Mercedes 2626 AK 6x6

[pairospam]

One of the items I had long neglected was the lug nuts. Some had already noticed that the wheels had only six or eight lug nuts in place, and this has two explanations. One: I am lazy; two: the military rims are made for coned lug nuts, and I only had the swivel flanged ones that came with the normal rims of the Merkabah herself and all the donor trucks. The later do not fix nor center properly the rims to the wheel hubs and, they also destroy the paint of the rim.

I did extensive research and found that there was no dealer that had them at hand, and importing them could be quite expensive, so I asked my friend Verardo, the one with the machine-shop, if he could turn or make them for me. He grabbed the phone and made a couple of calls, laughed a little and hung up with a smile. -They will be ready next week, Pairoa, he said.

Well, a little more than a week passed but finally his friend delivered a box with a bag with 65 brand new M20, 1,5 pass, 32 mm lug nuts. Great.

I am still waiting, with a chill, for the price he is going to charge me for them.

Anyway, I was very happy that finally the problem was solved. I also ordered a threading tap to clean the hub bolts that had been left without proper care for so long at the will of the elements, but there was none available.

The bolts were not suitable for cleaning without taking the wheel out, so I winched the truck in the shop and gave a try to the 3 tons jack to lift the front right wheel, but it was not capable of doing it. What a disappointment.

I then took the 30 tons green spanish jack out of its retirement and placed it underneath the axle and, as usual, lifted the whole front of the truck and secured it on the stands. Only then I realized that I forgot to loosen the bolts before getting them in the air. I was a little distracted fighting the disappointment.

Anyway, after repeating the maneuver I could gracefully take the wheel out with the aid of a short rod. I then discovered that the threads on the bolts got not deeply enough to ensure a proper tightening of the coned nuts against the hub. The threading tab was an absolute necessity if I wanted to use the new nuts as I needed those few more millimeters of threads.

That is why this project is so entertaining: you think you solved a problem just to uncover two new ones.

As I was a little down I got a little imaginative, and thought of making my own threading tab from one of the original nuts. I got rid of the flange and placed a few strategically angulated radial cuts in to make it work as a mighty threading tool.

I knew it was not going to last, but at least I would give it a chance to prove if it worked, as someone once told me.

Well, it worked, but only for one bolt, and it took me quite a lot of time and sweat.

When I was on the third threading nut, and only in the fourth bolt so far, Pitty approached and asked me unequivocaly with her innocent gaze and swinging tale: are you sure of what you’re doing, Pairoa?

Of course, I abandoned the unfruitfull efforts waiting for the serious threading tab to appear and returned to the making of the water tank for the windshield washer.

Before going on, though, I made sure that there were no conflicts between the tank and the front grille as the filling tap was quite big.

I was at it when Eduardo came carrying the coolant and the oil I had asked him to get for the Merkabah. Good.

He looked around and the support for the servo clutch valve drove his attention. In his opininion it had too little support for the device, and he heavily recommended to make a larger base to cope with the potential angulation of the servo when in action.

Did not want to touch that thing again, but I finally agreed that it could be a good idea. I made a cardboard template and went out to look for the only source of material that I could use.

[pairospam]

And there it was, the only remaining piece of steel of the frame of Spare.

After unearthing it, I cut some pieces and worked the way to get them precisely shaped to strengthen and enlarging the support. The rest is known.

Once the paint dried up I installed the support and I hoped it was finally over with that matter. I just wanted to finish with the miriad of little things still in the making, crank the engine, build up air and make the clutch work. But for that there was a long way to go.

The sun was still shining in the afternoon though the inverters shifted to the power company instead of the batteries with a sudden and notorious glitch. Something was wrong, again, with the solar system.

I was about to call the solar guy, ready to discharge my frustration, and I thought that maybe there was something wrong with the panels. So, I went up the roof and found that they were all covered with a thick layer of dust. I had forgotten to wash them when it was scheduled, the second week of January.

Called him anyways, just for the fun of it and to keep him in touch and, as it was already late for a thorough clean up, I decided to do it the day after my next watch.

When the time came, it was really fun to see how dirty they were and amazing to think that they still delivered some energy even in that condition.

After a carefull powerwashing, they shone under the late afternoon sun. What a difference!

But, of course, the system did not work properly after cleaning the panels, no Sir. We had a problem that was not related with the panel’s electricity output level. Another call to the solar guy and another appointment to see what was happening.

Finally, I got a proper fitting to get the water out from the tank and so I could close it for good. Checked for leakings and used a little filler to make it look the best I could.

Waiting for the filler to cure, I went to the cattle/scrap lot in search for a couple of parts that I needed to complete one of the many things I had forgotten or left for later, and that was the installation of the front rubber buffers of the cabin.

The original reinforcement struts of the bumpers of Spare had kind of flat pieces of metal welded to the superior edges to stop the buffers that hung from the sides of the cabin, limiting the tilting and the pitching.

The idea was to see if I could take them out and weld them to the struts already in place in the Merkabah without making too much damage. Of course, I was not keen on disassembling the whole bumper and prepare and paint the struts to replace them. Furthermore, I was not sure if they were the original ones. If I was not able to find them, I surely would be able to make a few pieces of my own, but it seemed a very unattractive thing to do.

I knew that they were left somewhere to rot under the sun some years ago as they had no use and were pretty bulky. It took me only five minutes to find them in the middle of all the vehicles, parts, branches and wood around and, yes, they looked original.

[pairospam]

Hello:

Critical times, uh? Hope you are all okay.

Carmen and I took Helga and went to the coast and had lunch at the beach, for a change, some weeks ago. It was a terribly hot day at home, but it was pretty cold and cloudy when we arrived to our favorite restaurant by the sea. Nonetheless, there was a lot of people at the beach, playing with the waves and the chilling wind.

I remember enjoying myself the long and exhausting sessions when I practiced scuba diving, spear hunting and open sea swimming in the cold and dark Pacific Ocean waters, not so long ago. But now, I guess, I am used to the hot and dry climate after living for twenty-six years at San Felipe and Putaendo, I am also used to the hot tub and, of course, I am older.

Fortunately, after a deliciously prepared fish meal, the sky cleared and the day warmed up a little, which made the classic and obliged walk along the seawall pretty comfortable.

Back at home in the afternoon, I cut out the little pieces of steel from the struts of the poor and remembered Spare and cleaned them up from the old paint and rust. The smell remembered me, again, of many sessions of powergrinding and sanding.

Now, the challenge would be to properly weld the pieces to the Merkabah’s struts, without disassembling anything, and without damaging anything in a very narrow space.

Of course, it was late and I had to prime and paint the pieces before welding them in place, so I left the thing for another day.

Then, I took the “new” water reservoir for the windshield wiper, already painted, and firmly installed it in the motor tunnel in the motor tunnel by simply screwing it to the cabin. Hoped it would hold forever.

I wanted to make a test and see if it all worked and if the pump was able to prime itself, but it was really late so I went to bed, with a smile. It was a good day.

The next time I could work on the Merkabah, a few days later, I think, I decided to crank the engine and find out if the problem with the bearing was solved.

But first, I had to change the oil of the engine. Eduardo took some average quality oil to “clean” the engine while performing many of the tests we probably would have to go through while tunning up the truck, after which we would put some serious stuff in for the long term trips. Or so was the plan.

Christ, it was a lot of oil and, though it was pretty clean, it had been darkened by the ages.

Next, I filled the coolant circuit up, with also a lot of coolant, but a good one.

I made all the connections I thought were the appropriate ones in preparation for the cranking of the motor, not worrying about the air circuit as the control panel for the tire and suspension pressure control was still out, but there was something in the deepest corner of my little mind that was not pretty convinced. I was missing something, but I did not know what it was.

I phoned Eduardo looking for reassurance and asked him of his opinion and, in the middle of his own business, he thought that everything was okay.

Relieved, I primed the injection pump and pressed the start button. After a few coughs, the old and reliable V8 started with a nice and predictable rumble.

Four or five seconds later, though, the loud and screeching noise coming from the clutch bell housing reappeared. Ops.

Got under the cabin and stopped the engine immediately. Failure. It was not the clutch release bearing, after all. There was another bearing or rotating piece of metal that was not in its best days, and I did not have a clue, then, what it was.

I disconnected the batteries and all the stuff and went directly to the hot tub, thinking that it might help to manage the frustration. It worked. Not a big deal, really.

Eduardo came later in the afternoon, and went under the truck while I started the mighty V8 again. The noise was ennervating, but he badly wanted to find its origins, so he touched and checked the bottom of the engine and the clutch bell housing until he shouted me to shut the motor off.

Looks it is the starter –he sentenced. It seemed that the drive pinion remained out instead of retrieving itself and maintained contact or parcial contact with the starting wheel, making that freaking noise.

Well, at least it was not pretty far off to think that it was the clutch bearing, anyway.

If it was the starter, then it would be even easier to fix. The real challenge was to take the starter out, which took me a little bit of effort and contorsion skills, but I did it in record time, according to myself.

I expected to find wear and cracks or something on the gear, or problems with the motion, but it appeared to be okay. Eduardo checked it and neither found anything special, but he would take it to the specialist to be sure.

[pairospam]

The normal life and the regular job went on, leaving not much time to enjoy the ups and to grieve the downs of the project.

At some point, the upholsterer delivered the wooden subframe for the central control panel, and I went to his place to pick it up. He has already retired and does only little jobs at home.

I had to adjust some minor details and do some paint job but, in the end, it was okay, and provided a more stable base for the panel. Good.

Do not remember what I was doing under the cabin, but I noticed a few drops of oil on the floor of the shop. They came from the bumper on the left side. When filling up, a few drops got out of the filling tube, but this was a lot more than that. I followed the oil path upstream and found out it came from the floor of the cabin through the opening for the steering column. What?

And, suddenly, I realized what was missing before cranking the engine: I forgot to connect the oil pressure pipe to the oil pressure gauge. Ops.

I remember I felt very stupid, really, incredibly stupid, even more than the time when I broke the rear cover of the gearbox. Such a stupid mistake.

Went up the cabin and found exactly what I was not wanting to find, though the amount of oil was not that big.

Anyway, fortunately the oil pressure tube is very thin and, naturaly, it could have been worse. The tip was at the bottom so there was no true oil spray all over, but I had to remove all the fixed elements and the many wires to clean the mess up, and spent a couple of hours, one kilometer of cleaning towels and a couple of liters of detergent to completely get rid of the oil from the central console and the floor of both the passenger and the driver side of the cabin’s floor.

When I finished with the cleaning, the bad feeling had already turned into laughter at myself, and the episode became just another anecdote to add to the story.

Fortunately, the wooden panels of the central console were out, somewhere in the shop, so they were not damaged by the oil spill. I then decided to finish the central console before going on with the tests.

I cut and shaped some pieces out of a scrapped metal sheet, as usual, to fix and assemble the instrument panel and the central console panels.

Trump and Pity were extremely good company: no jokes, no bullying, no sympathy.

When I was searching the appropriate metal sheet, I stumbled, for the tenth time, with the bronze backpack sprayer that once belonged to my father-in-law. I had, some many years ago, rescued the ancient and neglected device from a pile of dust and dry leaves, thinking on a future restoration project, and then neglected it myself as well.

As I was still a little pissed off with myself, I decided to do something good and different and honor the memory of Carmen’s father, who had passed away almost exactly six years ago, and seriously take care of the sprayer and restore its original look.

It was in pretty bad shape, and took me quite a while and a couple of power drill brushes, after some difficult undenting, to get rid of the patina and make it shine like in the old days. The mechanism was broken, so it would only be useful for decoration purposes.

The artifact, once ready, was covered with a couple of hands of polyurethane lacquer to slow down the development of new patina. It looked very good.

I was not sure where to put it and, after a few thoughts and tries, I found the right place in the living room where it would display all its centenary beauty and drive the visitor’s mind to the old man.

It worked. I felt very good.

[pairospam]

And, one day, Ramón the builder finished the house… and the parking… and half the roof of my brother-in-law’s workshop. Finally.

The day after, he and his son, Gabriel, came back to our house and got back to work with us. The first job was to replace the beam that supported the trusses of the roof over the kitchen. It was not the right beam for the job, obviously, and, with time, it gave and bent noticeably making the roof to fail and we had quite a leak during the last rains of the spring.

So, again, there was a plastic sealing wall and the kitchen was half-excluded from the normal life as it was imperative to fix the roof for the next rain season ad portas.

And the destruction began.

But… back to the Merkabah.

While I was waiting for the specialist to fix the starter, Verardo found the elusive threading tab needed to complete the threads of the wheel bolts for the conic nuts to fix the rim to the brake drum properly. One of his workers made a special tool for turning and adjusting the threading tab so I could use it on the bolts.

Unfortunately, despite the good intentions, it came too big for the space left between the bolt and the hub. Hmm…

So, I went back again to the most reliable and usefull tool of the whole workshop: the power grinder.

Carefully, I removed the excess thickness of the tool, just enough to fit it in the space between, hoping it would not brake.

And it worked, of course. The next hour and a half I turned in and out and threaded all the ten bolts of the front right wheel. I sweated liters, but it worked.

It was strange to see all the nuts in place for the first time in years, but it was done.

I winched the Merkabah out of the shop, closed it all and went into the hot tub after some tea and a sandwich. Good.

[Bahnhofs-Emma]

Hallo,

Good.

Not only good, excellent as usual.

As always thanks for the pictures and the nice stories and have happy Easter!

Marcus

[pairospam]

Sorry for the delay, Marcus. Hope it was good Easter for you and thanks for the vibes.

Hello to everyone:

Hope you are all okay in these quite strange and powerful times we are in.

Today is a very sad day as Deva, my beloved and restless german sheperd, passed away this morning. It was a violent death, not one that I ever imagined she would go through, but she left and I was there with her when she departed. That was a good thing and comforts my heart, as if any help at all.

Interestingly, I have faced many challenges in the last couple of months regarding my regular job, some family issues and a lot of little issues that had made life feel a little uneasy. Deva’s death just added to this feelings some more bitter, though the task is to endure and keep going, hoping it all has a purpose that you still do not catch up with, and you must keep the faith in whatever you believe no matter what. The big Boss knows better.

Now I can go with the update.

Next morning, a couple of months ago, I found out that one of the dogs, not Deva, had taken my little Philips screwdriver for a toy when I was distracted, probably working with the power grinder. You know I like tools, so that hurt a little, hmm…

Meanwhile, Ramon the builder went on with the repairs of the kitchen. He built a behemoth out of pieces of steel to level off the roof to replace the cracked beam, without inflicting any injuries to the granite island.

After some efforts, a few leverage points, five sweated guys and a little while, the new steel beam was in place and the reconstruction of the ceiling could begin.

One of those days, there was a blackout, and the solar system was working pretty much okay. Instead of letting it be, I went to check if the connection to the big diesel generator worked properly, just in case of necessity. Well, I just touched the power inverter and there was a big bang, and a cloud of smoke puffed out from the bottom of the device. Ouch.

We went on for a couple of days with half the power of the system, with many inconvenients, and then the solar guy came and removed the blown out inverter and left with the promise of a new, more powerful and more “intelligent” inverter. I just wanted to know why the thing exploded with me only touching it.

After returning from my watch, the next day, Carmen surprised me with a hawk that smashed itself midflight against one of the big windows. It was left K.O. on the floor, so she put it in a cage where it slowly recovered consciousness.

Carmen wanted to keep it, but it was a full grown adult despite its little size, so it was not possible to domesticate it.

It was a beautiful bird, and we released it after making sure it was okay.

The guy of the starter delivered, and was very exhaustive with the overhaul. He changed a few pieces that showed clear signs of wear and even cracks, but it was nevertheless working, according to him, and that seemed a little odd.

I was very quick with the installation of the starter; a few pirouettes and strong holds and it was in place. I even had a beer -something not usual-, thinking and hoping the problem was finally solved.

[pairospam]

Yes… as most of the readers would expect, the starter worked perfectly and cranked the engine after a few turns, but the damn noise reappeared immediately after.

I let the mighty V8 idle for a few moments and went to check what in the hell was still fooling around, testing my patience and my determination.

I leaned on the front of the moving and pretty menacing shaft, real close, and then I saw it: in the few milimeters gap between the bell housing and the flange I could see a moving piece that was not supposed to be moving, and that was the source of the screeching and ennerving noise. At some moment, the lock ring that sealed the housing had got loose and danced over the moving drive shaft producing that metallic undesired interactioin.

Problem identified… at last.

As soon as I could, I removed the bell housing and put it on the bike trolley to work out the issue. I went to get another beer and made a toast to all the efforts and mistakes committed and about to commit in, for and around the project.

Removing the end cover and the shaft was uneventfull but laborious, as always and, at inspection, the big ball bearing was in perfect condition. The lock ring was loose, of course, and it was not possible to put it back without some modifications that I was pretty keen on performing with the Dremel tool and some pointy sticks with, of course, some helpful and sticky gluing product.

That was pretty straightforward, and the result was more than satisfactory but, when reassembling the whole thing, I realized that there was a noticeable gap between the bearing and the cover. I checked the EPC and, in fact, there was a 124 mm diameter spacer washer that should fill that gap that ranged from 0,75 to 0,95 mm.

The truck had worked for who knows how long without that washer, but I wanted not to keep that issue in mind, wanted not to do anything and repent at a later date. So, I started the search for the washer via internet and in person that lasted for a few days, but no washer that size and width was available anywhere.

In the meantime, the first rain of the year came, not much, but enough to moist the earth around the Merkabah, and make it look like the winter was approaching, one more winter since the beginning of the project.

Carmen and I competed who was the fastest one to go from home to her mother’s, and she always won, of course.

At a certain point, already thinking on plan B as I was not going anywhere with the search for the washer, I measured the actual gap between the cover and the bearing and it was of 4 mm, quite larger than the 0,95 mm with the full play of it, so I decided to make my own spacer washer from scrap.

Took a piece of steel that was left over from the works on the roof and worked my way out to extract from it the quasi-perfect spacer. It took some time and a couple of grinding discs and sand papers, but it worked, as it was, in the end, good and precise enough to fill the gap, just what was needed.

[pairospam]

No need to stress that I rushed to assemble the engine, including the short cardan shaft, absolutely convinced that the issue was definitely solved. I did not pause to take a picture of the process, as I usually do.

Of course, I did not forget to properly connect the oil pressure gauge. Oil bath was not in the menu, this time.

And, happily, the mighty V8 started at the first attempt and with a nice and muffled rumble, with no additional and unwanted sounds. Good.

The oil pressure was sustained and the engine warmed up while the air pressure in the primary circuit raised slowly but surely until the brakes were functioning. The maxxis were disconnected as I needed to winch the truck in and out of the shop.

Applied some pressure to the clutch and Christ, it was terribly hard. My ill left knee noticed the effort and made me think of installing sooner than later the servo clutch.

Anyway, with a little hurt from the knee, the old and faithful engine pushed the truck from out of the shop and I took it some meters away, alongside Spare II, checking if the differential blockers were working or they were stuck from the lack of use for such a long time. They all worked well.

I was pretty happy, naturally. I was not going to move the truck with the winch anymore, and I could move her and test her and fix all the things that were waiting to be tested and fixed in an ever-growing list.

One of the things that I wanted to do first is to assemble the dashboard, for good. The fan would need much more air flow than it was offered by the little openings on the supple frame of the console, so I went to the original idea of faking a couple of big speakers on the side panels to let a big amount of air come in.

Found some cloth especially made for speakers in the internet and ordered a couple of square meters. It would hide the guts of the central console while allowing the air to go through. I then cut the fake leather on the pre-cut openings of the panels and glued the burrs to the edges. Then, used the leftovers of the PVC pipe with which I built the water reservoir for the washer wiper to make a stable and removable frame to keep the cloth in place. Simple and easy.

I also ordered a couple of speaker grills, to contribute to the fakeness of the speakers, but I liked pretty much the way the panels looked like without them, so I decided to leave them like that, at least for now.

Then, I worked my way to arrange and tie and secure and guide every wire and bundle in the dashboard and then screwed the metal linings. I knew that invariably I would have to untie and separate and struggle to find the famous missing wire once the whole thing was closed, but I had to do it anyway.

[pairospam]

When I put the panels in place, it all started to make sense and looked in order, again.

At some moment, I wanted to take the truck for a longer ride to see if there was any other issue, as it would surely be the case, and I still had not connected the air management system, so there was no parking brake available. Anyway, I took the truck to the entrance and, while closing the gate, the Merkabah rode over the primitive stone parking brake system and, before I could jump into the cabin and apply the brakes, the steel gate was attacked by an armored 8 tonnes tank and, as expected, barely survived.

The big Boss protected, once again, not only me but the dogs and, also the Merkabah that just got a few scratches.

Everytime I think I have done the most stupid thing imaginable, I overcome my own record.

That was the end of the experimenting, and right the next morning I got loose the maxis and made all the connections for the air system management mounted on the central panel, and the parking brake, to be fully operational.

It was a nice feeling to see all the switches and gauges light up again.

Of course, because the air pressure rapidly decreased after a few hours, I had to go through the dozens of air connections and found many leaking ones, everywhere. Some were very subtle, others very noticeable. Some were very easy to fix, others very difficult to reach, but I could take care of most of them without requiring much stuff.

One of the remote air-powered drainage valves, the one from the primary tank, was pretty rusted and far from any restoring hope. I took one of the simple push-up valves from one of the air tanks from Spare II, cleaned it a little, applied it to the tank with a new o-ring and voilà. Another problem solved waiting for a new valve to arrive.

Most of the rest of the evident air leaks were fixed, but it took me a few hours to explore and to resolve them properly.

The work payed off and the pressure held at least to three and three and a half bars from one day to the next. Believe me that it was a big win, though it obsviously needed to improve. At least it meant that the waiting time for the pressure to build up to the working pressure was reduced from twelve to seven minutes.

I struggled to connect the audio system, that played dead during the previous tests. After a few connections, re-connections and re-re-re-connections, it lit up and sounded a little, though I could not get the full power of the amplifier. A job for next time, and for the experts.

[pairospam]

The problem at that moment was that there was a constant low hissing from under the cabin, and I needed to tilt it to fix the air leaks underneath.

Initially, I thought that I would need to also replace the hydraulic cylinder along with the hand pump, already installed, but I decided to give the old cylinder a chance and I just filled the circuit with hydraulic fluid and pumped a little. It worked, and the cabin went up little by little. Good.

The surface of the engine was reachable for the first time in almost a year – or more? - and it was in need for a serious cleaning. Also at reach were the banjo unions of the control valves for the differential lock controls, from which there came a lot of bubbles when checked for leaks.

I tried to seal the leaks by applying more torque to the unions, but it only made things worse. I had to look for a different solution, and I found some ad hoc seal rings with rubber sealed edges after an extensive search in the town. They were quite expensive, pretty little things, but they were the proper way to go, after all.

Then, there came the time for a long ride to check if everything worked well, so I started the engine and patiently waited for the pressure to go up and went for the riverbed of the Putaendo river, once again.

It was a rough ride even to get there, still working with 70 psi in the front wheels and near 80 in the rear tandem with no load, but applying the right pressure to the suspension bellys allowed to make it comfortable enough.

Then, we got to the rocky part, and it was fun again. I checked the differential locks and the drive train combinations and it all worked well. The Merkabah loves to play tough, or maybe it is just me, and no slope is a big challenge when the 6x6 is activated.

It was fun indeed, and the transmission delivered. The only problem was, still, the clutch. Christ, it was heavy. I definitely had to install the servo pump.

When I came back home, I had some issues with the grown branches of the bougainvilleas and Carmen’s nephew’s Suzuki that stood in the entrance. They narrowed the path and the vision so I accidentally rubbed the rear wheel against the short concrete wall. The next day I asked him to move the 4x4, that had stood there for almost two years, because I was going to move the Merkabah a lot and did not want to damage it nor did I want to damage the truck or the wall.

I cut the very big branches of the bougainvillias, cropped the rest of the hedge and rearranged the branches of the liquidambars with many ties to clear the narrower part of the entrance. When I finished, Eduardo and Sebastián, his older son and the owner, showed up, hooked the Suzuki and towed it to his next resting place, just the next door. With a little luck, the poor 4x4 would see better days, though it seemed that there was not much interest in its resurrection.

At some moment, I was doing something, do not remember what, when I realized that one of the rear shock absorbers was covered in some fluid. What? I tilted the cabin to expose it better and then removed the whole ensamble to check things out.

Turned out to be the shock that had been broken by the edge of the ring that held the spring in position. It seemed that it was too narrow and the angulation a little critical. Anyway, the shock was dead.

[pairospam]

I removed the contralateral shock and it was not broken, but almost. So, I started to search for a couple of replacements that led me initially to nothing as I had bought already the last couple of shocks in stock some years ago, the ones that were right there.

As the rusted supples were out, I took them to some shop that had a sand blasting camera to clean them up appropriately. When they were ready I primed them and applied a good load of paint on them, as if it was going to be the definitive job.

Well, in the end, I could do nothing else but to buy the whole shock and spring kit from the dealer that sold me the shocks before and, of course, they were the last pair available in the country. Not even the official Mercedes dealer had the spares. And, yes, they were not the original ones, they were chinese. I shroughed and went for them to Santiago.

The design, though, offered some advantages as the shocks had not inferior rigid attachment, so they could manage better the movements of the cabin when going over rough terrain, I thought.

They looked great on the supports, but the actual inclination was not acceptable when the cabin was in normal position, and it only increased when the cabin went down with any bump of the terrain. Something had to be done.

Talking about bougainvillias, did I mention that they blossomed late this year? I really like them, even if I have not taken much care of them this season.

So, the carefully crafted supples for the shock supports needed to be modified, again.

I took the powergrinder and placed some mortal cuts on one of them that allowed to correct the angulation and made some tests to see if it was the righ one.

When it finally worked well, I did the welding thing that restored the shape and the strength of the piece but burned out the recent paint job, unfortunately.

Anyway, I repeated the operation on the right side and re-painted both supports and installed them along with the new shocks. They looked and worked well.

As you may have noticed, using a couple of pieces of irrigation pipes made it much easier to introduce the tip of the strut of the shocks in the ad hoc lodges on the bottom of the cabin. How come I did not think of it before?

[Joe]

HI Pairo,

congrats again to all the fantastic work you did. Shit what happend due to the unfinished parking brake system - but that's Live.

Your dashboard looks great. For me it would have been a No-Go because the dog always restet on the tunnel between the two seats. He for sure would have hitted whilst a longer tour a lot of the switches!

Please continue to keep us up to date!

[pairospam]

Hello again, everybody, and thanks for your words, Joe.

Profiting of having the welder plugged and near, I welded the metal pieces to the bumper struts and gave them a couple of hands of gray paint from a spray can. It was not exactly the same colour as the original paint, but it was okay for the times being. Anyway, at some point I would have to re-do a lot of the paint work.

Then, I installed the bottom rubber bumpers and went for a ride, a tough one to test if everything worked well.

When driving on the not very smooth asphalt roads around here, there were bumps and shocks at every imperfection the Merkabah drove over. I remembered that I had to adjust the height of the tilting cylinder head just to let the cabin play on the groove while bouncing over the suspension. A little adjustment and the bumps and hits were gone.

I proceeded to the riverbed and this time I stressed a lot the frame and made some checks and measurements to be certain that everything worked within the tolerances I expected. Seemed it was all fine.

At some point I decided that I needed a little break from the Merkabah and the construction of the house and I took Heidi for a ride to the south, to the known and beloved places that, at that time of the year, were free from the summer crowds.

I rode along the coast and then to the mountains through the colorful display of the autumn. I visited the high lagoon of the Maule river, pretty near the limit with Argentina, once again, and the beauty of the sight of the mountains and the gorges recharged my soul. It was 1800 kilometers in three days, but I really enjoyed every moment, even with some pretty rainy sections.

[pairospam]

Back at home, I replaced the clutch lever of the bike that was broken at some poor handling moment when parking. It could have been just a regular fix not deign of notice, but the spare parts costed f…king Euro 260! I looked at both BMWs and sighed; it was the price for having not one but two big, damn expensive, but extraordinary beasts.

Remember when I said that I would surely have to disassemble the dashboard again for some forgotten wire? Well, prophecy is my second name. I was making order and getting rid of some cardboard boxes when I found the microphone cable for the stereo unit. Ops.

It really was a big deal for there was almost no room left for another wire to go through the holes and passages occupied by the original and the new added bundles of wires, and the connector was not of any help either.

Anyway, I took the screwdriver and started to remove the covers of what I wanted not to be exposed again. I even had to remove the steering wheel to pass the microphone wire behind the main instrument panel and then behind the pillar lining up to the sunshade.

That was nothing, though, compared with trying to get the cable end connector through the hole on the metal that communicates the dashboard and the central console. I absolutely did not want to make any other hole, nor did I have any chance to do it without tearing apart the whole dashboard.

I tried many ways, but it was very difficult and frustrating, especially because it was very tight and not very finger-friendly.

I then made a pause and took the WR450 for a short ride to clear thoughts and mind, but something was not right and there was an unpleasant noise that bothered me, especially when jumping.

I checked out and found that the muffler was in pretty bad shape and that I had been riding without paying attention to the bike as I should.

Left the microphone issue aside and took out the exhaust of the bike to repair it immediately.

Fortunately, a few drill holes and some pop rivets did the job in no time. Well, not in no time for real… but you get the idea.

Time has always been an issue, as my job demands a lot of it, and part of the endless length of this project is precisely due to the scarcity of time to work on the Merkabah.

At some moment I went to Eduardo’s workshop and searched for the steering wheel that I had preserved for the definitive setup of the Merkabah. The one that was in place was the original one, and it was in very bad shape. I did not remember which of the donor trucks was it taken from, but it was pretty stuck to the steering column and the ad hoc extractor had passed away many years ago.

Alejandro, the ever-growing Argentinian, tried to help but could not remove the wheel so we left it soaking in WD40, waiting and hoping it would get loose at some point.

The next “free” afternoon, I helped and taught Luis, a pretty skilled dentist and karate artist but completely inexpert mechanic, to service his SuperTeneré. He is a good friend and I was happy to show him that the Yamaha dealer was charging him a fortune for a job that he could easily do himself with little effort and knowledge.

It was the second time that a SuperTeneré stepped into the shop, the first being the Black Mamba from my cousin Felipe Casale, cousin on his own of Ignacio and Francisco Casale, in November of 2023. At the occasion he came to pay a visit and, after an opiparous lunch, the bike refused to start because of a problem with the ABS. We stripped the bike but could not find the problem. He finally borrowed the Navara and took the dead SuperTeneré back to Santiago on the pickup.

The next time I could take the truck, partially at least, into the shop and dedicate some efforts to the project, I succeeded and got the microphone cable through the proper holes and plugged it to the stereo. It was hard, but I did it. I had to re-route some bundles and tie firmly some others to allow the thing to pass.

All the effort served to get the wire paraphernalia even more tidy and good looking, do you see?

Oh, you don’t? Well… maybe it is just me after many hours working on it.

[Die 190er]

Hey Pairo,

I'm not regularly posting here, but i'm following your stories since the beginning and always feel joy, reading your stories and seeing your Pictures!
Keep up the great work, i hope, you'll never get tired of it:)

Best wishes

Moritz

[Bushrider65]

You are doing a lot and technically really great jobs on this truck !
But this thread started back in 2010 - so 15 years ago .
What is your target with this truck doing all these time consuming and not cheap works ?

[pairospam]

Hello, Moritz, and thanks for your encouragement.


Well, Bushrider65, yours is actually a very good and appropriate question indeed.

I could just say that the target of all these efforts, all this spending of time and money through all these years are just about the original idea of travelling the world on this loud, heavy and bulky thing named Merkabah… but it is not quite that simple.

Thanks to this project, and I emphasize the word thanks, I have learned a lot about welding, about electrics, about mechanics, about physics, about painting, about commerce, about friendship, about patience and endurance and about how to deal with frustration and self-inflicted wounds and, above all, about faith.

This project has helped me with the circumstances my country and the world is going through right now, keeping me mind-busy and focused and thus helping me to deal with the annoyance of knowing but not being able to do much about it, so far.

This Merkabah thing put me in touch with very fine people, and led into very good friendships here and abroad, with a few disappointments on the way, but that is how life is. When I needed it, the right person with the right skills and knowledge showed up and helped me, in the proper way, to keep going.

The project is a challenge in itself, it has always been, and I love challenges. It has somehow shaped my life and touched every aspect of it and the relationships with the ones around me, and it has been, so long, very good.

You see, I keep going because of all of this, because I can, because I perceive it as a good way to learn, practice and train my skills outside of the regular practice of my profession and, of course, because I am a hard-headed bastard.

Will I ever finish the wohnmobile 6x6? Only the big Boss knows.

I just go on, with a smile.



Kind regards from Chile.

[lura]

Hi Pairoa, good words, thoughts and yourself experiences. This truck is one of many projects in Your life. Anything was important for You to work on this project. But I relaxed reed there were many other very intresting projects to make a life well. So if this "anything" has worked out, it is okay.
Please let us read, how this project goes ahead, whatever happens.

Best regards to You and the Merkabah

[Bushrider65]

Hi Pairoa ,
Agree - life has always different ways and is not all the time going the way we want it ..
The main reason why I asked this question is actually how do you motivate yourself keep going forward . I am for instance in my 5th year of my SK1824 built but I have to admit that I can work only occasiaonlly on my truck since I permanently work abroad while the truck is in Germany .
Majority of things are ready and the truck was already used on many trips . The more I enjoy travelling with the truck the less I am motivated - respectively I have to push myself - to finish the "nice to have" things .
Therefore my deep respect for continuing working on the truck although the end or the real target is still out of sight nor you are able to use the Benz already for some camping trips .
I do not know how old you are but I still want to use the remaining years where I consider myself being still more or less physically fit to travel with my truck . When I reach an age where I need help to change the spare wheel with the 14R20 with 150kg then I need to change my focus on something else .
Excited to read more about the progress of your project !
Greetings from Central Asia !

[Gregorix]

Hi Pairoa,
Impressive words about your motivation.
The better reason to start a project like this seems allways to be the progress on the way, much more than to reach a specific goal.
Keep on going and a joyfull experience !
Regards, Gregor

[Slarti]

Hello all and Pairoa,

I think you hit the nail on it’s head - it is a hobby but connected to many other things and in the end a goal is a goal until you change it

Pairoa, I hope the fun with the bike will eventually transfer into fun with the truck not only for a few hours in a riverbed, but short trips to somewhere trying out the stuff you worked on

Great reading and following of your progress is fun and keep on.

Cheers, Slarti

[pairospam]

My deepest appreciation and the most felt regards from the distance, guys. Glad you like these lines.

Well, the fixing of some minor leaks continued and I reached to maintain at least 4 bar of pressure from one day to the other, which reduced the waiting time before cranking and parking brake release from seven to 4 minutes. Not bad, looking backwards.

Finally, I could not resolve the problem of the jammed servo clutch by myself, and called the dealer to ask for assistance. They asked me to take the unit back to them to be inspected, and, as I am writing this, I still wait for them for an answer or a replacement.

The battery box needed some more attention than just waterproofing paint, so I dedicated some time to grinding and embellishment.

I was doing some other testing and, suddenly, the light of the heating control panel went off. As I was still waiting for the paint of the battery case to dry up for good, I dedicated some time to fix the problem.

I had to take the blower cover section of the dashboard out, once again, to find that the bulb was dead. I liked the little panel to be lit up. Of course, it was not of extreme importance, but I could not help myself. Unfortunatelly, the socket was also in very bad shape and I found no substitute amongst the many dashboard covers still stored in the container.

One of the sockets of the warning lights of the instrument panel from one of the donor trucks was designated as the holder of the new bulb, so I cut and glued it to the back of the panel with epoxy and tested it. No problem.

I then put back the cover and the rest of the dashboard except for the cover of the passenger side of the central console, as I still had to solve the issue with the resistor of the fan for the heating/AC system.

Meanwhile, the paint of the battery rack had dried up. As it is a temporary item I thought of installing it just as it was, having barely waterproofed it again, but it looked pretty awfull and the grey was not the same grey of the battery tray. So, I gave it a little hand of epoxy black paint and, only then, installed it back and put the batteries in.

I cannot help myself, ever.

One of those days, directly from some place in China, the blower resistor unit arrived. It was the replacement for the one featured in the Peugeot Partner, one of the simplest and smallest in the market.

There was not much room left for putting anything else in the central console without causing trouble, as you may see.

[pairospam]

I checked if the thing worked, first of all, and then I cut a piece of metal sheet from the scrap box to make a support for the resistor that then I glued to the control unit of the tire inflation system, et voilà!

A couple of items would be left for a later time, like the installation of the hoses of the AC system and the manual valve for the heating circuit, but the rest of the systems worked properly, finally.

Those days were a little busy, though, and I had not much time to work on the project due to my regular job and the improbable schedules attached to it.

At times I could enjoy some relax, but it was not as often as I wanted.

And there were also some little crisis, like the nocturn leak from the ceiling of the laundry room. We had to deal with it during the night but, fortunately, Ramón and Gabriel are permanently employed at home and they solved the problem the next day with the usual destruction/construction cycle.

At some moment I took the failed clutch servo pump to the dealer in Santiago and left it there. I spent the rest of the afternoon at a nice restaurant, having a great time chatting with a good friend who can make a difference.

Of course, I almost forgot, the solar guy -a great guy too- delivered and replaced both inverters by one big and menacing-looking one. I did not like it as it reminded me of HAL 9000.

We finally got a deal and he would replace all the existing panels for new ones, add other four panels on the roof of the container to increase the generating capacity, and he would charge me just for the installation of the extra panels, with a big discount, naturally.

And, one day, after some minor adjustments and thorough cleaning, I screwed the cover and closed the central console, for good. Ahhh…

Sorry for putting almost the same image as the precedents, but it was a very meaningful moment. It surely had to be reopened in the future, but only to fix things that eventually break or malfunction. It was a little milestone for me and the project.

Nothing is 100% okay, as I assumed many years ago, so finding that the cabin had widespread cancer was not a surprise and the reason why I said that I would have to re-do the paint job at some point in time. I had already found some rust stains on the paint of the front of the cabin, and thought it was a local problem. Obviously it was not the case.

Staring at the Merkabah parked under the cloudy sky, ahh…. she looked damn magnificent to me! Dealing with the rust problem at this stage would inflict a mortal wound to the project, so I opted for moving on.

[pairospam]

I made some good-looking patches trying to slow down the rate of decay and to minimize the damage to the paint and left it for the dry and hot season to be properly addressed, whenever that might be.

Made a stop at Eduardo’s workshop the next day and took the steering wheel, which Don Pato had gently removed from the steering column, and brang it home. It was in very good shape, indeed, but it was very dirty and a little sticky.

It took me a lot of time to get rid of most of the dirt and the sticky feeling from it before I bolted it in place. It was already late, for a change, when I finished. Good.

The next occasion I had some time available, I searched for some of the pieces of the interior of the cabin, the ones that I had been saving for the last moment, the ones that would have meant that the work on the cabin was over: the knobs of the controls of the heater.

I found them in the little box they had waited in for at least twelve years, and… guess what? I lost one of them after 10 minutes! I could not find it and I suspect one of the twin dogs ate it.

It only happens to me!- I thought, and laughed out loud. What an idiot I am, sometimes.

I then rushed to put them in place before anything else happened. And, finally, it was done, the cabin was completely refurbished, lined up and ready to go.

Everything worked: the suspension, the tire inflation system, the heater, the stereo -almost-, the onboard camera, the fog lights, even the powerful windshield washer… everything. For how long? Who knows.

It actually was time to move on.

The very next day, I began to take many measurements of the frame, again. I wanted to be sure of the measurements I did many years ago despite having them written down everywhere, on paper and in the computer files.

Pity watched me, suspecting something had changed, and she was right. I felt different, somewhat relieved, and full of determination.

Unfortunately, the steel profiles destined to compose the subframe of the Box had been lying on the ground for quite some time, and had been actually under water and mud after a series of floods that almost buried them in the oblivion.

I had to shovel them out and, painfully, took them on the trestles by myself, risking of injuring my back again. I did not want to waste any time so I did it carefully and, fortunately, nothing happened.

The big and heavy C rails originally destined to make a rear-fixed subframe were unearthed first and I washed them thoroughly from dry mud and rust. They would be used to build the bridge-crane for the shop.

For the job of building the subframe, the frame had to be flat leveled, and the place in between the house and the shop was the perfect spot, as the shop was still full of stuff and it would probably remain unchanged for the months to come.

Minor adjustments for the leveling were easily made by using the air suspension system with great precision. Good.

One of the main reasons why the rear-fixed subframe would have not worked is because the rear section of the frame was bent down, surely due to systematic overloading conditions, preventing the subframe from leaning on its entire length on the frame rail, which is not acceptable.

[pairospam]

I worked pretty hard and for many hours cleaning the neglected 100x50x5 steel profiles, alternating both power grinders not to burn them out.

The final result was okay, not perfect but good enough to work with the profiles cleanly. The plan was to build the subframe and once finished take it for a galvanizing treatment preceded by a deep-cleaning acid bath.

Anyway, I made my best but the elements had taken a toll on the steel, nothing serious or structurally interesting, but it showed.

Next, I prepared and assembled some 50x50x3 pieces to make the rail fixtures and fastening basis for the main rails of the subframe, and attached them to the frame using some C-clamps.

It was already the evening of that day, and I had to wait for one of the solar guys to help me to put the steel profiles on the frame of the Merkabah. They were too heavy to try to make it by myself. Even then, we had a hard time doing it.

Next morning, I assembled a wooden mockup profile of the front bottom of the Box to ascertain the distance between it and the cabin. Even if it seemed a little far, I had planned to set the distance at 20 cm, and it seemed to be the right distance to be on the safe side.

Then, a very slow and bothering process of aligning and squaring the profiles followed. As the maniac I am, not a single millimeter of play was allowed, but it progressively became apparent that it was a very hard goal to achieve.

[pairospam]

I decided that I would keep the rear section of the main rails of the subframe longer than needed, just in case some great/stupid idea popped up. I then cut both profiles and the left overs became two of the main crossmembers.

The long clamps helped to keep the new shape and, again, I spent a lot of time trying to get the right alignment and the correct measurements between the frame and the unsteady subframe. Each time I corrected the position at some point it misaligned somewhere else. I felt like the inspector Clouseau making his bed.

When I thought I got things right, I went for the third profile still buried, but this time I cut the pieces needed at the exact measure. I did not want to spend any second powergrinding and cleaning anything extra.

So, I first cut the piece from which I obtained, after very careful measurements and markings, the front inferior pivot crossmember. I had revisited the design and made some minor changes adjusting the theoretical work to reality, and it seemed it would all work out well.

The proposal was to clamp it to the upper flange because it would have been very difficult to bolt it to the existing holes on the web of the rail, partially covered or obstructed by other components and that were not pretty well aligned either.

Made a few calculations using some available formulas to keep confidence on the strength of the desired construct and planned some extra reinforcements, just in case.

That evening Carmen told me that it would probably rain a little. I checked with Accuweather and the odds were very low, so I covered the whole thing with the usual plastic mesh used to protect the truck from the sun. The roll of plastic sleeve was behind a lot of timber and stuff and I considered it unworthy of the effort, especially because I was very tired at that moment.

Wrong. Next morning it rained.

I did not even look at the truck when I drove away heading for my workplace, knowing I had screwed up.

When I returned I uncovered the rails and the recently and hardly cleaned up rails showed the new stains of rust caused by the rain. It was only cosmetical, but it hurt.

Always listen to wife.

Gabriel helped me to rescue the plastic sleeve roll from all the stuff it was under and I cut a generous amount to cover the entire frame. It would remain in place at any time except when I was working directly on the rails.

At some moment, I cut other piece of steel profile from which I got the rear inferior pivot crossmember shape. It was a different design as it was meant to be directly bolted to the upper flange of the frame rail via the pre-existing drill holes.

I got from my friend Verardo some scrapped 8 mm flat steel pieces of different sizes and shapes from which to cut out the pieces needed to build the pivoting brackets.

[pairospam]

As I needed some more bolts and nuts, I grabbed some wrenches and walked decidedly towards Spare II. The poor truck had not much to offer, though, as most of the pieces were held together by rivets.

The few bolts I could get from the frame were in not so good condition, but not so bad either, so I cleaned them up with love and patience.

While I was fighting with rust and lack of time to work on the project, slowly but surely Ramón and Gabriel worked in the repair and the maintenance of the house, the container and the workshop/garage that needed some love and new paint.

Solar guy, Mr. Johnson, delivered and changed all the panels and finished the installation of the new ones on the container. It all seemed to progress, and the roofing of the open kennel began.

At some moment, after re-arranging, re-measuring and re-tightening the pieces of the subframe, I took the welder next to the Merkabah and applied some stitches to make of them one solid piece to go on with the build of the pivoting brackets.

After finishing with the construction, it would be Ramón, the professional welder, to weld all the pieces together for good.

The central pivots of the subframe were the key for the next phase, as I had to apply load to the chassis to see if the torsion measurements observed previously, when the Merkabah was in Eduardo’s workshop, were actually accurate. I had a hint that the extreme data obtained then could change a lot, as 27 and 31 cm under the level of the upper flange for the longitudinal rotating axle of the frame seemed not to be the case for a lot of other builds all around.

I cut and drilled the lateral pieces of the base but did not have a piece as large as required for the top, so I had to go to Verardo’s machine shop once again and he gave me a large scrap steel sheet to work with. You know, your waste is my treasure.

Back at home, Trump was very attentive to the maneuvers of handling and cutting processes of the heavy thing, as always. I missed Deva.

Cutting such piece with the 4 1/2“ powergrinder is not amusing nor fast, and I could have given Verardo himself the task, but cutting the steel with his machines is not as accurate as I am willing to go with and so I still prefere to do it by myself and have no more than 1 mm of tolerance in large pieces. Even that seems to me not appropriate and generally I try to make the perfect cuts, getting them at least acceptable in the end.

Yes… I know.

Anyway, I designed a single big central support for the brackets and I added a couple of flanges to strengthen the construct in case Godzilla grabbed the Box and tried to take it apart from the Merkabah by force. One never knows.

On site, it all seemed okay. There were a lot of considerations I do not want to bother anyone with, but this is the final setup for the subframe... so far.

The next move would be to, somehow, place some considerable load on the frame and keep it steady while making the frame twerk and ascertain the real height of the torsional axis. Easy to say, but I am still figuring out how to do it with the elements at hand and given the present conditions. I know something will come up in the next few days.

Meanwhile, I am working on it.

And, again, this thread is adjourned.

[DäddyHärry]

Hi Pairoa,
admiring your Work as usual

The way to apply load to the Merkabah would bei several
- concrete slabs
- pallet cages (filled with Stones or scrap metal)
- filled IBC ( definite load compared to the afore mentioned)

Kind regards
Härry

Btw.... This thread screams for being pressed into book covers.... Like
"Zen, or how to build a RV beside your normal life"

[Bahnhofs-Emma]

Hi,

Btw.... This thread screams for being pressed into book covers.... Like
"Zen, or how to build a RV beside your normal life"

This is definitely a brilliant idea...

Best regards
Marcus