Lost_In_Noise

Okay, booster racks next. This form the booster racks, and the cocpit roof: In place: Now for the actual boosters: Both: Here they are in place. The light line connects, so they light up every once in a while. The cocpit roof is also added: Next is adding a satellite, and test if everything works.

I think so. The unit is just one brick with an axle hole in the center. When the axle turns, it moves a thin plate covering 9 of the 10 holes in the brick. These holes are connected to the IR tubes(clear flex plastic ones). Looks like this:

Now the cockpit seats are added. The piece on the right is a "Pole Reverser / Polarity Switch with Center Part", which allows you to operate the battery box attachments remotely, or from a different place. An "Black Electric, Plate 2 x 4 with Contacts" is placed across both switches, allowing them to be run by a single power cord. You've better not sit here if you've got long hair. It might get caught in the rubber banded engine. You can see the engine polarity switches in the back between the 4 beams. Further forming of the nose reveals where the front windows are going to be. Here you can see how high the actual nose gets, before the windows and roof are added. These rubber bands are used later on to prevent the engine to continue running after you've let go of the knob. The rocket engine is tilted into place, and locked by two long friction pins. The wires barely fits in there, so you've got to apply some pressure to insert the pins. Creating the "Canadian arm" and a tailwing fundament next, using these pieces: This technique was new to me: First, two beams are attached by a "Plate 1 x 5 with Toothed Ends, 2 Studs and Center Axle Hole". Then two 3 lenght axles are passed through to lock them into place. Nice and sturdy. This is the roof of the engine compartment, with a tail wing to be added later: Now the crane arm is in place. You can see the added roof in the back. Some nice stickers for the minifigs to study: The rear wing is built using the same technique as the crane arm: Two axles locks it in position: Here is the cockpit roof(without top plate), and the back rear wing piece. In place: Below the rear wing we can see the two rubber bands caught on two bushes on both sides. They cause the switches for the motor to realign in neutral position once the knob on either side has been released. Next is adding boosters at both sides of the rear wing.

This power cord goes on top of the "Light Gray Electric, Fiber Optics Element" in the back. You can see where the 2x1 bricks with 16-tooth gears are placed in this picture. Two white inverted slopes are also added further to left. Now the opening roof, or bay doors for the shuttle's storage compartment is made. It consists of liftarms and 12 "White Technic, Axle 8"s. This is the only set it was used for, if you count out the R2-D2 from 2002. These are symmetric, with color separated instructions spanning two sides in the manual. The building process is fairly repetitive and basic. Here they are in place, along with some gears and frictionless pins: I thought i had made a mistake when the 16T gears didn't align, but then I examined the next step: This is divided into two parts, first we create an appropriate "spaced" battery box: Then we use these parts to create this; Now the gears align properly, allowing the bay doors to be raised simultaneously on both sides of the cargo area. If both doors are resting on the wings when you place this gear rack, you won't have to synchronize them like the flaps. Here the battery box is in place: 6x 2 stud beams are used to hold the "axle and pin connector perpendiculars" on the cargo doors in place: Next the knobs for controlling the PF unit is created. The white round 2x2 tiles were stickered by previous owner. Here they are along with some rubber bands and a basic frame to the left: Placed on the shuttle it looks like this: The ON/OFF stickered one goes on the STARBOARD (right) side. Next up is the engine transmission and changeplate. Again, rubber bands are used instead of clutch gears. Now to build the changeplate: Very nice. Here it is on top. These stickers are the ones applied in the next step. The gearbox is installed, note that the third rubber band is fetched from an axle below. Four vertical beams are added in the back. These will be used to carry the tailfin and some thrusters. We've now reached step 30/40 for this set.

Okay, synchronizing landing gears. I've reached step 23 of 40, where two 16-tooth gears are added to the front and the back. Heres a pic from the underside, taken after the build was completed. This rack is placed on top of the landing gear. If you don't pay attention to the instructions, you may miss that the 4 axle from the suspension is integrated to it. Next, two of these tall bricks go in the back. The slopes are added to the nose, leaving it with a nice curved look: Forming the base of the crane arm consists of 6 steps, this is what it looks like after step 4: With these parts, another section is created: Merging into this: And these parts makes it into a sturdy base for the crane. It's placed on top of the turntable, and 2 2 stud axles locks it into place. That's all for tonight. I'll be adding more tomorrow.

I've got 31/40 sets in my build queue right now. Maybe I'll add some reviews of them later on. I'm starting with the bigger sets, 8880 being next to this one. Hopefully I'll finish some time before summer.

The wings are a bit flimsy at this point, so we'll add an outer frame to tighten them up a bit. Another load of black beams and hinge plates are used to make... This. These are separated into different instructions with two steps each, and a parts callout for the whole lot. 20 pieces or so. Here they are mounted on the chassis. You can see where the "Arm Piece with Pin, 3 Fingers and Outside Thread Grooves" meets the "Arm Piece with Pin, 2 Fingers and Outside Thread Grooves" right outside the gear lever. This is the same for both sides of the shuttle. Next is synchronizing the landing gears on each side and the front. A tipped-over space shuttle isn't very much to look at. But it's been a busy day for me, and I have to scoot off to another meeting. I'll be back later tonight to continue the journey.

Time to gather some assorted parts, take a look at this callout: These are used to build some of the nose section, and adding rubber bands to drive the engine. This sets uses 6 of each " Black Arm Piece with Pin, 3 Fingers and Outside Thread Grooves", and "Black Arm Piece with Pin, 2 Fingers and Finger Grooves" to lock the outer fuselage to the cabin and wing. These are not always easy to differentiate in the instructions. The rubber bands are to be used for propelling the engine later on. My set was used, so these parts for the ailerons were stickered (Black Technic slope long (Wing Back)). They're used in the submarine B-model,but the completed module on the shuttle doesn't show these parts from the angle where you can see the stickers. (page 18, step 1) Were now building the "engine" complete with alternating lights, although without sound. Fairly straightforward, though the numbers on this page will haunt you for a while: Assembled with IR tubes (not really IR, but I like to call it so). The lower engine exhaust part: The top: Combined: Side view: From behind (when eating shuttle dust): I found it wise to check if this actually worked, instead of having to remove it afterwards. The IR tubes are attached with "Technic, Pin 1/2", but those are already placed in the "Axle and pin connector, Perpendicular"s below the exhausts. I found it to be much easier to remove the pins, attaching them to the IR tubes prior to placing them. (manual p. 20, step 10.1-2) The engine is then placed in the back of the shuttle. Moving from tail to nose now, forming the lower base by adding 28 pieces, and some stickers. The hole created in the center is later used for the landing gear. These parts forms a gearbox in the front. There will be a H-shaped changeover plate there later. The outer flaps are added, and another layer to the chassis. Here you can see the spur gears controlling the landing gear up/down. Placed on top of the chassis. The wires here are only placed on top of the beams to keep them from entangling with everything else. The nosewheel is made: When you're adding the 6 "white thin liftarms with stud" in step 18, be careful so the liftarms on the opposite side of the wall doesn't come off. A few of mine did, and it took a knife and some time to get them back on the axle. Time to get that chin up. The hinge plates are cleverly used both over and under, and then Black Arm Pieces are used to snap the arms into place. Very nice. Two of these are created as handles for controlling flaps and landing gear: The two axles running from these controls are to be held in place by the front wing bits. These are separated in the instructions by different colour scheme of letters. I suppose it has to do with the stickered tiles they have. Here they are placed on the shuttle, you can see the set of 16T gears meeting at the base.: You can see how this works more clearly at the flaps section.

Now it's time so build some flaps. You wouldn't want to lose control of your precious space shuttle, would you? Left side: Both: They are operated with a single spur gear at the center of the shuttle. Four additional 16T gears causes them to rotate in opposite directions. The yellow lever seen on the right side thus controls both flaps. The stickers shown in the last picture are the ones for the B-model sub (Black Technic slope long (Wing Back)). I think this was a good area to place them out of immediate view.

And I'm back from work(finally). Time to start the build, here are all the pieces spread out on the table (except the beams). We start off by building a basic frame with some spur gears. This is step 5 in the instruction. Then we build a gear rack, and place it in the frame. Now we build the crane base, which the crane arm will be mounted on later. And here it is placed on the shuttle. We have reached step 9 of 40 for this set. It is not clearly stated in the instructions where the cables will go, so you have to pay attention yourself. Neither are the cables color-coded like they are in more recent sets, but with some intuition it will work out just fine.

I was referring to the piece callouts bit. If you line them all up before you start each step(5 2x1 bricks, 4 hinge plates etc), you shouldn't have any leftovers for each step.

I've just finished building this, and I couldn't find any reviews. So why not create my own? The alternate build is a search sub. I'll have to that one later on. This is the hardest set I have ever constructed, but the end result is awesome. The set was released in 1996, two years after the legendary super car, and features fiber optics, two motors, and a size similar to the later flagships, 8258. Here is a comparison shot. Note the minifig and pulley wheel at the bottom. Yes! This is minifig compatible. Two of them can sit in the cockpit. They are not included, and I couldn't find any space minifigs, so empty for now. The set includes lights, motor and some rubber bands because the clutch gear wasn't released until 1997. As usual there are piece call-out for each step. If you've got some parts left, you've forgot something. I'll update this topic with new pics and story tomorrow.