Mercedes 2626 AK 6x6

[Slarti]

Hi there Pairoa,

I'm enjoying this thread immensely - as I believe many others in Germany do - as in Winter most have less time in the cold with the trucks and more in the warm in front of the computer, seeing someone is doing a great task on a big truck

I'm really curious weather the engine is running smoothly - all the best of luck for that and keep us posted on this !

Cheers, Hans

[pairospam]

Hans: I really hope that the people who read these words enjoy them as I enjoy writing them; that is the whole point. Thank you very much.

What comes next is a little long, so be patient.

The last time we left the engine hanging from the big winch, and after a few manoeuvers and a lot of pulling chains we managed to put it at its very place while Carmen recorded the whole process, harsh words included.
The engine was finally where it belonged, and I felt pretty well for that. The fit was perfect and the old machine looked extraordinary to my eyes.
Unfortunately the rest of the truck still had its ancient and rusty look, and the engine did nothing but to enhance its oldness. Nevertheless, soon it would come its time of renaissance too.
I invited Carmen to dinner out that evening and I took a bet from Eduardo: if the engine started the next day at the first attempt I would pay a barbecue for everybody. The true thing was that I would have happily paid half a dozen barbecues if the engine started even at the fiftieth attempt, but I did not tell so.
More relaxed, the next day I dedicated the working time to check and re-check everything. I washed all the hoses with Würth soap, picked and cleaned the best brackets, secured every connection and filled the engine with oil. I bolted the exhaust tubes to the exhaust manifolds even if Eduardo wanted to make the engine run with free exhausts. The electric connections were made at the very basic level and the rest of the wires were left hanging around. I went out and filled a plastic jerrycan with diesel for I did not want to use the fuel stored in the main tank of the Merkabah, probably contaminated with water, algae, sharks and who knows what other filthier elements. The last thing I did was to put the recently charged batteries on the tray and menaced Eduardo with painful reprisals if he ever dared to make the engine run when I was not there.
When I arrived to the shop the day after Eduardo told me that there had been a little incident: he hit the left horn on the cabin when taking out a truck from the shop. The support broke and the horn fell down, dead. I laughed a little and thought that it was a minor thing. I wanted to take it out anyway.
I took the old air filter element, unbelievably full of dust, got a new one from a near store and installed it with ease. I grabbed the hose and filled the cooling system with fresh water.
We connected the batteries and had some trouble with the worn terminals. It is all different with 24 volts; the current is pretty strong! Eduardo burned himself when a wrench made inadvertently a shortcut.
While I was half in the cabin through the window, pretty much uncomfortable pressing the start button in short rounds, Eduardo purged the injection system. When everything was ready and the piping was tightened I made the trully first attempt to start the engine, and it started easily at once. Oh, God it sounded great! Carmen and everybody around were very excited, and they all reminded me of the barbecue.
After a few seconds Eduardo stopped the engine and we checked everything. It seemed that there were some leaks of pressure from the injectors and a little water came out from somewhere.
We made the engine start for the second time, easily again, and identified the injectors that leaked pressure. The engine felt pretty strong and the sound was the best part, with only a little amount of smoke, judged normal for the size and temperature of the engine.
We discretely celebrated and I had to leave for I had to work that evening. You cannot think about the actual size of the smile on my face when I left the shop.
When I got back to the shop I dressed up and rushed to take the injectors out to find out what the nature of the leaks was. It was only dirt, hard dirt deposited at the very bottom of the hole in the cylinderhead where the injectors went. I had to clean four of them very carefully not to let the dirt go down to the cylinder chamber through the hole for the injector tip. I used a long screwdriver with a bit of grease on the extreme to do the job and I replaced the copper ruffs with new ones.
Of course I checked everytime if the leaks were Okay, and everytime the engine started at the first attempt. Ah... good!

[pairospam]

At home that weekend I spent some time editing the video material and it all ended in a short clip that I planned to upload to Youtube. I asked for some opinions on the subject and they all agreed that it was a good idea.
I uploaded it and even if I am pretty sure that the guys from Coldplay did not mind, the people from EMI Records did not agree and the video was banned except in the Vatican City, Gana and Burundi.
I took the sound track off and made a second try. The clip came a little boring but the web did not spit it nor it was banned again, so here comes the link.
You may think of my feelings when I hear the sound of the V8.

[Slarti]

Hi there Pairoa,

Congratulations

I sort of pressed my thumbs for this to happen and yes, I can imagine the big smile on your face that day.

Cheers, Hans

[MB2031]

I hate this Video ................................this is toooooooo perfect

I'm very much impressed by your work , and the energy you put into your project.

Congratulations,Sylvie and I hope that our way's will cross one day, we already thought that we had a lot of work with our SK , but your work is really unic.


We wish you a lot of luck and energy for the future , because I think there is still a "little" work to do


Very kind regards

Sylvie and Werner

[pairospam]

Sylvie, Werner, Hans:

Thanks for your words and yes, I will need a lot more of courage, energy and luck because this is only the first part of the jourey... and there will be so many.

I am pretty sure that we will meet, some way, in a near future; who knows when or where.

More to come later.

Cheers.

Pairoa

[Joe]

Hi,

cool sound - even without music!!

[pairospam]

I am back. Many things have happened to me these days, as it seems to be usual, and that is the cause of the delay in the updates. I will tell later.

Well, as you may have seen on the video once the leaks were all sealed the sound of the engine was great. I left it at iddle for half an hour; the initial water leak stopped spontaneously and I identified an oil leak from the hydraulic pump that was fixed by tightening a loose bolt. I checked and filled the almost empty reservoir of the hydraulic system with ATF. The amount of exhaust smoke also diminished notably when the engine warmed up. All in all, it seemed that all the faith was rewarded.

The next afternoon I noted on arrival a little oil spot on the ground under the engine and I checked out immediately for problems. The oil came from the untightened cap of the carter and it was easily fixed with a french wrench. But I also noted something really odd; I forgot to put the cap of the oil filter element and it was only covered by masking tape. Ops.

I checked the oil and put in three more liters until it reached the desired level. Eduardo told me that it was normal to see the level drop that way at first. I put the missing cap in place and started again the engine, always at the first attempt and pretty smoothly. What a feeling! The only leak remaining went from the water pipe that came from the upper reservoir, and I would have to empty the system to take it out to check and fix.

I left the engine at iddle for two hours and re-checked the oil level and inspected every milimeter of the engine with a little but very powerful flaslight looking for anything suspicious, but I found nothing. When I was sure that I had checked everything I asked eduardo to do a second inspection; he laughed at me and looked superficially the engine and the ground underneath. Okay,- he said -, Good job. And he resumed his work.

The next Monday I decided to finish with all the peripherals of the engine before starting with the driving gear as scheduled, so I took the servoclutch and started to disassemble it. It looked like I would need a new one, but when I figured out the price I decided to make all in my hands to make it live and work properly again.

I took some time to clean the servoclutch and inspect it carefully. It would need a new rubber bellow and actually that was the worst part because the rest of the components was in good shape or could easily be fixed.

While I was dealing with the servoclutch I made the engine run for long periods, as much as the people at the shop allowed me because of the exhaust gases. At some moment the pipe that runs from the high reservoir to the water pump began to leak. I emptied the refrigeration circuit and took off the pipe to inspect it. The steel was corroded and there was an ugly hole in its side. I made a try with the MIG welder and it ended pretty good to my feelings, knowing that probably it would only be a transient fixing.

I put back in the pipe and filled the circuit with water and antifreezing (that is faith!) and started the engine again. After half an hour of smooth running there was no leak at all so I forgot about the issue. Naïve me.

One of the things that I was most interested in was to take off the diesel tank, bumped and mashed until the unspeakable by rocks, trunks and who knows what else. The truck look was pretty much affected by the state of the tank and that is why it has to leave as soon as possible.

I had calculated that there were still fifty liters of diesel left in the tank so I took the aspiration and return pipes along with the floater and prepared to recover the fuel.

Well, the thing is that the diesel was clean and pure and not contaminated as I initialy thought, and I collected two jerrycans full with 22 liters of fuel. Despite the preparations almost four liters ended on the ground during the pretty dificult and wet process. Calculations were pretty close, though.

[pairospam]

Once empty, the tank was easily removed after a short but successful fight against the usual rusty bolts. Comparing it with the 520 liter tank it was really easy to move.

The tank supports were finally exposed and they had kind of a pre-support of different depth that helped to correct the inward angle formed by the main beams of the frame. I had noted it before and wanted to keep them for the big tank.

They were lightly welded but the power grinder had to work a lot to separate the pieces. Of course I made sure that the dimensions were the same for the big tank supports before begginning to work – actually, I almost forgot to check.

When I finished grinding I began to unbolt the supports to take them off the frame when a little sound called my attention; it was the typical Blop! of a water leak. I checked and found out that the welding of the pipe of the water circuit was not one of my best jobs, and there was an ugly track of rust on the side of the frame.

I sighed and resumed the removal of the supports, unable and unwilling to make any attempt to fix the pipe at that moment. Suddenly, the dripping sound became more intense and a brief stream of water fell down from the engine leaving a big wet spot on the ground. I climbed to inspect the engine and saw that there was another water pipe that needed repair and that there was a lake of water and antifreezing beneath the injection pump. Horror. Just seeing the amount of stuff that had to be removed to take the broken pipe out made me sick and almost cut off the desires of continuing with the work that afternoon.

I stepped down and went to the office and drank a big glass of fresh water - it was too hot for a tea cup.

When I came back I grabbed the tools and finished with the tank supports and started to take out the hydraulic pump. What a heavy piece of ss..teel! I took out the pneumatic cylinder actuator too and the time came, again, to go home.

I left the pieces lying on the ground and swept all the dirt thinking on all the work that came to fix and to make the engine run again. Everything around the pump was covered with grease and oil so I could leave only after half an hour of cleaning with tons of soap.

The next afternoon I took the Honda and rode to Santiago. I wanted to go on with the new pneumatic systems for the Merkabah for the central inflation of the tires and for the auxiliary suspension.

I was looking for an adress and suddenly I found an enormous truck wreckyard. It was a pretty well known and also pretty feared place. I was early so I decided to take a look, just in case. I asked and they had a NG class Mercedes that they were turning into pieces (they had lots, actually). I was much interested in the front parabolic springs.

The thing is that I could not put two shock absorbers and the pneumatic suspension bellow as planned initially because there would be a conflict between the bellow and the braking system. I wanted to put parabollic springs as a way to smoothen the suspension a little more, leave just one shock absorber in front of the axle and install the bellow in the place of the shock absorber, behind the axle.

I thought that this would be an semi-ideal arrangement but it all fell down when I asked how much they charged me for the springs: almost the same I payed for the whole Spare. That is a well earned reputation!

I continued with the tour without asking for any other price and found an NG cabin that lacked precisely the left plastic deflector that I was looking for, and the deflectors of the truck just seen were for sale along with the entire cabin. No luck that time for the poor Pairoa.

I had a second of doubt when I found a sad broken-down mixer; what would the Merkabah look like with the later version of the cabin? After a closer look at the interior of the cabin the doubt vanished very fast: it was completely worn. Anyway, it seems that there were only aesthetical external changes, the plastics and the angled window frames between both types of cabin. Who cares!... but....

I got on the bike again with my honor intact, I think, and resumed the research of the adress mounted on the pedals because the sun had unbearably warmed up the seat.

I looked for a place where there were all kinds of pneumatic valves of pretty good quality.

[pairospam]

I am back, once again.

The last week I said that I went to Santiago to look for pneumatic valves for the Merkabah.

To make the story short I will just say that Patricio, the young and pretty skilled nerd-looking engineer of the firm, dedicated two hours of his time in his office/laboratory and became very interested and enthusiastic with the project. I was pretty much impressed with his knowledge on the products and together we made up a complete system to control the inflation pressure of the tires from the cabin following my specific requests. Many times he tried to change things but it all ended up as I had designed it, simple and reliable.

Yes, I know that there are many systems to control the pressure of the tires, but the ones available in Chile do not allow to actually manage the pressure, they only keep the pressure at a given level (I found that out recently). There is french system that I like pretty much, Syegon, very nice, very simple but very, very expensive. I needed my own system, unfortunately, with the less amount of electronics involved and easy to repair.

I left the new and shining building at the very last hour, happy for the time spent with Patricio and for the shadow I left the bike under. The price for the system recently built up would be e-mailed later.

Back at the workshop I inspected all the valves that were still bolted to the frame. There were lots of them, even one that I had missed and that was occult under the bogie and that lacked of tecalans or pipes of any kind. What was it for? I grabbed the tools and I took all the valves out of the frame along with all the tecalan remaining. The only tecalans left were those of the maxis, and barely them.

The idea was to take it all out, clean and paint, reorganize, mount valves and tanks and only then put in the air circuits orderly distributed. Good plan, I just wished to know where to put everything and to know what was every thing for.

After a couple of afternoons of work the frame was as bald as it could be, and only the wretched electric bundle ruined the look a little. It would need a time in the ICU too, but not at that moment.

Another aspect of the overhauling of the Merkabah that I was very interested in was to take the poor-looking pieces of the pseudo-stretching work of the tail of the frame off, for good. I found them intolerable but the need to make the engine run made me leave the issue in a second or third level of importance. As there was at that time no major hurry I kindly squared and marked the frame as needed, then I plugged the power grinder and without any anger I sparkled a lot and consumed two grinding disks until the edges were ready to meet in a near future the pieces of the frame from Spare for the serious stretching.

I completed the job and took off all the broken and cut bolts that used to stick the chute’s frame to the tail of the truck and power grinded all the welding detritus left over. Only a couple of bolts per side of the crossmember ensured that the side rails would not deform prior to the stretching.

That same afternoon finally arrived the package from Germany containing the silentblocks for the stabiliser of the cabin, the last pieces to complete the issue of the suspension fot the cabin. I want to thank, again and publicly, this german friend that has supported the project and helped me with the manuals and whose name remains willingly anonymous.

[pairospam]

Hello again:

As I have said many times before, life can be hard.

I was working on the Merkabah the other day, as usual, and when it came the time to leave I realized that the Terrano had been stolen right in front of the workshop. Ops.

You know I love old stuff, and I love the Terrano. When I bought her I spent four months making the diesel engine swap and upgrading her to the top of the line of accesories and stuff, and she accompanied me the last five years for almost 250.000 kilometers across Chile and Argentina.

Curiously I took it pretty calmly and those around me felt much worse and sorry and sad and angry and frustrated than myself. I rather thought about how much time this could take me out of my time available to work on the truck. Pretty odd, but true.

The police found her on a solitary street a few days later, stripped but luckily the remainings were almost intact.

Now I have her parked at home and I am planning to resurrect her, again. The thing is that it will take me some time to put her back on the street, time borrowed from the Merkabah, and that is my only concern.

I am deeply faithful, and I am sure that things happen for a very good reason but, is this normal, doctor?

More about the truck later.

Pairoa

[pairospam]

Hallo:

Well, it seems that nobody was pretty much impressed by what happened to my 4x4. Maybe the people who read these words are getting used to know about all the weird things that continuously happen around this project. Please, if I get boring let me know.

Eduardo approached when I asked him a little help to deal with the PTO cardan couple with which I had been stuck for a while. He came and pulled the cardan and it came out complete, without any trouble. That’s why who knows, really knows.

The PTO bearing was a complete mess and the rollers were loose and some fell down to the floor. Just another fact that witnessed the bad treatment received by the truck through its working years. The aspect of the oil of the gearbox was not the best neither. The next afternoon I took off the rest of the pieces of the PTO and only the four studs remained; with careful use of the vice-grips (and lots of strenght) they came off too.

We then asked for a cap to seal definitely the PTO to a pretty skilled welder and friend, maestro (master) Chaleco, and he promised to finish it the next afternoon. Sure!.

The space cleared by taking off the PTO, the cylinder and the cardan was perfect to put the primary air tank. The thing began to get more and more interesting.

As I still was not in the mood to take the leaking water pipes out of the engine I kept looking anywhere else, and I realized that the battery tray was in situ, with the useless batteries waiting for better times to power up the engine. I unleashed my wills of disassembling things and after a while, after many broken bolts and many liters of sweat the tray was on the ground and the side rail was completely exposed after 33 years. Good.

I made a pause to get a cup of Coke, that particular time, sighed and decided to stop avoiding messing with the engine again and that it was the time to fix the water pipes for good. I needed to make the engine run and to hear it again.

I emptied the cooling system recovering the mix of water and antifreezing, of cour$e, and got loose everything except the injection piping of the engine. After many minutes and after leaving the engine paint full of scratches I finally could take out the pipe that was causing problems: the wall had a very tiny hole. I also took off the pipe that had been already welded with no luck and I asked Alejandro to take both pipes to someone who welded seriously. He came back after only a few moments with the pipes welded with bronze, a lot of bronze.

Eduardo and I discussed about the welding and he counselled me to order new pipes to someone in Santiago who does exclusively that for a living. It was a valid alternative, safer than to depend on the welded pipes and cheaper than the original piping. We agreed and the weekend was over us, again.

On Monday the afternoon began pretty well because we recovered the missing power grinder. Someone had taken it to the country without telling anybody and he forgot it among other tools that were left aside the tractors. I had to buy another one, but at the actual rate of use it would probably have to be replaced pretty soon. Life is hard, you know.

With the power grinder hanging in my hands I could do nothing than to shoot some angry looks at the welding debris that spotted the frame here and there and at the welded “supports” for the valves, reminiscences of the abuses perpetrated against the steel. I put in the safety goggles and the earplugs and did not stop until there was nothing to remind the presence of them on the frame.

[dutcharry]

Hi Pairoa,

Why didn't you get any responses to your previous 'adventures & updates'....? Because I guess many readers are just frozen in front of their PC screens out of sheer respect and amazement; your truck is becoming better than new. So, please don't worry that people became bored, it's really the opposite. I am already looking forward to reading your next episodes: more, more, more!

Kind regards,

Harry

[Lassie]

Dear Pairoa,

honestly - your adventures would be at some points sometimes too much for me. All the restoration work
Now the stolen car

I am deeply impressed by your documentation and all the work you accomplish

Best regards from Shanghai
Juergen

[JRHeld]

Moin,
Really bad what happend to your Terrano
Tough plan to rebuilt it...
Actually I would probably not do something like this,
but however, I would as well never again start with a naked base vehicle...

Nevertheless, I am honestly impressed from what you are presenting here!!!

kind Regards
Jakob

[pairospam]

Well, it has been a while since the last update.

First of all many thanks to Harry, Juergen and Jakob for their support. It is always good to know.

I have been busy working on the project as much as I can and I have dedicated not enough time to the updates, thing that I want to correct now.

Last time I had power grinded all the supports of questionable origin, and the only one that escaped my wrath was the support of the hydraulic pump, thick piece of steel welded in very tricky angles unreachable by the power grinder.

As I was a little tired and removing the bloody support promised to be a very hard task I left the power grinder apart and decided to do something more relaxing. I began to take off the right side shock absorber and to take measures of both shocks from the Merkabah and from Spare that, of course, were different. I needed to know what type of shock absorber with which haul-range was the more appropriate for the desired design of the front suspension.

When I was unbolting the nut of the superior pin of the shock absorber the socket wrench got caught between the support and the support of the cabin. The pin was stuck to the silentblock of the shock absorber and there was no way to take it out. The position was so uncomfortable that I decided to take the mudguard out in order to manoeuvre better.

It looked easy but removing the mudguard was not free from trouble, as usual, and after taking out and braking a lot of oxidized nuts and bolts the truck ended with kind of an odd buggy look. Not bad at all but I am not sure I would like to go out for a ride like that. The socket wrench could not be removed in the end, though.

The next thing I did was to prepare all to begin with the power train. I lifted the bogie to remove the rear axles and at the top of the hauling the tires became very close, so close that if using chains there would surely be a problem. Nevertheless, such situation is unlikely.

Before taking out anything all was measured in different positions in order to calculate and choose the appropriate shock absorbers and air springs that would be installed once everything was back in place, clean and ready to run again.

Getting the bolts of the axle struts loose was a very hard task because they were pretty much stuck, and the manoeuvres to remove the axle from under the frame were not easy neither. I helped myself with the portable winch and I needed not help to do it. Despite two power-washing episodes the amount of dirt hidden in the corners of the frame was pretty considerable and the rust, though superficial, promised to give a hard time.

I had to ask for help at the last moment because the large moves to put the axle in place among the frame and the parts sparse all around were pretty difficult for just one person. When I finished to make some order and clean the place it was pretty late, but it was much gratifying the feeling of starting, at last, a new stage of the project.

At the next working afternoon, once the axle was put on its ad hoc-made supports and the wheels were taken off, I proceeded to the careful inspection and disassembling of its components.

[pairospam]

Hi to everyone:

I go on, still, with the Merkabah and its difficult birth.

The braces for the leaf springs clearly had been repaired before, maybe more than once, but the right side one was in an extremely poor condition and had to be repaired, again, before even thinking of using it.

Enthusiastically I put my hands on the brake drums and started with the right side one. I came out without trouble (once I got loose the brake regulator, ops) but when I tried o remove the cube there was no way to take it out; it seemed to be blocked by some kind of obstacle. Tito and Eduardo came to help and when we turned the cube we realized that there was little dent. That was it. Another problem for maestro Chaleco to solve.

The good news was that the drum was O.K.

Without any complain I switched to the left side and took out the other brake drum. It was in very good shape too and the brake shoes were O.K., as if in some miraculous and recent charity event they had been replaced.

The axle lanes were all good as well as the bearings, and the planetariums also were O.K. I took out the palier with no problem and it seemed to be also healthy. Pretty much better than expected.

I wrapped the lanes with many rounds of plastic film to protect the axle from the dust and the dirt and went for the components of the braking mechanism. They all looked as they had been at war for the amount of dirt, grease and rust that were part of them.

[pairospam]

It took me a while to disassemble the most part of the pieces of the left side and started to clean them up. The dirt piled up even around the smallest part, the retainers were a mess, not to mention the state of the o-rings.

I decided then (or I simply got bored?) not to go deeper into the cleaning and limited the work, that menaced to be endless, to a rough clearing of rats. Once the axle was clean I would go finishing and assembling the smallest pieces.

I wrapped the big parts in paper to avoid them to be overwhelmed by dirt though it would be necessary to clean them meticulously and change all the retainers, and went home.

When I prepared the working place for the truck I felt that it would be enough space to move around freely, but it was enough to put the axle and a couple of pieces on the ground and you had to be careful and watch your step to avoid stumbling.

While I was at work maestro Chaleco came to the shop with all his gear and got to fix the dent on the cube with the help of Tito. He made up an extractor and welded a bolt to the cube. He then warmed up the cube while Tito turned a nut around the bolt. The manoeuvre proved to be easy and successful and the dent was gone allowing the cube to be removed at last.

Maestro Chaleco wanted a lot to go in the internet so here he is, at work portrayed by Carmen. Good job, Chaleco!

The gear showed some superficial scars but nothing really serious. The axle, in general, was in very good condition and it could still work for many hundred thousands of kilometres.

[pairospam]

The scorched cube did not seem to have suffered but anyway it would be better to check and surely change the o-rings.

The right sided components of the brake system were in similar condition than the opposite sided ones, even if the amount of grease seemed little less. To deal with the powder of the brake shoes that surely contained some asbestos I covered myself with mask, goggles and a big plain cap. The clients of the workshop looked at me briefly, grimaced, and then went on ignoring me, as usual.

Slowly and piece by piece the axle was getting naked and the pieces were piled up and began to fill the corners. I was concerned about forgetting what went where so I took pictures of everything from every possible angle, as usual. The next step was the maxi brakes.

The next afternoon the pipes ordered from Santiago finally arrived. I prepared and painted them and then I fought against the rest of the pipes and pieces of the upper part of the engine to put the smaller pipe in place. It was a hard work, all because I wanted to remove the fewer amount of pieces to do it. After some time and sweat the pipe was in place and the paint of the engine showed scratches everywhere but I did not care too much, there would be time enough to paint again once I was sure not to disassemble anything else.

I put the big pipe in place too and secured it all. I assembled a little table with my pretty useful scaffolds and put the batteries on it. I then refilled the refrigerating circuit with the mix of water and antifreezing recovered previously and started the engine.

The renewed V8 roared and got RPM at the first try, as usual; Ahh… sweet sound!

I left the engine at idle until practically everybody at the workshop got asphyxia, but the problem that presented had nothing to do with the air but with the water: it seemed that it got too hot and the pressure too high. I stopped the engine and the propeller seemed to spin much more than expected. Maybe the viscoelastic joint of the propeller was defective and that was the reason for the rise of the temperature of the water.

We decided to make a test and I removed the fan to check its working status. Eduardo insisted also to check the air permeability of the radiator and so we did: no problem.

With the heat gun I slowly warmed up the heat sensitive mechanism of the propeller and checked that the warmer it became the harder was to spin its axle. It worked properly.

Eduardo checked out for other potential trouble points and found nothing wrong. The pressure caps were old so I went out to buy new ones and at arrival I put everything back in place. When all was secured I started the engine again (Ahh…!) and there were no more leaks or raisings of the water temperature for a long period of time. Good.

[pairospam]

With the overcoming of the water circuit problem I was allowed to continue with the issue of the third axle restoration. I fought more than a little to unbolt the maxibrakes. Once they were out I tried to disassemble them to check their status that, after thirty years, of course was not the best. You could see that from previous pictures.

The membrane and the rubber terminals needed urgent replacement and also the aluminium and the steel needed some cleaning and painting work.

In order to disassemble the aft part that contained the spring that pushes the brakes when parked or out of air pressure I had to make a base where to bolt the can because it was necessary to apply a lot of torque. One of the releasing bolts gave up and I could go half the way to expose the inner o-ring. The other bolt was so stuck after so many months that it broke. Bad.

I asked for the repair kit everywhere, including the official Wabco dealer, and they could not even find the code for the maxibrakes of the Merkabah. Worse.

I then asked for new maxibrakes and there were no original ones, only alternatives of many different origins and makes. I called “Plan B” store and the seller offered some american make maxibrakes that “seemed” to be the right ones. I would have to go to Santiago with the sample to compare them physically and from the technical point of view…and I would have to find out if I really wanted to swap maxis to another make, something hard to accept for a sick one like me.

I was a little bored with the maxis with which I spent long hours without making any noise, so I took the power drill and the power grinder and started to brush the axle though I had not completely disassembled it. A cloud of dust, rust and old paint raised and then landed on the ready-to-deliver cars of the shop. Ops. Pairoa got no congratulations for the cleaning manoeuvre, of course, but the axle began to show its face hidden under the dust of the centuries.

The next working afternoon was entirely occupied for the servicing of the Africa Twin that at those times was my only motorized transportation mean, after the impasse suffered by the Terrano.

I had forgotten to say that maestro Chaleco finally took to the shop the cover to seal the PTO. The fit was excellent, of course.

I had tried at some moment to remove the rubber limiting pads of the axle with no success because they where practically submerged in rust, and the bolts and nuts were so rusted that it was pretty much difficult to take them out. Well, I finally applied a little torque, a little strength, and a little power grinder and I could take out the right sided pad at first.

I had to take the pads out anyway to avoid them to burn when repairing the braces for the springs. I spent a lot of time removing the right pad and then removing the rust from the support with hammer and chisel. Pretty annoying but necessary task, as I said.

I continued with the cleaning of the axle and when I was brushing the inferior right strut I found out that it was hit and dented in a way that you could not even change the silentblock. The strut was dead. Horror again.

I stopped the cleaning and removed the strut to better examine it. After taking it out it was evident that I needed to finish disassembling the axle if I wanted to do a good cleaning job, so I took out the left strut too. Both of them were curved and the reason for that was a mystery to me. The only thing for sure is that they were once straight and they needed to recover its shape before reassembling.

Profiting of a trip to Santiago for other reasons I went to see if I could find some interesting pieces in the truck junkyard of San Bernardo.

[pairospam]

Hello again:

I am very frustrated because I can not understand the so many interesting and helpful threads of the page, and the translation tools suck.

Sorry for that moment of letting go. I continue with the Merkabah.

From the poor Mercedes mixer only a few remainings were left over, and unfortunately the struts were completely different from those of the Merkabah. With the aid of one of the workers I could remove the support for the little vertical-looking mirror of the co-pilot side, the only piece left that had some value for me, and it was not easy to remove at all.

The woman that ruled the place, apparently unhappy for the price I paid for the pieces of the truck in my last visit, asked me an incredibly high amount for the little support so I thanked the worker and left the piece for the woman to use it as she wanted in her most intimate moments.

When I was leaving the place with empty but dirty hands I hardly saw at the other side of the highway a tiny sign of another junkyard. Thanks to the manoeuvrability of the motorcycle I made a quiet skilled but dubiously legal move and reached the place that was a ten times bigger junkyard with hundreds of trucks in different states of decomposition.

I made a little tour and found two Mercedes NG with no interesting pieces for the project. I asked then for struts to one of the heavy dirt-covered workers and he accompanied me to a place where there were dozens of struts of different size and color. Ops.

I asked the Chief a little help and at the first attempt I found a Mercedes strut that seemed to be the right one. I left it apart and searched for another one that could also be the one I needed. Of course I was not prepared to do such research, dressed in white shirt and clear pants, so I ended as dirty as the worker that guided me.

I asked the price and, as always, my buttocks almost fell down when the owner told me how much he wanted for the strut. After the regular half an hour of crawling and snorting I got a reasonable price, emphasizing that it “seemed” to be the right strut for my truck but I was not sure of that, quiet a significant point.

The owner, who wanted at all costs to sell me the strut, ordered it to be wrapped in an empty flour bag and so I could accommodate it over the boxes of the Africa Twin. He promised me to change the strut if it was not the right one so: Don’t you worry! The last famous words…

I tried to get rid of most of the dirt and emptied the pack of wet towels without much success. Then I headed for Melipilla, a city some 60 kilometres away from where I was, to celebrate my father’s birthday and made the rest of the trip with the famous strut on the hindquarters.

Back at the shop the next day the first thing I did was to compare the new with the ruined strut and, of course, they were not the same. I missed for only 15 milimetres. The guessing was very close, though, but the strut was from another model of Mercedes. God, there were so many!

A little disheartened, I called the Mercedes official distributor asking for the strut and the seller asked for forgiveness before telling me the price, as I should have to sell the truck to pay for the original piece. No bloody way. Another job, then, for maestro Chaleco. He should have the skills and magic to modify the strut. I wanted also to use the silentblocks that were in very good shape.

The price I paid for the used strut was minimal in comparison with the price of the new one. With that in mind as a poor consolation but consolation at last I resumed the job of taking out the left side rubber pad that required a lot of work, but in the end Pairoa won and the pad came out of its rusty prison. I left the removal of the rust from the support for another time because it was already late.

I was a little tired of borrowing the socket wrench from the shop so I decided finally to remove my own socket wrench stuck on the shock absorber support many days before. To do so I had to remove the coil spring and the shock absorber of the cabin. I did not that before because I wanted not to disassemble too many things at that moment, nor to occupy too much place, and because I had been lazy. All right… I just said it! The wrench came out after a brief struggle.

The pieces removed needed some cleaning, as everything, but they would remain lying there until I reached the assembling phase. I hoped that the pilled up parts would not begin to devour me before that.

At careful inspection before the removal of the superior axle strut, the silentblocks looked pretty much healthy and not as worn out as the ones of the middle axle. So, they would need not replacement. Good for the timing, good for the budget.

Once the strut was removed I could power brush better the tricky angles and corners of the axle and I did not stop until the metal brushes were completely consumed.

[pairospam]

The result was very encouraging but the rust and the dust seemed to have no limit, and there were lots of spots that could not be reached by any instrument, at least not as effectively as I pretended. I used the very powerful grease remover to clean the most difficult of them but the already exposed metal rusted dramatically with the rinsing water. Ops.

I power grinded the metal that protruded like lips from the braces of the leaf springs, and with hammer and chisel I took off every possible piece of rust from the pad supports. Pretty dirty and slow job.

The cardanic joint was especially hard to clean for most of the bolts could not be removed because it was pretty difficult to block the axle shaft to reach the necessary torque. I would have to do it anyway later, I know, but I had asked maestro Chaleco to repair the braces for the leaf springs and he was about to come so I stopped working on the axle and covered it with cardboard as completely as I could to avoid the damage from the sparks. It ended looking like an ugly elephant, but functional.

I forgot to mention that the people from the air valves company called me back and gave the price they would charge me for the system made up, and it was more than twice I expected. I asked them why and I was told that the valves were so sophisticated that they had to import them from Japan and so the price. I replied that I needed not such a sophisticated array if I planned to go deeply into the Amazonia and to re-think about with the best of the valves available in stock.

The autumn arrived and I had still not taken my vacations and, honestly, I was tired and bored, so I took two weeks to rest and to unplug myself from the usual work and to dedicate myself full time to the project. This time I could not make any trip because the Terrano was wrecked and I needed to make some savings for her rebuilding without affecting the budget of the Merkabah.

The venerable old welder came the next monday and cut a piece of one inch thick steel to replace the material consumed by the overweighted truck through the last years. Then he put it in the right sided brace after preparing the receiver site carefully. It looked very good.

[pairospam]

While Chaleco was occupied with the braces I experimented with the power drill and the metallic brushes to see if the flat pieces were too hard to clean with that method or I would have to sand blast them. The result was not too bad but I needed more brushes of different sizes, which I went out to find and buy. I wanted to give a pretty good finition to every corner of the axles and to every surface for the paint to adhere firmly. I had an unhappy experience with the steel rims at the only sand blasting place in San Felipe and I was reluctant to take the pieces there again.

I flattened out the steel and the pieces ended pretty well; one of them would need some welding to repair a couple of holes but that would be easier to accomplish with the MIG welder. Good.

Chaleco finished to grind the brace and the welding was cool, but I was not quiet happy with the look of it so I asked him to let me do the final retouches, as politely as possible. He, of course, did not mind at all for he knows I am a maniac.

Eduardo and I had a little talk and he convinced me that I needed to work on both rear axles at the same time if I wanted to make real progresses and to make all the inspections, disassembling and repairs at the same time. I was a little concerned about the space left to work but of course he was right. So I took all the pieces that were sparse all over the place, wrapped them properly and pilled them up in orderly fashion. Well, more or less…

The next day I took the winch and after taking out the oily and heavy cardan shaft I hung the #2 axle and made some not very easy manoeuvres to take it out from under the frame. When the bulky piece of steel was finally out I made some attempts to leave it on the brand new jack stands, but they were too unstable to trust them so I ended putting the axle on the trestles. As I had planned to work on one axle at a time I made no more ad hoc jack stands. The final arrangement proved to be very stable but maestro Chaleco suggested welding some extra pieces to improve the strength of the horizontal beams of the trestles. The working space reduced dramatically but I could move around without too much difficulty.

When inspected carefully the axle seemed to be dirtier than the #3 axle, if that was ever possible, and of course both braces were a mess and needed urgent repairing; the rubber pads were in pretty bad shape and were not recoverable.

[pairospam]

There was a leak from the frontal shaft, probably from a defective retainer. Hmm…bad news.

I decided to clean the axle from the thick layer of grease and dirt first, without going too deep, and then to take out the struts and the maxis. It was not as easy as it sounds because the dirt was very tough and the bolts and nuts were heavily stuck. I had to sweep the floor a couple of times to go on.

The rear shaft retainer also leaked so I had not choice: I would have to remove the shaft and change both retainers, at least that. I hoped that it would be not as difficult as it seemed. You can see from behind how dirty and oily was everything on the left side that was still not superficially cleaned up.

I did not waist too much time removing the rubber pads and simply used the screwdrivers and applied a little strength, more than a little actually, and they were out. Of course it took me a lot of time to chisel the rust out from the supports.

While I was hammering the #2 axle Chaleco finished with the right brace of the #3 axle. After leaving the supports for the pads with only microscopic amounts of rust I grabbed the power grinder and polished both the recently repaired braces, but still I was not happy with the look because there were still some little defects that I would prefer to fix before painting. Chaleco nodded and we agreed to do it the day after.

When I finished putting everything back in order it was already late, my hair was covered by dust and rust and I was exhausted. Working the whole day among the steel was quiet hard but the progress was more than three times as usual, by far, and the frame became more and more naked.

Next morning I arrived pretty early and changed clothes quickly to attack the axle before maestro Chaleco arrived. I removed the right drum brake and the cube and everything seemed to be okay, but I could not remove the big gear because the bearing was stuck and there was nobody at that moment to give me a hand. The welder arrived and I had to cover the axle before the sparkles began to fall.

The old man cut another piece of steel and started to weld it to the brace, adjusting it perfectly to the proper height.

[pairospam]

Carmen announced that there were some packages for the Merkabah that had just arrived so I went to the office to check it out. I had ordered the parts for the axles as far as they were needed until that moment, including two o-rings and two retainers for each side of the three axles. I had been told that the cubes were the same, and I hoped that to be true; my subscription to the EPC had finished at that moment and I could not remember the password nor the security codes of my international credit card to renew it. Yes…I know.

Some time passed as I was trying to enjoy a terribly hot cup of tea, but Chaleco did not stop welding out there, enlightening briefly but continuously the whole workshop, so I sort of got urged and went out to continue working.

Do you remember the leaf springs, those massive arrays of steel, hard as rocks? Well, the idea was to diminish the number of leaves as the maximum payload they were supposed to carry in the future would be five tonnes instead of twenty six, or more probably. They had to be disassembled for cleaning and painting purposes and I also had to disassemble the bushings of the bogie because they were leaking from the retainer on the right side and from the gasket on the left side.

When moving by hand the leaf spring the movement was blocked clock and counter clockwise by something hard; it was the bolts of the frame. The U brackets were so close to the rail that they actually hit them. Was the massive bushing distorted? Could it be possible?

I had to use a very long lever to loose the nuts of U brackets and no matter how much strength I applied one of them did not come out. Chaleco approached and told that it was necessary to apply a little heat and there would be “no problema!”. With the torch he heated up the nut until it got incandescent and then I slowly applied cold water with a piece of cloth, and it came out with a minimal effort. Great job, Chaleco!

But after removing the brackets there was a big clang! as the forward half of the main leaf fell to the floor; it was broken, and who knows from when. Bad but not terrible; just another problem to address later.

I took out the superior leaves and left momentarily as many of them as I thought it would be the right thickness for the Merkabah. I said “thought” because I had not done the maths yet. Remember that there will be the air springs and that one of the main purposes of the leaf springs would be to keep the lateral stability of the axle. Of course the leaf springs would contribute to handle the weight of the whole truck but for no reason they would remain as they were originally, no sir, no way. My back and my kidneys would not agree at all.

Another little movement and the center bolt of the spring came out, broken as well.

When all the leaves of the spring were removed the dirt and the rust of the centuries showed up. There was a central corner that was full of dirt and when I tried to clean it up I found out an actual cast of rust of the place. I spent a lot of time digging in and chiselling out the rust from the hard-to-reach corner, cursing Mercedes Benz for leaving such a dead end place to collect water and mud.

[pairospam]

Well, I then continued chiselling the stony dirt that filled the grooves of the yoke. At that point the amount of dirt under the truck reached many kilograms, and I am not joking.

The damage caused by the swinging U brackets was clearly visible as they worn out one bolt and broke another one in their path.

The left side leaf spring had bigger nuts for the U brackets so I did not even try to unbolt them and asked Chaleco to heat them up before. They came out as easily as expected and so did the spring. The center bolt was also broken and there was also a cast of rust and dry mud in the corner. The telephone of the old man ringed and someone asked him to do another job, pretty much more interesting and lucrative and urgent than repairing the braces of an ancient torn-apart truck, so he asked permission and left until the next day.

I repeated the cleaning operation and I finished late that afternoon, with my hands aching and tingling, but really happy.

Again, I was so tired that I could not get out to run at dawn as usual. Actually I could not get up the whole week to run or exercise before going to the workshop. It seems I am getting older.

The next morning the scheduled task was to check the inner state of the yokes. I assumed that the oil had never been checked before, and I was right. At the removal of the cover some awkward, dark and viscous material came out from the interior of the yoke, revealing also that the level of the fluid had been lesser than recommended for an undetermined number of years and that the superior roller bearings were superficially rusted.

There was a huge nut securing the bearing to the bushing and of course I had no such a large socket at hand so I took a piece of beam that was originally for the project of the Blazer 6x6, and that had been partially used by Chaleco as donor for one of the braces, and draw an hexagon on the surface. Then I cut the steel with the power grinder and reinforced the beam with some welding. The new tool came out pretty good and precise to the millimetre. The problem was that the nut loosed clockwise and I found it out after trying to do exactly the opposite. Ops.

[pairospam]

Anyway, the nut came out and with the aid of Tito and Eduardo I took out the yoke and the bearing and luckily there seemed to be no big damage to both the inner and the external bearing nor to the races, only a lot of ancient filthy oil and rust stain as Chaleco pointed out. Cleaning would be the key and changing the retainer would be mandatory on the right side.

What about the left side? Was it necessary to disassemble the whole thing even if the leaking came from the external gasket? Of course! I was already there and, besides, I wanted to use the “new socket” again.

I removed then the left side cover and the oil that came out was slightly better looking than the one on the right. I removed the yoke with some help and the situation was pretty much the same: there was no damage to the moving components and only cleaning would be necessary.

When I finished my homework Chaleco had finished his own and all the four braces were repaired. He had made a pretty good job as usual and he grinded the metal with great attention as in a sort of veiled competition with me, I presume. Before leaving he took out the steel pieces that were welded to the rails of the frame lo limit the upward movement of the #2 axle. They were very ugly and I wanted to straighten the rails before putting in something more ad hoc.

I then took again the power grinder and polished the four braces, both faces, and the rails of the frame until I thought it was enough - and until everybody at the shop asked me to stop the bloody noise and the sparks.

The repaired braces shone under the flashlight while I was covered with metal and paint powder.

During the weekend I did not even thought about the truck and stayed in bed until midday. The next Monday the first thing I did was to finish the disassembling of the #2 axle and took out the right side bearing and the brake elements. There were no problems at all and everything looked good.

When I started to disassemble the left sided drum brake the difficulties began. The oil spilled filled the drum and everything was imbibed, including the brake shoes. It was very difficult to manage the pieces avoiding getting oiled too. The amount of dirt was huge thanks to the sticky oil and I spent a lot of time cleaning the mess just to identify bolts and nuts to continue disassembling.

The next day I came back to Santiago and visited the dusty junkyard again trying to find another strut, similar to the one I took before or similar to the original strut of the truck. No luck that time either. I searched also a spring leaf to replace the broken main leaf among the hundreds of springs sparse all around the place with a slight intention of order.

[pairospam]

Hi:

Well, these past weeks have been a little frustrating because I have had not much time time to work on the truck but, you know, life is hard sometimes.

Last time I wrote about a trip to Santiago and how I was disappointed not finding the right struts for the bogie among all the dirt and the garbage of the filthiest junkyard of the world. Nevertheless I found a spring leaf that was pretty similar to the leaf I needed but it was one millimetre thinner and so I preferred not to take it. Of course I did not even ask the price because the owner may have thought that it was precisely the golden leaf that he had lost many years ago.

I also made a visit to the known alternative store and got the four maxibrakes to replace the older ones. It actually made no sense to spend any time and energy into their repairing for the costs of new ones was pretty low, even if the quality was not the same as the original. The seller found the proper ones according to the sample but the axle-nut was slightly thicker. Despite that little incovinient I took the three that were in stock and examined a model of air spring that resulted too little for the requirements of the Merkabah so I decided to wait for a bigger one. I later went to their main store to pick up the fourth maxibrake.

I crossed the street, an eight-lanes avenue full of buses, cars, speeding scooters, noise, and smog that was once called “Avenue of the Delights” and got into one of the official Mercedes dealer stores but could not find there the retainers nor the gaskets for the yokes. I bought other little things in the vicinities and got into the borrowed little truck again and headed for the main headquarters of the Mercedes dealer, far, far away from there.

I had to wait at last a couple of hours and drank two liters of capucino from the free coffee machine but finally got the retainers and the gaskets from who the hell knows where and, at last, I was back in San Felipe after making almost 500 kilometers.

I had a brief discussion about the election of the best choice to adapt the braces of the maxis and the job was put in the hands of Chaleco because I had many other things to do. I bought the things required and he started to cut and weld at once.

The plan with the struts consisted in cutting both the old struts saving the straight and good halves and weld them, making one strut from two. The final length would be 15 mm. longer, the same length of the strut found at the junkyard, that would have no importance from any dynamical point of view.

We then made a sort of matrix with the long strut and after cutting the old ones Chaleco welded the pieces aligning them in the matrix and putting a piece of a cardan shaft as inner guide. Ah! Chaleco and his magic hand!

[pairospam]

After Chaleco welded I grinded and sanded and no one will ever say that the strut was ever repaired. Good.

While Chaleco worked I took out the connectors and tees from the old maxibrakes and said good bye to the obsolete cans. I still feel sad for the pieces that get old and had to be replaced and it is hard for me to get rid of them, I do not know why.

After finishing with the struts issue, even if it still was necessary to replace the silentblocks, I focused in the rescue of the bushings of the yokes. I started with the one from the left side and its state was pretty bad, with rust and mud that attacked the metal without pity. The inner dust guard had become a thin and fragile ring of corroded steel and the felt had disappeared long ago. Bad.

After many hours of labour with brushes, chisel, sandpaper and gasoline the thing was more decent but still the corrosion imprinted the race and there was nothing to do about it. I did not want to remove the bearing and change the race. The new retainers would have to do their job pretty well.

At a given moment I felt a little tired and wanted to travel a little; those were my vacations, at last. So Carmen and I got over the bike and I drove south. We made a lot of kilometres and visited parents and friends in two tight days. Even if we were prepared with all the gear there were some moments when we froze, even if there was a radiant sun over our heads as shown in the picture, where we had to stop by the side of the road to admire the colours of the autumn on the vines and to shake the cold off from us and to empty the bladder.

Always looking for opportunities I found a place by the side of the road where there were at least nine NG-class Mercedes half abandoned. Many of them had the left frontal plastic deflector that I wanted but there was nobody around to ask, only a fist of evil-looking guardian dogs. So we continued our tour and arrived to the cloudy seaside where we ate two big dishes of hot seafood each one. We were back at San Felipe almost at midnight.

My vacations were over so I got back to work and got back to the shop that afternoon. I finished cleaning the right bushing which state was as bad as the bushing of the left side. I worked a lot and in the end it was rescued as well.

After that I glanced at the left yoke and decided, finally, to clean it as required. The mass and the weight of the thing were not negligible and at close inspection the inner dust guard was stuck to the yoke instead of keeping at the bushing’s groove and the felt was ruined, of course.

I called the Mercedes distributor and yes, they had the dust guards, but they asked € 150 for each one of them, taxes not included. No way. Unfortunately no other distributor had them in Chile. Any idea of how much these parts cost in Germany, Pirx?

[pairospam]

Hello again:

Some news about the project.

I am waiting for the dust guards of the yokes to arrive from Germany in a near future, at a quarter of the price. Thanks again my friend.

The other surprise non grata was to discover that the inferior aspect of the race of the external bearing, which I did not inspect carefully when taking out the yoke, had the track of the rods slightly imprinted in the steel, a product of the neglect and the persistent overweighting of the truck. I was not in the mood of removing (and replacing) the bearing and the race so I decided to carefully reassemble the bearing changing the position of the rods. Life is hard, but even Pairoa has a limit.

I had a hint and I opened the package that I brought with me from Santiago and I found out that the seller had gave me two different retainers for the yoke, one of them evidently wrong. That is my damn mania of take-and-run after waiting for more than one hour at the shop. Well, if even the airplanes and the guys from Mercedes fall… I can fall from time to time as well. At least I found the orange turn lights for the front mudguards; I was a little worried of not to find them. I was surprised to know that they were made in Romania.

Back to work and a couple of hours later, once I finished of taking out all the hard dirt and the grease from the yoke, I began brushing and cleaning it for painting.

The month of May was pretty poor in time to dedicate to the project and there were no major advances in general.

It took me several hours and many sessions to clean up both yokes, and I still did not know if I was going to change the imprinted races or not. Eitherway, I wanted them not to rust waiting for the decision.

Do you remember the Merkabah, that lovely interdimensional 6x6 ship that was going to take me to the limits of the world and beyond? Well, I had almost forgotten her amongst so many little pieces and cleaning details and the restoration of the axles. Bad thing.

I took again the Sketchup 3D model and worked a little with it, just not to forget the big picture. As told before, I wanted to install a central tire inflation system (CTIS) on the Merkabah and I initially wanted to build my own rotary valves because the ones in the market were expensive and hard to find, those that actually permitted to manage the pressure at will. I quit after spending some time, energy and ink when I realized that I needed to develop complex technologies that I was not called to develop at all on my own.

I found a CTIS model that I really liked because of the low profile respect of the tire and for the experience of the maker in the military industry and in the Dakar rallies.

As I said, only for the fun of it I adapted the design of the rotary valves to the model to see how would it look like. Cool, and almost invisible. There would always be the risk to hit the rotors against a trunk or a rock or against the toll, but life is hard and the system would not allow the pressure to escape from the tire.

I was complaining for the lack of time to work at the shop when my father’s light-duty sandblaster arrived by bus. The device was a quiet simple concept, but the concerns about the right type of sand to blast with and the protection needed to work properly with were not minor.

Anyway, many days passed before I could even step into the workshop and I started to worry about the naked yokes, so I decided to spray them with wash-primer to avoid them to rust. Working the weekend I applied a thinner layer of primer than the one I sprayed over the frame, under the direct recommendation of the maker.