New to the forum & new to Legos...need some advice

[bbutler247]

I have never owned Legos until now. I recently came into possession of a #10178 Motorized AT-AT. It was in a crumpled box, but it looked like most of it was there. Upon doing a complete (exhausting) inventory, I found that there are 21 small pieces missing. Can someone point me to the best place to find/buy the missing parts so I can have a complete set.

I was steered to Bricklink.com, and it seems like a great site for my purpose, but all I have for reference are the part numbers that are listed in the manual for the set. Bricklink stores appear to reference everything by the name of the part & I'm just not knowledgeable enough at this point to know what all these pieces are called....

Any help appreciated..........Thanks,

Butch

[Solo]

Try this. On the left side under Advanced Search is a box for Element ID. I think that should work. Assuming of course all the parts you need are available though the Shop@Home pick-a-brick system.

Option 2: scan or photograph the inventory portion of the ATAT instructions and note which items you're missing. I'm sure we could help you find those on Bricklink.

Alternate approach: you could try contacting Lego customer service by email or through the website and see if they could hook you up with the necessary replacement parts. I'm iffy on that approach because I don't think they should be responsible for incomplete second hand sets and I bet they'd agree. But who knows. At the very least, and assuming you already have a list of the missing part numbers, you could ask if those were available to purchase. Maybe they have a quicker way to check the PAB database than doing it yourself manually. That's just my lazy side being optimistic though. Props to them if they do the legwork for you but I'd wager you'll get a response that's closer to my first suggestion.

[klausunion]

You could also go on bricklink and look at their inventory of the set. Find the missing pieces on the BL inventory and create a want list. After that you can search stores that have the items on your want list.

http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemInv.asp?S=10178-1

[bbutler247]

Thanks for the replies..........I took Solo's advice, found the search engine and did a search on element ID. I was able to find and order all but 6 of the items. They are:

ELEMENT QTY
4210884 2
4140801 2
4211086 2
4184169 1
4211561 1
4211828 1

Since the elements are only identified when found, I still don't know their names, so maybe one/some of you could help me further by either identifying them, or sending me somewhere where I would be happy to do the legwork myself??
Thanks again,
Butch

[Solo]

I just discovered that Brickset uses the official codes, so, these links will be sort of helpful:
http://www.brickset.com/parts/?part=4210884 2
http://www.brickset.com/parts/?part=4140801 2
http://www.brickset.com/parts/?part=4211086 2
http://www.brickset.com/parts/?part=4184169 1
http://www.brickset.com/parts/?part=4211561 1
http://www.brickset.com/parts/?part=4211828 1
The little dots under each incarnation of the parts on those pages show if the same mold is available in another color through shop@home, so if you're cool with swapping things out you might be able to get it all from Lego. Otherwise, use the descriptions given there and search around Bricklink for suitable replacements.