Updated: Almost Lead Sled

The Lead Sled project has made progress but I am not entirely happy with the results so far. The packets ordered on Bricklink have arrived one by one each day. The final order was UK, France, the Netherlands and New Zealand - I have ordered them all with a few minutes difference.

The first obvious problem is that some parts arrived in the wrong color. Unfortunately both of them are at visible places, one is the hinge of the doors and the other is part of the rear seat. One of the merchants was very kind to send the piece in the right color in a follow-up mail.

There are other problems too. The most obvious one is that the very front of the car gets detached from the rest very very easily as it is held in place by two studs only. I did not realize this when I designed it in LDD - it will need a redesign and it is far from trivial. The rest of the front is not very strong either but I have managed to get it up to an almost acceptable level by adding more stiffeners.

One more issue is that when opening the hood there is an obvious tension between the hood and the chassis. As I could judge from the photos this is exactly the same on the original model built by Mad Physicist, so I am not sure if that one is any better.

The studs at the upside down pieces near the front wheels make contact with the wheels. This can be only realized once I start pushing the model. I have also not figured out how to attach the chrome parts to the wheel either.

All in all it does not feel as a total success yet, but on the photos it looks good.

Updated: seeing my enthusiasm Mad Physicist has provided me more details about the internal structure of his car here and here. Looking at the photos I quickly started to wonder why I was not able to figure it out by myself :) Anyway the tips should be enough to make the front a bit more rigid, have a proper cover on the wheels and avoid the contact between the front wheels and the body.