Mercedes 2626 AK 6x6

[Wilmaaa]

I live and work at San Felipe, a small 55.000 people town 54 kilometres north from Santiago, the capital of Chile.

[pairospam]

Thanks for your kind words, bandulu, and thank you Wilmaaa for answering in my place.

More to come soon.

Cheers.


Pairoa

[bandulu]

hello !!

Thank you willmaa!!! i was too lazy for searching

Wooowww CHILE ???? amazing !! i think youre the most exotic member here !!!!? or i´m wrong ? willmaa ?

big regards cross over the ozean !!!

[Wilmaaa]

I wouldn't want to define "exotic"

[bandulu]

definition exotic:
of foreign origin or character; not native; introduced from abroad, but not fully naturalized or acclimatized:

so easy !....

[pairospam]

Well, the truth is I laughed a while with your quote, bandulu. Because of my particular and restless nature I have been named in many ways since my early years in school, and "exotic" is the one that was missing.

Cheers.


Pairoa

[pairospam]

Hi:

This somewhat exotic story goes on, not possible -until now- to be stopped.

I was pretty excited and happy as I supposed that I would easily remove the steering knucle after removing the upper and bottom kingpins, but I couldn’t make them move and the knuckle remained blocked in place. The EPC did not help in showing a better way to try to remove the pin so I did what is strongly recommended in these situations… drink a cup of tea and leave it for later. Then, I started to disassemble the left side wheel hub.





There was no mercy this time and right after taking out the nuts there was a sledgehammer strike and the hub cover got out at the first try, just to show the filthy state of the oil, black and dense bloody thing. When the hub was drained the oil seemed not to be that bad. Maybe, just like the brake linings seemed to be untouched, it was never changed. The gears were imbebbed in this molasse-like sticky crap and by fortune they were not burned out.





As the surface of the parts of the wheel hub was not protected by oil like on the other side of the axle, there was plenty of rust and it was all stuck, the brake shoes pins firmly in place. The problem was that there was rust also between the wheel hub and the gear hub and there was no way to separate them. I loosened the brake shoes but could not remove them so the disassembling stopped right in this phase. I sprayed generously Würth bolt-loosener, but with no much faith, and then put all back in order and went home.





I profited that there were still some minutes of daylight left and got on the Africa Twin and flew to the countryside, to the cattle. The front axle of Spare was lazily lying among the tall grass, but unfortunately the brakedrums were different from those of the Merkabah, as I suspected; they were smaller and not suitable to replace the originals. Bad luck this time, hmm…

[pairospam]

Another day passed and back at the workshop I made some other tries to separate the hubs without any reward. I then grabbed the sledgehammer and smashed the wheelbolts until they all came out dragging the rust with them. It would be necessary to replace them but I had no options given the circumstances.



With the hub out it was just to take out the big gear, without being covered by oil and avoiding to damage the locking washer, and the knuckle was finally exposed. Good.




Eduardo, my brother-in-law/guru/guide, helped me out and with some precise strikes loosened the drag link. It was time to go home but, as the hard-headed man I am, tried to loosen the superior steering link but, no matter how hard and how many strikes, didn’t work. The one who knows… he knows.



I received the pictures of the truck of my friend Mauricio Bordachar, the one he bought from the Casales, my almost-cousins. It was finally ready and, frankly, it looked much better without the Michelin fat guy painted on its side. Actually, it looked pretty good. I asked him about the front protector and the roof rack that I judged pretty well done, but in the end it would be more practical and cheaper to make it by myself.




The next morning the shop had two unexpected visitors, a couple of inspectors from the Health Department. They made a non-scheduled visit to inspect how was the shop performing in regard to the safety regulations, and my working place was not brilliantly evaluated. There were some basic safety issues that I had underestimated and taken as “uncomfortable”, but they were right, I was not working properly. As an example the corridor alongside the frame was full of boxes and pieces; what if I was maneuvering a wheel and lost control of the almost 150 kg of weight? There was no place to scape or where to jump off. They did not like the rope nor the strut that was holding the cabin in place and neither the fact I was making some sandblasting without a proper dust-tight chamber. They pointed out facts that were evident and concrete with which I totally agreed. They made a lot of observations also on the shop situation and then, in a great gesture, they gave Eduardo one month to correct all of them. After that time, if there were still problems, they would fin him very heavily.



At my arrival that afternoon Eduardo and I sat and thought about the alternatives, and decided that the Merkabah had to leave for a place where I could work more at easy and where we could build a blasting/painting chamber. The problem was that both front hubs were already disassembled and I would not put them back on until I had the spares and the reparations done. We already had the place for the truck but the thing was to speed the restoration up, and that was a problem. We also prepared a B plan and a C plan in case nothing worked, as usual.

The rest of the day I dedicated a non stop effort to disassemble the rest of the steering knuckle of the left side of the front axle, but first I struck the links until I finally loosened them, ha.

The inferior steering arm showed clearly the careless state in which it had been obliged to work for who knows how long and, after some fine levering maneuvers, the thrill was worse when the interior was exposed; there had been nothing similar to a lubricant in there since probably the year 1982, when the truck was imported to Chile. The kingpin showed its rusted nudity as well.

[pairospam]

It all had a regretable look, and the universal joint was not the exception, with all that filthy crap stuck to the carcass and to the joint crosses. The later, you can imagine, were exhausted and waiting for fair and necessary replacement since a long time.



The upper steering arm went out also and, wow… surprise… there was something like oil inside the bushing! The pin was lubricated! Please, don’t ask about the expiration date of the oil, thanks.




But time and rust made their job and neither kingpins nor bushings moved a micrometer and, of course, the steering knuckle remained blocked like the one of the right side.

There were options, of course, hard options to remove kingpins and bushings but I wanted to preserve them unharmed (so to speak) until I had the spares and preserve the posibility to assemble and use the knuckles in case the time came to move the truck.

There was a waterfall of bolt-loosener all over the place, waiting for it to help in some way, without too much faith again, and then I made some order and closed the shop. Everyone was already gone.

The seller from the official dealer of Mercedes in Santiago answered my email marked urgent a few minutes after sending it, like never before, and the prices they asked for the repair kits of the steering/driving mechanism made my ass fall down to the ground, like never before. Ah… taxes not included, of course. I asked other traders and none of them had the parts. I used every contact and trick I could imagine and then it was just a matter of time to see if they would work.

I finished working, serious work I mean, and went to the shop the other day thinking of spending the whole afternoon happily washing parts and pieces, and so it was. A pain in the ass, actually, especially the hubs, with all that oil and rust and hardened mud. The gasoline almost got me a little high but at least I made some progress.





The next was another afternoon spent washing pieces with gasoline, this time it was the turn of the brake anchors, still stuck to the bearing brackets. I worked only on them and when finished there was no more time to do anything else.

Just before leaving I received an email with good news; the tire inflation/deflation system kit for Terral, the Atego expedition truck of my friend René, was ready for delivery from Thules, France. He was very happy to know it as the departure date for his Panamerican trip was approaching fast.

Well, the Saturday morning was another working time at washing and cleaning parts and pieces, as expected. The brake adjuster was particularly dirty, but it was just a matter of remembering how dirty were the brake adjusters of the bogie before and after love and the wills to continue rubbing and taking out old grease were automatically renewed. Same thing with the brake drum inner covers, rusted more than a little.




I thought that I had exhausted my anger against the guys that made the truck work until almost killing it, without the slightest care, but not. I honestly don’t understand it. These trucks are pretty rare and fine and extraordinary pieces of engineering, and I think that some regular servicing won’t make you loose the money you can make with it.

Probably it is just an idiosyncratic matter, and surely it is this love for old steel that drives me crazy. I beg your pardon.

[pairospam]

Hello everybody:

My colleague is on vacations and I have been working double shift so the time dedicated to the project has been quiet scarce these last weeks, but I have been working as much as possible (and healthy).

Another member of the forum helped me with the acquisition of the parts needed to repair the front axle and at present I am waiting for them to arrive. I wanted to give public thanks to him for his kindness. Hopefully the parts will be here in a few days, but I am also prepared for the worst, just in case.

Well, some good news. I went to visit my father to know his last self-built house, the third… fourth? and he wanted me to see the batteries he had got from a friend, for a free, just in case they were of any use to me. He told me that they were rated 75 amperes and I replied that it had been a waste of energy and time to pick them up and load them on the car. He insisted anyway to show them to me so I went to his garage and OMG… I was greatly and joyfully surprised: they were 155 Amp batteries, practically new! I grabbed the bloody heavy grey pieces of lead and loaded them back on his car and asked him to take them to Santiago. I was on the bike.

A couple of days later Carmen and I went to the big crazy city for other reasons and profited to picked them up from the hangar and brought them to San Felipe.




We all were a little concerned about their status because nobody had tested them before, but at the workshop Eduardo confirmed that they were fully charged. Good. Only four more and the battery bank of the Merkabah would be complete. Put aside the “little” yellow 105 Amp batteries the grey ones looked gigantic; that’s why I (my back) felt them so damn heavy! I knew exactly their dimensions and their weight, but lifting them up personally was a totally different thing. Hmmm…



I continued to reorganize the working place and spent a lot of time moving, emptying and filling boxes with parts and pieces to let the inspectors see that I was a good and compliant member of the community. I built again the walls of boxes and put the big parts and pieces as far from the truck as I could to clear its sides. I fought against big and menacing spiders and tons of dust.




I decided to look for some help, if not I would finish, luckily, in 2026. So I hired Mr. Edison, a little but energetic man from Ecuador that was working for Eduardo as mechanician but that had a crush and a lot of experience in flattening out and painting cars and anything. He would help me on the weekends as if they were normal working days.

We gathered pretty early for a regular Saturday at the shop and we worked hard on the mudguards as our first commitment. They were badly shaped and Edison flattened them out for good. When Edison and the pieces needed it I welded the portions that were broken or worn out with the MIG welder and then I power grinded to leave it good enough for the plaster work.






Meanwhile, I built a serious strut to keep the tilted cabin safely in place. I used a few steel pieces found on the garbage boxes. I used also a tired and worn out cup-shaped steel brush as the head of the strut. It went pretty nice to me, considering what it was made of.

[pairospam]

We spent the whole morning preparing the mudguards. I would take them later on for sandblasting to the famous sandblasting shop near San Felipe. Yes, I know… but I had neither time nor the will to do it myself, and the inspectors could show up at any minute. No way.

After a brief stop for lunch we went on with the pilot’s side step. After straightening it a little with the aid of the mechanical jack I took the footrest and Edi took the step box. He subsequently disassembled it for better working, as I did before with the copilot’s side step.



I flattened out and repaired the holey upper plate, just to find out that the one from Spare was in far better shape, waiting to replace that one since at least a couple of years.



The footrest at the base had been heavy and uglyly repaired before and some pieces of round rods and diamond steel plate had been welded to the base plate. The hinges were also broken and half-repaired. I decided to preserve the original pieces as much as possible and take off the added steel. I cut and grinded a lot and use the welder and some pieces of steel plate to reconstruct some aspects of the step and use heavy hammering to straighten the twitched steel.




Edi and I pounded and pounded a lot and we both reached a good level flattening the pieces out. He left at six o’clock in the afternoon, and I stayed at the shop, accompanied by Carmen and Eduardo that came to work on some huge bidding they needed to prepare for the next week.




I finished with my pieces, not completely happy, though, and took those that Edi had prepared. He did a very good job, not rough at all, but it needed some fine work, so I continued obsesively flattening the large and the little pieces until past ten. The two brothers kicked me out of the workshop when the stars were tinkling high up in the sky.

Gues what did I do the next afternoon I went to the workshop… yes… I kept on working on the step, trying to make every component look better and better. I repaired a lot of cracks and refilled worn holes, but its state was worse than expected and so the plaster would play a major role. Nevertheless, we did a very good job.

[Lassie]

Dear Pairo,

I think that next to Jonson you are the most exotic member of this forum and I would like to thank you very, very much for keeping us posted with your descriptions / pics !!!

I would be very grateful to open once a beer or two with you!

Best regards from Dhaka, Bangladesh
Juergen

[pairospam]

Juergen:

My pleasure. I hope that couple of beers will be still cold and fresh when I reach Bangladesh. Be sure that if I can I will go there.

You mean Jonson Globetrotter?

Cheers.


Pairoa

[Lassie]

Dear Pairo,

yes, http://jonsonglobetrotter.de/ - cool guy, I know him and Christine personally ...
I even flew with him once to Bhutan, but that is another story....

And if you come over here to Bangladesh as long as I am here - you are more than welcome!
And I would like to extend this invitation to EVERYBODY here in this forum...

Wolfgang and Joern already had been here
http://www.jlaske.de/wp-blog/2013/01/29 ... rkarawane/

Best regards and lots of greetings
Juergen

[pairospam]

I know, I know. It’s been a while, but I’ve been working hard; regular and off-side work. Let me try to keep up.

I took the mudguards and some other pieces to the sand blaster and tried to make a direct deal with the old man, completely covered by its protecting suit, but the noise of the compressor and the whistle of the air jet were so loud that I hardly heard him say okay.

In the next days I devoted myself to the pretty known routine of washing, cleaning, brushing and polishing of the components of the hubs and the brakes of the front axles. As they were in pretty bad shape, in pretty bad shape ended the tools, the brushes and the operator after struggling with the dirt and the rust, as always, Nevertheless, nuts, bolts, springs and one of the brake brackets were very grateful.








After a couple of boring cleaning sessions I went to pick the parts from the sand blaster and, strangely but fortunately, they were ready; not perfect, but ready. But the idiot forgot to take the keys out of the car and the wind closed the door inadvertently and… clic! The automatic door locker made its simple job. I stayed out. To be short: one hour waiting under the cooking sun of San Felipe, with a furious wind that raised clouds of dust and sand, until someone could get out of the traffic blocked by an accident to go home and bring the auxiliary keys. Bad.




While I waited in that inhospitable place I checked the pieces recently blasted and they showed pretty clearly then all the imperfections that had to be corrected. There was still a lot to do with the hammers.

[pairospam]

Well, Edison was pretty aware of that so the next Saturday we gathered again at the shop and he, always with a smile on his face, worked hard on the steel sheets while I toiled with the power brushes. I spent the whole morning to clean one of the brake brackets and a couple more pieces and made some repairs and weldings that the mudguards needed. By the force of hammering Edi made the shapes every time look rounder and even.






In the afternoon I polished and welded together the left footrest, wich was not easy at all, and Edison sprayed with washprimer the pieces and began to plaster one of them. It seemed that the proyect had progressed a lot.





And the day came when I had to take my holydays if I wanted not to loose them, so Carmen and I got on the Montero and went north, crossing the interior tranverse valleys, and landed at the Larraguibel’s in Vicuña. During the journey we enjoyed the desertic and fascinating landscapes, dryer than camel spit, finding here and there some remains whose lack of Christian burial almost took a couple of tears from the undersigned.




Our friends René and Karen greeted us with love as always and it was pretty good to see René like a little boy with new toy with the bike he finally chose to hang from his truck, Terral. The building of their new hotel was approaching its completion and there was at sight a little hope for the start of their most wanted and waited expedition trip across the Americas. Although, the many and complex issues of such and entrepreneurship were still a headache for the poor René and his dreams of travelling.

[pairospam]

Hi again to everybody. The story goes on.

We stayed and laughed a few days in Vicuña and then we came back to San Felipe (via the highway), thankful for the hospitality and after a couple of brief bike driving lessons for both pilot and copilot.

We parked at home just a couple of days, enough to vote (we had presidential elections) and to do some business and then we headed south, with no destination. We made a stop to visit some relatives at Curicó, 350 km from home, and they talked us about a beautiful place unknown to us called the Saltos del Huilo Huilo (falls of Huilo Huilo). So, there we went, to the region of the lakes. The dramatic difference between the lakes and the forrests of the south and the dry hills covered by cactus of the north is always fascinating, and it makes of travelling such and exciting experience.



The trip was worth of it, far, and the touristic development found in the national park of Huilo-Huilo was notorious, even if a little elitist and almost snob, but nature was well protected and that was all I am concerned of so… well done. We didn’t stayed at the big hotels of dubious taste of the park and, instead, we rented a lovely cabin in a precious and quiet place nearby at a fifth of the price of the cheapest room of the hotels, with a personal spa. We hiked all around and made a horse ride through the ancient forrests. Nice.



We left a couple of days after our arrival and decided to go to another national park named Villarrica, on the slopes of the Villarrica volcano. We drove up through millenarium araucaria trees and gigantic coigüe trees until we got to the ranger’s cabin. I told the girl that was at the counter that I wanted to continue through the park and descend by the other side of the volcano to go to Pucón, another touristic village some thirty kilometers away by the road that was clearly marked on every map we had. She smiled at me and said nothing, which I found a little odd, but I could not interpret it. We payed the entrance fee and drove to the highest part of the road where we parked and made a little promenade of nearly four kilometers to the remains of a melting glacier. The trip was nice though hard, the sun was shining, the air was clean, there were lots of volcanos at sight and we saw a couple of rare gigantic woodpeckers while returning to the car. Good.



When we reached the parking the actual ranger showed up riding a bike with some other guy and asked us how things were going, with a smile on his face, and continued down the road as if nothing. We got in the car and followed them, and after a few meters the road began to descend and became each time rougher. The bike with both guys passed by in the opposite sense and we saw them waving good bye. We waved too.

From then on the nice and placid road became a terrible trail undermined by deep trenches that wriggled from one side to the other, and at the bottom of the trenches there were a few big rocks that menaced to tear the guts of the Montero apart in case it slipped onto them. Bad. To make it worse, the 4x4 was not prepared for such terrain and the tires were completely inappropriate; even if I could turn around I would stay stuck due to the slippy soil and the slope. It was one way only, and there was only hope to make it through. Carmen was hysterical and I, well… fascinated and full of adrenalin, of course.

After a few hundred meters of horrorific trail and of what we thought was the worst part of the road we relaxed a little, realizing that the machine and the hands could manage the pitfalls, entrusted to the Big Boss in heart and soul. Carmen got out of the car and made videos of some of the passages and we calmly went on. The road was twenty kilometers long and it took us more than two hours to get a decent terrain. Each time we thought that the worst part was over there were other hundreds of meters of trenches, rocks, heavy slopes or everything combined, with a couple of torrents that lacked a proper bridge.





In the end I understood what the smile on the faces of the girl and the ranger meant; they just wanted to know where these idiots were going to get stuck in their desire to get Pucón by the forbidden road. When we reached the other side, the good road, we saw the sign that warned everybody that the road was impassable and prevented to go further on. I felt angry and stupid for some millisecond, but after a few moments I was grateful for the experience. The Montero performed brilliantly and fortunately it only hit the plastic mudguard when it fell from a root of a tree and the plastic lateral molding got unstuck.



Maybe at some time I will upload the videos on Youtube, when I find the wills and the time to edit them, but for now a few photograms to show better what I briefly describe. They are not spectacular nor they show the worst parts we went through, but they are at least interesting and to some they may be challenging enough to encourage to repeat the experience in a more prepared fashion. Unfortunately the Merkabah will be too big to fit on the trail. Hmmm…

The trip back to San Felipe was uneventful and we made it in two relaxed journeys. We stopped at a shoping mall (don’t ask) in an intermediate city to lunch, and right in front of the Montero parked a brand new, white, top version, turbodiesel, 4x4, Hyundai Santa Fe. It had been around my head for the previous two months, despite my brother-in-law’s efforts to dissuade me. It parked right there, at that precise moment, challenging my integrity and my profound esteem for the old Japanese. But it went wrong for her, and the recent performance of the Montero made me forget forever the elegant but tricky corean lady.



At the side of the highway there was an old 6x4 Mercedes that seemed to be in its eternal rest. I pulled over and examined it; the frame was pretty healthy and it seemed to be not very much hit overall. I inquired around and made it through to the owner who told me that he had bought it recently just in that state, with no engine and no gear box, and that he planned to fix the truck putting a less consuming engine on it. I really liked the truck, and with time I feel more and more familiar with that particular type. I fantasized about swapping the axles and the drive train from the Merkabah and get a 6x6 far longer and with a larger cabin with a newer look. I got back in the car and Carmen shot me a glance with a smile, moving slightly the head side to side. Anyway… she knows.

[pairospam]

Back in the workshop I found that the parcel from Germany had finally arrived and, along with some socks and old books, there were the spares for the steering knuckles. Great. Finally I was able to disassemble and repair the knuckles and the cross joints. Even more, some weeks ago a local friend had sent to me the manual for removing and installing everything of the front axle of the Merkabah. Unfortunately, the last day of my vacations a progressive low back pain impeded me from working on the Merkabah for many days, though I could still work aiding my colleague and practicing under a heavy rain of pain killers. Just imagine how frustrated I felt, with brand new spares, manuals and time to work. Bad.





While I was waiting for my bones to heal, Eduardo started with the repairing of the 6x6 Tatra, the one from the Pickerings, the one that was waiting for its turn among the restless days of the workshop. Taking the engine out of the truck was a pain, and bringing it to the shop was another one. The poor L200 saw its back almost cracking under the many kilos of Czech steel and aluminum.



In the meantime, René installed the CTIS on his Atego. He did all by himself, which was a big success as his mechanical skills were nul when he started with his project. Unfortunately he had had no time to test it properly as the building of the hotel consumed all his time. The Syegon looked pretty nice though.





Those days another member of the family showed up. He had been abbandoned on the street along with other five newborn cats by some sonovabitch. At first a little shy, wandering in between two adult cats and three dogs, Sydane soon deployed his shiny personality and his little but sharp-pointed claws and claimed respect.



And then there were news, and not good ones; Edison would soon return home, to Ecuador. If he left I would have no one to help me with the cabin of the Merkabah, and I really liked his prolixilty and his devotion to work. I could not let him go just like that so I asked him to work the next Saturdays until the cabin was ready.

The idea was that he continued to repair the mudguards and I would accompany and assist him in whatever I would be able to do, given my persistent aching. I went to buy some tools that were required and as the morning went on I felt each time better. Then, pretty slowly and carefully I began to disconnect everything that bonded the cabin to the frame. The priority now shifted and it was imperative to take the cabin out for Edison to work on it as soon as possible; he is not very tall. When he started to work on the cabin I would go on with the front axle and that part of the frame.

Slowly and carefully I photographed everything and made notes of all the relevants issues to take into account in the disassembling and the eventual reassembling of the cabling, fitting, tubing and the tecalan mess.

[pairospam]

While I moved under the cabin, Edi applied one layer of plaster after the other and sanded endlessly until the amount of plaster and imperfections was minimal. The air and the ground filled with plaster dust.



To loosen the valves that hung from the floor, the left lining was removed and a ton of dry mud and dust showed up. After digging a little I could get to the bolts and the nuts. There was rust, of course, but a little patience and rust-remover helped a lot. It took me quite a while, and I found some tecalan that had long ago lost their tags. I would find out later.




I don’t know who made the tecalan for the lock selectors pass through the cabin reinforcements; surely he had a good reason to do so but it was a pain because it was necessary to disconnect every single one to pass them back through and to be very careful not to confuse any of them. I took them out, one by one, struggling against rust and threadlocker. Not nice.




Once the tecalan were free from the floor of the cabin it only remained four of them that went on the front, along with the flexible shaft of the odometer, in their way to the instrument panel.



As I felt not on the mood of going up and down the cabin to disassemble the panel because of my back, I left the exercise for the next time and I moved to the copilot side. There, working on a little trunk, I made a little toilette of the place. It surely did not look that clean since many years. I was a little concerned about the electrical issue because I thought that the removal of the big bundle would be difficult, but after removing the cover and checking I saw that, except for two wires, they were all plug-ins. Easy.




But when it comes to the Merkabah nothing is actually easy and under the lining there were also many kilos of dust and dry mud. I could not close my eyes this time and before going on I had to clean it all until it was a decent place to work at. I also found out that there was more rust than expected on that side of the floor. Hmmm…

[lura]

The 6*6 worked really very hard in it former live. Looking the photos I believe there is every part of the lorry to refurbish.
It'll be better the new at the end.

Good luck furthermore

Bernd

[pairospam]

Unplugging the plugs was easy, of course, that’s what the plugs are for, and I marked them anyway, just in case, but one of the wires passed directly to the fuse box so I had to go up to the cabin to disconnect it. Edison had to assist me with the tools because I could not step down and up more than once. Checking out I found some more cut wires but I coud not find out what were they for; I just wanted to take the big bundle out, and I made it through after winning the battle against a couple of rusted bolts that held the insulating hose jealously in place.




Edison, obsessed with his work, finished to plaster and sand two of the big pieces, swept a little dust and went home at the right time. I stayed a little longer to make some order and swept the whole place exhaustively.I did not want the dust to bother anyone the next Monday. It was another Saturday of progress, even if it was not quiet notorious.

Well… fortunately not all was bad luck and big efforts to go through with the project. One day I received an e-mail from Cristian Silva, someone I did never heard about before, and to make the story short, he was the CEO of the special trucks division of Mercedes Benz in Chile, and was a follower of the Merkabah’s story. He wanted to honour all the work that I had done so far with the old truck and so he invited me to a demonstration of the Zetros and Unimog capabilities he was organizing for a fist of potential buyers. He also wanted to show me the trucks in case there were some ideas to incorporate to the Merkabah. I knew later that he was the guy who sold René his brand new Atego a couple of years ago, and René stuck to the invitation as well.

When the day came, Eduardo and his eldest son and I went to the coast, near Valparaíso, and we were the first to arrive to the site. It was a motocross circuit that lacked serious obstacles for the big machines but it surely would work for the purposes of the demonstration. René did not make it to go.

There were a 6x6 Zetros and a Unimog U 4000, with that great smell of new. Eduardo smiled all the time; he probably was aware of the capabilities and peculiarities of the trucks better than the Mercedes guys. We gathered, the three of us, Cristián and the rest of the Mercedes team, and after the necessary introductions we talked a lot about trucks waiting for the rest of the concurrence to show up. There was also a cooking team that served lots of coffee, juice and delicious panini.




When most of the potential customers were there, happy with full stomachs and a Mercedes cap, the demonstration started and Cristian spoke and showed impecably the special features of the Zetros. Of course, I fell in love with the 6x6. The design was made to military specifications so the durability, ease of servicing and strength were the rule of making. The shocks and the supports had nothing to cause envy to the Merkabah, but the ventilated leaves and the silentblock bond between the springpack and the axle was of course generations apart. The cabin and the dashboard were also notably and evidently different, though the sound when the doors shut was surprisingly similar.






One thing Cristian talked about left me thinking; the certified capacity to go through deep water. If you want your truck to be certified you must go into the pond, the depth you want, stop the engine and leave the truck there for two hours, make it start again and get out with all your systems working properly. To do so the Zetros had all the ports for ventilation connected to a hose that ended on the back of the cabin in the respiration center, or something like that. Eduardo and I looked at each other at the same time and both we said: we’ve got to do that.



Another interesting feature of the big six-wheeled truck was the rear oscillating bumper, with its simple but tough single-pin lock.

[pairospam]

After the Zetros, Cristian introduced the Unimog and, even if my love was on the 6x6 side, it was equally interesting to know about some specifications and special features of it.



When everything that could be said had been told, Cristian and the other guys from the staff invited everyone and made a demo tour to the circuit, explaining in vivo what was all about, while the lambs were slowly cooking “al palo”.



After the guided tour finished it was the time for the hands-on demonstration so everyone that had been invited drove the Unimog and the Zetros at turns through the circuit. Of course, when my turn in the Unimog came I went off the track, played a little with a mud pond and drove backwards to test the 8th gear rear transmission.

When it came our turn to drive the Zetros we were the last ones and all the guys were busy having lunch, so they left the three of us alone with the truck to play. And so we did, Eduardo and I. The smile on my face, do you recognize it? Yes, every child with a new toy has got one.






Expectedly, one of the new drivers wanted the Unimog to fly too, and he let it stuck over a big pile of dirt. Cristian went up, calmly inflated the tires with the CTIS and shifted the slowest gear; the truck went out of trouble practically effortless.



I looked into my pockets but I couldn’t find the 185.000 dollars they asked for the Zetros, so I said that maybe the next time.

We ate in a hurry our delicious lamb, thanked everybody and especially Cristian and left for San Felipe, where my colleague was waiting for me to do some serious work.

[pairospam]

Bernd:

Excuse me but I did not see your quote while updating the page.

Yes, the efforts the truck did and the lack of love he suffered still surprise me. Hope I will give him back his dignity.

Thanks and cheers.


Pairoa

[lura]

no problem, your trip with the zetros was interesting too
and your decision was the right one.

Bernd

[pairospam]

Hi everybody, it’s been a while. I wish to you all the best for this year, though a little late.

After some time I continue with this story of one and a thousand days.

The inspectors from the Health Security Department came one day as scheduled and the whole workshop did pass the inspection, including the Merkabah’s working place. It was a relief for me though Eduardo was not pretty much worried after the full cleaning and reorganizing of the shop. The issue was that Edison, the painter, had to return to Ecuador in just a few weeks and I needed him to finish the prep and the painting of the mudguards and the cabin. It was not certain that he was coming back soon, or coming back at all.

At some moment on a Saturday morning I went up the cabin while Edi was busy on his own with the mudguards. The idea was to peel off the interior prior to the removal of the cabin.

The amount of dust that settled on the seats and everywhere after a few months was huge and made the environment pretty much uncomfortable, already difficult due to the tilting of the cabin. After cleaning a little and coughing a lot I began to unscrew things and, as usual, I became more and more enthousiastic.



The steering wheel was pretty much stuck and no maneuver seemed to work to take it out. Edison told me that there was a tool specially fitted for that purpose so I went down and looked for it, one of the thousand times I went up and down the cabin that day. With the tool the wheel came out easily indeed, fortunaley without injuring my head or my teeth this time.



Once the dashboard was almost clean it looked better than many others that I had seen and disassembled before. The only instrument that did not work was the oil manometer, the rest was functioning well when the Merkabah arrived to San Felipe.

When the panel was loosen the tecalan and the wires that I wanted to get to for freeing the cabin from the chassis were finally at reach. There was a lot of dust and a lot of wires; I had forgotten how many. I put tags and marks everywhere hoping they will survive and then began to remove the instruments.






Due to the inclination I had to be carefull on where and how I placed the tools and the parts if I wanted them not to roll down and brake.



The rest is a well known story; cleaning, identifying, marking or tagging every connection and wire and making photos of every step to have a nice reference for the future reassembling. Of course there were some aftermarket intrusions, unidentified wires, connections and switches that cannot be found on the manuals. There was some damage to the wiring too but, all in all, the interventions were not as disastrous as initially thought.

[pairospam]

After a few hours the instrument panel was completely removed. The implanted oil manometer was left waiting for its future to be decided later as I needed to be sure that I could fix or replace the original instrument.




Under the floor lining there was also a considerable amount of dirt cumulated during the last three decades. Removing the ugly auxiliary spring of the clutch pedal was a very special moment; it was kind of an icon of all the careless repairs done so far.




The implanted footswitch for the windshield wiper was blown away too and I went on with the cover of the steering shaft, lots of dry mud and more and more pieces and parts. Fortunaley they had not made more holes on the floor and they used the existing ones to pass stuff through.





The pedal of the accelerator was in very good shape, amazing for the supposed mileage of the truck. Was it possible that it only had 300.000 km and so as the odometer showed? Hmm…

[pairospam]

Sadly, the original foot switch for the wiper was broken, I liked it. Repeairing it would be a big challenge, but I was already thinking on a hand switch instead.




When I was done, so far, with the electrics I continued with the hydraulic connections and piping, and the heavily rusted brake and clutch pumps went out and ended up in a couple of boxes. There was again a lot of boxes with spares and pieces.




I went down the cabin for the last time that afternoon and continued taking things out of the frontal face of the truck. Finally the frame had no connections between it and the cabin. I took out the wiper mechanism including the motor. The original had been replaced by a smaller one of unknown brand and with a totally different wiring pattern. Did it work? I don’t remember.





Meanwhile, Edison gave touches and retouches endlessly to the mudguards, looking for perfection, but his progression was quiet slow. We discussed about speeding up a little bit and agreed about using power tools where required, but he was a little reluctant.



When I finished with the wiper elements at hand I faced the feared bolts that hung in place the front handles and the upper cover of the front grille. I could remove them except for one, of course, rusted to death. As it was late I sent Edi home and I left the bolt soaking in a liter of bolt loosener.



One last gaze to the Merkabah, magnificent to my eyes despite her nudity, and I felt that things seemed strangely to be slowing down lately.

[pairospam]

I reached for the store that afternoon and bought a tiny orbital sander with which I felt that Edi could go a little faster with the mudguards and the rest of the flat pieces. We would see.



But, finally after many years of efforts, extreme sports, working with heavy loads and so on, my back gave up and I was thrown to bed; I could not stand the pain. My activities were reduced to zero for a couple of weeks. Never been that bad before, and it was very unpleasant to be ill in the middle of the San Felipe summer heat.

Fortunately a couple of days before a friend had sent to me the electric diagrams of the Merkabah, among a lot of other equally valuable stuff for the NG-SK models. So, dictionary in hand, I checked dozens of pictures taken when disassembling the dashboard in order to identify each and every single wire and connector of the Merkabah. It was a hard labor because the terms in german are quiet singular, even for the online translators. Still cannot exactly identify what the Begrenzungleuchte is, for instance.




Anyway, the task was necessary not even to keep me mind-busy but also to help with the reassembling and repairing of the electrics. It was important as well to know exactly how things were made up when it came the time to connect and to configure all the new systems that would go in the cabin that need electric power.

The list of such systems is not minor and I show it here to see if anyone thinks that I miss something.

1. CTIS
2. Air suspension control
3. Rear view cameras
4. Cabin cameras
5. Air dryer pilot light
6. Fog lamps
7. Lecture lamps
8. Rear drive lamps
9. Auxiliary lateral lamps
10. Auxiliary front lamps
11. Electric winshield washer
12. Radio/DVP player + amplifier
13. Radio UHF/VHF
14. Burglar alarm
15. Air horn
16. Head lamps washer
17. 12V plugs
18. 220V plugs
19. Rear bumper position warn light
20. Door switches

As some systems work on 12V and others on 24V tension it was a good idea to know wich connection was the more appropriate. To follow the wires on the pictures was a game of patience and, surprisingly, I still was left a little.

I rescued from some boxes at home the components of the control system for the air suspension and finished the assembling of the valve manifold, studied the features and draw the final electric diagram for it. Surely it was a joke for someone well prepared, but for me it was a long story.




Once I could stand long enough I went to the workshop by walking and checked if everything was in place after my prolonged absence. I took the instrument panel and tried to fix the rheostat for the lights of the instruments but it was completely worn out. Bad thing as I had no replacement and it would surely be difficult to get one around. It was a meaningless though pretty much important detail.



The other instrument that was ruined was the oil manometer, as said before, so I opened a couple of boxes covered with dust and found the multi-instrument gauge from the yellow truck half buried in the Aconcagua riverbed. Exteriorly there was a little rust, as expected, but each individual instrument looked like new. I disassembled the gauge and easily took out the manometer as the instruments were plugged individualy on the integrated circuit and are not part of it as in the new models. Great.





I went back home carrying the gauge with me as I was still impeded to work hands-on the truck. I wanted to test if the oil manometer was still functioning and I used a pile of batteries from the bedside flashlight to check if the resistor was okay, but seems that the miliamperes were not enough to make it move; the only one that worked was the coolant thermometer, supposedly because it was the one with lesser Ohms.



Yes, I know… I was pretty bored.

[Pirx]

Fortunately a couple of days before a friend had sent to me the electric diagrams of the Merkabah, among a lot of other equally valuable stuff for the NG-SK models. So, dictionary in hand, I checked dozens of pictures taken when disassembling the dashboard in order to identify each and every single wire and connector of the Merkabah. It was a hard labor because the terms in german are quiet singular, even for the online translators. Still cannot exactly identify what the Begrenzungleuchte is, for instance.

Hola Mauricio!

"Begrenzungsleuchte" means "marker lamp". As the meaning of marker lamp is different in each country, according to local regulations, I will explain what it is on a Mercedes-Benz truck. If you look at your truck from the front, there should be 4 marker lamps: 2 should be integrated into the headlights and 2 should be in the outer corners of the cab's roof. Depending from the type of the original rear body of the truck (which is removed now), there could also be 2 more marker lamps at the rear end of the body. The intention of these lamps is to mark the silhouette of the vehicle so that other vehicles approaching from the front or rear will easily recognize that it is a big and maybe slow vehicle.

If you have more german terms to translate, just post it here and we will help you find out what it is.

Pirx

[pairospam]

Hallo Pirx:

You are always very helpful; thank you very much for the explanation. These are the position lights, here in Chile, and the translations said "limitating". Funny.

I will try to keep up as long as my health and the big Boss agree, though I am feeling better every day.

Cheers.



Pairoa