Porsche Cayman

[Barc 1]

He is my first Pronomag proxy car reworked. New chassis, new interior and added rear glass that it never had before.

This car has a Lego front end and has independent front wheels.

Lego wheels all around

Mineabea motor in an anglewinder set up

[Brumos RSR]

Nice
BARC

[pfuetze]

nice work, Dan!

are not the front wheels extending a little too much above the body?
BTW .... are those front "axles" run smooth? I did not have that lego assembly in my hands for a longer time, but from what i remember - those are wobbly. not ideal when going speed hunting on the Desmo ...

[walker]

Never forget :

Lego is a toy. Its only ( but very good ) precision relates to the accuracy of fit. My grandsons have way too much LEGO kits, but there is not even one without wobbling wheels.

As to the Cayman´s front end - in my opinion the gap in the wheelarches is too big, too. It might result from the front wheel assembly.

Roland

[Barc 1]

Yes the wheels extend out too far for my liking. It was so close though I had to give it a try The car was set up with the same rims as the rear, but there wasn't quite enough clearance for the larger rims as there is some slop in the lego assembly, and this slop would cause some body rub. So I changed them out and the result is a front end with too much clearance for the smaller wheels. I can lower the front end, but this front wheel assembly may not stay.

I like to experiment with new concepts. The lego wheels are rock solid and run true on the rear where they are sleeved with brass tubing. Zero issue at all with getting wheels to run smooth. The front wheel lego assembly does not seem too bad to me. and is on par with other independent assemblies I have seen on stock 132 cars. Is this good enough, Depends. Currently it is running the same basic times as every other similarly powered cars so does not seem to be causing an issue.

However the things you guys noticed bother me as well. Quite likely this car will be refitted with a solid front axle in a brass tube which will allow me to use the bigger rims which will address the front track and the front wheel well clearance issues. Again a lot of this appearance become painfully clear when you take close up photos, where the camera is unforgiving. To the naked eye from 6 feet away this stuff is not as pronounced. and for that reason the camera is a great modelling tool

Again I like to try new methods. That is how the Lego block rear bearing post concept came about, and that assembly is rock solid.

Lego is a precisely engineered set of building blocks, and when applied correctly can yield fantastic results. However this front wheel assembly may not be quite tight enough as it did allow some ever so slight movement in the front wheel to rub the body, causing me to have to change the front wheels.

[walker]

What diameter do the complete original Lego wheels have ?

Roland

[Barc 1]

Hi Roland

I went back to a straight axle in the front and reinstalled the larger rims. Doing this fixed the front track width and the larger rims fill in the front wheel arch much better

The diameter of the lego rims on this Porsche are 10mm front and back. Sleeving them is easy as a 3/32 Id brass tube has an OD that is a snug fit in the lego opening.

You can buy these rims for 23 cents each.

[Audi1]

Looks good, Dan! Who makes the Cayman body?

Allan

[Barc 1]

It is a resin shell that that I popped from a die cast

[pfuetze]

the Cayman looks really good with the front wheels changed, Dan! Very nice!

[walker]

Hi Dan,

it was the right decision, wasn´t it ? Now the Cayman looks really good. Btw. - from the first time I saw your color scheme ( don´t remember what car it was ) I have liked it very much.

Brass tubing 3 / 32 i.d.?
Is it really an exact inner dia., snug fit as well ?
I haven´t found such abrass tubing yet. I have only thin wall surgical steel tubing with exact 3/32 i.d. I use it to make exactly fitting spacer bushings for the axles to avoid using the tiny and thin washers and permanently having exact equal axle setups.
If the brass tubing snug-fits the Lego rims you ought to be able to make wobble free stump axles. Cool !
Are there various diameters of rims ?

Regards,

Roland

[Barc 1]

The paint scheme is copied from Canadian National Railways that paint their locomotives like this. I am also a model railroader and thought it would be interesting to paint a slot car sponsored by the large Railway that operates in North America

Lego has various wheel sizes, but two in particular work well for 143 scale. Theses 10 mm rims and the 8 mm for smaller cars.The 8 mm are shown in the first set of photographs and used on the front wheels. These rims are quite wide so I chuck them in a drill and mill away some width

Tighter tolerance stub axles could be built from brass tube if one felt inclined to do so. I am not sold on the benefit of independent front wheels. A solid axle and low grip front tires seem to do the job without a lot of fuss. I do continue to mess around with the idea though

Here is a picture of the smaller rims used on an Indy car



.

[Barc 1]

This was the inspiration for the paint scheme

[walker]

A really nice colour scheme.
If I weren´t in for US steamers ( esp. the big ones 4-8-8-4, 2-6-6-2 etc.) I would convert a few of my diesel locos into this scheme. But it would not look really good, a U.P. loco passing a CN or vice versa ;-))


Dan, once more the tubing.
Is it really snug fit 3/32 id, and if yes, where can one buy it ?

Regards,
Roland

[Dundee Denny]

Great color choice and fun to hear the story/inspiration for it!!

Dundee Denny