Mercedes 2626 AK 6x6

[pairospam]

Well, yes… it’s been quite a while, uh?

But here I am, again, with new and necessary efforts aimed to finish this neverending quest that has taken sooooo so long.

Not long ago I was on the top of the mountains on a short ride with the Africa Twin, and I decided to resume the work on the truck because, if not, it would surely come the time when the problems for letting it to sit and rust would take me to the very beginning of the restoration and, also, because I needed something to grab and focus on as things go inevitably from bad to worse all around. You all know what I mean by now.

By the way, did I ever mention before that I really like that bike?

I stopped posting on September 2023, and many things had happened before that date and have happened since then until these last days. I will try to make a short briefing, Pairoa’s style, of the most remarkable events and get to the point the Merkabah is right now. Please… patience.

Well, at that time our house was not finished -and still is not- because Ramón the builder was busy building the house of my brother-in-law and making only little progresses on our side. Eduardo´s project was quite big and Ramón has his pace set on low, but we all agreed that Eduardo had the preference. It was better for us, especially for Carmen, to have the neighbors settled in as soon as possible as a matter of company and safety as the situation of crime and political instability became increasingly worrysome.

The Merkabah received some regular care and maintenance and I tried to solve little issues from time to time. Do not remember why I removed the front wheel at that occasion, but surely it was required for some reasonable motive.

I used to take her out for a ride as often as I could and kept the fuel tank with at least 100 liters of diesel, even if the trips were pretty short and did not last more than one hour. Do not remember either why I took this picture but surely the spill and the mess was remarkable.

One good day I went to the dry riverbed of the Putaendo river, again, and put her to the test. I played a lot and experimented with the 6x6 and the suspension control in different settings to see how she behaved and to learn how to handle her. It was very fun. There were some problems with the suspension of the cabin, though, and I took clear note to work on that later. I made a photoshoot as the sun faded and with the last clarity we headed home.

But -the inevitable and ominous “but”- when I made a short stop before arrival, a pretty annoying sound arose from the engine and more specifically from the clutch area. -I broke it! I paniqued, but it went off spontaneously. Hmm…

The next time it reappeared after a few kilometers and was intermitent but then it became more present. It sounded as a bearing and probably was the clutch release bearing. Anyway, it got worse so I decided to park the Merkabah until I was able to take the clutch bell housing out and make a good inspection. To do that I needed a winch, and I had none available.

Regular work was always quite demanding and I commissioned Gabriel, Ramon’s son, to prime and paint the bike stand I had built some time before. I was pretty busy at that time and, surely, he made a better job.

And then came the rains, and the Merkabah was always parked under the container making it inconvenient for us to go around her back and forth without getting wet and muddy. So, I got the 4x4 tractor and towed her under the tree at the entrance of the plot to clear the place. Covered the cabin with a middle-size-car cover and the almost ten tons of truck were put to sleep until next time, once again.

In june we had a couple of illustrious visitors from Germany that had asked us to purchase some tires for them in advance. They stayed for some time and profited to make the maintenance of their truck and change the tires. It was a very interesting time and I learned a lot about a lot of things related to the machines, what to do and, especially, what not to do.

[Bad Metall]

Mit Weißbier in der Hand, so wie man Ihn kennt und neuen XZL zum tauschen.
Gruß an Hans

[pairospam]

The building of Eduardo’s house proceeded at a steady pace and got the more attention of Ramon. It was a big beast to build but he managed to make some progress here and there while finishing some items on our house too.

Our home became more and more comfortable and functional thanks to my father who worked on the furniture and other items with no pause. I helped him every time I was free of my regular work. When the new sofa was delivered it was a pretty good day.

Ramón built the front planter and quarried the parking according to the plan, but he left the job unfinished under the container as he needed a big tool to complete the concrete pouring and the flattening work, and yes, as expected, it still is not finished.

We made a big deal with the back planter as it was supposed to be the place to grow a big tree that would offer some fresh shadow over the concrete that will cover the entrance to the parking. You can see at the corner the heat exchanger that I had to install as the heater of the hot tub failed and melted the whole thing down.

The planter reached two meters deep where the tree was supposed to be planted so it was like a little pool, and that attracted, I think, the next event.

One given night, the water ran free through the irrigation channels that had not been serviced for many years during the drought, and it made its way crossing the street and flooded the entrance, half the plot and, naturally, the unfinished big damn deep planter. So, at first time in the morning we found ourselves surrounded by water and we had a pool of mud right on the side of the house.

I managed to get the water out of the plot working some ditches with the shovel but the water in the planter was another kind of problem. Such amount of water was not healthy for the foundations of the house in case I wanted to let it percolate on its own, so I had to use the water pump to get it out. I struggled for many hours to empty the bloody thing as it was full of debris and mud that clogged the aspiration tip every two seconds. It was really a PITA.

After a few days Ramón was able to resume the labor and finished the planter for good once it dryed up for good.

Around that time, a newly arrived was admitted to Pairoa’s foster house for dogs in trouble. We baptized her as Pity the pittbull. She changed everything we knew about dogs and moved us from the bottom of our hearts. She had been really mistreated and she suffered a lot. Her previous owners wanted to kill her because she was mad at herself and had one of her legs in pretty bad shape just by licking it. She was mad because she was not feeded and they left her in a one square meter place for days and weeks.

We got involved very deeply with her and had countless visits to the veterinary, blood tests, multiple treatments and she demanded lots of patience. She changed the dynamics of the whole pack of dogs with her special and rude temper, but in spite of her fiery appearance and her crocodile allure she revealed herself as a very sweet and lovable subject. Carmen fell in love with her just by seen her the first time they met.

Taking a brake from the furniture, my old man decided to address the completion of the deck around the hot tub that at all times menaced to be the cause of someone’s leg fracture. He measured and calculated very precisely every aspect of the matter and delivered a fantastic job. I gave him a little hand but all the credit is his.

After a while, the Wombis made a short stop by us and then they departed for good. Not heard from them since.

And time passed by…

[pairospam]

We adopted another dog that also made quite an impact on our lives. It was a german shepherd that was found lost in San Felipe and had a very pleasant nature though it was evident that he had suffered quite a bit. I wanted another big dog to guard the house so I met him and there was a special contact between us. He had no problems with the other dogs at arrival and was initially well received by the pack. Introducing you Trump. Yes… I know.

Soon after we discovered that he had a crash for humans but was a little intollerant with other dogs, especially with alfa dogs, so he engaged in fights for his place among the pack with Tripo, the irish Setter, and with Buran, the dalmatian, with some bruises and cuts as a consequence. Nothing new when you have seventeen dogs around, though…

Life was otherwise uneventfull for the most part, and I used to go enduro riding when I had the time and the mood. The workshop was always full of stuff so it was not possible to work on the Merkabah and there was no chance to get back the truck at Eduardo’s shop. The valley of the Putaendo river was completely unaware and it could not care less of Pairoa and his struggle to go on with his life and his projects, of course.

We still had problems with our electrical system, and the guys from the solar power company convinced me that we needed to put together two power inverters and two new super intelligent and extra powerfull lithium-ion batteries to cope with the demands of the house. I took their word, and they changed, again, the configuration and we had a few weeks where it all seemed to work almost decently but we still had problems with the energy supply and the bills went up because of repeated malfunctioning.

And, finally, Carmen decided she wanted to get her driver’s license, and she wanted to learn to ride motorbikes. So I gave her a scooter for her to learn about the basics. Mouton, the little Honda, made her first appearance in September 2023, and Carmen almost immediately fell in love with her too.

After a few kilometers she seemed to have acquired enough confidence to ride like the fast and the furious, but, of course, she still has not got her license.

As it is almost impossible to skip some kind of physical misfortune in Pairoa’s life, at that time there was an incident when Trump and Buran engaged in a fight one given night. I went to separate them but unfortunately I stumbled and fell right in the middle of both, and Trump bite my leg thinking it was Buran’s neck. It was dark and they were really mad at each other so, before he realized it was me and not him, the leg sustained quite a bit of damage.

It hurt for a while, of course, and made me think of the probability of having any type of accident or issue that could lead to quiting the project of the Merkabah for good. It was the kick I needed.

The first thing to do to prepare the scenario to go on with the project of the Merkabah was to get rid of the green Nissan truck, a restoration project that really never took off and ended up using the bed of the truck for keeping some hundreds of bags of cement for the building of the entrance.

I unloaded the truck myself -with no back problems!- and then I blackmailed Eduardo to help me to take it back to the place it was before, at the ancient cattle site, along with other rusting old relics.. He was not happy, as you can see.

Meanwhile, the only thing I could do about the Merkabah was replacing the cover of the cabin of the truck everytime the sun and the wind torn it apart and hope some day I could go and bring the panels and continue with the project.

As Ramón the builder was still busy with Eduardo’s house, and we would not allow any other guy to do the job, the entrance and half of our house was still unfinished. The plants and the trees, though, had grown everywhere and looked fantastic.

I regularly had to maintain the bikes, as I said before, and that kept me busy when I had some time left from my job. This is particularly true with the WR450, which you have to disassemble almost completely to clean up the carburetor, hmm…

It was pretty rewarding, though, as riding up the mountains with the Yamaha required a lot of effort and concentration, and you got peace of mind, satisfaction and rest when you got up there, like with no other activity, especially when your knee is screwed and you can not go on running anymore.

[pairospam]

Greetings, Hans. I know you are there...

[pairospam]

There were also some other tasks to complete before the Merkabah could be taken into consideration, like to install the full irrigation system around the house and the shop. So, I hired a guy with an excavator that made a lot of deep ditches to put the pipes to drive the water from the irrigation pond to the last little tree and flower of the plot.

It was a big amount of removed earth, but the ditches needed to be profound for the piping to not get damaged when the construction of the concrete entrance took place, who knows when.

As the water supply was going to be secured, I cleaned and evened the soil around the hot tub and went to get the grass to finish the garden. Then, I began to paste the grass all around.

Meanwhile, I hired another guy for the installation of the irrigation system, the same that worked on the irrigation system for the peaches, and after he made the math he asked me to get the ad hoc piping for the job. As with the rolls of grass, I got a little more than extrictly needed… just in case.

I installed the grass and the garden was complete, but I then had to prepare also a couple of spots in between the planters to place the extra rolls, as not I nor Carmen wanted to let the grass dry and die like that. So, more work, more days, more grass to care of and to lawn.

After a few days the grass was solidly rooted and the little garden had become a very pleasant place to stay and to look at, fresh and invitating. No more dust and heat from the nude soil. Good.

With nothing to be really surprised about, the irrigation guy had a lot of personal dramas, including a car crash, and the work was slowed and delayed for some days and weeks, in spite of me helping him with some of the practical issues. Anyway, after some time and a few leaks here and there, the system was functioning according to the plan.

But, again, the guy with the excavator got a contract elsewhere and asked me to wait for him a little for closing the ditches and, as you may guess, that meant many more weeks for the ditches to remain open.

The roofed terrace was very comfortable once my father and I installed the tile floor, keeping the rudimentary wooden fence for the dogs not to enter in. There was a couple of problems, though, regarding the rain and the evening sun: both were pretty annoying and prevented using it full-time.

So, at that time, I asked a firm in Santiago to cover it with with a translucid PVC enclosure. After a couple of weeks, and a few bucks, of course, they delivered and installed the rolling system that indeed became a very good solution as it allowed us to gather together in quite big numbers outside, in any weather or time, very comfortably.

Carmen’s family is very large and they are pretty united, as you remember, and they all live pretty near, so the gatherings are frequent and crowded. Good.

Ignacio Casale, my almost-cousin and keeper of the panels, sent me some pictures of the panels and warned me that they had curved by standing for so long on the canvas, and his brother Francisco had had a hard time assembling the panels struggling with the curvature. It was time to get them and to make something about this new problem. He could still keep them at his shop for as long as it may take, but clearly they needed to be assembled or put horizontally under some weight.

Unfortunately, I had at that moment no way to take them in the shop as there was too much stuff inside, and many things and materials among them could not be exposed to the elements.

[pairospam]

Kept on doing some minor things, such as building the trellis for the creeper planter. I wanted many plants to help to manage the heat that will irradiate from the concrete entrance and the parking thanks to the merciless sun of the San Felipe/Putaendo valley.

As you can see, the MIG welder was damaged and one of its rear wheels broke under the weight of the argon cylinder, with no replacement available. The most remarkable thing was, though, to discover how bad my skills as welder -if any- were impacted by the lack of welding for so many months. Not good.

Did I mention that it has become a little frustrating and progressively insecure here in this country? Well, I installed a few of the most powerfull LED lamps I could get from the commerce, managed by remote control units, all around the house. Now I could identify and aim from the terrace while the vilains were completely blinded by the light. What a shame having to do that.

Anyway, one day I was taking out Helga from the shop and had to make an abrupt maneuver to avoid coming over Lolo, one of the dogs. The bike ended up inside the ditch that was still open, in such a way that prevented me from getting her back to stand without help. The clutch handle broke, then I said: no more waiting.

I tried to get another excavator anywhere but there was not one available at that time, so I spent the free time of the rest of the week covering the ditches myself with a shovel and a lot of skin solar protection.

My back stood, once again, but obviously it was not a pretty good thing to do.

And then came the autumn, and the weather changed abruptly, again, as it always does here in Putaendo. The vision of the truck, always silent, always covered by dust, always immobile under the grey skies and building rust was very depressing at times, but there were no chances to change things. The time for the Merkabah had not come yet.

I always entertained myself with the bikes, the Montero and the pickup truck so there was no moment at rest, and at work there was more to do than ever.

Regularly I took the dogs for a walk around and through the peaches and Buran, as all the others, enjoyed a lot to go out. It had been a very good season and the harvest was quite generous. The trees then went quietly to sleep among a magnificent and colorfull bed of fallen leaves.

There was still a lot of rubble from the paused construction in front and around the shop, but this time I got a big excavator with a dump truck that evened the terrain. They took two full loads of dirt and debris, and it was then possible to think of bringing the panels for the Box of the Merkabah from the Casales, at least nearer to the shop.

Here you have Kira, one of the last arrived to Pairoa’s foster home for dogs in distress. She was bought for a lot of money but then the owners lost interest and they abandoned her along with her puppies. Now she was happy with us.

As usual, I made a few efforts and had to perform some quite long and uncomfortable tasks at work and finally my back handed the bill and protested so bad that I was thrown to the bed.

So, this was my only panorama for a couple of weeks.

Read a few books, watched some TV, and planned what to do with the paused project.

When I could stand up I went to the second floor and watched again the Merkabah and her sad situation. It urged me and made me want to go get the panels immediately, but the red Ford Cargo was grounded for an issue with the engine. After a while, though, I got another truck with a big flat bed and we finally went to pick up the panels to Santiago.

[pairospam]

It was all previously coordinated so when I arrived there Ignacio and the crew had allready loaded the panels on the truck.

Ignacio’s wohnmobile was still under construction too, and both brothers shared information about how to deal with some issues and how the curvature of the panels was quite a PITA at the moment of the assembling. Even the entrance door had some issues due to that. It was not good news but it was a price expected to be paid after so much time delaying the building.

The good old Dakar support truck was there, in its last costumes, waiting for new rally times to come.

Finally, after some ten years, the panels were leaving their “momentary” destination. It was an odd but very good moment.

At home, the place alongside the shop was ready to receive the panels and the guy managed to put the heavy stand on the uneven terrain, with some help, of course. The panels were much more heavy than expected, and that was quite a surprise.

Once the stand was on the ground, I got a big roll of black polyethylene and wrapped the whole thing to protect it from the sun and the rain and the wind that still menaced to strike suddenly. I was pretty aware that the panels could remain there for a while as I was not able to do anything else until I prepared and emptied for good the shop.

Next move was to make at least a little order and finish the internal covering of the walls of the shop with some plywood panels. It took me some effort and sweat but I managed to cover what was left of the rear wall and the wall on the side of the workbench.

I used all the material at hand and scrapped anything I could to build shelves and supports. Wherever I could I hung tools and parts to keep the place free and in order, and I discovered that among all the chaos I had quite a bit of stuff that I had forgotten having bought. Good, but exhausting.

And, finally, Eduardo and his family moved in the new house. It was a good and most expected day, especially for Carmen that, understandably, did not like to be alone during my night shifts. Everyone was really happy, and the house was very comfortable, practical, and enormous. Ivonne, Eduardo’s wife, would decorate it with a very exquisite taste.

[Lassie]

Hi Pairo,

Thanks a lot for the update! It was indeed a while! Great, that you and Merkabha are up and running.
And good to see Hans is up and alive with some dark wheat beer!

Greetings to the other part of the world!
Jürgen

[pairospam]

I went on with the dusty task of removing stuff and cleaning the interior of the shop to accommodate the panels. The plan was to put them all up on the shelf over the workbench to have plenty of space to work on the truck inside the shop once I could get rid of all that was inside..

And so, I cleared up the superior shelf from a lot of stuff and boxes filled with spares, used parts and, over all, dust.

I asked Ramón if the structure could stand the weight and he made his rolling-eyes calculations and said it was okay. Good, as it would allow the chaos on the opposite side of the shop to remain there, untouched, at least for a while.

As I had my doubts, I got some steel tubes and put them as supports of the hanging shelf, just in case the eyes miscalculated.

Once the shelf was clean and strenghtened, I took the extruded GRP profiles from the stand and put them, by hand, on it. It was a little tricky but I managed to get the job done without any problem, just a lot of sweating and physical effort.

I obviously wanted to somewhat mechanize the work, but the winch was hanging from one of the struts at a very inconvenient height, with no appropriate ladder to reach it, and Ramón was using all the scaffolds to build the roof of the parking of Eduardo’s house.

Then, I got the little panels and took them up and secured them with some straps. It seemed to be pretty straightforward, but handling the panels all by myself was not easy nor safe. Hmm…

Anyway, the panels had to be put inside the shop at all cost. The wind had already destroyed many times the plastic cover so I took the old and faithfull Montero and dragged the still heavy stand with the panels near the entrance in order to get them near and facilitate the maneuvers.

At that moment, Alejandro, the big guy that works at the worshop, called and said that he found a box at the shop that contained an electric W.C. and it surely was mine.

In effect, it was the one I bought so many years ago from Nigel, and went missing at some point in time. Eduardo hired some guys to get rid of a lot of stuff and old pieces from the shop, and I thought the artifact was taken by them. Bad thinking, Pairoa.

Anyway, I was glad to recover the W.C. and after a little cleaning it shone like new. Well, it was new, but surely the warranty had expired long ago.

And November came, and I took my holydays. I had the commitment, from many months before, to install a good and definitive fence for the planters to protect them from the dogs. It had to be almost invisible but tough enough. It seemed easy, but I spent many days of hard work to install it at both the big planters.

I also made a lot of little but necessary jobs in the house, but at some point I decided to go on a ride to the north, alone, for a couple of days. Well, it was actually three days, but Carmen had no problem as the family was across the fence and Alejandro’s mother was pretty keen on accompanying her while I was out. Carmen could not go with me this time.

And so, I took Heidi for a long and winding ride.

[pairospam]

Greetings to you, Jürgen!

We had quite a few adventures together, crossing the mountains and the desert. I premiered the new GoPro and got some interesting filming moments that, at some moment in the future, I will surely edit in a short video… but this is a story for another time.

Back at home, the electric system had still a lot of problems and even one of the inverters shortcircuited. They had come and tried to fix it and the most reasonable solution, at least from my perspective, was to get rid of the super-intelligent and super-hyper-powerfull lithium batteries and replace them with solid, stupid, simple and robust lead-acid batteries in a big pack.

All these inconvenients, of course, made me change my plans for the Merkabah, as I initially thought to run all the appliances and stuff solely on solar power. Now I am definitely changing my mind.

Anyway. I got some steel profiles and built a much more simple and tough rack for the pack of batteries that I acquired from a cousin of Eduardo at a very nice price. The dogs were always good company.

And then we came to the fifth configuration of the electrical solar system of the house. Would it work properly? We are still testing.

I would keep the “intelligent” batteries, and probably they will be used in the Merkabah, as the solar guy was not able to take them back at the moment and offered to back up the implementation of the solar system for the truck when the time came.

Taking the stand with the panels inside the shop would require a lot of effort and it was not possible to use the tractor or the 4x4 to push or pull it. I could neither count on anybody for man-power as everyone I knew was minding their own business, so I had to keep up working alone.

Took the winch from the long gone Terrano from its retirement box and disassembled it for a little maintenance before even attempting to use it. It was not that bad and I cleaned and greased all according to the manual.

When first switched on, it refused to work, but after a few seconds it came to life with a huge and noisy groan. Eventually, though, it ran smoothly and with much less noise. Good.

Then, I took one of the battery trays that was left over from one of the donors of the Merkabah and cut and welded some parts to use it as a reinforced rack for the winch.

[pairospam]

It came pretty good in the end, and heavy, and bulky, so I searched for a place to store it when not in use -probably until the end of times- and hung it from the pillars of the container at the entrance of the shop. Deva seemed to agree.

As I still needed the mechanical winch from the roof to lift the panels, I decided to assemble my own long ladder so I got a couple of 6 meter long squared steel profiles and attached the foldable ladder and then the telescopic ladder to them and, voilà! Now I could reach the roof and take the winch from its position to the place I needed to put the panels on the shelf.

It was not that easy, of course, and everytime you needed to move the composite ladder it had to be disassembled and reassembled. A real PITA… but it worked.

When I picked the panels from the Casales, Francisco passed me the big clamp that he made for lifting the panels easily and without causing them any damage.

The first panel I took was, obviously, the smaller one that formed the base of the bed at the rear of the Box. I took it by hand from the stand and made the first try pretty confident, but when I lifted it up I realized that it was too long and the big clamp prevented it from coming high enough to lean on the shelf.

When hung from the long side, then, there was no problem to get it up on the shelf, but I still had to roll it over by hand to accommodate it. That was scary.

Well… it worked. I then got in the Montero again and towed the stand a little further to accommodate it near the gates of the shop for the next pulling episode.

I had previously made quite big drillholes in the floor of the shop so I took the winch and firmly bolted it to the ground; made the appropriate connections to one of the old GSM batteries and pulled in little by little the stand with the help of many straps and some improvised supples.

At some point, the trolley for the bikes, with the Africa Twin on it, got blocked at the wrong side of the stand, so I had to use the Montero to pull the stand from side to side to allow me to take out the trolley. The inclined ramp made it not easy to maneuver as the bike and the trolley are both quite heavy. Another PITA for not realizing it in advance.

In the end, though, the panels were all in the shop. It was pretty crowded, but they were in.

It was past the sunset, so I went into the hot tub until it was late in the night.

The next day I decided to take down the GRP profiles as it was very inconvenient to step and to move on the shelf accdomodating the panels. It took me less effort but the same amount of time to get them all on the floor.

After that, I managed to lift up the big and thin panel for the internal divisions of the Box and to secure it to the wall. It was 2 meters high, and it was pretty close to the limit of range of the winch, so I realized that even using every little trick to get more range it would be impossible to manage and accommodate the bigger panels up there.

I needed another plan.

And so I came up with one: another solo trip to the mountains, this time to the south.

[pairospam]

I got the Navara and the WR450 firmly attached on the pickup bed and headed south to the Teno river gorge, 300 km away. It was a long time since my last trip to La Jaula -The Cage-, my family’s old property amidst the Andes mountains.

The house was almost covered by the grown trees, and the trails that once allowed the Montero and the Terrano to go up the mountains were impassable to any 4x4.

It was a very nice and interesting trip. I rode a lot, really a lot, and hiked a lot also, especially when I got to the highest spot I could reach on the bike and only had feet to go on.

Got in trouble, as usual, and got out of trouble, as usual. I really love the mountains and always felt some crush or special connection with them.

I brang both the new and the old Gopro and the drone this time, and I had some footage from the cell phone also. Some day I will edit and load it on Youtube as well.

It was really beautiful. There had been plenty of rain in the winter so everything was green and full of life, like in the good old times.

Back home, I faced the chaos that the shop had become and I got Ramón and his son Gabriel to help me to take out the steel profiles and all the stuff that occupied a lot of space in the shop that did not need to be inside anymore.

There was no other way: the panels had to be put flat on the floor and the whole place had to be emptied.

The spiders were counted by the thousands and the dust by the tonnes, but finally the place was ready and clean after a few hours of work.

With an estimated weight of 250 kilograms, the big panel for the roof was not very likely to be hung from the middle length of the trusses, and unfortunately it was on the wrong side of the stand. So I built a stand to hold it vertically from the inferior corner using some pieces of steel tubing and the directional steel wheels borrowed from the hydraulic jack. I put on the other extreme bigger plastic wheels to allow it to roll over the rugged terrain in front of the shop.

Again, I asked Ramón and Gabriel to give me a hand and they grabbed the rear of the panel and I got the front and together we moved the big bloody thing out in one elegant and graceful move, despite the wind that menaced to roll the whole thing over.

Once pushed back in on the right side of the stand, we used the winch to gently deposit the panel on the clean and cushioned floor of the shop. We repeated the last maneuver with the lateral panels, and for the rest of the smaller panels we used the bare hands.

Okay. So, the panels were horizontal, but they needed to be protected and, especially, load should be applied in order to flatten them.

[Pirx]

Hola Pairoa!

It ist good to hear from you again!

Pirx

[pairospam]

Pirx: glad to be around again. My best regards.


I went to the store and bought some more plywood panels and started to assemble a platform over the panels. Naturally, I wanted to use the wooden boards from the stand to build the platform also, so I patiently disassembled it, struggling against a miriad of stubborn and long threaded f…cking nails.

Thinking and planning on using the boards also for building a ramp to go up and down the platform, I designed and cut a few ribs to support them.

It was soon clear that a lot of ribs were needed in order to stand the weight of the big bikes so I cut a lot more and then screwed the long boards to the ribs in a loose pattern.

Looked a little weird but I was a little tired at that point and I thought it will be sufficient to handle the weight of the bikes.

When I took Mouton up the ramp, though, realized that it was not comfortable nor pretty safe to leave such spaces in between the boards.

So, I took some scrapped plywood panels and cut lots of ad hoc boards to fill the gaps. Then, I completed the covering of the panels from every side. Took me a lot of time, and surely it was easier to make the ramp from the beginning from one plywood panel but… life is hard. And the dogs know it.

Then, at last, the bikes had their own parking spot and it was pretty easy to take them up and down by hand. Eduardo asked me to keep the GS650 until his garage was built and so it would contribute to the reflattening of the panels… or so I hoped.

And then, and only then, I turned my attention to the old and neglected 6x6. Thanks for the patience.

Took the covers out and asked Eduardo to pull the Merkabah out of her eternal parking and push her to the entrance of the shop.

I had to deal with a lot of spider webs inside the cabin but no spiders were at sight.

But, before she was admited to the shop, I spent the next hour and a half powerwashing every corner of the frame to get rid of the tonnes of dust and dirt cumulated over time.

[tooFATtoDRIVE]

I am very happy to hear from you again. Excellent content as always.

[pairospam]

Hi, tooFATtoDRIVE.

Well, when the water and the mud dryed up, I unrolled the front winch cable and hooked it to a chain surrounding the base of one of the pillars of the container. That should be firm enough, I thought, croosing the fingers.

Plenty of trust, as always, I connected the batteries and plugged the wire control of the winch in -the remote control had no power left on its battery after so many years- and pressed the IN button.

With a nasty mechanical whining the winch began to protest and slowly pulled the truck up the ramp and ultimately inside the shop as much as the panels on the floor allowed for it.

Ahh… pretty good feeling. The winch had never been used before, and it seemed to cope with the weight with ease, as expected.

Finally the truck was in and I could work in a clean and comfortable environment. Of course, this was somewhat an excuse, as it seemed to be just a mood issue.

Anyway, the rust that stained the bolts, the compressor and the exposed surfaces, it all looked worse than before.

The first thing was to address the horrible noise that came from the clutch housing so I got the mechanical jack from the Navara and lifted the engine using the front axle as support. Once again the engine was suspended on wooden pieces from the exhaust manifolds.

Then, I used the winch to help with the handling of the clutch bell housing and removed the release bearing to inspect it. Yes, it was ruined. The bearing of the final shaft was okay and so it was just a matter of getting a new bearing, easy…right?

Then, the attention was driven to the leaking compressor. It was not easy to take the cylinder head and the midplate out as I wanted not to remove all the piping in the surroundings. The cylinder and the piston looked okay and clean.

The plate was not very bad, just as I remembered it, and the metal diafragm was like new, but one of the gaskets was broken and looked pretty ugly. That was it, of course, and all that was required was a new gasket, right?

I cleaned it all up for good and wrapped the pieces to wait for the repair parts to arrive.

[pairospam]

Also cleaned up the head of the piston and the cylinder, and covered the compressor to avoid any dirt coming in from the windy and dusty environment.

When I was at it, I looked at the hydraulic actuator of the clutch, and I could not help myself. Took me a little while, but I got rid of the ugly rust and painted it with satin black anti-rust paint. It was going to be replaced by a servo anyway, but it was not fair to keep it that way.

The rust had not just attacked the actuator and the exposed bolts here and there, but it had taken the toll on every metallic piece of equipment. That was what I was affraid of.

You could see rust on many surfaces, even inside the cabin, supposedly more protected than the rest of the truck.

Of course, the parts that were more exposed or those which lacked due rust-protection were very compromised. This was not good and meant that I would have to disassemble, clean and paint a lot, again. Hmm…

Anyway, I sat at the desk and began the search for the parts needed to resurrect the engine and, oh, surprise, they were not available at the usual dealers. At some moment the truck became a fossil and I did not realize it.

I looked elsewhere and everywhere and found a few parts but not everything I needed. Then, I tried some local, more humble stores, and finally got some – Maybe I can find it, sir, just give me some time.

This was especially difficult with the release bearing for the clutch, which was nowhere to be found and the official dealer in Santiago charged US $ 500 for importing it directly. Maybe a little too much.

So, I tried to get it from a friend in Brazil but he was on vacation and returned home mid January. Until then, few hopes.

Waiting for the time when someone finally delivered good news, I decided to install the TV system, which was lying dormant in a couple of boxes since the beginning of times.

But first, I had to display the electric system diagrams as I did not remember anything about it. At first it was difficult to get a thread on how to understand it, but soon I found the logic and all made sense, again.

The next day, I repeated the winching maneuver and pulled the truck in the shop to hide from the sun. The batteries were full again thanks to the external charger.

Initially, the plan was to put the screen on the bulkhead in front of the driver seat, but I realized that the location had many inconvenients, so I decided to put it on the dashboard, right in the middle.

Looked good and did not interfere greatly with the driver’s view.

It seemed that it all would be straightforward, but when taking the dashboard apart the reality stroke, again. There was no easy solution because everything was tightgly arranged and there was not much space to install the stand and to put the wiring.

When taking out the instrument panel fron the central console I realized also that it would be more convenient to make a spacer to give more room to the wiring and the air tubes for the suspension and the CTIS underneath it. It would also strengthen the panel itself as the metal sheet of which I made it should had been thicker than the one I used.

Anyway, I disconnected all the lines and connectors and left the panel apart while I worked with the central plate of the dashboard metallic top.

[pairospam]

Drilled a few holes and had to deal with a very short length of wiring that, at first, made me struggle with the front cover of the fan box as there was not enough room for the connector.

I made another groove and stretched a little the connections, and finally got to accommodate the connector, but the real struggle was to take the cable that I had already rooted to the ceiling via the left pillar and from under the instrument panel. I had to disassemble it all and take it to the passenger side and then had to pass the front camera cable to the right-side pillar where the camera would be mounted.

When I finished it was already time to have dinner. I winched the truck out of the shop and covered the cabin against the cooking sun of Putaendo.

At some point in time I went to Santiago to pick the parts that I could get to continue with the work. I profited to take the rear wheel from Heidi to the tire specialist to repair it as it got a piece of metallic wire that caused to leak air pressure, slowly but surely, and I still do not like the way the guys treat the rims here in the local shops.

Helga looked as the workhorse she had always been.

I succeded in purchasing a new intermediate plate and the gaskets for the air compressor – that was a difficult one-, a new hydraulic pump and a new hydraulic cylinder for tilting the cabin, and a new servo actuator for the clutch. I also got a couple of new windshield wipers, just because they were at hand.

I also got the last three available wheel spokes from the official BMW Motorrad dealer. They keep on breaking on Heidi’s rear wheel. Is it that my riding mode is a little extreme? Do not think so.

The hydraulic cylinder was not exactly the same, but I desperately wanted to replace the old one, already repaired and precarily kept in place, still, by the green old screwdriver. I sincerely hoped to be able to swap it and make all the necessary adaptations to make it work.

The old intermediate plate of the compressor was kept as spare part and the new one and the gaskets were put in place. Good.

I cleaned thoroughly the cylinder head and painted it with high temperature paint for calipers, hoping it will last a little longer this time.

The bracket for the slave hydraulic cylinder for the clutch, which was the same that held the “original” servo with which I bought the Merkabah, had been heavily modified.

[pairospam]

I was not in the mood to build a new one from scratch, so I did my best to keep it simple and came up with a solution that turned to be indeed simple and tough enough, thanks to a couple of ad hoc bolts and the powergrinder. Good too.

Replacing the hydraulic pump was quite easy, of course. I kept it in its original black, both because it didn’t look bad, and because I wanted not to get into the paint stuff just for this piece. Yes… I am getting old.

The next time, I welded the bolts for good on the bracket, made sure it was all okay and applied some paint to keep the mood.

I rescued the servo that came along with Spare II and got the pin for the ball pivot of the actuator of the clutch. The one in use with the hydraulic cylinder was a little longer than needed and it was impossible to unscrew it from the rod. If I wanted to use the servo, then something had to be modified.

I was not keen on cutting the one pin I knew it worked, though, even if it was pretty hard to use the cluth only with hydraulic power, so I took one pretty long bolt and made another rod by welding it to the thread of another bigger bolt. It worked.

Then, I faced the problem of not having any inner element left for the pressurized air fittings. Fortunately, there were still plenty of tecalan and fittings from the old 6x2 relic to take the brass elements from. And so I did. No chance to go to Santiago to get them from the store nor to wait for the store to send them.

Then, where to get the air pressure from to make the servo work? I examined the air system and concluded that I did not want to intervene the circuits at any point near the primary tanks, no matter if I would have to wait for the system to build up pressure before being able to engage the gears.

I then opted for getting the supply from the four-way valve on the back. There was a fitting that already had two of its threaded terminals plugged but otherwise ready to use.

[pairospam]

Found the new tecalan among other forgotten stuff in the container and made all the connections so the servo could get air to work with.

I did not connect the hydraulic line. I would wait for the spare of the release bearing of the clutch to be installed and the clutch bell housing being put back in place before making any move with the hydraulic actuator. That would only be possible when I was able to get the spare of the release bearing, and it seemed that it would still take some time.

Anyway, I went on with the installation of the TV system and, for the front-mounted camera, I chose to put it inside the cabin on the right superior angle near the pillar, as said before. Unfortunately, the bracket supplied with the camera was straight and caused a conflict with the passenger sun visor.

Took a piece of metal sheet and cut and bent it a little and… voilà… a forward angled bracket that allowed the sun visor to be folded forward with no problem. I gave it a little paint touch and let it dry up.

Then, I grabbed a few scrap pieces of plywood and reshaped them into a pretty solid 5 cm supple for the central console. I cut some holes in the lower aspect of it to allow for the flow of air from the cabin to the heater/AC. I had forgotten this issue when building the console, then realized I had forgotten it… then forgot it again.

The supple gave great rigidity to the instrument panel and helped a lot to handle it. Now the thing was to decide if I would take it to the upholsterer or just paint it black. The guy retired a couple of years ago and have not heard from him since.

And the Merkabah remained at the entrance of the shop day after day, winching her back and forth when I had the time to work on her. It seemed that the truck just got closer, but never in. Life is hard.

The poor Ford Cargo had still some mechanical issues on its own, and one evening, when Eduadro was delivering a load of peaches, it refused to start. My brother-in-law was not able, strangely, to fix it on terrain, so I went to help him and took the little tractor to tow the beast back home. It was already late when we arrived, just in time as the air reserve exhausted just ten meters before the parking spot and the brakes applied.

Amazing what a little 4x4 tractor can do when the driver is resoluted.

Naturally, Eduardo fixed the problem the next morning and the show went on.

When making the electrical connections for the TV system I struggled with the instructions for the wiring of the cameras and it all did not work properly, so I exposed the whole mess trying to figure out what was wrong. I found some issues and it took me a while to discover that it was not an error but the way to test and to interpret the results that led me to think I had made some mistakes. It was all okay and yes, the instructions were not that clear.

There was a pair of windshield wipers that were always bothering around and I decided to prepare, paint and install them for good. They were from one of the donor trucks but could not remember which one. They made a big difference as how the truck looked like when put in place. Made it look “more real” and less as a maquette, I think. Do not mind.

They were in a very good state and took me not much time to clean them from the old layers of paint and some superficial rust and make them worthy of new and fresh paint. They made a perfect match with the new wipers… after a few modifications, of course.

Little big things.

[pairospam]

Hello:

Just a few things to add to this story.

As told, I installed the windshield wipers and made sure all the connections were okay and the new motor and the new steering column switch worked properly. And they did, aparently. Good, I thought, but it was just a thought, as I realized later.

I spent a lot of time revisiting the electric mess, inside and outside the cabin, working out the way I invented new ways of getting in trouble. I found some errors, nothing terrible, but I did find them.

The idea was to be sure that everything was in place, that every old and new item, 12V and 24V, was okay and running, to connect the alarm and to close the central console for good once the upholsterer delivered the supple. Yes, I did contact him.

There were some problems trying to make the closed TV circuit work and the over-dashcam refused to do its job. A few tries and some consultation after, I got signal from the camera, though it was not possible to invert the image without inverting the whole screen. Maybe when all the others cameras were connected I would be able to figure it out. It was okay for now.

But, you know, another issue came up to make life a little difficult. I was moving things around and happened to try to move the heater control lever, just as if it was nothing, and it was absolutely impossible.

If the valve for the heating control was jammed, it meant that I should have to take out the heating unit to repair it, again, hmm…

Seemed that there would be a lot of winching in and out of the shop before I could get the Merkabah running again. She did not complain, though, and rested at its new place, waiting for more caresses.

After some days waiting for the release bearing to arrive, finally the little Mercedes shop delivered and I got the part. It was of a chinese brand, but there was no other way except for the official dealer to import it directly at a price you would think it was carved from a natural diamond. I asked for two pieces, just in case…

Took me a few efforts, but after I cleaned and greased it all the best I could, the new release bearing was in place.

I secured the bell housing and tried to connect the clutch servo, but the pushing rod would not get in the servo no matter what I tried. Bo. I searched the manual and some youtube tutorials but did not find the answer. So, as usual, I left it apart and moved on to something else, for the moment.

After a while, I removed the front panelling cowl to work on the heating and I realized that the linkage arm for the windshield wiper had the plastic cap broken and the crank knob was missing, just as I left them some time ago “for the moment”.

Well, apparently “this” was the moment, and fortunately nothing else broke when I checked the wiper a couple of days before.

Without thinking it twice, I made two steps towards Spare II with the 13 mm wrench on the right hand and removed the cowl as well. As expected, the good linkage was waiting for me. It was covered with a bright blue paint, but that was not an issue. The crank was also removed and would be swapped along with the linkage as soon as the cleaning process was completed.

[pairospam]

And so, some time later, the two pieces were ready for painting in their way for a new home.

While the paint dried up, I removed the hoses from the heating unit and unpleasantly discovered that they were very dirty inside. There had to be a lot of dirt also inside the cooling circuit, and that was not great news.

I went along and removed the heating unit, something I really did not expect doing anymore, but I thought it was better now than at some other time, in between the snow in far away mountains, with freezing temperatures menacing to kill us. It hurt, though.

Then, I removed the control valve. It was completely jammed, so I left it soaking in WD40, just in case it decided to revive on its own as it was pretty annoying to disassemble it to check the mechanism.

Pity watched the heating unit as she was thinking of changing it for its reinforced rubber toy, which would not be very good as she bites anything with the force of a saltwater crocodile.

Worried, I left the unit there just the right time to get the hose to wash the radiator out and, surprisingly, it had not too much dirt inside, at least less than I would have thought, which was good.

[pairospam]

The next day, I replaced the old crank and the broken linkage of the wiper with the reconditioned parts and, finally, I could say that the washer-wiper system was finished. Or was it? Then, I remembered that I still had not installed the reservoir for the mighty powerwasher. Ops.

Then, I drained the whole cooling circuit and collected a lot of pretty dark coolant with some dirt in it.

I grabbed the air hose and put 150 psi into the circuit until there was no even vapor of coolant in it. Unfortunately, I forgot to plug the other extreme pipe and I caused a little mess that took me a little while to clean up.

I would leave the circuit empty until the day I would crank the engine again. I would fill it up then and let the motor run for a few hours and then replace the whole liquid for a fresh and clean charge.

Well, a couple of days later the valve was still stuck and I decided to disassemble it. Seemed that I had done it before, but clearly it did not work.

Once open, it was apparent that the dirt in the coolant circuit did not cooperate to smoothen the mechanism, but even after I cleaned and made sure that everything was fit, it was hard to make the thing work properly. The rubber component of the pretty simple system was not in its best moment or shape. The valve was dead.

It just happened to be that another heater radiator, from one of the donors of the project, was around from the beginning of times, which valve was functioning very nicely. Unfortunately it was a sealed unit and it was different from the one to be replaced.

I disassembled it anyway, just to explore if there was any possible way to adapt or modify it, but there was no viable way. So, let the quest for finding the replacement begin.

Well, not everything was that bad, as I profited the removal of the heating unit to install a rubber ring to protect the wiring harness that goes into the central console via a new and tight opening through the metal sheet. I had forgotten to put it when making the job and from time to time the fear of having problems with vibrations and damage to the wires resurfaced in my memory and my guts. Now it was done, and my guts were in peace.

By the way, if anyone here can give me a hand, the heater control valve has the code MB A 000 830 1384. I found an OEM replacement at a shop in Turkey, but I am not sure it is exactly the same part by the picture.

Greetings from Chile.

[Willi Jung]

Hello Pairo,
found one in Denmark in this webshop: mbspecialist.com
But they have no foto.
Happy to see you again here.
Greetings
Willi

[pairospam]

Thank you for your help, Willie.

I already asked for pictures and a quote from them and from a couple of shops in Denmark and in Turkey.

We will see.

Cheers.

[lura]

Hi Pairoa, in germany new heating systems in buildings will be flushed by the heater installer to remove rust and dirt. The material for that is also often used to clean the cooling water system of old engines. After that the cooling system is clean an works like a new one.
For example
https://www.elector-wasserbehandlung.de ... niger.html

Regards Bernd

[pairospam]

Hello again:

Things are getting interesting all over the world, eh? Good.

Thanks for your tip on the cleaning products, lura. I have been discouraged to use them, though, as it seems they can, in the process, clog the radiator with the dirt and rust removed. Maybe I will give it a chance later on.

Well, my little efforts to finish this project before I am too old to go up the cabin by myself go on, no matter what.

A few weeks ago the reknown summer heat of San Felipe stroke again, and we had very high temperatures that made the delights for the plants, and half the bougainvilleas blossomed incredibly quickly. The other half is waiting something else, do not know what.

Carmen and I went to Santiago for some patriotic reasons, as to say, and we cooked ourselves on Heidi. It was like riding against a gigantic hair dryer, and the heat from the exhaust almost burnt our legs, the big fairing making very unlikely to dissipate the heat by the turbulence.

Anyway, it was good to ride with her again… with Carmen, I mean.

I received a nice e-mail from the shop in Slangerup, Denmark, telling that they did not have any longer the heat valve in stock. The other shops in Turkey did not even bother in answering. Bad.

To make it worse, the main rubber seal of the original valve broke when manipulating it. It was pretty soft and fragile.

I remembered having worked on another valve, somewhere in time, and it had to be there, in some lost and dark corner of the shop or in the container.

After a couple of days I finally found it amidst a couple of tons of dust and an army of surprised spiders. In effect, It had been disassembled before, though the rubber pieces were all there. Ufortunatelly the rubber was hardened by the time and the heat and who knows what other processes and it was unlikely that they would be of any use.

That’s exactly why I decided to make a try, anyway, and see if it could work. I replaced the gummy seal with the rocky one and, naturally it leaked even at atmospheric pressure.

The heat valve was officialy dead with no hope of resurrection.

Took me a while, some 15 minutes, and I decided to put another valve, an electric driven one, somewhere between the engine and the heater. So, I began searching for an ad hoc valve, 12V o 24 V, that could fit in the heating circuit. Guess what… not plenty of options.

I finally came to the heating valve that is used in the Mercedes Sprinter models made in Brazil that, may have had, after some minor modifications, some chance.

I asked my brother in law, who has a lot of experience on the Sprinters, and he absolutely recommended me not to dare to fit the bloody things in the Merkabah. They are so bad that the guys prefer to put a common ball-valve and shut the heating for the entire summer and open the circuit at the beginning of the cold season, by hand.

I had heard of that before, of course, but I wanted not to be so drastic. Eduardo’s comment ended the discussion.

During the search for the old valve, a lot of old stuff came to the light and got my attention while I was in pause mode thinking about the valve issue. One of them was the air duct of the door of one of the donor trucks. It was in pretty bad shape, but I thought that it could be the right moment to do something about it.

I had nothing like the rigid plastic of which the duct was made, unless I broke some other part, but some pieces of the plastic with which Eduardo’s pond was made could work. I took one of the soldering irons and made some tests and it seemed to work pretty well.

Made a black plastic mess, inhaled a ton of toxic plastic fumes, and then I carved the right shape with the Dremel tool and some sand paper. Finally, it went good…good enough for the time and the mood.

When I tried to see how it fitted, I realized it was far longer than the original duct of the Merkabah, so I trimmed what was unnecessary and gave it a paint hand. I could have used the same plastic to do the repair, but I did not know. The variations between the models of these trucks, even when referring to these little things, are almost infinite.

The next day I installed the duct in the proper spot and it made me happy to see the door complete. Well… a little more complete, as the sealing rails of the windows are still lacking.

[pairospam]

That afternoon I left Piston, the newly arrived dog -yes… another one-, locked inadvertently inside the shop. At some moment, when we were dining, we heard some noises from the terrace above. It was him that got up captain Nemo’s stairs and walked his way through the container to the terrace of second floor.

Naturally, he first tried to scape through the main gates, and tore apart the polystyrene lining of the doors. It was a mess, but it was my fault, of course. I just laughed and cleaned it all up. At least he did not eat any of the bikes.

Talking about the bikes, the old and faithful Africa Twin looked pretty sad since quite long. I did not get it at first, but it was the front turning lights that were past beyond warranty that gave the bike a depressing allure. When revisiting the old and dusty boxes in the container, I found the spares. Did they come with the bike when I bought her, many years ago, or did I ordered them later on? I do not remember.

Anyway, I took the fairing out to replace the broken ones with the used-but-in-better-shape ones, and the veteran lady regained a little of her dignity.

The one who was not happy for real was the Merkabah, whose dignity was assaulted after a particularly windy afternoon when her cover, weakened by continuous exposure to the Putaendo’s sun, broke dramatically.

And the Putaendo’s sun, on its part, worked a lot to push the growth of the peaches, that this year were left in large numbers, and the trees delivered. The same wind that torn apart the Merkabah’s cover, blew out a lot of peaches to the ground. Not a big deal, though. And there was a lot of water also, keeping the irrigation pond always full and fresh.

Well, as I decided to follow the advice of my brother-in-law, and of many others also, I removed the inner pieces of the heater control valve and filled the central orifice of the broken rubber seal with urethane. Then, I put the metal cover back in place and added a little more of urethane to seal the tiny central hole for good. At that moment it seemed to me pretty simple, and waterproof, of course. A little paint and it all was okay.

[pairospam]

Next, I put the heating unit back in place in the cabin, connected the hoses and tightened the brackets and… voilà! ready to fly. Sure.

The next day, talking to Eduardo, I mentioned the closing of the valve and he brang up the issue of the pressure on the cooling system. I did not think of it when sealing the valve, just thought about the water-tightness of it but nothing else. Bad thinking, of course. If the pressure went up a little, the patch would probably hold, but soon it would leak, and I would have the cabin full of steam in the middle of the tundra. Stupid.

So… I removed the heating unit, once again, and got a piece of sheet metal from the ancient heater of the hot tub to make an extra seal for the valve.

I used the old discarded valve cap to create a template and, with a little patience, I cut and shaped a nice sealing chapeau for the valve. It went pretty good, according to my own expectations and, after some little paint and care, the whole thing went back in place in the cabin.

After making some order in the electric circuits, the windshield water pump came to life. It was a very powerful pump for powerwashing the headlamps taken from the Nissan Terrano. Unfortunately, I could not find any water tank that fitted the few spaces left in the motor tunnel or behind the front grille. I tried the original one taken from the donor truck of the snorkel but it did not fit neither.

It then came the idea of making one of my own. It had to be not very large nor too little. Grabbed a piece of sanitary tubing and presented it. Could work, don’t you think?

To give it a little more stability I flattened a portion of its surface and worked out the best possible way to attach it to the cabin. I searched everywhere in the PVC stuff and came along with the pieces I needed, but I could not find for many days the right fitting to take the water out of the container.