Mercedes 2626 AK 6x6

[pairospam]

When looking at the surface of the polished sleeves before putting in the pistons some light marks were still visible but not sensed by touch, so it was considered acceptable. Some naked-hand applied new and fragrant oil and the sleeves were ready.
I took a picture of the boxes of the connecting rod bearings, as usual, but I did not realize something very important; do you? I figured it out later, sadly.
The first piston installed was a landmark, aided by the ring-installer-coil (something I did not know ever existed). After installation some tightening, torque and turning test of the crankshaft to make sure that everything worked. Oh, extraordinary feeling of smooth crankshaft spinning!
The process continued with every piston of the left side of the block and the working afternoon came to an end, with me full of oil but happy. We covered all and went home for dinner.
Did I mention that some days the universe do not want you to be happy and successful at all? Well, the next day was one of these days.
As it was difficult for me alone to move the block for installing the left right side pistons I asked for some help; I paid not enough attention and unfortunately but unintentionally the sleeve of the cylinder #8 became damaged on its superior margin. Horror. Eduardo checked the damage and considered it negligible but it was necessary some repair. We considered, anyway, to change the sleeve and made some attempts to remove the best sleeves of Spare’s block, unsuccessfully despite efforts and proper instruments. After some grinding work and other opinions we left the little denting as shown on the picture; some liked it, some not, but all coincided that it was of no importance. I still have doubts about it.
With the impasse resolved I went for the last piston and its connecting-rod bearings and could not find the right box, only empty ones. To make the story short, one box was missing and it was clear from the picture a couple of days before: there were only seven boxes and not eight. Bad.
I ordered another one, luckily the only left in stock at our dealer in Santiago. The good Lord seemed to still love me, after all.
As I had some working time remaining I left apart the unfinished block and grabbed and examined the head cylinders, untouched for a lot of time, and remembered why it was like that: we did not have the extractor socket for the injectors. We needed to get one and we had not done it yet. Ah. I took a deep breath, covered everything and went home. Enough for that day.

[pairospam]

The bearings arrived the next afternoon but I did not resume working until three days later and finally installed the last piston. I have got not as many time as wanted to dedicate myselft to this project.
As the engine would be painted, every part had to be cleaned and washed properly and carefully, and as a maniac I could not leave that work to anyone else; I know I am sick, but there is nothing to do about it. I took the oily carter and removed as well the old paint as possible and it became evident the repair patch of an ancient strike. As the carters of the Merkabah and of Spare are not equal (for some reason I do not understand and really do not mind) I decided to leave the patch that looked pretty strong and use the original aluminum piece as it was.
Many days passed and I had not time to work again on the engine but I continued to develop some ideas for the virtual Merkabah. I completed the tandem suspension and put the supports for the rear shock absorbers along with the shock absorbers themselves and the aft sway bar that will be connected to the third axle. As it was evident that the cabin will not hold both spare wheels on top I made some minor adjustments to the spare wheel frame too, for it to accept both spares. I installed also the front sway bar and had to cut the carter protection plate to do it.
I had to take the motorcycle and see where to put it. I played a little putting it on a rack in the front of the truck, as did some other guy on his DAF, leaving still the possibility of putting one spare on the roof rack. Anyway, it was just a stylistic exercise because it is not legal in Chile to put anything beyond the limits of the front bumper. Is it legal in Europe? Stretching the bumper is out of discussion for I do not like the look of it at all and honestly I am not sure if the motorcycle does not impede a correct vision of the road.












http://www.parque4x4.com.ar/recibidos/c ... ng4x4.html

[vikingswen]

Hi,
I see you are making progress with your project. One thing I wanted to point out to you. You are only allowed to post pictures that you have taken with your own camera. It has to do with copy right laws and I believe the laws in Germany. I just saw the picture of the DAF truck and that could be one of those pictures that are not allowed. If it is not your picture you will have to add a link to the internet site where you found the picture.
Have fun with your project. Swen

[pairospam]

Hi, Swen:

The picture of the DAF truck is from a free user argentinien web site. I will look for it and add it .
I believe in laws all around too, and I do have fun working on my truck
Cheers.

Pairoa

[Maggus]

Hi Patioa,



excellent work!


You are my hero!!!


After you are finished, I want to send you my truck, you can do the same work again for me!!!

I will pay in german Beer if this is ok with you!!




Best regards


Markus

[pairospam]

Markus:

The last time I drank german beer was in 1997, in Köln, at my 30th birthday.
Unfortunately I do not remember how it actually tasted. Maybe taking almost one and a half liter of Kölsch could have to do something with that.
Hmm... let me try to finish this thing and we can work out something.
Thanks for the offer, anyway.

Cheers.

Pairoa

[pairospam]

Hi:

I continue with this particular story, just a little more.
Well, we looked for the socket to remove the injectors from the cylinder heads but we could not find any in the neighbors, and when asked the only store we found that sold it in Santiago they charged nearly € 140, a little expensive to my feelings for the frequency of use of such a tool. So, I took a long 22 mm. socket, with Eduardo’s permission of course, and with the power grinder I fabricated my own extractor. The idiot that worked on the engine the last time had neither the socket nor the will to fabricate one of his own so he hammered the nuts and broke a couple and tore another pair of them. To remove the 16 injectors it was necessary a lot of work, even if the new tool performed brilliantly. The injectors all looked pretty bad, but I have learned that sometimes it does not matter how ugly the components might look at first sight, they can still be in good shape. Dirty they were, but remember that the truck came from Talca, many kilometers away, and it did not even consume too much. Hmmm…
All the injectors were cleaned and put in a box ad hoc (not the one on the picture) and sent to a pretty known diesel injection laboratory in a near town, actually the best in its class in Chile, the same that had to repair and calibrate the diesel pump. They had to test and select the ten better injectors, repair and service them. Then they would send all back to us to install them on the truck.
Once the injectors were out I could not escape from the job of cleaning and adjust the valves on/and the cylinders heads. I sighed and with a big forced smile I prepared myself for a task I wondered to be worse than cleaning the pistons.
I was going to use the cylinder heads from the engine of the Merkabah, of course. The valves were dirty but were easily cleaned with light metal brushing.

[pairospam]

I followed instructions, as almost always, and made up a pretty peculiar tool to adjust the valves using an old screwdriver and an old piece of diesel tubing. As I had not bracket at hand and did not want to go out to buy one I applied the famous Chilean wire solution to fix the thing. Eduardo showed and explained to me the basis of the correct technique for adjusting the valves, because it is not a matter of making the valves spin and spin and to let the polish paste do the job, no Sir. It took me quit a bit to clean and adjust the 16 valves at Eduardo’s standard; truly annoying, as I supposed earlier on. On the picture it cannot be appreciated but I had been on the same move for a couple of hours that day, and was beginning to think on quitting. The valves were OK, though, and it was worth the bothering.
But the thing did not end there; every cylinder head had to be cleaned completely and all the dirt, oil, old diesel, carbon and old paint removed from its almost flat surface and from every odd corner and hole, in order to the new paint to adhere properly. I used a combination of power drill and manual steel brushes, curettes, putty knife, screwdrivers and #400 grind paper and, of course, lots of patience. Every cylinder head took me almost one hour to be cleaned as I wanted it to be, and it was all right. When I finished the first row of cylinder heads I felt very happy, but the dark forces were preparing a surprise for me and, as always, at the last moment.
Some days passed and as I could not work on the engine I made some changes and upgrades to the virtual Merkabah. I finally decided to put the complete spare wheel and the motorcycle on the back rack, adding a smaller frame to allow the bike to be put on it. I stretched the pivoting beam and moved it a little to the right. This arrangement could be modified even more to infringe less stress on the rack, but as the design of the motorcycle could not be changed I decided to leave it like this and do not worry until the time arrived. With the new configuration the highness and departure angle of the Merkabah remained at a very good level, so the concerns would be directed on the resistance of the rack and its attaching points to the Box.
As soon as I could I got back to the workshop and began to clean the right row of cylinder heads. When I arrived to the 6th cylinder head I realized that the metal border of the water circuit hole was ugly corroded with an actual risk of leaking because the gasket would not cover the defect. Bad. Unfortunately I discovered the problem one hour after cleaning the cylinder head; totally wasted time. I then checked the last head, the 8th, and it had the same problem. I took the cylinder heads from Spare and selected the best ones. Fortunately two of them were in good condition, enough to be used even if they showed some water damage. Surely the owners of both trucks did not use good products to treat the water.

[pairospam]

After another couple of hours of cleaning work the “new” head cylinders were O.K., but the valves needed to be replaced, teared on their superior tips. I took the four valves already adjusted from the original cylinder heads and I prepared them for re-adjusting to their new location. As this was a far more rude job I replaced the old fashion valve-adjusting-tool and applied a power drill to help me in the initial part; nonetheless, the final adjusting was done by hand, of course.
It was a very long, long afternoon.
Did I mention that the water pump needed to be replaced? Well, when dismantling and taking off the thermostat cap I realized that there were no thermostats at all, and who knows for how long. Anyway, I was surprised also because the water and the temperature had corroded the cap itself and the alluminum border was in bad condition. It was not viable to reassemble the piece like that so I asked if anyone had the new one; the official dealer did have one, but it costed a little less than € 500. I could not believe it, but it was true. When I could catch my breath again I took the piece off from Spare’s engine and to my horror it was even worse. I made a search in many wrecking yards and I could not find the bloody cap. € 500 is a lot of money for a cap, so Eduardo and I took the piece to a very experienced alluminum welder for him to refill the borders and then we would see how to adjust and sculpt the borders to assemble it with the pump.
Waiting for the spares and external works to be done I went back to the cleaning process of other engine pieces. There is a pretty big lot of them! The alluminum ones are the most rewarding, as they shine beautifuly after the cleaning is finished, particularly the carter.

[pairospam]

Hi. Where were we?
After a couple of days the thermostats cap arrived but, to do it better, the welder had grinded the excess of welding; bad move. I fixed the rounded piece as stiff as I could to the working table and I started to gring it using a cylinder head to get a smooth and flat surface. Unfortunately the welder’s power grinder went too deep, and also one of the borders was left too thin to be trusted. I took it again to the welder and asked him to refill the borders again, and not to grind them, please.
I grabbed then both hydraulic pumps to clean them and decide what to do with them. The pump from Spare was the original german one, and the pump from the Merkabah had been replaced by a brazilian-made spare. Both were different internaly, and for none of them there were repair kits available at that moment. So we decided to keep the brazilian, surely the newest, and put it back on the engine.
The oil cooler and the oil cooler cap and oil filter support were cleaned while the pile of the old and discarded pieces slowly grew.
The thermostat cap went back from the welder and it looked as it appears on the picture. Nobody wanted to work on it, as they argued that they could not get it fixed appropriately to their stands to use the grinders. I would have to handle the issue myself.
At some moment I went to Santiago and bought the water pump at the usual shop, according to the old pump that I took with me, of course. Back in San Felipe I was happy because this was one of the few uneventful acquisitions since I started with the project. It was so strange a feeling that I took, suspectful, the new pump made in Brazil and put the flywheel in place; I realized that the design was not the same, even if they looked pretty alike, and it did not allow the flywheel to go through the whole length of the knobs. I sighed and sent the pump back to the store by bus and ordered the original one from Kaufmann, the official dealer. They took some time to find the right pump because the EPC code had changed many times the last thirty years, as known earlier on. A couple of days later a German made pump arrived and all fitted perfectly.
I also ordered both thermostats and they arrived as scheduled but, as nothing seems to be as easy as expected, one of them was the original german made thermostat and the other was the same but of brazilian make. Naturally I had asked for the german made things so it was a little “mistake”, probably caused by the lack of the proper thermostats in stock.
As you have probably realized, I followed no precise order with the reassembling of the engine. Depending on the time, on the mood, on the availability of spares or tools, I took this or that portion and went through the cleaning and assembling process.
That afternoon I wanted to do something different and not even thinking on the head cylinders, for a change. So I took the air pumps from the Merkabah and from Spare to inspect them. The former had been badly repaired at the cylinder head and it looked very ugly, with a pretty strange looking gasket and, of course, lots of dirt. The air pump from Spare was clearly in better shape, but it had also lots of dirt all over it.

[pairospam]

After a light cleaning it was most evident that Spare’s air pump was the best of both pumps. I disassembled them and the one from the Merkabah looked pretty dirty in the interior, with lots of carbon from many hours of use and abuse with no servicing. It was clear why it took so long to fill the air pressure system. The pump from Spare was better, but not too much. I cleaned as much as I could and went to check if the box of the gasket kit for the engine included the gaskets and spares for the pumps; we bought the biggest kit available but there was no listing of the components. Eduardo opened the big box and we could see that it was all there. I had also bought a complete repair kit for the air pump so I had gaskets and basic spare parts enough for both pumps. Good.
I do not remember why but I left the pumps and their pieces and resumed the work on the cylinder heads. I thought that I had cleaned them for good but at a second (or third) sight they looked to me as dirty as they were before. I grabbed the brush and the cleaning tools and spent another couple of hours cleaning them again, specially the injector holes. After that I decided that it was better to paint the lateral faces of the cylinder heads because once assembled they would get hidden by each other and unreachable to the paint. After applying some high temperature spray paint I left the cylinder heads to dry up and got all the valve springs and pieces and washed them; it was pretty annoying and time consuming but necessary.
With the aid of a long-time-ago-self-made-instrument by Eduardo, when he was at the school of mechanics, I began to install the valves on the cylinder heads. Unfortunately I had to go over again a couple of times because I forgot to check the ruffs, to clean and lubricate this or that, to remove all the polishing paste from the valve sittings or to replace the old for the new retainers. It was really not an easy job to fight with the springs and to put on the retainers of the coil caps. It was late and I had assembled completely four head cylinders only and I planned to finish them all, but Eduardo had the brilliant idea for me to replace the bell of his instrument for a bigger one to make the installation of the spring coils easier. Bad idea. I bought it, though, and the old and corroded bolt broke when trying to change the bell, so it was the un-happy ending of the working day and of the working week.

[pairospam]

The rains were about to come so that weekend I went to the cattle with the big spread and covered the cabin with it. I was not sure that the cabin “waterproof” seals I made long before would withstand the water. Putting the spread by myself was a hard thing and I ripped it off at least in two places with the roof hornet, but at the end I thought that it could do the job. You cannot imagine how bad I wanted to take the truck to the workshop, safe from the elements! The frame, without its old clothing of grease and dust, was beginning to rust. I tried but I could not take out the # 24 socket I used to liberate the maxi brakes, stuck on a distorted bolt. I checked the oil spill again and discovered that there were not only one but three cubes leaking, and the tandem axle was also beggining to leak. Hmm…
When I came back to the workshop the next Monday I forgot a little about the head cylinders again and continued with the overhauling of the air pump. I took the cylinder and the cylinder head from Spare and after polishing they looked pretty well. The sleeve was polished in the “old fashion manual way”, but the head plate of the cylinder was not so healthy, though, just as if some little piece of metal was left loose inside the pump when functioning. No worry: I took the best piece, from the Merkabah, and the issue was O.K.

[pairospam]

Hi:

Does anyone know who is the owner of the truck in the picture below? I would like to contact him if possible about the Mercedes.
The photo comes from Joe Bertenbach (under permission) and it has been done a couple of years ago.
Thanks a lot.
Cheers.

Pairoa

[Thomasito]

Hello Pairoa

Wow, that is by far the most ambitious and the most demanding Truck-Camper project, that I have ever seen and I have looked at quite a few.
However, it seems well planned and you appear to know exactly what you got yourself into.
You have really stunned me and I am very impressed how you overcome all the hurdles and difficulties that are put in your way.
Some people fulfil their dreams by writing a check. You may show them what it is really all about.
Both thumbs up and keep up the good work.

Thomas

http://www.derullimog.de

[HildeEVO]

Hi:

Does anyone know who is the owner of the truck in the picture bellow? I would like to contact him if possible about the Mercedes.
The photo comes from Joe Bertenbach (under permission) and it has been done a couple of years ago.
Thanks a lot.
Cheers.

Pairoa

Hi Pairoa,

it's Jan... He lives in the Truck with his wife... but the Truck is a unicate because there is nothing original. My info is: The truck was build from an engeneer who works by Daimler in Rastatt and he build the truck with a prototypechassis. The truck was build as same as the MAN-KAT with screwsprings not with the normal axlesystem. I'll send you the mailadress... Please contact me with the Mailform...

It's absolut brilliant what's your work! Big respekt!!!

Cheers Chris

[pairospam]

Chris:
Thanks for your reply. I cannot deny that I am a little disappointed. For a moment I thought that I was not the only crazy dude using the same base truck for his high-thoughts project.
MAN Kat...hmm... maybe that's why the truck has some kind of different allure. Anyway, I was pretty interested in finding out if the owner had the original workshop and service manuals of the truck.
One of the members of the forum helped me with printed material about the Merkabah (from 1973!), but I still want to find the original owner-manuals.

Thomas:
Thanks for your words. I have watched your web page (not read because of the German) and I must say that your skills and efforts (yours and your wife's) are quiet meritorious, way more than mine.

You talk about hurdles and difficulties? At that point of the story the problems were just about to begin.
More to come later.

Cheers.

Pairoa

[pairospam]

I picked the spare parts from the air pump repair kit and left the spares from the engine gasket kit for eventual need in the future and assembled the larger pieces of the pump. I also cleaned the old but good looking metallic membranes to have more spare pieces at hand; who knows when you are going to need them. The piston was also cleaned and polished carefully by hand. Then I took everything and covered all for subsequent assembly, after painting and assembling the rear cover of the block.
But firstly, I fixed Eduardo’s tool by cutting the tip to expose the broken bolt and then I welded another bolt to remove it. I was ready to finish the job of installing the valves and their springs on the last four cylinder heads, but I could not find the new valve retainers. I remembered taking the bag to a safer place to avoid loosing it in the middle of the working area mess. Once again everybody looked after the little plastic bag all around and through the workshop, but the search was fruitless, and all the glances told me: “How come...!”. And again the final assembly of the head cylinders and their valves was postponed, at least until the ordered new valve retainers arrived.
A little disappointed but strangely beginning to get used to loose things under my own eyes I got back to the other parts of the engine in order to get things ready to close the block. I cleaned the new oil pump from all the annoying storage grease and assembled it to the oil “sucking” pipe. I was always afraid of loosing the bolts and ruffs so I blocked them at their places with some pieces of cloth. I felt oddly brilliant doing that, do not ask why.
Then I took once again the rear cover of the block. Cleaning it had been a hard and long process, accomplished in many different sessions as there was a lot of dirt in the miriad of corners and holes of the design.

[pairospam]

I decided to paint the back cover also before assembling because the big flat rear surface would get hidden by the carter when assembled. I took off the air brake cylinder support, also full of dirt, cleaned it, masked the piece and sprayed it. I did the same thing with the cover and emptied the can of high temperature paint. When I was finishing Alejandro came with the new valve retainers ordered the day before. They were not equal to the others but Eduardo, once more, calmed me down and told me that it did not matter, they were the right ones.
It was late and I had to work that afternoon. I was about to leave when suddenly I felt an odd and strong but characteristic smell. I have to say at this point that I have a damn terribly developed sense of smell. I followed the odor to the source and I found that the piece of cloth that covered the block had some stains different from the oil stains that were there since the assembling of the crankshaft and the pistons. I took off the cover and realized that a cat had pissed over the block, and a couple of little pools of cat urine filled the 4th and the 6th cylinders! I immediately cleaned the urine with dry pieces of cloth and inspected the surface of the cylinders and the pistons; they were a little stained but not corroded so the cat had been there only one or two days before. I cleaned again, made the crankshaft spin, put a lot of oil, cleaned the whole thing until no urine appeared over the oil satured surface of the cylinder. I was so stressed that I forgot to make a picture of the “event”. Eduardo came and examined the situation, calmly as usual, smiled a little (to my despair) and told me to buy some kerosene and fill the cylinders with it and not to worry. I asked Alejandro to buy the kerosene, changed clothes in a hurry and left the workshop for my office. When I came back later Eduardo had filled the cylinders with the kerosene himself, and there it would stand for a while.

[JRHeld]

Hi,
impressive project, planing, pictures, computer pictures, hand scetches...
AloHa
Jakob

[revilo]

AWESOME!!!!!!!!!

you are my hero

[lipa]

mine too!!!

[HildeEVO]

Chris:
Thanks for your reply. I cannot deny that I am a little disappointed. For a moment I thought that I was not the only crazy dude using the same base truck for his high-thoughts project.
MAN Kat...hmm... maybe that's why the truck has some kind of different allure. Anyway, I was pretty interested in finding out if the owner had the original workshop and service manuals of the truck.
One of the members of the forum helped me with printed material about the Merkabah (from 1973!), but I still want to find the original owner-manuals.

Thomas:
Thanks for your words. I have watched your web page (not read because of the German) and I must say that your skills and efforts (yours and your wife's) are quiet meritorious, way more than mine.
You talk about hurdles and difficulties? At that point of the story the problems were just about to begin.
More to come later.

Cheers.

Pairoa

Hi Pairoa,

I'm sorry that I had to disappoint you! I'm shure Jan ist searching also for some info's. It's the same like me. Maybe there still exists Mercedes-Handouts from our trucks but where??? In case of my model SK 1824 from 1994, there are only less informations on paper. The most things are in the onlinesystem. Especially the working-/mechanicsinformations!!!

Cheers Chris

[pairospam]

Hi again:

Wow…thanks a lot for the comments. I can say the same about almost every thread on recovering and building things in this forum. Unfortunately mi German is all gone with the sands of time and it is much frustrating loosing planning, construction and thinking-over details and discussions, fighting against weird translations.

Chris: I found Spare right next to me, and I found the snorkel for the Merkabah more than 1000 kilometers away. “Where” is not the problem. Faith and patience are the key.

Well… lost spare parts, broken tools, many hours of labor, and finally cat piss on the engine. In the last ten years of the workshop never, and I mean never, a cat has ever pissed on an open engine, and there is always a lot of cats and open engines all around. That was a little too much for a week.
I decided to go out for the long weekend to take some fresh air, so Carmen and I went to La Serena, a pretty nice city 350 km. north from San Felipe by the coast. We made a lot of kilometers, went to the mountains near the border and made a long promenade along the beach by the dunes. The gearbox of the Terrano, though, seemed not as happy as I was with the renewal trip and with a bang it obliged me to pull over on our way back; it broke, 240 km. from home in the middle of nowhere. Of course it was all my fault, I should have stopped at the first signs of trouble. The highway crane took us to the nearest almost ghost town and Eduardo came to pick us up with his Pajero. He is used to as often his help is needed to take me out of trouble, sometimes stuck in the snow, sometimes on a steep hillside. Allow me to put some pictures just for the fun of it and for a change.
We could not tow the Terrano due to the lack of a proper towing spear so we left her at the garage of the local restaurant owner, went home and returned the next day with the spear and took her back to the workshop. I worked hard two afternoons to take off the gearbox and, of course, I had to stop any labour on the project of the Merkabah. I love the Nissan, but taking off the gearbox is a very complicated task to perform. One of the bearings broke and the metallic debris went in the middle of the pinions making a lot of damage. The box had suffered two years before from running empty of oil because of a crack on the shelve and it had been extensively repaired, but finally it decided to say “enough!”.
Once the problem with the gearbox of the Terrano was identified and the replacement for the gearbox was finally ordered (it was not recoverable) I could finally conclude the assembly of the cylinder heads and their valves. But that was only after I profited of the grounded time for the Terrano to service the starter, the injection pump, and inspect and fix many other items left in the oblivion long time ago because of the Merkabah.
I took the top cover piece of the back cover of the block and cleaned it and think that I went too far with the polishing labor, at least too much for the limited purposes of the cleaning itself. But, with a power tool in your hands, who can prevent you from going on and on when you want to keep up?
Do you remember the € 500 thermostats cap? Well, as nobody wanted to work on it I did the job myself, initially with the power grinder and a laminated grinder disc.

[pairospam]

I continued then with grind paper fixed to a flat surface, circling around the piece with lots of patience, and when the contact surface was as flat as it could be I used the little Dremel tool to carve both round holes to allow the thermostats to stand through. The surface was far from perfect, with a lot of tiny little pores that however could be filled with a good gasket filler, and I was pretty confident that it would withstand the pressure of the water circuit.
The rains came those days and particularly a heavy one the same afternoon I was polishing the thermostats cap. It was late as usual and, by chance, I realized that the roof of the workshop was leaking, and guess where the water was coming into? Yes! Right into the 4th and the 6th cylinders of the heavy covered engine block of the Merkabah! Unbelievable but true. I made some truly amazing moves to bring the stand winch near the block through the stiff bunch of cars that crowded the workshop and lifted the block to move it to a dry location. At inspection there was water, oil and kerosene and a bit of rust on the surface of the sleeves. Too much. Eduardo helped me and we both took the pistons off from the block that hung from the winch and worked again with the #240 grinding paper on the sleeves. There was no damage but only stain. The pistons were a little dirty and needed minor grinding, the rings needed only some cleaning, but better safe than sorry.
I have talked about hurdles and difficulties, and about dark forces that sometimes want not to see you happy and commited with something you really love to do. Well, you can see that there is a lot of this in this project, and a lot of inattention, as well as there is a lot of the hand of the Good Lord too, who helps you out with an open hand full of confidence, visions, friends and also, when needed, money and resources alike.
Looking back with a critical eye it seems that assembling the crankshaft, the pistons, the camshaft and the block and leaving it all well covered but not sealed had been a very unfortunate choice. Ordinarily I should have prepared all the pieces and assembled the whole thing sequentially and not to stop until the engine was completely or almost completely closed. I was urged by the lack of space to work, delayed by the decision of cleaning the engine as for painting, and I pressed over my brother Eduardo to allow me to do as I wanted even if he did not completely agree. As I am not a mechanician, nor pretend to be one, I assume that I can be forgiven for this mistake, just one of the many mistakes I have already made in the project until now. Fortunately there was no really harm and the engine, the cabin, the gearshift lever tube and every piece of metal and plastic can always be fixed and the money wasted can be earned again, so I took it as another lesson not to be forgotten, as it clearly seemed to be intended.
I was thinking about this with a little bitter when I received an E-mail from Eduardo’s wife, titled: “Guess: what is parked nearby? Let’s see if you like the model!”. The last picture shows what it was, and it proves without doubt that there is something special about signs, and you must be glad and open to them. She had never seen a 4x4 wohnmobile before.

[dachs]

3 weeks without updates ... I'd love to see more reports about your progress, your postings always give me a feeling like "Everything is possible"

[pairospam]

dachs:

I am working, I am working...but my time is scarse and I have no interesting news to post.
Things go slowly for now but I hope to update the thread soon.

Cheers.

Pairoa

P.D.: And you are right: Anything is possible!

[pairospam]

Well, it has been a while since my last post. Many things had happened to me in the meantime, not all of them good but in the end nothing too serious to be worry of.
I still do not understand the new format of the page so excuse me if the pictures come in another format too. I still do not know how to upload them as usual.
O.K. As you know, I spent a few weeks putting the Terrano back to work. I found a used gearbox and put it in with the aid of Eduardo. It went everything straight and we went out to test the vehicle on the mountains near San Felipe (there are quiet a few circuits). The gearbox was smooth and precise, and the 4x4 traction was also O.K., but when everything seemed to be perfect, at last, on the way back to San Felipe after a delicious dinner, another bang! and the front left wheel passed along and ended in a ditch aside the road. The Terrano bended and something metallic hit the pavement soundly. With an odd feeling, calmly thanks to the low speed we were traveling, I pulled over and the Japanese 4x4 stood, hurt. The idiot, incredibly, forgot to tighten the wheel knobs before taking the Terrano from the workshop. Hmm…
Eduardo came like the cavalry to assist, as always does, and inspected the damage. The truck leaned on the lower ball joint and the knob consumed itself against the ground a little, but the disc did not touch it. I recovered the wheel from the hitch, lifted the Terrano with the jack, put back the wheel with a borrowed knob from each other wheel and drove home as if nothing had ever happened.
I told you that the good Lord was everywhere, right? Well, He is always with me, no doubt about it. We could have had a major accident at higher speed, or in a curve, or the loose wheel could have injured or killed someone at a different and more concurred moment or place in the city. Moreover, if we continued by that street we would have been in the middle of an assault to a fuel distributor a couple of blocks away- and assaults are pretty unusual in this city. Surely the things could have been worse, much worse, but things happen for one reason, and that reason is always for the good for you, even if you think initially that is a matter of bad luck.
Fortunately parts and pieces can be replaced and, after changing both ball joints and profiting of changing the brake shoes and both rear brake drums the Terrano got back to life, once more. The only problem unsolved was the left mudguard, damaged when bumped by the wheel itself. At present I still wait for the dealer to find the right original spare (there is quiet a few variants), if not I will have to repair the piece and I do not like the idea. A picture to show the only actual damage suffered by the truck; what is not shown is the damage to the pocket of the owner, nor to his self-esteeme.
Eventually I came back to the workshop and to the pile of parts and pieces sparse everywhere. I decided to prepare and paint as much of them to get them ready to assemble the engine when the time came. I took some of them, like the famous thermostats cover, polished them with the new metallic brushes and collected them into the oil carter to paint them later.
At home I continued with the evolution of the virtual Merkabah, perfectioning every detail I could imagine to minimize the possibilities to find surprises or the need to improvise once the construction of the living box starts in the future. I eliminated the bulky, ugly and illegal front winch, as well as its protecting tubing and replaced it with the classic bending over-bumper for this model. The winch would be mounted under the bumper, trying not to sacrifice the angle of entry.
It was a while since my last visit to the cattle, so a given weekend I went to the country and found a devastating picture of the truck. The rain and the wind had ripped the cover and it looked pretty bad, and sad. I cleaned once again the oil spill from the wheels because it damages them and left, doing and saying nothing else. The only thing I could think of was to have finally the place in the workshop to get the truck there.
Searching through the pile of used collected pieces for the truck on the second floor of the workshop I found both cabin plastic lateral deflectors, bought some time ago from a little man whose name I want not even remember, and unfortunately the left one, the only that would be of some use, was broken. The right side like-new-looking deflector would be replaced by the snorkel. Anyway, following the rough lane that is characteristic to this project, these pieces are quiet difficult to find and I decided to make an attempt to repair, though the plastic of which these things are made of is pretty difficult to repair. There had been a previous attempt and two holes were drilled following the crack, surely to put some pop rivets. I found it quiet reasonable so I drilled another couple of holes to put a longer metal band on the inner face of the deflector. I bought a new and bigger riveter that would be of use too when building the Box, and when I was ready to start, after experimenting with a lot of different glues for plastic objects, I thought it twice and finally repent of the riveted solution, not convinced by heart that it was the right solution. I put the deflector back on the pile and left the thing for the next other day.

[pairospam]

Back in the workshop it was the turn for the revival of the valve covers and the rocker arms. After cleaning them, the same boring thing, I found that many of them were too worn out to be used again and some were more or less apt for recycling. I took the best looking ones from Spare and found that they had been repaired with a power grinder. Eduardo did not like that so I did not like it either. I ordered four of them to replace the worsts and hoped to fix the other ones with a fine hand grinding work.
I continued with the covers and the usual work with kerosene/gasoline mixture, metallic brush, fine sanding and two layers of high temperature paint. That took lots of patience and a few afternoons of work.
I then cleaned and prepared other parts and painted them, including the air pump cylinder.
When I picked the diesel filters I found that both of them were filled with some kind of an oily, sticky and fetid mud. I did not know that both filters were different, one made of fibres and the other of paper, nor that they could be so bloody dirty. Pwaj! The filters even broke when trying to take them out, but finally Pairoa won and the support was impeccable in the end.
This was a very slow and almost boring period of work on the engine, as you can see.
I took from the boxes where the parts and pieces from the engine of Spare were stored any bolt, knob, cap or anything that looked better than the one from the engine of the Merkabah as replacement. At that point of the story the price spent for the old and forgotten truck was many times paid off.

[pairospam]

More of the same. As I said, the pieces that were prepared for painting waited they turn orderly, and the box for Spare’s parts was always at hand. As I am a maniac, each time I picked one piece I inspected it and found that the cleaning was incomplete and spent half an hour to clean it again. More and more time. Notwithstanding, the work proceeded faster than I previously expected.
The rocker arms arrived from Santiago, and after preparing and painting the support for the oil filter/oil-radiator cover I replaced the worst rocker arms with the new ones. But after watching the new spares I realized that most of which were judged re-useable initially were actually better to be replaced too. So, telephone and four more, please. Why did I not change all of them? Because they were very expensive!

[pairospam]

Well, as I never had enough time to dedicate myself to the engine of the Merkabah at the workshop I went on with the virtual one in the computer.
Following an idea I saw in a truck prepared for the Dakar rally I thought to use the towing spear as the rear bumper, bolted to a pivoting dual arm. In off-road mode obviously the bumper would have to go up, probably obstructing the rear lamps a little, but when you go off-road you also go off-protocol a little so I do not think that it could be a serious inconvenient. When driving on-road the bumper would go down at a variable highness, and I want to make it possible using hydraulics or pneumatics; there would be enough of both powers on the finished ship so I still reserve some thoughts for the issue.
If you pay attention you can see that I finally got the three axles for the Merkabah, and many other things not shown on the pictures but that will be very useful when building the Box.
I decided also to change the configuration of the winch for the motorcycle and for the spare wheel on the aft rack, putting the winch on the pivoting beam on a sliding cart. The beam itself would be longer, pivoting just from the far right and not from the middle of the rack, suppressing the necessity to raise and lower the base of the rack every time you need to load or unload anything. Maybe some additional support will be needed for the beam, and I will put it, sometime, in the near future.
Anyway, all in all the virtual Merkabah was closer to what I thought it was the definitive look, and I liked the look.
At some point the new four rocker arms arrived and I finished the labour with the ones that would remain. With this manoeuvre the only issue that lasted was to assemble the block, assemble the distribution rear cover, the front cover, mount the cylinder heads, mount the valve rocker arms, regulate the valves, put the injectors in, put the injection pump… and so on; nothing, really, uh?