Tag Archives: Tow Truck

Wreck-It Ralph

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This impressive looking rotator wrecker tow-truck was discovered by one of our Elves on Flickr. It comes from regular bloggee Ralph Savelsberg (aka Mad Physicist), who is usually found building models rather larger, yet despite being only nominally mini-figure scale, Ralph’s wrecker packs in an astounding amount of detail.

This isn’t just visual either, as the truck’s towing boom can elevate, rotate and winch, and there’s more of the model to see at Ralph’s photostream. Click the first link link in the text above to head there, you can check out Ralph’s Master MOCers interview via the second, and click here for the LEGO Model Team set that may have provided some inspiration.

Towing Technic

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This astonishing creation is a fully-working 1:10 scale pick-up based tow truck, inspired by the bespoke Isuzus in use by Slovenia’s Automobile Association. Designed and constructed by Zerobricks – one of the team behind the 5-star rated BuWizz bluetooth brick – no fewer than eleven motors accurately recreate the functions of Slovenia’s real roadside recovery vehicles.

Two BuWizz 3.0 bricks power and control those eleven motors, which drive all four wheels, a high/low gearbox, working steering, three differential locks, a winch, and – of course – the brilliantly engineered rear lift, which can raise/lower, extend, and lock/grab the wheels of the vehicle to be towed, all of which can be controlled remotely via bluetooth.

A suite of manual functions compliment the electronic wizardry, including all-wheel suspension, a V8 engine, LED lights, opening doors, hood and tool compartments, and 3D-printed brake discs, whilst accurate decals and brick-built accessories such traffic cones and fuel cans further enhance the model’s likeness to the full-size AMZS trucks.

It’s a spectacular creation that beautifully demonstrates the combined power of LEGO Technic and the BuWizz bluetooth battery and control system, and there’s a lot more to see at the Eurobricks forum, including full specifications, digital renders of the internal mechanisms, and further imagery, plus you can watch the model in action alongside its real-life counterpart via the excellent video below.

Click the links to take a closer look, or here to visit the BuWizz store if you’re interested in how their amazing bluetooth brick could add superpower to your creations.

YouTube Video

To the Tip!

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Christmas at TLCB Towers is over for another year, and thus the slightly depressed-looking Christmas tree in the corner of the office can finally be laid to rest. This usually means strapping it to the roof of the office’s Rover 200, driving to the tip, and lobbing it into a giant container of compostable waste.

Flickr’s Jonathan Elliott takes a much more fun approach to tree disposal though, with his Christmas tree dragged behind a Land Rover 109 tow-truck like a wake-boarder behind a power-boat. Or a soon to-be-executed 15th century criminal behind a horse.

The Land Rover is mighty good too, with the exquisite detailing including probably the best small-scale Land Rover tail-lights we’ve ever seen. There’s more of the model to see at Jonathan’s photostream, and you can take a look via the link above whilst we find out if a knackered Rover 200 is up to the job of towing a Christmas tree through the streets.

The Long Way Home

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This return journey will be familiar to anyone with an extended period of Land Rover ownership in their vehicular history.

Actually that’s not entirely fair; whilst classic Land Rovers (in this case a Series III) will break, they do only require electrical tape and a piece of string to fix. Clearly the owner of this one forgot to bring their string…

Ralph Savelsberg is the creator of this excellent MAN TGS AA recovery truck (along with the lovely Series III Land Rover it’s recovering), which includes a working under-lift, sliding platform, tilting cab with four opening doors, and some beautifully authentic decals.

It could only be more realistic if the Land Rover Series III on the back was replaced by a Range Rover Sport. And that’s definitely not a car that’s repairable with electrical tape and piece of string.

Just Add String

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The LEGO Technic 42098 Car Transporter is a fine set, and it’s also spawned a variety of alternative builds that have appeared here at TLCB, including hook-lift container trucks, buses, and… er, other car transporters, and this might be our favourite yet.

With ‘HOG’ steering, a 6-cylinder engine, opening doors and hood, rear lift, boom extension, elevation and rotation, working out-riggers, and a lockable winch, Dyen’s rotator tow truck would make an excellent set in its own right, and yet it’s constructed entirely from the parts found within the 42098 set.

Well, apart from some string for the winch, but everyone has string at home so that’s alright.

There’s more to see of Dyen’s superb 42098 B-Model at both Flickr and the Eurobricks discussion forum, where a link to building instructions can also be found.

Click the links to take a look, and maybe convert the pieces from your own 42098 set into this rotator tow truck too. Just add string.

LEGO Technic 42128 Heavy-Duty Tow Truck | Set Preview

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The Lego Car Blog Elves have been busy! Fired over the LEGO Company HQ’s perimeter wall by way of the office catapult, it’s been just a day since we revealed the brand new LEGO Technic LEGO Technic 42126 Ford F-150 Raptor set. Hot the heels of that Elf comes another, and it’s brought back quite a model; this is the brand new for 2021 LEGO Technic 42128 Heavy-Duty Tow Truck.

With over 2,000 pieces 42128 pays homage to various American heavy-duty trucks, sits at the top of the new-for-2021 Technic line-up*, and – most excitingly – it features pneumatics!

More interestingly, unlike some other recent pneumatic sets, 42128 is unmotorised, with its pair of pneumatic cylinders fed compressed air via a hand pump like the good ol’ days. These lift and extend the crane boom, whilst the pair of winches, crane rotation, rear lift, and stabiliser legs are all mechanically operated by hand. Which is awesome.

Not only that, there’s a miniature working inline-6 engine upfront, working steering, and a functioning lift on the first of the truck’s three axles.

It all looks wonderfully mechanical, and that’s despite 42128 continuing LEGO’s trend of adding ever more visual realism to Technic sets, which are now at almost Model Team levels of detail. The 42128 Heavy-Duty Tow Truck certainly contains heaps of exterior detailing, including fuel tanks, exhaust stacks, air filters, and a brick-built grille.

Less positive are the stickers though, which are surely some of the worst that LEGO has ever stuck on a Technic model. Still, you can always leave those off.

The new Technic 42128 Heavy-Duty Tow Truck set will reach stores in August of 2021 aimed at ages 11+, and is expected to cost around $150/£140 when it does so. Excited? We sure are. Although we’ll probably leave those decals unstuck.

*Or is it?… Tune in tomorrow for something even larger.

My Other Truck’s a Jeep

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The Jeep Wrangler is one of the best off-roaders available, but what if even it isn’t quite off-roady enough? There aren’t many vehicles more capable than a Wrangler in the dirt, but one of them is the Mercedes-Benz Unimog, which will drive right over a stranded Wrangler and carry on without noticing.

Cue mpj of Brickshelf, who has turned LEGO’s 42122 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon set into a mighty Unimog tow-truck, complete with a working winch and functioning steering. Further images and instructions are available and there’s more to see of mpj’s 42122 alternate via the link above.

Little Tow

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This pleasingly-coloured classic tow truck was found by one of our Elves on Flickr today, and the only thing detracting from its perfection is that it’s pictured here towing what looks like a Toyota AE86, an impossibility because – as we all know – Corollas never break down.

Otherwise TLCB regular de-marco has nailed it, and you can recreate his ‘Old Tow Truck’ for yourself as instructions are available. Head to de-marco’s photostream via the link above for more.

SuperGreat

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Unlike today’s other off-road truck post, this one certainly doesn’t have a bland name. The Mitsubishi Fuso SuperGreat FX 6×6 is an off-road military tow truck, depicted here in Technic Japanese Self Defence Force form.

All six wheels are driven by a Medium Motor, the steering is powered by a combination of a  Medium and a Micro Motor, whilst the crane rotation, elevation, extension, and outriggers are all controlled manually.

Leaf-spring suspension features too and there’s more to see courtesy of LXF (Brickshelf) / syclone (Eurobricks) via the links.

The Pusher

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This TLCB Writer’s peaceful afternoon watching Top Gear re-runs working hard to keep TLCB wheels in motion was unwelcomely disturbed today. Disturbed by the unusual sound of distant Elven screaming, getting increasingly louder, before fading away again, only to be repeated a few minutes later.

Sigh. Whatever was going on it probably wasn’t good. A trudge out to the corridor revealed the cause; a rather unique vehicle, powerfully pushing a cohort of several enraged Elves up and down the halls of TLCB Towers with a large blade.

Upon seeing a ‘hoomun’ arrive to interrupt the fun, the Elf at the controls raised the blade so its colleagues passed underneath it, only for them to be squashed not once but twice by the following tracks, whereupon the delighted perpetrator promptly abandoned the controls and ran off.

Order restored we can take a look at the vehicular cause, a fully remote controlled Technic ‘Snow Dozer’ by Kirill Mazurov (aka desert752), powered by no less than thirteen Power Functions motors.

Eight of these drive the tracks, with two more powering the articulated steering, another two the rear crane, and the last the blade elevation used so effectively by the Elf that found it. A pair of third-party BuWizz bluetooth batteries provide the power (eight times as much as LEGO’s own system) and control mechanism, allowing Kirill’s machine to both push an impressive quantity of snow (or TLCB Elves) and to travel far faster than it has any right to.

There’s much more of Kirill’s strange yet spectacular creation to see at both his ‘Technic Snow Dozer’ Flickr album and via the Eurobricks discussion forum, plus you can watch it in action in the snow via the video below.

YouTube Video:

*Today’s wonderful title song. Which could be about a different kind of snow.

Hey Joe*

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Joe (aka Tormund Giantsbane from Game of Thrones) has got himself a nice tow truck. Built by TLCB regular Andrea Lattanzio it’s also got some very nice parts usage going on. See if you can spot the swords, pirates’ hooks, meat cleavers, ice skates, and binoculars all cunningly deployed to different uses throughout the build. See more of ‘Joe’s Tow Truck’ at Andrea’s photostream via the link above.

*Today’s excellent title song

My Other Truck’s a Crane

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LEGO’s seemingly endless supply of yellow Technic cranes continues with the new 42108 set released this year. Whilst the yellow eight-wheeled crane formula has been done to death, the 42108 set does include instructions for a more interesting B-Model, that being a heavy duty forklift that’s far more original than the main model it shares its pieces with.

However you guys are using TLCB’s Lock-Down B-Model Competition to do even better, first with the brilliant 42108 roll-off container truck published here last month, and now with this; newcomer oficinadelegodoandre‘s excellent rotator tow-truck, also built only from the parts found within the 42108 set.

A fully working rotating crane complete with a linear-actuator operated boom lift and working winch is the centrepiece of Andre’s alternate, whilst functioning stabilisers plus front and rear axle steering feature too.

There’s more to see at Andre’s ‘42108 B-Model’ album on Flickr via the link above, and you can read the competition rules and find out more about the prizes by clicking here!

Mince Meat

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Well the Elves have found their favourite creation of the year so far…

This is the ‘Harshharvestor’, it’s been built by Horcik Designs, and whilst it doesn’t feature any racing stripes, it does include just about everything else that a spectacularly violent mythical creature could wish for.

Mounted to the front, and engaged via a selectable power take-off, is a giant whirling spiky arrangement that we can only assume is for mincing one’s enemies. Linear actuators (controlled by the warning lights on the roof) allow the aforementioned implement to be raised, lowered and tilted depending upon which body part the driver would like to remove first, whilst rear four-wheel-steering controlled via a ‘Hand of God’ mechanism provides the agility to ensure that escape is very difficult indeed.

Horcik hasn’t stopped there either, having equipped his creation with a button-activated mine-laying device at the rear to deter assailants along with a giant towing crane, presumably to allow the machine to drag the minced/exploded remains of its foes back to base. A V6 engine up front, opening doors, and side mounted machine guns complete the specs, making this one of the most violent vehicles that we’ve ever featured.

Thankfully all of the ‘Harshharvester’s contraptions are hand operated, meaning no remote control and that we won’t spend today getting Elf blood out of the office carpet.

There’s more to see of Horcik’s magnificent if deranged creation at his Flickr album, much more at Bricksafe, and a video and build description at the Eurobricks discussion forum, where this creation was entered into ‘TC17’ building competition. Click the links to take a look!

Lunar Rescue

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The annual nerd-filled bandwagon that is Febrovery is upon us once more, with rovers of all shapes and sizes expected top appear over the next four weeks. For those new to this blog and/or the online Lego Community, we’re not referring to the defunct British car manufacturer (although maybe one day we’ll run our own – considerably less cool – Febrovery…), rather the wheeled contraptions that inhabit all sorts of far away planetary objects in the minds of Lego builders.

This is one such vehicle, TFDesigns / Frost‘s ‘Roveside Assistance Wrecker’, built to fix your magnetonium fusion reactor, busted thread sprocket, solar panel failure, or any other cosmic malady. With a brick-seperator tow hitch, the coolest wheels we think we’ve ever seen, and that canopy again, it’s a fine way to kick off the Febrovery month. Call Intergalactic Roveside Assistance via the link above for more.

War Wreckin’

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The U.S military operates vehicles in some pretty inhospitable places. Currently most of these places are dust-filled ovens, putting the machinery in use under intense strain. And, let’s face it, they are American vehicles so they will break.

Unfortunately the local recovery services in such places are unlikely to be willing to help out, and – even if they were – an Abrams tank is probably a bit beyond their ability. Fortunately the U.S military has these ready to rescue their broken vehicles; the M936 6×6 Wrecker.

Built by TLCB regular Ralph Savelsberg this mini-figure scale replica of the M936 may not be in ‘dust-filled oven’ camouflage but it is mightily accurate in all other respects. A working rotating crane, detachable stabilisers, and wonderful detailing are all included and there’s more to see at Ralph’s M936 Wrecker album on Flickr by clicking here.