Whilst not quite a Gee Bee, I picked up this Lego Air Racer to go along with the theme.
Judging by the pylons on the box art it’s more like a Red Bull Air Race plane.
Overall, I’m not that impressed by the model (and not only because it’s not really a candidate for a Gee Bee conversion). The Pictures on the box are about the only angles that make it look good 🙁
First pass at modifying the stock plane into a smaller Lego Gee Bee. Main changes were shortening the wings and fueslage, and a reprofiling of the tail.
Having built the 24 Hours Race Car and not been overly impressed with the functionality I decided to remedy that situation by making it remote control.
Out of the box the car is set up for motorisation with a compartment in the nose for the battery box but the preprepared motor location is intended to drive the door and engine cover.
In addition to the battery box and motors the “Power Functions” range contains a two channel remote control and a servo which provides everything needed.
After stripping out most of the sets of axles that weaved across the bottom of the car to make the doors and engine cover lift from a single dive there was enough space to start working.
It took a few attempts but I managed to get the motor drive shaft to connect into the V8 engine crank shaft which then goes through the diff into the rear wheels. The downside of this is that the pinion is under a lot of torque as it meshes with the ring gear and can slip off the input shaft.
With the “hand of god” steering wheel and linkages removed the steering servo fitted into the cockpit and interfaced cleanly with the pinion shaft.
The IR receiver for the remote control fits in where the steering wheel was previously located which gives good reception.
Since I’d removed all the cross linked axles to make space for the motors the doors and engine cover no longer operated. However, as the actuators were still there, I re-worked the drive shafts so rather than going from a drive at the rear of the right side pod to a clutch at the front of the left side pod and back to the actuators on either side at the rear they now have individual drives at the rear of each side pod via the shortest route possible into the actuators.
The end result is that I not only have remote control drive and steering but I’ve retained and improved the existing functionality for the doors and engine cover. Oh, and the headlights light up.
