A rather nice surprise, if not a rehash of set 8284!
Posted by
darkshadow
in United States
on
14 August 2009
After this summer's recent large Technic releases of 8258 Crane Truck and 8265 Front Loader, I rather expected that was it. I had glimpsed pics and hints of this set being released this summer, but having not seen it at Lego S@H I thought it might have been cancelled. However, upon seeing at a Toys R Us I decided to pick it up. Usually you might get a large summer release, then a medium-large release, but this is the size of the 8265 Front Loader, and it is very uncharacteristic of Lego to release 3 large Technic sets in the summer. It is divided up into 2 sections, the Tractor and the Trailer. The Tractor very much resembles the alternate Tractor model in set #8284 from 2006, although I like the coloring in this tractor better, and I don't know about you all, but the spinning blade attachment on 8284 was in a word, HORRIBLE. It never seemed to work right, almost impossible to get the gears to mesh and both blades to spin. This model has a removable trailer which is manually operated up and down using a gear wheel on the trailer and a linear actuator. It is too bad there is no way of motorizing the actuator with Power Functions, but I am sure many Technic fans will find a way. The tractor has a straight in-line 4 cylinder engine and here's the odd part, it has the old style differential from 2006 and prior models, at least my set and the inventory in the back listed the old differential. We saw the new differential pop up in the 8297 Off Roader last summer, and with both 8258 and 8265 this year, so it kind of surprised me that they included the old diff. I am guessing this model might have been in the works or production for quite a while and they already had it packaged with the old style diffs. The alternate model looks rather strange, it contains the same tractor, but with a different style trailer, looks kind of like a land groomer, but since Lego hasn't included alternate model instructions for a couple of years now, and their website doesn't even list this set, there is no way to download them anyway.
Either way, it does seem like an inexpensive (for them) rehash of the 8284 Tractor and just adding a trailer, but it was kind of nice to have 3 large Technic models to purchase this summer.
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