bore and ~.9cm stroke on my mighty plastic V4. It looks like 2.83cc’s total - if my metric math is right …

[Cobwebs]

Hmmm. I'm thinking it may be 1/8 scale. Or at least the engine is. Just under 1450cc on the toothpick displacement calculator. 1/5 only works out to about 350cc which would be an absolute howler!
Wonder if it's an artificial intelligence design thingy or there's some connection to an actual prototype?

[RangerRick]

Well - the spousal unit just gave me a birthday present. Black box with “Zylegen” meant nothing to me. Opened it, and started pulling bag after bag of what appeared to be Lego-looking pieces out …. Then found the assembly book. Is a build kit for a model reverse trike similar to the F3 series. There’s somewhere between 103 and 16 million pieces! Will post back in the following months with progress reports …

My wife also decided I needed this for my birthday, so it's sitting somewhere till August

[wolfeman]

Quit blaming your wives. You guys are buying those on your own.

[BCNewell]

Only know two things about the engine set-up - 1) it looks fairly scale in the model {wish we had V4’s in the F3-S}, and 2) compression ratio is ZERO !!!

[Postleg]

Ages 8+
or
If you are over 45 add an 8 year old to your construction team.