Mercedes 2626 AK 6x6

[pairospam]

I pre-assembled the frame base of the inferior mounting and presented it to have a clear idea of the position, forces and movements involved, and it seemed to me that it was good enough. I did the serious welding and the cleaning and also welded the base plate for the air spring to settle. It looked pretty good though it seemed to be more steel than needed given the reduced supporting area on the bracket.

It was actually the first modification done (perpetrated) on the truck; until then it all had been restoration work only, and I was very excited for that.

The day after, Eduardo and I went to the cattle and loaded the L200 with the big piece that I had previously cut from the frame of Spare and on Monday he took it to the shop. There, I marked and cut the pieces needed to build the rest of the supports of the air springs.

[pairospam]

I decided to reduce the size of the superior plates and make them less bulky because I was convinced that they would withstand the forces as they were only supplementary to the leafsprings. I would later regret about this decision.

I went on and filled all the holes working with the MIG welder and grinded the imperfections of the surfaces. At first the welding technique was pretty poor as I had not practiced much the last few months but, keeping up, the pulse became steady and firm again. I burned my fingers many times, though.

I powerbrushed the plates and even drilled a couple of holes for the locking bolts of the springs, but I ended late and very, very tired and almost deaf even if I always wear ear protection. I needed a pause.

Looking for the right system to control the inflation and deflation of the air springs I asked a pretty known maker of such devices, the typical “low-riders”, in the United States, and the tech-guy briefly answered that in his opinion their system would probably be not heavy duty enough. And that was it, no further communications.

The venerable Africa Twin roared and took me again at lunch time the next available day to Santiago, and I sat with the technical consultants of the two best known pneumatics system makers to explain what I needed and to ask for an estimate for a six valve ad hoc manifold to handle the particular system of the Merkabah. Christ… there were so many options but, of course, only one right choice!

When I was done with the suspension issue I profited to buy some spares for the bike, including the rear tire as it showed clear signs of wearing after several thousand kilometers of good and bad roads. The return to San Felipe was uneventful, riding fast through the traffic at the unbearable rush hour of the capital city.

The next morning the rest of the air springs arrived. I wanted to have at least one as spare so I asked for four more. I tested every air spring and packed them back. Then I finished to prepare and cleaned the pieces for the first support, job that took more time than expected and left the place full of metallic debris that took me also a while to clean.

I had to stop and make some order as I stumbled too much often on pieces and boxes. Once I could walk around with a little more ease the welding and making of the supports could begin. As the big superior ones went at the top of the frame rail I used a curved piece to support it better and make it easier to work with.

[Slarti]

Hi Pairo,

When I read your post, I stumble acorss things like

I decided to reduce the size of the superior plates and make them less bulky because I was convinced that they would withstand the forces as they were only supplementary to the leafsprings. I would later regret about this decision.

and ask, if you are at the moment much further into your project than you write here (no offence, it is equally interesting reading about the process from some time along the road). When looking closer, you write days (Monday I took...) but no dates.

Anyhow, this is very interesting - congratulations to the progress!

I'm very curious to see, why you would regret reducing the superior mounting plates - anyhow the air springs have a rigid top to transfer the forces and more area will not be required, if the forces can be directed by the mounts into the frame. For the supports (i.e. the fins welded to the plates) I would probably have invested more material (seen in 2017.jpg, the supports go just to the middle of the spring; from the gut I would have taken them to extend to 2/3 and perhaps a little more radial, fanning out, so to say). The lower support of the springs seems to me a little more critical as the offset of the force entering the brackets to the center of spring is large, and in relation the area of the welding connection to the brackets is quite small.

Cheers, Hans

[pairospam]

Hi Hans:

Absolutely no offense at all! It is great to have feedback, even for criticisms or actual Oh, my God! or WTF!

I write when I have time to do so, most of the time during the weekends, looking at the pictures to remember what happened. Until now I never thought that specific dates could be of use to any reader and, sincerily, watching the time pass by with a clear record of it can make me feel a little more stranded when thinking of the time elapsed until now and the time that remains to finish the project.

I agree with you that it is a little tricky to show pictures and feelings about what happened some time ago, but this is how things have happened and it is not on purpose. You will see later on as I am able to upload the rest of the pictures and the story.

Regarding the supports for the air springs, yes, it would have been better to make them more robust from the beggining and that is what I realized after building them. I have seen many designs for the supports, some that look very weak and some made with tons of steel, and applied what I know from my job about physics and stabilization of segments to my own design. I have never seen or read a comment or report about the performance of the supports for auxiliary air suspension nor reccomendations about their design. I leave exact calculations for the engineers and use my intuition and some basic math to do what I feel to be right, as I suppose is the case for many of us amateurs... or not?.

The support of the picture nº 2017 is the prototype, and even if 50% is acceptable if the forces are applied uniformly and perpendicularly over a rigid base plate, wich is the case for the air spring, I corrected it and made the other supports go 3/4 of the radius of the base plate. I plan also to extend the fins down to the bracket to enlarge the connecting area between both structures, but I haven't done it yet, you will see why later.

The superior supports are pretty strong, but the distance between the center of the air spring and the frame is quiet long and I thought that it would have been better to extend downwards the vertical plate as the location of the support on the frame is near the superior aspect of the rail and, comparatively, the area of the plate is not pretty large. I would have done it before, but now that I have drilled the holes for the bolts it is quiet difficult to correct the design so radically without thinking it twice or three times. but I am still thinking.

Thank you very much for your comments and please let me always know if you think I am doing something wrong, stupid or fantastic.

Cheers.


Pairoa

[pairospam]

I go on with the story now, hoping to show what has been happening and hoping that all makes sense.

It was the 21st February, I was on my holidays and worked the whole day at the shop. I had no fear of using two pieces to build the vertical plate of the superior supports as I started to trust my reborn welding hability. I put a few pricks and assembled the first of the supports. What a heavy piece!

When in position, it all looked fine. The only concern was that on the Sketchup model the air spring was in conflict with the tire, but fortunately it was only a matter of proportions of the tires, as in the real world (see picture) there was plenty of space for the air springs and more.

Just to point it, at home I also made some changes and reinforced the design of the rail-mounted winch for the bike and the spare wheel, but after doing it I remembered that I was working on the basis of a winch that I downloaded from the web, and not on the real thing. Ops.

Well, after many hours of work all the pieces for the supports had been modified cut and were ready for assembling. I used a lot of cutting and grinding discs, and their corpses covered the benches and the floor. I used both powergrinders so I could work non-stop avoiding them to overheat.

[pairospam]

I welded the first of the supports using the MIG machine, and I was not unhappy with the result. Eduardo came by, as always does when I need a second point of view, and after watching the steel he asked me: Why do you think this truck had lasted that long? The question caught me out of balance. - Because the Mercedes guys calculated what was needed to accomplish the tasks that the truck had to face working normally -, he replied, not waiting for my answer, and went on: But they built it thinking of the efforts the truck probably would never see. They built it for the unexpected. They built it to last, way overrated. I then understood that my design and the welding may be good “enough” to withstand the efforts of the “usual” driving, but if the stress went a little farther it would break in pieces. I made an effort to argue, just not to loose the habit, but I knew he was right. The supports were weaker than they should be, at least with that welding.

I then took the arc-welding machine and some electrodes that Maestro Chaleco left me in a locker and start to practice arc-welding with every piece of steel that I found. After one hour and several meters of electrodes consumed I felt I was able to decently weld the supports with a pretty good penetration and minimal deformity. The cords were not professional-looking but they were strong. Good.

I also finished late that evening, and with several burns on my hands. The heat delivered by the arc-welding is far more than that of the MIG welding, and the time required to cut, prepare and weld each piece was not negligeable. Something to have in mind next time I decide to fabricate pieces.

I resumed the work the next day and welded definitely the inferior supports to the axles on the right side. I used many electrodes to do job and later Chaleco came and approved my efforts and the results. It seemed that even if the supporting surface was not enormous on the bracket, the 8 mm. double finned support would never move or bend.

With all the supports ready, I then marked their position on the frame rail and tried to use every hole available to avoid making unnecessary ones.

[pairospam]

I bought many of the most expensive drill bits I could find as I knew that there was not a good bit sharpener at hand and started to drill the supports as marked, then I drilled holes on the frame rail. I had to decapitate a couple of rivets to allow the supports to settle properly. The strength applied was considerable, and in the end my second and third right hand fingers tingled and felt numb and did so for three weeks. The new Bosch drill performed brilliantly, and you may see the uneven distribution of the drill holes on the frame.

Unfortunately for the project, but fortunately for my wrists and fingers, my holidays were coming to an end and the Montero was finally ready, so I left the bike (my only working vehicle) aside the truck and took the 4x4 right out of the shop and went for some last minute shopping. Later that night Eduardo and his family of six, Carmen, a girl friend named Paula, our dog and I left heading north. It was the last summer weekend and the kids had to enter school on Monday so it was now or never.

We drove all night and stopped to have breakfast at La Serena (where the gearbox of the Terrano broke) and we found at the gas station some five old Austin cars. The tiny precursors of the small city-cars planned to go all the way through from Buenos Aires to New York, some 17.000 kilometers. I thought they deserved a little appreciation and a picture for that spirit. At midday we had already rented two little houses and the beautiful beaches of Punta de Choros were waiting for us with very few people around. At the dock of the fishermen’s village we found the rusted Memo Ruz’s Daihatsu Rocky. The 4x4 was already an institution and it was well known among the scuba divers circle. Nobody knew how it still worked, but it did.

We had a brief but very good time together at the beach and we all left on Sunday. Eduardo, his wife and the kids continued to San Felipe and Carmen, Paula, Amanda (the dog) and I took the road to Vicuña, some 60 km. east from La Serena, in the middle of the mountains, where René Larraguibel and Karen, his wife, were waiting for us. Unfortunately they had to postpone their long dreamed trip to North America because the building of the new hotel of his family was delayed. But life is magic and it all happens for a reason. Their truck, rebaptised Terral, was actually far from being ready and we spent a long time under the cabin and in between the frame rails measuring and discussing about the necessary modifications.

[pairospam]

Some days and some star-seeing Jacuzzi nights after (Vicuña has one of the cleanest night skies of the world and many astronomic observatories are placed on the region: Tololo, La Silla, SOAR, Gemini), we all went to René’s apartment in front of the beach in La Serena, where we three travelers stayed for one week. René and Karen flew to Santiago the day after our arrival for René’s mother birthday and stayed at the capital. The beach was practically empty, and the weather was still warm. Lucky us.

Back in San Felipe and back to reality, it took me some days to resume the work on the Merkabah, probably because I dedicated many efforts to her before the true holidays, and I was still tired. I decided to go to Santiago and make a visit to a major used truck parts dealer as I was told that they had good prices and good stuff. False. A lot of scrap but nothing for the Merkabah. I just found a semi-long NG cabin but the interior was not better than that of the old Spare, and they did not sell the left plastic deflector alone either.

I left and went to get the valve manifold prepared by the guys from SMC Pneumatics, the chosen brand for the pressure control device of the air suspension, and it did not convinced me at all. The valves were too exposed and their protection rate was too low. They promised to look for the right combination for the manifold and, with empty hands, I headed for the center of the city to meet Grizzly.

At Grizzly’s, a short-haired Tarzan-looking young man, I spent a while talking about a little everything with him. He showed me some of his 4WD projects and I was impressed by his Ford 350 Econoline, its new 7,3 liter self-swapped diesel engine, its Dana 60 axles and its size; it was huge. Grizzly had sold me four AGM batteries a few months ago and never sent them because of the weight, so I put them into the Montero and came back to San Felipe after eating another big “lomito completo” elsewhere.

At my arrival I found that there was no more space available for the batteries around the frame of the truck; it was all full of boxes and pieces, some useful, some just junk. I made some space and put them aside. I checked the charge and there was one battery that needed a little retouch so I put it on charge until it was full. I thought I was done, but the batteries tale was far from over.

Well, I got back fullhearted into the project and thought that probably I would end amputating my fingers if I continued drilling holes with the hand-driven power drill, so I took all the supports to Don Victor’s workshop and borrowed from the technician in charge, Juan Orrego, the standing power drill. Extraordinary made-in-China ugly tool! I came out a couple of hours later with all the supports ready, my hands unharmed and, moreover, Juan had a very precise sharpening technique and put all the used and abused expensive drill bits back to working condition. Good.

When I came to the shop I put immediately the supports to see how the Merkabah looked like with the air springs in place. Actually I like pretty much the look and I still dream with the moment when I can test the suspension on terrain. Anyway, the air spring settled precisely and the deformity of the bellys was minimal taking account that the axles were not leveled and there was no pressure in the system.

I suddenly remembered that I had to put the inferior supports of the left side of the axles. I took a fistfull of 70/18 electrodes and welded the famous supports, always caring of maintaining the right and precise alignment respect of each other, the frame and all the rest. While I was welding, the cardboard that I put to protect the frame from the spark got fire as it was moist but not soaked in water, and I realized it only because I felt the heat of the flames as I did not see them because of the welding mask. I laughed a little for my clumsiness but the truth is that it was not very easy to extinguish the flames.

After the welding, as usual, followed cleaning, brushing and washing of the pieces, sweeping the dross and all the burned paper that the wind helped to spread all over the place. I went home early feeling happy, but pretty much exhausted still. Hmm…

At home, after a nice brunch, I was organizing the ideas on my mind when I sat in front of the computer to update the diary of the project, and found out that the penndrive was shortcircuited or something like that. I had lost the information and the changes of the last month. Horror. I could not believe it, precisely when I was going to back up. I only hoped that the computer in my office had an updated back up of the files, especialy of the virtual Merkabah on Sketchup, the one that takes more working hours.

At that moment Regalo, one of our three cats, went up on my shoulders and, as she could feel my disappointment, gift me with a long and profound purring and an intense gaze, like saying: Don’t worry, Pairoa, I know you can do it aaaaaall again, I trust you. Miaou.

[Lassie]

Hi Pairo,

there comes a song in my mind:



.... don't worry, be happy...


Big kudo for all your work and efforts. By the way and just out of pure curiosity: what is your main job? Are you working in a workshop or do you earn the money at a desk?

Best regards from Dhaka, Bangladesh
Juergen

[Globeunlimited]

Big kudo for all your work and efforts. By the way and just out of pure curiosity: what is your main job? Are you working in a workshop or do you earn the money at a desk

Dear Juergen,
this Guy is out of the league! sure not a desk person more a hands on guy with an good financial background! anyway it doesn't matter, highest respect for what he is doing with his truck!!!
greetings from New Zealand
martn

[landwerk]

Great Work !

Im fixing my front axel for 6 months now. So that may be a day´s work for you.


Re: Suppotrs for air suspension.

I could imagine that the upper supports, wich are lokated at the frame, may bend the frame or brake while beeing under force.

In my opinion it may be stronger, if the supports would use more locating surface on the frame( downwards )
So it would also be possible to connect the ( then extended ) vertikal and horrizontal part of the support with a larger gusset plate.

Drilling holes in the near of the frames center wont weaken it much.
Drilling holes in the near of the outer edges instead do !


Anyway many repect to your work ! I hope you will finish it in the next years and then do a fine long Trip.

LG

Oli

[Pirx]

By the way and just out of pure curiosity: what is your main job?

Jürgen,

in one of the last 11 pages I read that he is working as a medical doctor. But you know, he is not the first doctor with a spleen for old trucks though ...

Pirx

[Slarti]

Hi there Pario,

to pervent misunderstandungs: The date is just for judging weather it still is prudent to give hints or discuss a second option. If all is finished, the question to alter X or Y would be futile or even frustrating - and believe me to frustrate such a spirited beacon of activity would be unforgiveable for me.
Go on and pursue your dream...you're on a good way.


OK - the story with the supports is not over, I gather. I'll wait for a little bit more input from your side, before considering a good tip to improve the supports. I go along that bending of the 8mm thick fins (lower support) is not likely. If you welded thoroughly, have a good radius there, the flow of force will probably not break the plates (although the material there is more brittle through the "heat treatment" from your welding). But it is also supported by the spring end plates.

BTW: I disagree with

I could imagine that the upper supports, w[h]ich are lokated at the frame, may bend the frame or br[e]ake while beeing under force.

Form my point of view the only forces being active are coaxially with the air spring (guided by the metal spring leafs) and the moment resulting from the dislocation to the vehicle frame (bending of upper and lower supports). The upper supports are pretty rigid (which I consider good) and may bend the frame, but that is what the frame is for (of course only if it's not too much, and there I would think the metal spring leafs distribute it between the air springs front and rear and the (middle) metal leaf supports(opposite force directions there)).

A thought for improvement of the lower support force flow would be to weld 2 pieces of pipe in front of the existing fins diagonally down to the brackets, so to say "extending" the angle of the fin ends as seen in 2048.JPG (not welded to the fin ends, though). Pipes have a stronger resistance versus buckling than any solid material - I think a good 3 or 4 mm thickness with 10 mm hole would be what I would go for (all again from the gut - you also can calculate such things, of course ). Important on the lower weld I gather is an expert welding (I think 3 seams - 1 root/bottom, two side-by-side on top) forming a nice radius. Also talk to Maestro Chalico if you should think to have a hole on the bracket/bottom of the pipe to prevent corrosion inside the pipe.

A second thing, perhaps not necessary, is the thought for the upper support to extend (fill) the fins with a welding seam to the upper level of bent support plate. That would allow the forces to "flow" better from the arm into the plate sitting on the frame. Otherwise the end of the vertical welding seam is a force knot (i.e. high stress in the material). But maybe the area of welding itself is more than enough to support the forces.


And regarding the question of desk or workshop: My guess is Pario is engineer (makes him a desktop person), but not for vehicles or related things. And he is very motivated and interested, taking in everything from any advice being offered and actions witnessed in the shop of Eduardo. Anyway, a pretty sharp guy...

All the best to the project an to you, Pario!

Cheers, Hans

edit: typo
edit2: a little better explanation

[Pirx]

Re: Suppotrs for air suspension.

I could imagine that the upper supports, wich are lokated at the frame, may bend the frame or brake while beeing under force.

In my opinion it may be stronger, if the supports would use more locating surface on the frame( downwards )
So it would also be possible to connect the ( then extended ) vertikal and horrizontal part of the support with a larger gusset plate.

Drilling holes in the near of the frames center wont weaken it much.
Drilling holes in the near of the outer edges instead do !

I fully agree with Oli/landwerk!

The vertical plates should be longer and cover the full height of the vehicle's frame. With today's design, the "path of force" is not ideal. This could lead to a vehicle frame damage in extreme operation.

Pirx

[pairospam]

Thank you guys for all your imput and good wishes!

Today I finally decided to finish the lower supports issue welding, again, over the already finished pieces and axles. I just completed the idea, nothing extraordinary, as I considered it was not necessary to add any other structure/geometry because of the strenght of the design itself and also because the forces will be applied in one direction (up-down) mainly. Please wait until I upload the pictures and the text.

I had considered to extend the fins of the superior supports to the horizontal portion of the plate that sticks to the frame, but then I discarded the idea because the welded surface and the strenght of the fins opposed to the plate were actually enough to prevent bending (also because I did not like the look). But I agree with Oli and Pirx; I should have extended down the vertical portion of the plate and welded stabilizing perpendicular fins on the sides, connected as well to the plate where the metallic base plate of the air spring sits.

The truth is I do not want to drill more holes on the frame if I can avoid it, and to modify the supports is a great and annoying task that implies also to do more drilling. I do not fear much about the integrity of the frame, moreover, the double rails are quiet strong and without any doubt the supports would be torn appart before damaging the frame in case the forces were extreme. I think the solution is to add a larger and longer finned vertical plate on the interior side of the frame rail, bolting all together using the existing drill holes. That way the twisting forces would go through a larger descending area of the frame and not only on the superior aspect of it, but from the inside.

The MB indications of drilling at no less than 4,5 mm. of the superior aspect of the rail were followed strictly, so I guess the integrity of the frame is untouched.

And, by the way, I am a neurosurgeon.

Cheers and thanks again.


Pairoa

[pairospam]

Well, I lost a full month of work. This is just a prompt, I thought. I must be wrong, somehow, somewhere, and something has to change. I held on to that feeling, and I was not wrong.

Of course, there was no back up in the computer of the office, so I decided to reformat not only the dead penndrive but also my own hard disc (in my brain) and put it back to work correctly. I had worked on the project for many months like it was my only reason for living and that was not good. Something had to change indeed.

The next time I came to the shop I put the dirty overall on, sighed and started what I decided would be the third part of the project, beginning with a purge of all the dirt and the garbage of the working place. The amount of almost-empty boxes, useless pieces, dirt and other strange stuff was incredible, again. Just to decide where to begin took me a lot of time, and when it came the time to go home I had just organized a little portion of the disaster.

It was long ago that I wanted to go on a ride on the bike, and for a number of reasons it had not been possible, until then. I thought it was a good moment to clear ideas and the weekend was the right one. Carmen was not keen on accompanying me this time because she had other things to do, so I took the Honda and went out for a solo ride heading south, with no plans. The day was spectacularly clear and the bike rode very smoothly.

But an oil spot was waiting for me on the most difficult curve of the “Cuesta Ibacache”, a very tricky mountain road. I had nothing to do; the bike slipped and disappeared from under me in a flash and I ended up turning and tumbling on my lane and she ended up in the contrary lane, leaning on her side. Fortunately I was riding very slowly. I hurt my left ankle but I was able to stand the bike and put it aside of the road, while a guy that passed by stopped and watched for me from beeing smashed by the traffic. I picked up the pieces of the broken windshield and put them into the top case and waited for the ankle to stop aching, at least a little. The front fork of the Honda was a little twisted but she was still in good condition, almost as if nothing had happened, except for the wind screen, of course.

A few minutes after I made sure that I was able to ride and shift gears with the aching foot, thanked the Boss for it could have been pretty much worse, and I left. I also thanked my guardian angel and the guy that stopped and made me company. I went on heading for Melipilla the neariest city, to my father’s, with the wind pushing directly against the helmet and the chest, and the handlebar a little twitched.

The meaning of the fall I keep to myself, because now I know it, for everything that happens to you has a meaning, and it is always for your own good. Coincidences do not exist, I keep saying it.

Well, half an hour later, at my father’s piece of land in Melipilla, the old man helped me to straighten the front fork with the aid of a pair of clamps. We then went to his house and I realized then that it was his 69th birthday, and I did not even remember it! I ended up staying with him, celebrating his birthday and chating until late in the evening. The cyanoacrylate glue worked a lot that night, trying to hold the pieces of the wind screen together.

We woke up early, had a magnificent breakfast and worked the whole morning on the screen, reinforcing it so it could withstand the winds and the efforts when riding. We used a variety of materials and tools and the result was optimal for a non professional job. My father has a lot of experience repairing plexiglass so his expertise and indications were the best part. A little paint and the repair could be taken as original. Well… maybe not that much.

The ankle ached more than before, but I still was able to ride, so I took the Africa Twin and rode back to San Felipe…straight by the highway. The orthopedist asked for the classicasl X-rays the day after and made me see green cows when touching and pressing all around my ankle. The diagnosis was benign, just a sprain, no fractures, but the ligament injured was a very uncommon one (couldn’t be otherwise) and I would need care and fisiotherapy for long time. Christ… it hurt a lot when stepping in some way! But I could and should walk hobbling a little. Good.

I left a couple of days pass before I went back again to the shop, and then I resumed the same ordering and cleaning pattern I was into before going out to fall in motorcycle. Between hobble and hobble I continued discarding boxes and dirt. I gave Eduardo the 300 liter diesel tank for the old Ford and the hydraulic pump to make some unlikely implant to the tractors. The fuel tank of the 6x6 Blazer also flew away and went to the cattle to make company to the other wrecks.

Among the lot of parts and pieces that saw the light again was the Terrano’s winch, taken out in early times because of aesthetic reasons. The thing was bigger and much heavier than I remembered and for some time I was in doubt if to mount it on a rail on a pivoting arm. I analized better the idea and looked for alternatives and finally decided to go on with the original plan reinforcing, again, the back panel of the Box and the bike/spare rack. They had to be very robust to stand the weight of the winch itself, the bike and the spare wheel.

The renewal wave caught me also at home and reached the poor remainings of the Terrano, forgotten and covered by dust and cat footprints at the parking. I washed and covered her properly and left her there, still waiting for a decision that I was not able to make at that moment, neither now.

[pairospam]

During many days there was only chaos around the truck, but finaly the place cleared and the third part of the project could begin. How many parts would they be? Who knows.

As it was the cardan shafts the most kicked off item and the most annoying pieces on the ground I took them all and started to wash and powerbrush them. I also washed the hydraulic cylinder of the cabin, the one that needed repairing as the cylinder from Spare was unrecoverable. I still was not convinced about where to take it for repairing, though.

Because my regular work was very demanding those days I worked on the project only a couple of hours per week. The former gives me the money for the later so I could not do otherwise, and it is not a complain at all. Anyway, I finished preparing the cardanshafts and had to clean again the new supports that rusted with the water used during the drilling. Pretty annoying, as usual.

When all the pieces were ready I gave them two hands of wash primer. It seemed that I finally was moving on, and I felt the crazy willings of keeping up again.

The new batteries were really good but I needed a battery bank of eight of the same model, and Grizzly told me that he was quiting the business and would not import any of them again. I looked for the same batteries to import them myself but the prices were quiet high, too bloody expensive. I tried to make him take them back but the deal was done many months before and he did not want them. I needed more amperes so I put them on sale.

When I could I applied primer on all the pieces, including the supports welded to the spring seats.

[pairospam]

They all looked pretty good and the light of the flash made them shine as new, clean and inmaculate.

But the joy ended abruptly when one of the shafts slip inadvertently and fell to the ground from the bench with a big thump. Horror again. The mouth of the external fork of the shaft-hub connection crooked and it was no longer possible to couple both pieces. I cleaned the fork and repainted it as I had not cleaned the paint gun yet. I went home concerned and thinking about how to repair the mess.

The next day I started walking around looking for anything to help and I came up with the solution some few minutes after, as usual. Using a few used and discarded parts I was able to correct the deformity and to connect both pieces of the shaft. To put the entire cardan shaft in place was a much harder job because it weighted a lot, and it was not easy with my injured ankle to crawl under the frame holding the shaft steady to align the holes with the nuts of both extremes and then push the nuts to lock the shaft in place. In the end Pairoa won, as usual, but it took one hour to tighten all the twenty nuts, one fifth of a turn at a time.

I tried to assemble the aft cardan shaft but I found out that the dust retainer made of rubber had become history long ago and the remains became dust when I was taking it out for cleaning. Bad. I tried hard to locate the spare part but after many calls to the whole world I realized that there was none available. I even went to the cattle to see if the cardan shaft of the old Spare had a useable retainer, but it disintegrated as well.

Back at the shop I made some order again and I stared for some moments at the old ship. It had been hard go on with the project, every step loaded with difficulties, but then I remembered that I had been always the same since the idea came into my mind, so I shrugged for the thousandth time, I changed clothes and went with Carmen to dinner out.

The next day I came running from work and only had time to bolt the superior supports and then I had to go back. Few progresses, for a change.

I sat in front of the computer and redesigned the rack for the bike and the spare wheel, with the exact measures of the winch this time, and I designed the system for moving the winch with actual rails and bearings, pretty strong to withstand the weigth.

[pairospam]

I decided also to make the base shelf to pivot up and also down with removable pins for better and easier maneuvering. All cool, at least on the screen.

Well, it was very difficult to get in touch with the lady owner of the yellow and broken Mercedes, and I still needed to take from it some parts, among them the supports for the shock absorbers of the second axle. As it was possible that she was not in the mood for more cannibalizing I made some mock-ups from cardboard, but I was not completely convinced.

The next day, finally, I drained the oil from the left spring saddle. If I wanted to move on it was necessary to fix the oil leaks. Eduardo and I took out both heavy springs and I took the saddles alone after struggling with the supports that hindered the lever to unscrew the giant nuts. We carefully inspected, again, every aspect of the problem. The solution was not very easy but one of the major issues was that the retainers had to be placed correctly and the closest possible to the inner ring for them to cut the oil pass. We made a deep search for retainers slightly smaller to force the seal, but there were not. Change or repair the race? No, not at all. So, the retainers had to be removed and replaced by new ones, carefully placed, and hope for the best. I ordered the retainers and went into another thing.

I rescued the Hunger shifting cylinder from a box full of parts and disassembled it for cleaning. The piston was rusted but only superficially and the inner rubber was in very good shape, fortunately.

[pairospam]

The cylinder itself was also okay so I cleaned every piece and reassembled the device applying a little vaseline. It was a little late for the rubber bellow, though, but it was still in working condition at least for some short period.

One of those days I stopped by the little Mercedes store in San Felipe, at a few steps of our favorite restaurant. I was looking for something, I did not know what exactly, and I saw the hydraulic pump and actuators for the clutch of many models of trucks and buses. One of the original ideas was to change the air actuated clutch for a hydraulic one. There were many models so I would have to study which one fulfilled the exact requirements of the Merkabah before even thinking on buying one.

After lunch I went to the shop and a package was waiting for me. It was from my brother who lives in the U.S.A., with the new all-weather HD camera I had ordered thinking of the Merkabah and the bike riding, and the pressure gauges and control switches for the air suspension. Good. The same afternoon, if I remember well, the guy from the pneumatics systems company called to tell that the air valve manifold had arrived from Japan. Better.

I felt happy, and I wanted to profit of the moment so I dressed up in my working suit and went out from the office. I decided to complete the lower supports for the air springs right at that moment, a job that I had previously postponed because I was not keen on cutting, welding, cleaning and painting again. I only wanted to extend downwards the vertical fins in order to cover more area to distribute the load and to correct the odd look of the supports.

I cut some triangular pieces of 8 mm. steel and I welded them with the MIG. As the load transfer would be absolutely axial there was not necessity to weld the pieces with arc-welding which could have affected seriously the metal because of the heat involved. The following grinding was very difficult and incomplete for it was too narrow to maneuver with the power grinder, but the result was not too bad in the end.

[pairospam]

The next morning the parcel with the five retainers arrived from the Mercedes dealer; four to replace those that would be removed (and broken) and another one just in case. I left the box aside and continued with the supports issue cutting the grafts for those of the right side. The pieces for the prototype were a little strange but necessary to extend the support longitudinally to match with the rest of them. I worked until both supports were ready for painting and then it was already late, again.

You can see from the pictures that, even if I covered the welding sites with cardboard and a wet cloth, the masking paper caught fire the same. Be always careful with the sparks.

When I got back to the shop the next afternoon I wanted to quickly apply washprimer and primer to the recently traumatized areas and then go to Verardo’s machine shop to look for the supports of the rear sway bar and shock absorbers, and then go elsewhere to buy some other pieces for the Merkabah. But, as always, I started with a profound cleaning with brushes, solvents and power blowing, and I prepared enough washprimer to apply at least three hands. When I was finishing the fourth hand and the vessel of the paint gun was still half full I realized that I overestimated the area to be covered and the time to do it.

I then remembered that there were still the U brackets and the spring clamping plates somewhere, in a box, waiting for priming. So, I looked for the right box and found the pieces, clean and ready. I sprayed them with many hands of washprimer too and then I applied the primer in many hands as well. In the end the job looked pretty well done, but it was already time to go home, no more time to play.

Well, this is where I am today. The thread is updated, at last.

And look what I found when doing a research on the Internet: the first (and only) double decker bus that Santiago and probably South America saw for almost a century. And it was my grand-grand father’s idea back in 1927! And it was a german vehicle also! As you can see I am not the only crazy dude to do special and out of the lane things, and I can blame my genes for that.

[Slarti]

Hi there,

respect for your Durchhaltewillen!

I just can't believe that no rubber dust retainer are available. For me that sort of thing is very universal and I'd expect any company has it's own make of dust retainer - so all is a question of diameters...In Germany I'd look for the ones for Landmaschinen.
A tip for the cardan shafts is to use a pair of lashing straps to hold the piece(s) while putting in the nuts&bolts.

All the best...cheers, Hans

[Lassie]

As you can see I am not the only crazy dude to do special and out of the lane things, and I can blame my genes for that.

Just relax - you are not alone

Big cheerio from Dhaka, Bangladesh
Juergen

PS: you need a little bit of crazyness to live life to its fullest!

[Baloo]

sadly you may ruin your massive frame by applying high torque from long to short lever only to the upper corner of the frame with your upper plates - a stress for which the frame ist not contructed for.
Make the plate anchors higher to use the full frame height from close to the corner to the lower band (lower holes at minimum 20% of the frame height, best with a small plate on the back side) to apply the torque to the frame, and the frame will be much better able to withstand it. The frame is constructed to stand a few holes of moderate size in the central 60% of the side band but not for high torques on short lever applied only to the upper edge ...
peter

[pairospam]

Hallo Peter:

Yes... the more I look at the supports the more I think you are absolutely right.

Well, at least the steel is a nice substance and you can cut, weld and grind it a lot without many complains, and time is not a matter now.

Thanks for yours, the last kick.


Pairoa

[RD71]

Hi Pairoa!

I`m a little late with my comment on your bike-accident, but you`re very lucky! Your Guardian Angel take care for you and your bike. Some years ago my own Bike ended, during a low speed accident, in a "economic write-off" - as the insurance said. The sliding bike hit the corner of the pavement with its top side / cockpit.... !

For the construction work on your suspension: I would agree to "Baloo`s" opinion and use the whole wide of the frame too.

Best wishes and greetings,

Ralf

Magirus...

[pairospam]

Hello Ralf:

Actually my Guardian Angel is about to quit, again. He must be one of the busiest angels around!

Thanks for your words.


Pairoa

[pairospam]

Hello everybody:

Well, the next step after priming once again all what was done and redone was to replace the retainers of the spring saddles. It hurt to take out (and ruin) the brand new retainers without them having run not even one kilometer, but they were doomed. When putting the new ones in I payed a lot of attention and left them displaced by three millimeters in a way that they could “grab” better the inner side of the lane. One call and I had to leave so I could not put the saddles back that afternoon.

The next day the parcel that I was expecting since one month finaly arrived. Regalo inspected and smelled the box and looked satisfied, only then I was authorized to open it. Right from, yes… China, the valve manifold for the air suspension system was arrived. I must admit that it looked pretty compact to me at first sight, maybe too much compact, but it was supposed that these guys studied the flow, the volumes, the pressures and all the requirements to make such a system work. Faith. The package included an air filter and an air dryer to put before the manifold.

At the shop Alejandro helped me to put the right side spring saddle and then I filled it with oil. It would be a test of the effectivity of the little change we made with the displacement of the retainers. The left side saddle would wait for the results.

After cleaning all the pieces with solvents for easier identifying any leaking, I picked up a series of little pieces of steel from the frame of Spare, the salvation truck, and without thinking it too much I started to bend and cut them to fabricate the supports for the four big air tanks that would go in between the frame rails.

After a couple of go-nowhere attempts I figured out the best design for the supports with the material at hand, even if you always have the impression that you may have done it better, simpler, lighter or prettier. Anyway, even some pieces of beams from the age of the Blazer 6x6 were used to complete the prototype. Four supports would be needed to fix the tanks in pairs, at a given depth onto the frame to leave enough space above for the Box and bellow to avoid confict with the struts of the axles. The look of the support was pretty solid, but I would have to buid each one individualy as the distance between the rails was slightly different depending on where you measured it.

That afternoon arrived Benoît, Tih-Thanh and their three little daughters, world travellers from Belgium. We got in touch via internet a few months ago and arranged a meeting at their passage from Ushuaia and the Carretera Austral to Alaska. Their double cabin MAN was quiet impressive. The girls conquered immediately the hearts of Carmen and I, sweet, not-a-single-word-in-spanish, little creatures. It was a very good exercise for my almost forgotten French but pretty difficult for Carmen as she does not speak it nor speaks English.

While they stayed with us we made a few rides and walks around. We went to the countryside one day and saw Jago’s Tatra, lying there under the pale autumn sun. The impression was always the same: How big!

[pairospam]

“Le camion” was taken to the workshop as soon as Eduardo could service and inspect it, as previously agreed. In Argentina they had made some incomplete repairs and the engine had the same problems, the exhaust manifold was loose again and there were some oil leaks to fix, and many other problems that Benoît was not aware of. We both insisted that the tiny shock absorbers that the truck came with were replaced for serious ones, as did with Kurt and Michele, and they immediately felt the difference in the driving and the stability.

The pivoting system of the Box was none, and it all was affidated to the old and reliable subframe system with coils, the simplest and probably the more effective system. Changing plans for the Merkabah?... maybe.

The most remarkable feature of the excellent interior layout of the Box – Benoît’s design - was the lifting main bed that everyday was kept high over the living/dining/bed room. That way there was much more space for all the five. The bed was taken up and down using a cordless screwdriver, very simple, but the tool had to very, very powerfull and with time the system had become heavier as the cables and the gearing had not been serviced and lubricated. Benoît’s screwdriver was at its lasts.

The travellers parked in front of our house, on the place reserved for strange-big-foreign-expedition-vehicles (!) for many days while the mechanical works progressed, and we had many late evenings of francochilean conversation, shared cooking and laughing and the girls had fun with the little dog Amanda and the cats, with the toys and with everything they found. We really fell in love with them, Maïlys, Morgane and Scali, and had a special affection for their lovely mother.

While all these love and kissing took place, I also cursed and sprayed sparks cutting the pieces of steel for the supports of the air tanks during the working hours at the shop. Quiet a boring and slow job sometimes. I must admit, notwithstanding, that I like this steel stuff, the cutting, the smell of the welding smoke… ahhh.

Some day, while I was at it with the welding machine on, Eduardo came in with one of the side lockers of Le Camion that had been tied with a strap for some time. The fixation system to the frame was extremely weak and the micro-welding broke after a few hundred kilometers. As I was inspired I repaired it and welded the tubing with special care.

[pairospam]

Time for some news, not much but some.

So, I welded also a couple of angular reinforcements on the locker of Le Camion to help it withstand a little more the roads to come and the job was done.

A few hours later I finished the lateral portions of the supports and I ran out of steel. I found out that I welded the profiles by the wrong side so I wasted a little more time fixing the problem. The greatest thing about the the steel is that almost any trouble has a solution, though.

The next Saturday I went directly to the shop. I needed a steel profile to finish the bloody supports. I was not keen on going to buy six meters of new material if I knew, inside, that there had to be a piece somewhere, forgotten behind some dirty spiderweb. And in fact, there was a three meters long piece with some little tubes welded to it at a hidden and obscure corner. The power grinder managed to make the weldings disappear and in the end I had enough material to continue.

With the pieces taken from the profile I finished three of the supports and got them ready for drilling. Only one of the supports was left incomplete but it would have to wait until the next week because I have decided to rest on Sundays, as it was supposed to be. Oh, and after three days there were still no leaks on the spring saddle. Good.

From time to time, when I was working on the supports of the air tanks, I had kind little visits that wandered all around asking about this and that, always with a big smile on their faces. Le Camion was been serviced and they had some time for exploring when they were not at French lessons with their mother.

Once I was sure that there were no leaks I mounted the spring packs, with some help of course, and I could finally put the shortened U brackets and the modified clamping plates. The new dimensions were precise, as calculated. But what I did not calculate was that the spring leaves made contact with the plate of the rear axle brackets in an angled fashion instead of making it flat, as it did on the second axle. The extra 20 millimeters of the struts certainly played a role on that, but if I corrected the length of the struts it would be not enough to correct the oblicuity of the contact of the springs. This was a major problem and could cause premature failure of the springs so I had to correct it before putting the truck at work.

Trying to make some progresses I put the spring saddle of the left side and put the cover without filling it up of oil. If it started leaking I would have no more choices but to start crying out loud and, frankly, I did not like the idea.