Mercedes 2626 AK 6x6

[waYne]

Hey Pairoa,

as always big respect for your work. Nice efforts.
To be honest...I also had a little smile on my face, when I saw the pictures of Isolation on the amazing painted Cabin. All the beauty....destroyed

Keep up the good work!

Cheers

waYne


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[pairospam]

Dear waYne:

Nothing has been destroyed... just think of it as if all that beauty has been carefully hidden instead... and behind any cover, any bolt, any layer of paint, lies something quiet wonderful, witness and depository of many hours of careful work.

Regards and thanks.


Pairoa

[waYne]

Hey Pairoa,

I guess you are right. This and only this is the right way to see the truth. Was a little bit short-thinking and, to be honest, a little bit ironic

Keep up your way!

Cheers

waYne

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[Iain_U1250]

More great work Pairoa, great job on the sound insulation, your ears will appreciate it a lot and each bit you add makes just the little bit of difference. It is nice to see you building in a good sound system, it is well worth it on the long boring trips the stretch between all the beautiful places.

[dsmet]

Hi Pairoa,

I check this thread every day to see if you posted something new.

Since it's been a while since your last update I was wondering and hoping that everything is fine and your project is progressing as planned.

Wish you all the best!

Best regards

[MaartenNL]

+1 , same here.

fantastic build! i hope to see more progress and that Pairoa is allright and still building.

[waYne]

Hey Pairoa,

hope everything is fine and you are not stuck in the pre-christmas-hurry.

Would be awesome to hear something from you! Yes I am curious ;-)

Cheers

waYne

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[pairospam]

Hi guys:

Well... in fact... I am stuck since a few weeks. The air conditioning issue has been a real nightmare. I depend on others and these others have been having quiet a bad time, dragging me and the project down with them.

If I do not install the condenser under the dash I cannot instal the gauges and the controls of the components of the suspension, the lights, the CTIS, the stereo and so on. If I cannot complete the dash I cannot mount the cabin on the frame. If so, I cannot complete the circuits for the brakes and the pressurized air systems and, like this, forever.

I have done minor things and received a lot of new components from all over the eBay world. On the other hand, I have done a pretty nice trip around and took a lot of nice pictures and have some news about the bikes, one of my other passions. I can make a whole new story of this but I am not sure if this is the right place. Yes...I am aware that I have already done it... more than once, but I want to hear opinions about the idea before doing it again.

Thanks for your concern and the good vibes.


Pairoa

[thjakits]

....so - why not start with the "House" in the mean time?

Saludos,

thjakits

[pairospam]

For a number of reasons:

- I have no place to build and assemble the Cabin here in San Felipe.

- My old man is busy flying around so he cannot commit with the project for now and work on the cabin at his place.

- I need to assemble the tuck first and then make all the twisting tests to ascertain by the milimeter the precise torsion movements the frame does so I can design and build the frame of the Cabin adjusted to these measurements. There is no chance of building a four/five point pivoting system based only in theory, You have to be sure and see where it moves and where it stands.

- I have been using my time out of the Merkabah fever to service the bikes and the Montero. They needed some attention since quiet long.

- The building of the house, the real one, is about to begin. I cannot fight at so many fronts.

And surely I am leaving something forgotten in the pockets.

Cheers.


Pairoa

[thjakits]

....HOW are you going to twist the chassis without any weight on it??

[pairospam]

Yes... quiet a challenge... right?

[Pirx]

Hola Pairoa!

The twisting test will be the smallest problem of all. Just put some weight on the back of the truck and off you go ...
http://www.allrad-lkw-gemeinschaft.de/p ... 85#p128885
(No, it is not my own truck)

But I know your situation with all the other problems, tasks and projects to do all in the same, but limited time all too well. There is no other way than to do the best you can and hope for a better future.

Keep up and greetings to Carmen and you!

Pirx

[MaartenNL]

....HOW are you going to twist the chassis without any weight on it??

4 IBC with water and cargo straps?

Hi guys:
Thanks for your concern and the good vibes.

good to hear you're still busy with the build, slowly but surely we call it.

[pairospam]

@Pirx:

I knew that truck and the test they have done. I bet you wish it was your truck, he, he...

The thing is that I want to make the tests and measurements BEFORE building the frame/floor of the Box. We will see what we come up with when the time comes.

Thanks a lot and greetings from Carmen to you, Bärbel and Heiner.

@MaartenNL:

Still alive... still struggling... still cursing.


Regards from Chile.


Pairoa

[Pirx]

@Pirx:

I knew that truck and the test they have done. I bet you wish it was your truck, he, he...

How does it come you know my secret thoughts?

Pirx

[thjakits]

....did you ever consider to make the whole thing a "Schoolbus"??

OR in other words "One Stiff Box!"

I know your chassis is supposed to take some of the suspension work by twisting.

However I think you could also let the suspension do ALL the work a take the chassis out of the equation.

If you build a space-frame and bolt it directly and solidly to the chassis - at various locations (for your ride I suggest 8....) - you would not have to worry about the interface of the box with the truck...
After all your dump-truck chassis is built for direct load platform mounting (albeit with hardwood spacers recommended)

In your case - for a space-frame to work properly you would have to tie in the very front of the truck too - which could be done via extension over the driver cab and then down onto the chassis-rails....

The space-frame would be easiest built based on triangulation...

I am way too rusty to calculate the material sizes, but I am sure here in the group someone would be up to the task (or worse case contact the Mechanical Engineering Department in a University in Santiago - students are always interested to get their hands "dirty" on real world projects!!)

Incorporate the chassis as part of the Space-frame.....

You would get one hell of a stiff unit - which would take up a good part of the suspension work the chassis doesn't do anymore.

Obviously you would have to look again at your suspension and make sure the moving parts are up to the task to take care of 100% of the work now!
Considering that you probably never get even close to use up all the design weight capacity of your truck, I think it would be something to think about!

Weight-wise it should change about nothing - with the benefit of a way stronger unit!

I know - everyone is concerned about twisting damage on wrongly or badly mounted boxes!! BUT - most of that comes from "not knowing what they do" - and mostly those boxes are not designed stiff enough and/or not mounted solid enough to the chassis.

If you take that approach however (properly designed - calculated!!) you end up with a US-SChoolbus box!! Basically a Squarish box, mounted fix on a Medium Duty Truck Chassis - for a bus, WAY overkill, but tUS regulations require a quite high roll-over stiffness specifically for Schoolbuses! With a high-strength steel profiles you should be able to copy that system quite easily....

Remember - you will have a Rolling HOME, not a Unimog-River-Crawler or Dakar Racer [no matter what your Truck ACTUALLY WOULD be capable off - you are NEVER going to risk to find out! I'd say more likely than not - it will be a "Bad Road Warrior" - not a "OFF ROAD Truck" - ....I don't count Dessert and open madows as off-road]

....just an idea - while you can't do anything else!

Cheers,

thjakits

[pairospam]

thjakits:

Thanks for your brainwork. Unfortunately, incorporating the cabin, the Box and the frame in just one stiff unit is way more easy to say than to do, and the results are absolutely not clear concerning the performance and durability of the truck with such an arrange.

One thing is clear, though: I need the truck to be ready to do whatever it could be urged to do. I like offroading, pretty much, and the primary goal of having selected and purchased a 6x6 truck is precisely to use all of its potential to get wherever I want and whenever I want, dunes and rocks and asteroids included.

Twisting of the frame is good for the frame, it is healthy for the frame and it is what it is primarily designed for, as you well say. I cannot rely exclusively on the suspension and add steel to build a monocock structure on it because the suspension, on its side, is not supposed to work that way and should be rebuilt completely if wanted to do so.

Would be easier to build than the four-five points pivot system? Perhaps... though I doubt it. All I need now is to keep the faith, be patient, assemble the truck and make good and precise measurements to design and build the best device to make the truck and the Box work together without any interference from each other.

Thanks again and cheers.


Pairoa

[Iain_U1250]

Hi Pairoa, have you tried to contact MB for a body builder handbook, MB have one for the Unimog with all the various options for mounting just about everything to the Unimog chassis, being a German company, I am pretty sure they would have detailed specifications of what you can and can't do to you truck. MY body builder handbooks had all the detailed dimensions of flex and distances from the centre of rotation I needed to make sure my camper frame would not hit the chassis or prevent it from flexing. I had a U4000 and a U1250 handbook, and they were very similar except for some of the constants in the formulae/

A camper body is like a water tanker, and I have seen some 6x6 MB water tanker trucks around. The mounting system from a water tanker would be a great fit for your truck, maybe you can find one from an old wreck somewhere.

I agree with you, you need to be able to use your truck to it's full capacity, I knew from day one that I was not building a show truck, and if it got a few scratches or dents from off roading so be it. Our first trip to the beach I had to push through some trees to get down to the water, and drive through a salt water creek and the occasional wave tp get where we wanted to camp for the night. It is meant to be driven and used, not just stick to dirt roads but to go off road wherever it can't and sometimes can't go. Just try not to roll it

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KqRmLvNH80[/youtube]

[pairospam]

Hello again. First of all... happy New Year to you all! Unfortunately the last year was not THE year but... life is hard.

Iain:

We then agree about what these things are made for. Good. I am fully aware that many scratches and bruises will be the cost for my way of driving and the use and abuse I will inflinge to the beast. Of course rolling over is not in the menu.

Regarding the frame, Mercedes manuals do not talk about flex or torsion of the frame with detail when referring to the NG class trucks and, believe me, I have seen them all. The Unimog has been designed to flex to the extreme and detailed descriptions on the issue are expected... and delivered.

Pirx pointed that the longitudinal axle of the torsion of the frame has to be in the center of the frame itself, but many things can prevent it to be like this, as the relationship between the crossmembers, the shape and stiffness of them, their location regarding the lenght of the frame and the location and type of the suspension and its supports, the presence of reinforcements of the frame, their shape and location, etc.

Subframes for NG tankers have all been custom made here so, if I decide to use one, I better build it myself. Though I insist, at least until today, in the free-torsion system.

Many greetings and thanks for your words.


Pairoa

[pairospam]

[pairospam]

[pairospam]

[waYne]

Happy new year to you!
I wish u a lot of health, motivation and time and money for finishing your merkabah!

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[pairospam]

Sorry. I couldn´t help myself. I like too much my country and like to show it everywhere.

Unfortunately the trip ended abruptly because of a crash and a few leaks here and there.

[Joe]

Happy new year to you and everybody else here around,

great pics, thx for posting them. "Chapeau" for managing that kind of roads!

Cheers
Joe

[a90]

Hello Pairoa,

Thanks for sharing those beautiful photo's with us, Never knew Chile was that nice.

Regarding the torsion of the NG frame, I can't help you with that but what I do have is a Mercedes booklet that describes how to prepare and adjust Mercedes truck chassis' for usage like a dumper, garbage truck etc. The booklet is from 1978 and also describes the NG series.

If it is of any use for you I am more than happy to send it.

[pairospam]

Niiiiiiice!

a90: it, indeed, would be very appreciated. Thanks a lot!

And yes... Chile is far more beautiful and interesting than the limited frame of a photo can show... though it also has as many problems as any other country may have, like happens with any other country around our little planet.

Cheers.


Pairoa

[pairospam]

Well… time for an update.

I will try to be as brief as I can. It passed too much time to remember well what happened, but the work on the Merkabah during the last months was uninterrupted though pretty few things were done.

One of the plans was to finish the front, including the fenders. The middle piece was flattened out, which was not easy due to the thickness of the steel, repaired with welding, cut out the parts that were in conflict with the winch and then I applied some washprimer, waiting for the time to pass it to Edie to go on with the preparation for painting.



Jumping from one item to the other, depending on the time available, I worked also on the dashboard to prepare the place to receive the air conditioning evaporator and all the wires that would manage the special systems and the AC itself.



Under a ton of dust, forgotten in a corner of the shop, there were the headlights. I disassembled them with the hope that they could be rescued, though their insurance expired long before I even touched them. There were no ways to get them back to work properly so I made a little research in the internet and ordered for replacements. I kept the glass coverings as spare parts, though.




Edie was dedicated at that time to the doors. He polished the paint and corrected some imperfections though there were some flaws that seemed very difficult to overcome without having to paint the whole doors again. Hmm…



On my side, I cleaned the supports for the headlights and took out all the rust from them. It was hard and slow, as usual, but they came very good in the end.



One of the lateral pieces of the fender was twisted and it gave the truck a strange and sad look, a twitched grin. To straighten it up I had to make a lot of efforts and use the press and a long and pretty strong lever. I was quiet hard and risky, but it also went pretty good so it was worth it. Then I dedicated the next hours to clean and prepare both pieces for painting.

[pairospam]

At some moment I decided to wait for taking a decision about the doors, wether to repaint them or do some other kind of move, because they will be the last pieces to mount back on the cabin and so they would have to be stored until that time came and they could be damaged meanwhile. So, Edie got his hands on the fender pieces and began to plaster them.



Me and Franz Air Conditiong met a few times and he convinced me that the kit I had gotten for a few euros not long ago was not appropriate, old and rare, and it was better to get some more easily available components in case the system failed during the trips to anywhere. I bought the idea and we ended up with a new condenser, a new filter and more common connections.

The new condenser was tougher and simpler and the fit was also better respect of the place it should occupy in front of the truck’s radiator. But I hated the plated look so I painted it in black and fabricated some little supports to fix it to the Merkabah. Guess what I used to get the little pieces from… the classical rusted piece of tube lying on the floor somewhere in the shop.




Just to use some time left I got the pedals to bolt them back in place under the dashbooard and I realized that I had used Spare’s piece for the brake, and that I had forgotten to add the original suppport of the brake switch and the ad hoc lever. Ops.

Well… it took some time, but I added the pieces and painted the whole thing again before putting it.



Had to cut and modify the original defence barr of the radiator to allow the case of the winch to stand in the middle and to add some strenght to the ensamble.

At some given moment all the pieces of the the front fender were ready and Edie made his job and plasterered them. It was a long process, as usual, at the end of which the pieces looked pretty good, waiting for the primer and the paint to be gently but thoroughly sprayed.