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Thread: LEGO BTTF Time Machine Rebuild (Phase 1)

  1. #1
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    LEGO BTTF Time Machine Rebuild (Phase 1)

    Since I've been a big LEGO fan since I was a young child, I unsurprisingly ordered the new BTTF Time Machine set as soon as it was released and put it together in pretty short order. The set is a massive improvement over the old original nearly-minifig-scale BTTF set, but still has some definite deficiencies (primarily the side body lines). SO almost as soon as I was done assembling the set I set about rebuilding it to improve it. The first phase of that was transforming it back from a DeLorean Time Machine into a standard DMC-12. I don't have all of the perfect parts for this on hand (I don't have the larger light-gray plates for the back of the roof, and need black side-hinge 1x2s for the louver hinges) but was pretty pleased with what I was able to do with just what I had sitting around in my parts boxes and from parts pulled off of the set in de-BTTF'ing it. I also haven't tackled the interior yet (and with it, under the louvers)- but here's what it looks like so far.
    IMG_2029 Large.jpg
    IMG_2028 Large.jpg
    The louvers were the biggest challenge to figure out- ultimately I ended up using 1x2 45-degree wedges that when the hinged louver is sitting at an angle did the best job of simulating the louvers on the car. I have smaller tires for the front wheels coming- this was something I thought LEGO really dropped the ball one since they already had a tire that was just a slight bit smaller that they could have used with the same wheels. I will give them credit though- I have some models of the car that don't take into account that the front and rear fascias are a different color than the rest of the car, though I'm also disappointed they used the light bluish-gray for the body and not a metallic color (though I understand why- they generally don't make a lot of the metallics and it would have been difficult to make the metal flux bands on the BTTF conversion stand out from the body color-wise). It's tempting to pick up a cheap 3D printer and try printing metallic-colored parts to replace the light gray, but that would get really expensive fast.

    The next step will be re-doing the interior to not have all the BTTF stuff, and then after that the MUCH biggest task of completely rebuilding it to try and address the problem of the sides of the car being completely flat- that's going to take a good bit of time (and parts) to figure out. I'm also debating trying to extend the cabin & doors one stud back and changing the B-pillar (behind the door) to be only 1 stud wide instead of two- looking at the set compared to my old scale model of the original movie car the roof T-panel doesn't look long enough and the B-pillar looks too wide.

  2. #2
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    Nicely done!
    ~LXA~
    Dunmurry | Stuttgart | Leipzig | Munich | Tochigi | Fremont | Bratislava | Sindelfingen | Kansas City | Oakville | Coventry

  3. #3
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    Thanks! I ordered the parts I was missing to do this phase correctly a bit ago, and when they get in will probably tackle the engine cover & interior. I also ordered a few pieces to do some test-fitting to see if some of the ideas I have for fixing the side body lines will work or not, but I don't expect I'll really get into that for a bit (since now that it's warming up I should really be wrenching on my actual car and not playing with the LEGO version of it...).

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ashyukun View Post
    Thanks! I ordered the parts I was missing to do this phase correctly a bit ago, and when they get in will probably tackle the engine cover & interior. I also ordered a few pieces to do some test-fitting to see if some of the ideas I have for fixing the side body lines will work or not, but I don't expect I'll really get into that for a bit (since now that it's warming up I should really be wrenching on my actual car and not playing with the LEGO version of it...).
    I have a giant (giant) bucket of gray pieces (all the variations of color), so let me know if you're desperate. Won't be building mine for a while.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by MrChocky View Post
    I have a giant (giant) bucket of gray pieces (all the variations of color), so let me know if you're desperate. Won't be building mine for a while.
    Thanks, but I should be good- the only gray pieces that I was really short for this phase was that I wanted to use two 2x6 plates (light bluish-gray, what they used for the stainless) for the back of the T-panel but didn't have any. I've got them ordered and shipped off already along with a few other things (the black hinge pieces and the smaller tires).

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