We have just installed the quick connect wheels on the tractor and have been testing them with success for the past week. These can be attached/released from the tractor in under 5 minutes by turning a cam lock and loosening two large bolts. The significance is that detachable wheels allow not only easy service of the drive system – but more importantly – allow the wheels to be part of a more general equipment infrastructure. Detachable wheels can be interchanged between the tractor, microtractor, bulldozer. truck, or even car. Combined with interchangeable power units and interchangeable parts, this gets us one step closer to a life-size Lego set for real equipment.
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You can read more about the quick connect wheels on the wiki. We just ran a successful design challenge on these, discussed in the last post. We have the whole fabrication process as a series of YouTube clips totaling 15 minutes (anyone volunteering to compose them remotely into a meaningful video instructional?). Roger Olson drew up the quick attach wheel assembly in Autodesk Inventor. Here is the PDF file.
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