Mercedes 2626 AK 6x6

[pairospam]

The result was pretty good and the efforts were worth of it. I did not mind to clean the paint gun this time and with a smile, after a brief photo shooting, I went back home to lunch with Carmen. She was surprised to see me, arriving before 5 PM on a saturday. Good.

Monday afternoon I showed up on the shop with clear ideas on my mind. I put the dirty overall on and cleaned the whole working place, took off many kilograms of dust, dirt and fluff. I recovered also some grams of metallic grit and cleared the space around the axles to paint them.

When inspected, the long forgotten pieces of steel had been overcome by rust in a few places where the wasprimer layer was very narrow or inadvertently inexistent. Remember that the former idea was to wasprime and then directly paint with the finition paint. After some metallic brushing the fine rust was cleaned and it was no more an issue. I prepared the primer and sprayed methodicaly both axles until there was no more patience and the risk of dripping rose dangerously. I profited also to inspect and to retouch the frame where there was not enough primer.

I was also satisfied with the result, but I had a bad time cleaning the paint gun, again. Hmm…

[Slarti]

Hi there Pario,

did I see this right, you painted over the "Abschmiernippel" on the power train cardan joint?
(grease nipple - Abschmiernippel)
Greasing is perhaps something to consider when painting the final touches and marking the grease nipples in some contrast color...also the ball blocking the hole on the nipple should be free of paint before applying grease...

Cheers, Hans

[pairospam]

Hallo, Hans:

You are right, all the "Abschmiernippel" were painted, this time. I am going to replace them all so I left them in situ. That way I did not need to plug the hole to avoid the paint from coming in.

Thanks for the advice.


Pairoa

[Joe]

Hi Hans,

when I spotted the pics with the painted greasing nipples I had exactly the same idea as you. But then I thought: After all that work Pairoa for sure will replace them rather then polishing and re-anodizing the old ones ( ..... although, if this would have brought a little bit better look than new ones, who knows!!!! )

[Slarti]

But then I thought: After all that work Pairoa for sure will replace them rather then polishing and re-anodizing the old ones

Naja, soweit würde er doch nicht gehen, oder?
Da Schmiernippel eigentlich recht fettig sind, sind die ja meist noch gut.

Wollte aber auch meine Idee loswerden, die beim endgültigen Anstrich gleich farbig zu "markieren"

Pario - you get your dictionary out and try understanding. If it fails, I'll provide with a translation

Grüße, Hajo
(Cheers, Hans)

edit: aus irgendeinem Grund wurde das Zitat Pario zugeschrieben...jetzt ist richtig.

[pairospam]

Hallo:

@ Hans: I've got the idea, never mind.

@ Joe: always good to "hear" from you, though I am still not that crazy... yet.

Cheers.

Pairoa

[pairospam]

I forgot to mention, last time, that it was my birthday. I do not like very much the celebration thing so I convinced Carmen to take the bike and we rode to the coast. We had a pretty good lunch in a very fine restaurant in Viña del Mar. Carmen paid… of course. Then we followed the coast heading north and stopped at Papudo beach, when everybody was leaving because it was getting colder that afternoon. We came back to San Felipe from there. It was a very good day.

Kurt and Michele arrived on Tuesday. Finca needed to be serviced and there were many details that Eduardo pointed out that needed to be dealt with. I was trying to make some order and cleaning the many pieces and parts that needed priming prior to assemble the axles. The amount of them was quiet notorious and the place to paint scarse, as always. The swiss couple was happy to be there, as were we, while Finca and the Merkabah seemed to have a quiet formal chat, almost as you can feel a hint of jealousy between them.

After reassuring Kurt that his truck would not get affected by the priming I sprayed washprimer as controlled as I could, just in case, after using many meters of masking tape, especially on the brake shoes that, of course, needed a complete new cleaning session. When I thought I was ready I realized that I had forgotten half the pieces in other many boxes.

[pairospam]

That night and many nights that followed Finca and her crew slept in front of our house, for the joy of our neighbours that liked very much to see these big and strange machines parked nearby. As usual, the evenings were long lasting, eating, drinking tea, chating and watching the fantastic pictures of the many travels of Kurt and Michele.

The classical sequence of cleaning, preparing and priming the pieces of the boggie was repeated for many afternoons at the shop after my regular work. Only a few pieces had rusted superficialy after being wrapped in plastic or closed in the boxes after many months, and that is thanks to our quiet dry weather all year round. In any case, the main reason for wrapping and locking them in was to avoid them being covered by dust. The amount of pieces was huge and I primed lot after lot feeling happier and happier every time. I decided to prime also the spring leaves, knowing that the friction between them would make the primer last less than a chicken in a crocodile’s mouth, but life is hard.

Eduardo fixed Finca one item at a time and our swiss friends were every day more satisfied with my brother-in-law’s art and knowledge, asking him to do this and that, and so they stayed longer than originally thought.

[pairospam]

That weekend I worked only in the mornings, priming the pieces left in the oblivion, but in the afternoons we profited to take Kurt and Michele out and went to the mountains near San Felipe, to the countryside and to visit some nice country towns around. Kurt carried his amazing camera and photographed landscapes, his beloved birds and also a lovely snake that crossed our road in the middle of Carmen’s orchard of peaches.

On Monday I was very excited as the reassembling of the boggie was to begin, at last. I took out the masking tape of the borders of the right spring saddle and found a little amount of superficial rust that the hand brush cleaned easily. Unfortunately when I opened one of the boxes of the new retainers, marked as containing two units, there was only one inside. I ordered it in April so there was not much to do about it. I could no contact any seller of the Mercedes dealer so I left it for the next day and I redefined my goal for that afternoon: to assemble just one spring saddle. I had three retainers so I put two of them in with some help from Eduardo (it was nor that easy).

[pairospam]

I found out that the new gasket, that went on the central bearing of the console, was loose because the race was worn as the ancient gasket stuck fiercely to the saddle and followed its circling movements for who knows how long. I was given an alternative to fix the problem but I did not like it as the risk of failure and damaging the bearing was too high. So I asked for help to the Boss and started to walk looking around for some inspiration. After four or five steps I kicked Finca’s used air filter and there was light. I asked Kurt if it was useful or garbage and when he told me it was for disposal I took it and cut a long strip of the thin metal with which its carcass was made. I prepared it carefully with a pair of precision scissors and I used it as a supple between the gasket and the race. The thickness of the metal strip was the precise one and the result was quiet spectacular once I finished to accomodate the pieces. I was so focused that I did not take any pictures. Nobody would ever note the arrengement and for the better I retouched it with primer.

I then put the saddle and the bearing and I used again my home-made socket wrench to tighten the gigantic nut and finally I bolted the cover in. I opened one of the sealed oil pails that were lying under a thick layer of dust on a corner and filled the saddle. A little oil dropped out and soiled the cover. Horror. Then I realized that, not matter how careful I was, I was going to get crazy if I tried to keep the recently painted, beautiful and shiny pieces as clean as they were, free of dust, stains and grease. So I shrugged, once again, and finished the manoeuver. I cleaned everything with polyurethane diluent and forget about it. It was not worth to become hysterical.

I moved the saddle from side to side and when the oil reached all the corners of the bearing the movement became smooth and silent. Good. The goal had been reached.

After leaving I made some measurements, delayed until that moment. As the height of the spring pack would be dramatically reduced I was going to need shorter U-bolt brackets and shorter central spring bolts, and also the spring clamping plates would have to be stretched to fit the new arrangement. Maestro Chaleco would be of help again.

The day after I finally reached a seller and ordered the missing retainer. We would have to wait at least one more day to assemble the left spring saddle. We would see.

The original plan was to put both axles back in the frame and then start to assemble the brakes and the planetary gearing, cleaning and priming the parts as needed, but I sat down a little and thought it better for a second while the cup of tea cooled down. Better to clean and prime all the stuff before starting the assembling. I took then the planetary bell hubs, masked them to keep the dust off from the gears, cleaned them with diluent one more time, and power brushed them until I was satisfied and there were no metallic filaments left in the brush.

Kurt and Michele left us the next day after a very satisfactory test of Finca on a pretty bad road. Eduardo did a very good job and gave them a huge discount, so they were very happy. We were very fortunate to meet and to share some time with them. They are very nice people, and who knows if we will meet again, and where. Only the Boss knows.

We missed Finca that afternoon, used to see her parked in front of our house, and we had a strange feeling, Carmen and I, alone again after having so many visitors in a really short period of time.

The day after the new retainer arrived from Santiago and I finished, or so I thought, the preparation of the bell hubs and also of the caps and I washprimed them along with many nuts and bolts. I did not prime the replaced cap as it was already painted. Unfortunately, I discovered later that I forgot to do the final retouches and there was still some rust left on two of the caps. Ops.

[pairospam]

I ruined the little screwdriver and the fourth or fifth handbrush taking the rust out and washprimed the caps again. No fault. After a few minutes I applied primer paint on all the pieces and the job was done.

As Carmen was not hurried and it was not too late I took the left spring saddle, brushed the rusted edge and put the new retainers in, with no help this time. I was a little worried because the race was in a not so good condition but Eduardo told me that it was not big deal using two new retainers. The gasket to keep dust and mud out of the bearing fitted perfectly on this side so it was a very nice feeling. Thanks again Johannes for the gaskets. Eduardo helped me to put the saddle in and to tighten it. When all the pieces were in place I filled the saddle with new and fragrant oil and the mechanism worked properly. It had been a very productive afternoon after all.

Well, I had to stick to the plan so I took the bloody heavy wheel hubs and, after sweeping them to take the dirt and dust out, unwrapped them to inspect them carefully. I realized that leaving the job for later is not a good thing when the time finally comes up. The retainers were covered by dirty oil and the bearings were still soaking. God, I did not want to wash pieces again, at least for a while!

[HildeEVO]

Hi Pairo,

why do you don't change the bearrings inside the centralaxlehousing? There are polish points on each poit where the rolls touch the outsidering. Now it's not a bigt act to change it. The time will come when the bearrings are damaged and the it will be not comfortable to change ist! There ist also no good posibillity to check the bearrings. Only then, when the bearing gets too much play.

You change so mucht parts, and mak it better than new! So I think it's not a question of the money to make it also new!?!?

That's my credits!

Regards Chris

[pairospam]

Hallo Chris:

You are absolutelly right... almost. The bearings are indeed very expensive here, and even hard to find the two of them, but that is not the matter. Even if the rods are okay the race alone is not for sale so I would have to change the whole bearing. Believe me that I have tried to take the race out of the casing in many ways, but unsuccessfully every time. I was told that to take the race out the saddle must be warmed up and the race cooled down quickly and selectively, or you have to grind the race or weld a piece of tube to it to smash it out.

Frankly I was not in the mood to do any of those potentialy destructing manoeuvers at that time and, finally, the bearings were not that bad.

Now I face the definitive decision as I have noted a minor but actual leaking in both the spring saddles: take them out, fix the leaking and also change the races, profiting of the occasion... or try to fix the leaks and leave the bearings as they are and check them periodically? Your words on the subject might make the difference. There are no coincidences.

Thanks very much for your comment.

Did I ever mention that I really like your truck?

Cheers.


Pairoa

[HildeEVO]

Hi Pairoa,

Did I ever mention that I really like your truck?

Me too!

Ok, so it's not easy to remove the race tht's right! You'r right I think the race must be damaged in the housing. And the bearrings wouldn't be cheap!
But don't forget it.

For me, at your point, I try to warmup the race only partial with a weldingflame. Just 2 cm, when the race is glowing like the sun, you can try to push a screwdrivershaft or something like that, between race and housing then you will crack the race!

Maybe, Wombi can carry new bearrings and sealrings to you when he travel in spring to Southamerica?!?! Please send me your Vehicle Identifaticn Number per mail and I'll look for the price in Germany. There are also several manufacter or deliverer in the free sparepart market not only original Mercedes! So you have a chance to gt the needed part cheaper!

Regards Chris

P.S. My english became hopefully better now!

[Slarti]

Hallo Chris,

P.S. My english became hopefully better now!

Sehr viel besser, wenn ich mal so sagen darf

Gruß, Hajo

P.S.: auch wenn 'became' jetzt nicht meine erste Wahl bezüglich Stil wäre, ist es doch völlig korrekt.

[pairospam]

Hallo Chris:

Sorry for the delay and thank you very much for you help. As I go on with the story you will see that I have decided not to change, until today at least, the bearings.

I already knew that Wombi was coming this year; my all-seeing-eyes know everything. I look forward to meet him.

Don't know how your English was before, but now it is far better than my German, so don't worry and keep writing.


I have been busy working here and there and I posponed the updates waiting for the time to translate properly, and now is the time to continue. Last time I was cursing because I had to clean the oily and heavy wheel hubs.

Late that night, I ripped off the virtual model of the Merkabah, piece by piece, and made a lot of changes to the design based on all the data cumulated until then, one at a time. I like very much the picture of the truck without the Box and I just wanted to show it, sorry. Do you remember that I had narrowed the Box from 250 cm. to 240 cm. because I judged it a little too wide for the narrow secondary roads, old metallic bridges and camping sites entrances? Every change implied a lot of moves and secondary changes to the other components, as you can imagine.

I looked in the internet for a virtual Africa Twin to replace the KTM but I could not find any decent model. I downloaded a similar bike and modified it heavily to make it look similar to the old and faithful Honda, but it was so innacurate that in the end, after one hour of processing, I discarded the idea; the Swedish machine would prevail.

Back in the shop, I took the external retainer of the first wheel hub with not so much difficulty, but the inner one I had to tear apart as it refused to come out with nice manners. The struggle was hard but finally Pairoa won, as usua. All in all, the bearings and the races were in perfect condition, fortunately.

As I went on, taking the retainers out was easier each time but the good feeling just stopped when I discovered that the guy that has changed the retainers or something before me forgot to put the inner cover plate between the bearing and the retainers. I would have to order the replacement and wait for it to arrive before putting the retainers in. Hmm...

[pairospam]

Probably the same guy had also smashed the outside oil collector and it looked pretty bad to me. I had to do some straightening of the edge and I also started with the de-rusting of the wheel hubs and the infamous corners between them and the wheel mounting bolts, a very unpleasant and boring job.

The next day, and after a few hours of work, all the four wheel hubs were free of oil and also hand and power brushed. The result was not perfect concerning the rust, but it was good enough; as someone said, the truck has survived until now with much less care. Absolutely right.

I masked the inner side of the hubs with plastic and washprimed them. I did it because I wanted them not to rust as we had a very rare summer rain and the humidity that rose later was very heavy. I could not apply the primer at that moment for the same reason, and the pieces were left there, waiting for the right temperature and humidity.

At the next working session the conditions for painting were optimal so I finished priming the hubs. When they were ready and could be manipulated I began to put the new retainers in. It was not easy at all and it is not infrequent that they deform or break, even in experienced hands. I helped myself using a piece of the battered maki brakes and the job became easier and safer, even if the external retainers struggled fiercely to stay out of the casing.

The Dakar rally had ended a couple of days before and I take the opportunity to publicly congratulate my friends Ignacio and Francisco Casale for participating (and arriving to the finish line), each one in a different amazingly prepared Tundra, and Francisco’s son, Ignacio, that ended in the second place in the quads category. It is a big accomplishment as the Dakar remains the toughest rally of the world. I also show and congratulate my Friend Mauricio Bordachar for finishing his expedition wohnmobil in record time and for being so smart to even get sponsorship from Michelin. He could not get the tyres from them, though.

[pairospam]

Well, our friend Jago showed up again in his Tatra 6x6 with many pictures and stories to tell. I was on my watch so he went to my work and brang Carmen with him and parked on the supermarket nearby. The customers and the personnel of the supermarket were amazed and everybody took lots of pictures of the truck. Jago was even asked for t-shirts of the Dakar; he just smiled at everydody, already used to drive all that attention. We had a good time, we ate a couple of sandwiches in my office and saw a lot of pictures of the Dakar world while he was telling us about his trip. They left at the time when the supermarket was closing.

The next day the Englishman went to the airport and flew to London in search for his family. They all would be back in six weeks. I drove the Tatra to the country where it would wait for its owner to come back and for, probably, major servicing and for a complete change of tyres as Jago got six new from the official Tatra team of the Dakar. It was not a bargain, though.

The inner cover for the hub bearing was at the shop the next afternoon and so I finally could put the retainers in. It took me more than twice the time to put them in but I did not break any. Good. I wrapped the four hubs with plastic film and put them as orderly and away as possible, trying to get the working space ready to manoeuver with the axles.

I took the brake drums and gave then the tenth look. At some point I had decided to take them to sand blasting elsewhere in order to paint them and not to waist my time doing it, but at the same time I did not want to take them to the same old man and spend that money on them. Eduardo also told me that, not matter the quality of the paint, it would go away as the drums get hot as hell when the brakes work. I knew he was right but I did not want to put the drums back in without painting.

As I could not take a quick decision and I frankly was not on the mood to begin powerbrushing them at that moment I left them right where they were and went for a cup of tea. It burned my tongue, and it was very hot that afternoon, but it was rich.

After the tea I checked the “to do” list, and I realized that I still had not emptied the oil of the third axle. The reason was clear, the cap bolt was worn. More decided at that point I grabbed the welder and welded a big bolt to the cap, and it went out easily. The oil flowed, ugly and black, but with no metallic debris at all. Good.

Master Chaleco came by a couple of days before and took the U-bolt spring brackets to modify them as requested, but unfortunately the markings were misinterpreted and he did a good job, as always, but they were still too long and useless. Ops.

[pairospam]

On the weekend I worked very lightly and decided to paint the planetary bearing hubs and the caps as my only goal for that saturday. I prepared the polyurethane enamel shaking the can vigorously for many minutes as it had stayed in lethargy for almost a year. I had forgotten how much I liked the chosen colour and the spectacular quality of the paint. Good. I liked it so much that I had the idea of painting the whole truck, frame and everything, with the same paint. I checked it out and thought it twice and did not like the similarity with the Chilean army 1017s with desert camouflage, so I went back to the black frame.

I worked, again, with the Sketchup model of the Merkabah and I redesigned the four-mount pivoting system and the base plate of the Box because I wanted to widen the distance between both central rails to stand better the weight of the lateral frontal water tanks and to diminish the lateral torsional forces between the frame of the truck and the Box. Following Peter’s idea of for his Mounty (oh… beautiful truck!), I also designed a subframe in tubular U rails that would go bolted and glued to the base plate of the Box, and the shape of the central pivots would be more like René´s, UNICAT and Action Mobile designs.

The hours in front of the computer were many even if the modifications were not easily noticeable. Everything looked okay, but the weight of the thing increased in many kilograms though.

Sunday was a day dedicated entirely to the house as the garden looked (an actually was) inattended for many weeks. The Merkabah remained waiting, as usual.

When I went to the shop Monday afternoon the idea was to put the axles back in the frame so I started to clean and order the working place. The portable winch was occupied and a little engine hung from the hook (any engine is a little one for me now). The mechanicians, Don Pato and Tito, helped me out and we put the engine on some wooden supports and took the winch by the side of the second axle. I lifted the axle, after so many months, and moved it very carefully with the help of Tito and two of the young apprentices until the bloody heavy piece of steel was right under the frame, supported by two hydraulic jacks. I unhooked it and hung it again between the rails and, once it was leveled and stable, I bolted the link arm and the struts to the central console. The whole move took almost ten minutes. Taking it out took me more than one hour, alone, with some help in the end from master Chaleco.

The oily gloves of the helpers left many stains and marks on the priming paint, and my guts resented it for a second, then I laughed at myself and thanked all the guys for they help, from the heart.

Without waisting a second and sweating thoroughly I hung the third axle from the winch and this time it was Alejandro who helped me to move it between both rails of the the tail of the frame, strategically left without the cross-member. So, the third axle was in situ before the rest of the guys noticed it. I had not the camera at that moment and I used the one from the iPhone to picture the moment, with faint quality of course but… life is hard.

As you can assume, I was very happy with the axles back in place after all that time. Now it was time to work on the suspension. Master Chaleco showed up and also helped to move the steel and, after some new discussions and measurements, he took again the U-bolt brackets and the central spring bolts to adjust them to the right length.

As I had still some time left I took the rear cross-member and all the pieces that went with it at the tail of the chassis and began to bolt them in. Soon I realized that there were many bolts and nuts missing and that I was beginning to get sick of power brushing the old ones. I would probably go and buy new ones next time…yeah.

I left without finishing, but very happy.

The next day just seeing the boggie half way to assembling was enough to make me feel happy again after a not so nice working morking, but the things got bad again when I realized that the right spring saddle was leaking, both from the cap and from the retainers. Bad. I checked the left side and there was also a little oil drop hanging from the cap. Hmm…

[pairospam]

For reasons of mental health I did not give a damn to the issue at that moment and I focused on finishing the assembling of the back cross member that afternoon. I lost count of how many bolts and nuts I had to put and tighten, but there were some missing so I could not finish anyway.

The next day I went out to buy some new bolts and nuts and I power brushed some others, just not to loose the habit. I put some long bolts to accommodate in a near future the aft supports of the Box. The heat was almost unbearable that afternoon but I managed to finish the job, sweating as crazy, just to realize, when done, that I would have to change some of the bolts to put the supports for the shock absorbers and the sway bar. Plop. Though, the frame was taking shape and the efforts done so far were beginning to pay off.

I took the supports cannibalized from the yellow Mercedes sunken in the Aconcagua riverbed and I cleaned them up for modification and painting. I still had to go to rescue the fourth support and other pieces.

Chaleco brang the re-reconditioned U bolts and the central bolts, but as it was late I did not even see them. The next day would be appropriate. One last emotional view with a picture of the Merkabah and the incredibly cleared working place ended the working day.

The cardan shafts wrapped in plastic were since long drifting among the boxes and the pieces grounded, so I took them and cleaned them, again. The shorter shaft that went between the second and third axles was left ready for painting, but the long one that went between the gear box and the second axle had to be taken to the turner to swap the cardan joint with the one from Spare and then balanced dynamically. I would also change the bearing and use the bearing I wrongly bought for the front shaft. At least, that was the plan.

Chaleco brang just one of the U bolts as the other one would be the sample for the blacksmith, a friend of him as old as himself, the last of his kind. As I could not find the right spares he would have to forge the two that were not original and that had a round and not a square cross section.

[pairospam]

I went out to buy the nuts for the central bolts as I could not find the old ones and I came back sweating heavy again as the heat seemed to be worst everyday, honoring the reputation of San Felipe. Just a few strength moves with the spring leaves and the left side spring pack was assembled and ready to be put on. The piece now weighted a ton so Eduardo helped me to put it in place, but I first checked the EPC to ascertain the orientation of the notches of the leaves. I had the doubt when looking at the pictures of the disassembling because on one side the notches were facing inwards and on the other side they were facing outwards. Hmm… The EPC was clear: looking outwards.

Once the spring was in place, not without difficulty, I tried to put the spring clamping plate to see how much it had to be stretched now that the distance between the U bolts had widened. It was more than I expected and the plate was caught by the central bolt. The length of the U bolt was precise, though.

After a brief but affectionate good bye to the Mercedes catalog code number, the power grinder divided the clamping plates by the middle in an ocean of sparks, and so I could properly position them to calculate the exact stretching. I was thinking, trying to decide whether I took out the spring saddle at that moment or waited until the day after, when it came the time to go home. I cleaned it all with solvents and moved the saddle vigorously from side to side hoping that the spill would stop if the retainers settled, not plainly convinced. If I took the spring saddle out I could not make any progress on the suspension because I could neither mount the spring pack nor level the axles to make all the manoeuvers and calculations required.

Next day was Saturday, again, and maestro Chaleco and I gathered at the shop after luch and he gave me some very helpful lessons on welding techniques; he is actually a Master of welding. While he worked on the stretching of the clamping plates I did my best with the frustrating and disgusting task of emptying the oil of the spring saddle and taking it out, struggling against a huge nut and a bearing I supposed I would never see again in my life. At inspection the old and known groove on the race showed up again. Was it the cause of the leaking?

[pairospam]

I grinded the race with #400 grind paper soaked in kerosene and I took out one of the retainers and put back in place a new one, but facing the opposite side this time, hoping that the rim of the retainer and the groove did not coincide that way.

I checked, once more, the race of the exterior bearing that some had councelled to change profiting of the disassembling, and frankly the race was marked at sight, but the marks were undetectable at the fine touch. Each bearing costed € 100, and there were not in stock, so the old bearings would die in situ.

While I worked and cleaned maestro Chaleco spilled sparks continuously, and I wondered why did he take all that time; he had just welded one of the two bloody plates. He then showed me, in a practical and hands-on manner, how that type of welding must properly be done. He stuck the pieces together with brief pricks and made huge grooves at high amperes that melted both donor and primary pieces. Then, at lower amperes and with a firm hand, filled out the groove and shaped the piece with the 70/18 welding electrode. He repeated the maneuver on the other side of the clamping plate, eating a lot of the material that he had just put in. He called it “welding from the heart”. The plates would be undestructible, and I had learned something new. Hurray for Chaleco.

With the same art and patience Chaleco re-shaped the edge of the plates that were worn out by the round U bolts and finally, after four hours of work, both spring clamping plates were ready, hot as hell, waiting for the hand of the sculptor to get their definitive shape.

As I had no more gaskets nor vellumoid I did not put the spring saddle back in place. It stayed on the bench and I made great efforts to clean the priming paint from oil, but it seemed to be a lost battle.

That weekend I also worked on the design of the virtual Merkabah and made more modifications. I radically decided to lower the height of the box and set the interior height at 200 cm, and the total height of the truck, without the tubular defenses, lowered by 10 cm. from the original design. As the interior had been previously reduced by narrowing the Box to 240 cm., I decided to change the design of the shower room by putting an angled wall facing the cooking/dining space. That way the sensation of amplitude would increase, I hoped.

I changed also the door and made it open to the interior of the shower so I could avoid the water coming out of the shower to the interior of the cabin. If the door opens to the outside there is no way to contain the water and this is a pretty inconvenient problem, as I had seen in other trucks. The walls would be made of 20 mm. GRP panels instead of 12 mm. composite.

Another detail I had disregarded was the design of the back locker. I modified the concept and decided that the base of the bed and the inferior bulkhead would be actually structural GRP panels, as the rest of the Box, assembled in a way to reinforce the stability against the torsional forces from the mass and the weight of the spare wheel and the Africa Twin hanging from the back wall.

In the same line of thinking I stretched both rails of the subframe and connected them with tubular reinforcements bolted to the back rack. You never know, better safe than sorry.

[RD71]

Hi Pairoa!

I`m missing some news from your side !!

I hope you`re fine! My own Magirus project crawls slowly....your project is always an inspiration for me!

Many greetings from here,

Ralf

Magirus

[pairospam]

Hello Ralf:

I just took a few days off to clear ideas and to have some rest. I also lost the information in the penndrive with no back up (yes...I know) so I have to re-write the lasts episodes of the story.

Really grateful for your words, keep up with your Magirus.

Cheers.


Pairoa

[pairospam]

Well, I was trying to rebuild my memories as I had lost all the written data from the last post on, including many hours of re-designing the cabin on Sketchup as I showed last time. It is a shame, and always one minute before backing up, but everything happens for a reason. And life is hard, of course.

At the moment I thought of doing some important changes to the design of the Box I had the feeling that it was time to ascertain all the measurements done on the frame of the Merkabah when the old lady sat on the cattle, covered by dust and rust. It was now clean and naked and I wondered if the measures the design of the Box was relying on were exact.

I made all the measurements again trying to be the exact to the millimeter and, of course, there were many mistakes. I sat in front of the laptop and I replaced the old and incorrect frame and replaced it for a right-sized one and realized that many features of the design of the Box had to be corrected, specially the location of the front pivot of the four-point anti twisting system and the length of the Box itself, because there were conflicts with some parts of the gear box and the back of the cabin of the Merkabah. Also, the whole Box had to be moved backwards by 4 centimeters. Nothing dramatic, but pretty boring.

Back at the shop I replaced the outer retainer of the spring saddle and put a new one, in the right position this time. I put the piece back in and put the cover with just a couple of bolts and did not refill it with oil. I did not want to think about leakings at that particular time, I wanted to go on, even if it was only for a little and limited second.

So I took the heavy springs packs and after watching carefuly the drawings on the EPC I put firstly the one of the left side with the aid of Alejandro, uneventfuly. But when we tried to accommodate the right side spring pack there was no physical way of putting it on both the braces. Something was wrong, and it was of course, the EPC. The notches of the spring leaves were facing outwards and they had to be facing inwards.

[pairospam]

As I was a little tired at that point I dropped the spring pack issue and took some of the pieces of the suspension and one of the cardan shafts pieces that were ready to paint and sprayed a little wash primer to avoid them to rust, just to do something easy.

The next day I went to work and profited to visit Victor’s workshop and tried to reassemble the short cardan shaft using the new modified U-joints. The head of the bolt which occluded the useless port for greasing in the middle of the joint was too high and limited the movement of the joint, but I was not keen on disassembling (again) so I used the hand saw to cut it a little, to hell the final look as I waited hopefully not seeing it again. After the tricky manoeuver there were no more obstacles and I could finish to assemble that joint. I cut down the other bolt before assembling the opposite joint, of course. Finally the cardan shaft was ready.

That afternoon, at the shop, I plugged my ears and powergrinded until the spring saddles were acceptably similar to the bad treated original ones. Then I measured once again all the aspects of the frame. I did not want more mistakes because each wrong centimeter represented a lot of time of computer work. Well measured, the frame, starting from the back panel of the cabin, was 7 cm. shorter than iniatialy measured. Ops. The distance between the axles to the center of the bogie was not even, as I previously assumed, and it was not the result of the stretching of the struts.

[pairospam]

I was moving around the frame and I tumbled on a large piece of steel lying in the middle of a lot of boxes and debris and hurt my toe. It was the cardan shaft that was missing. Maybe it was time to make some order all around.

Anyway, I asked Alejandro a little help and together we shifted orientation of the spring packs and they fitted perfectly that time, with the distal notches facing inwards. Why was that… I don’t know, but there was no other way.

I was thinking about missing pieces, kneading my aching toe with my thumb, and looking at the only rubber pad that survived the overweighting of the truck and wandered how to fabricate the three that were lost or ruined, when the guy next door, the paint shop guy, showed up with some pieces of a huge silentblock that were left over in his shop. He wanted to know if they were useful for the truck. As a non-coincidence believer I took it very naturally and accepted the pieces that were offered with a smile for free … and smiled back with a nod. I thanked God, of course.

At that moment Eduardo came from the countryside carrying the long cardan shaft from Spare, the ghost truck, but unfortunately it was smaller than the shaft of the Merkabah. The later needed replacement of the yokes that had suffered a lot from who knows how many assaults but I would have to put the shaft back as it was until I could find the proper replacements.

I then drove my attention back to the silent blocks just arrived, picked the reciprocating saw (I love that thing!) and the powergrinder, and for the next couple of hours the shop was filled with stinky rubber smoke as I cut and grinded the gummy things that became almost perfect replicas of the original Mercedes pads.

[pairospam]

I spent the next hour swipping the bloody rubber sawdust from every surface of the working place and from the powertools, and nodding silently in humble acceptation of the insults I received from all the people in the shop.

And the weekend came, again, and I met Chaleco at the shop early Saturday morning. While he welded the U-brackets with the same technique of “core-welding” I cutted the pieces for the sample of the mounts of the air springs of the auxiliary pneumatic suspension from the pieces of the frame of Spare. I profited and drilled the bottom holes of the new rubber pads and decided to thread them in order to bolt them directly to the bracket.

Maestro Chaleco finished and left for me the final retouches of the U brackets. We left both at once and headed home for an unusual early lunch.

Monday afternoon the double convoluted air spring arrived from Santiago and it seemed to be okay in all aspects: robust, simple, with the right height range. But the tag stuck on top raised an unexpected doubt as it said “lifting spring”, and I had ordered and paid for a “suspension spring”. Hmm...

[pairospam]

Hello. I keep going.

To make the story short, no one at the store could answer me, from a technical point of view, if there was a formal indication of not using that spring as a suspension device on a truck. I measured everything again, taking the ranges of movement of the bogie to the extreme, and that specific type of spring was the perfect one for the job, as I had calculated before ordering it, but I was not convinced at all. What if those bellies did not withstand the vibrations, or the forces? I then asked for another model, non convoluted, as advised by the seller, and I would make a decision having both at sight.

As I could not go farther with the air suspension I finished grinding the last two U-brackets recently modified by Chaleco and left them shining and ready for painting as the rest of the brackets and spring saddles. They all went into a box waiting for their time to be used.

That day, finally, the Montero entered the shop for servicing, something that he was waiting since a couple of months, but Eduardo was very busy with lots of other vehicles to service and repair first. Fortunately it was the right time as many components and pieces were at their last minute before braking apart. Soon it became clear that a major servicing was necessary, and it was almost time for our scheduled holydays. Hmm…

I had to go to Santiago for some reason I do not remember right now, but I made a visit to the Casales. Francisco has still one Mercedes 4x4 tractor left and he plans to stretch it and build another wohnmobil with it and we discussed about the possibility of ordering together the GRP panels for building the Boxes from a major panel builder in Europe. Both brothers had already built a 1017 based camper some years ago, but it lacks power and space. Some argentinien friend had parked his Pajero, prepared and ran once in the Dakar rally, and he was trying to sell it. It was not bad, very well fitted. Oh…temptations!

I also profited and visited my father at work. At the hangar, the tall wire-cutters of the choppers gave me the idea of putting some similar device on top of the cabin of the Merkabah.

[pairospam]

The idea lasted only a few moments as it would surely look too scary and menacing, though useful.

Back at the shop I found the poor old Montero stripped. The clutch and many other major components needed urgent replacement and servicing, even if the car did not let you know that they were in bad condition and at the very last second of their life. The engine itself was okay, fortunately.

A couple of days later the new model of air spring arrived, but its performance was pretty different and it was so rigid that it deformed unevenly when pressed. Ugly and definitely not what I needed. I made contact with a major supplier of air suspension systems in Santiago and he assured me that the former air spring model was okay. I had no choice so I sent it back and ordered the rest of the convoluted springs.

As you can see from the picture of the pieces cut from the frame of Spare, it had been stretched before, and the quality of the welding was less than optimal. Even more, there were lots of notches and drill holes to fill, so I took the welding gear and began to repair each piece.

At home, I designed and rendered the mountings of the air springs on Sketchup. Everything seemed to be perfect.

That Saturday I went early to the shop and found out that some idiot had blocked the entrance, but the brand new TGS was so beautiful that I could only stare at it and take some pictures of its suspension and other interesting stuff. Once inside I said goodbye for the last time to the code number of the bracket of the axle and the metallic digits disappeared in a cloud of sparks.