Gecko 1/35 Lambro 550

[Frank3k]

Unfortunately, I bought several Gecko kits before I built their excrementally bad M-76 Otter. I like three wheeled vehicle, so I decided to build their Lambro 550:



60'~70's Vietnam Saigon Shuttle Tricar with The Driver & Passengers. I also have their two Lambro 550 set... sigh.

This kit suffers from tiny parts (one is less than 1mm in the largest dimension!) vague attachment points, vague and misleading instructions and an over-engineered construction, designed to inflict as much irritation as possible. The Gecko designers must have worked at Hobby Boss. 

The front cab is designed to make construction as difficult as possible, with a combined front and floor piece, a separate back wall and a separate roof. It would have been simpler and no less accurate to combine the upper cab into one part, with a separate floor. This would make painting and construction easier, but that's not the Gecko way.

I read the instructions carefully and figured that the connection point between the front cab and the cargo section would be where the maximum pain would be inflicted, so I built the main subassemblies:



Part A5, the connecting bar, seems to be the spot where the most pain would be inflicted, right? Small part, tiny contact surfaces where most of the kit's weight would be concentrated - so the most fragile. The cab section connects to a thin crossbar that gets attached to the cabin floor, making it even more fragile:



I figured that I would be smarter than the mofos who designed this kit and I added a 1mm copper wire that goes into holes in both the cab and rear frame. I then attached part A5 in it's spot. Still fragile, but not terrible:



Hey, I'm making progress! No, wrong. Even though the glue was dry and the parts had been reinforced with CA, I noticed that the thin crossbar that holds the connecting bar to the cab was sagging. OK, I put some plastic under it to hold it up.

Next was connecting the engine to the transmission in the rear. Easy? Nope. There was a 3-4mm gap! The engine mount is just wrong and the engine cover barely fits when the engine is where they want you to mount it. I cut the mounts off, glued the engine to the cover in the right spot, then added some sprue to make the connection to the drive shaft.

I'm currently working on the back wall and roof connection and trying to get everything to fit without gaps. I'm sure that the connecting bar will fail with all the handling, so I may whif it by adding support bars from the edges ob the rear framework to the cab.

I started dryfitting the cargo/passenger section and I can tell  that it will be a PITA, since a couple of the thin railings broke off.

So much for a quick project....

[Jeffry Fontaine]

Sad to see you beset with another lemon of a kit.  You would think that Gecko would have done a better job of it with the subject since it is so close to home and not on the other side of the planet. 

Fingers crossed as you continue with the project and it results in a finished model that we will all appreciate. 

[Buzzbomb]

All confidence with this build Frank. Three wheelers are your happy zone 

[Frank3k]

Not in this case, Brian. I've stripped the paint and taken the front cab apart. Gecko really went out of the way to make this a very annoying kit. I should count my blessings, though - they could have made the connecting bar out of PE...

[Frank3k]

Here's where I was this morning. Parts separated and ready for primer.



The three problem sections glued together. The front pretty much snaps into place. The curved pipe at the front serves no purpose. I cut it off:



First pass with paint. The windshield is one of the best parts of the kit - it just pops in and stays in place; I won't glue it. The front half clicks into place as well - I could almost leave it loose and I can live with the seam at the top of the windshield. There are a few spots that I have to fix, especially the rubber seal around the windshield. The cargo area is just resting in place; it still needs a lot of work:

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Just another example of the ridiculous "features" of this kit: the tires have little plastic tabs on the inside and the hubs have to be glued to these nubs, One can be done easily, but it's hard to align the other hub with the tabs. I ended up snipping the tabs off and gluing the hubs in place.

[Frank3k]

I glued the cab together because there was no easy way pf hiding the seam in the front part of the windshield frame. In the process I cracked the seam on the rear part of the roof. Par for the course with this part of the kit.

OTOH, the passenger/cargo section has been a pretty simple build. I'm almost done with it:



Here it is just placed on the the rear supports:



Steve doesn't seem impressed:



On to some serious weathering. I may add some passengers and cargo.

[Old Wombat]

Well, so far, pretty quick going & not too many issues. Coming along nicely, Frank! 




[Checks to make sure the survival bunker is well stocked with fresh supplies, ready to take shelter from the fallout of jinxing Frank's build.  ]

[Buzzbomb]

Certainly getting there.. It will look ok on the shelf.

The warning to others though, has hopefully been heeded 

[Frank3k]

Guy, this build was jinxed the day it came out of the molds. There's almost no fun in building it.

Decals and most of the vehicle bits are on. Weathering in earnest starts tomorrow. The cargo area and roof are not glued in yet. The Lambro decal on the side may need some work; the decal softener seems to have pulled a section out of place.



Windshield needs some cleaning before it gets dirty. The license plate is the year and month I (hopefully) will finish this:

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Not a roomy interior: