Mercedes 2626 AK 6x6

[pairospam]

It was time to go when we finished. At inspection we found some small finition details that would be corrected when the paint was hard enough and then a couple of hands of lacquer would be applied. The lacquer would then be polished and the cabin would reach its final state. Good.



Next morning it was pretty cold but the forecast missed again and there was no rain. Fallen leaves were counted in thousands and the dogs amused a lot themselves running on and scattering them… well… me too.



Profiting that it did not rain we went up the hills later to fly the dron. Very funny, the little toy. Flying it was pretty easy, though the strong wind sensor did not turn off during the whole flight and the landings were a little tricky even if I shielded the landing point with the Montero. In the end, cold and wind shortened the fun and we went to eat something around, but first I had nice, though far from professional, views of the valley.

[Iain_U1250]

Another great milestone reached, looks as good as new. Before I put mine back together, I sprayed about 5 litres of "cavity wax" into all the sealed tubes and bulkheads with a special thin spray tube, it leaked out of strange places for a few days, but now I know that the steel on the inside of the truck also has something to stop the rust

[lura]

The cabin looks very good, but the landscape picture of autumn makes me a "Huuaaaaahh". We have just spring here and all colors are fresh. Aater auf long time with low temperature.

[pairospam]

Sorry for the delayed words, guys. I had thought about applying that weird waxy product, Iain, but I desisted after remembering how hard it was to take it out from some spots of the truck, and the steel was rusted the same. Just a matter of taste, though I am sure that it helps a bit. Always grateful for your thoughts.

Glad to know you enjoyed the pictures of the valley, Lura.

Well, it finally rained. Lots of rain, indeed. The moisture was high and the temperature low and therefore lacquering was not possible. The cabin remained in a standby attitude at its place, and I was not pleased at all, as you may suppose.



And it rained a lot, all over. And, again, there were floods in the north, in the desert, where they have built, again, on the ancient paths of the rivers. My father was hired to go there and help with many tasks required to mitigate the disaster. He went with a more powerfull machine this time and helped to repair some damaged towers at 4000 meters of altitude, among other jobs.





To go on with the project I took the front grille and started the endless process of cleaning it off from rust and old paint. I also undented myriads of little dents and bents. You see the piece after at least two hours of nonstopping sanding and powersanding. Really annoying, finger-destroying, dusty job. And it was just the first session.



There was one day, one day only when the sun shone up in the sky, but I was at work, hmm… I had a little brake during my watch and tried to fly the drone in the, according to me, best place I could find. Soon I discovered that the thing would not fly because the GPS software considered it was an airport and thus a no fly zone. Plop. Back to work, Pairoa.



Do you remember Ecco and Gotye, the last dog and the last cat to arrive to Pairoa’s foster home for gentle pets? Well, they were growing healthy and quietly though considerably, and they shared a lot between each other and with the other animals. Ecco was only four months old and he weighted 25 kilograms; he would be a very big beast, and Carmen insisted in letting him stay inside the house. I had to buy and install a bigger pet door for him to pass through.



Those days were pretty shiny days, though they were quiet cold and I had lots of things to do. The first snows covered the mountains to the west. The cabin and the truck had to wait, as always.

[pairospam]

Unfortunately, the unproper conditions and the delay in the painting process made the paint of the cabin to get hard and it was not a good idea to lacquer it without further preparation. Edie suggested to sand the paint and then apply another hand of paint and only then to lacquer the cabin. I was a little reluctant because painting on the same paint is very difficult not to have drops but we would proceed very methodically, or so we would try.

I brang the cabin back to the still incomplete painting chamber and realized that I had forgotten to make the anchoring points for the left side plastic air deflector. After a few considerations and ideas that excluded welding the nuts to the recently painted cabin, I just drilled the holes and Edie finished the repair and the preparation of the deflector for painting. He was less conservative than me in that matter, though he tried not to criticize too much my previous job. Better for him… and for his health.





Well, we spent a lot of time after that, sanding the whole cabin, meanwhile the morning warmed up a little,. It was not nice to ruin a very nice paint finition with #400 sand paper, but Edie had the experience on his side: the lacquer wouldn’t stick to the hardened paint.

The ecuatorian painter was pretty confident and I backed him up. He painted the roof and I painted the sides. I followed his indications extrictly, but the experience is of major importance in these matters, and I had a few drops. Christ…I felt pretty bad. He also had one drop though nobody will ever see the roof. We left the paint chamber with a sad grin that lasted a few hours. Second parts have never been good. Hmm…





There was still time to do other things so Edie got his hands busy and I finished to clean the front grille and other stuff, washprimed them to prevent the metal to rust. Then, we made order and left.



After the obliged morning run with the dogs, that Sunday Carmen and I began to put rustic flagstones where there was once a pretty green lawn. It is easy to imagine what eight dogs trafficking the whole day can cause to the lawn, and with the recent rains there was nothing but mud that invariably ended up on the floor of the living room and on the carpet of our bedroom.

We worked until there was no light and the air was cold enough to chase us out. It was a good change, and we liked the result very much, though we didn’t reach to finish it. Hands and arms ached a lot after the effort, but it was a good feeling.

[pairospam]

During the next week it was also very difficult to work on the cabin, not talking about painting it. There were other painting jobs so the trolley was put to stress in the uneven floor of the workshop that is actually two different shops put together by taking out the wall that separated both warehouses. Tough enough, it worked pretty good and allowed to move the cabin back and forth better even than in a BMW plant, he, he. Well… not that much… but close.



Eduardo, my brother in law, came and criticized the recent paint job in a very kind way and gave me a quiet plain advice: let the job be done by the professionals, Pairoa. He was right, as always. I am an enthousiast you-can-do-all type of guy, but I was paying the right man to do the job and not letting him do it.

So, I dedicated the available little time to work on what I am very good at and rescued some other pieces that needed cleaning, de-rusting and priming. The one that hosts the system of windshield wiper was at hand and suffered the angry attack of tools, sandpaper, brushes and so on.





Next Saturday morning Edie and I discussed about was was the best way to fix the recent mess with the painting. One way was to sand it all and paint the whole cabin again, which did not convince me nor him. If second parts were bad, third would be with no doubts worse. We decided that polishing all except the back wall, where the ugliest drops were, was the less traumatic way. Edie got to it very carefully, not to ruin the paint especially on the edges, while I continued cleaning and repairing other pieces.

When the rest of the cabin was ready Edie masked all except the rear wall and I only assisted him while he painted and then applied the lacquer. The result was pretty good and it was not even necessary to polish it. Stick, good shoemaker, to your last…




Next morning it was freezing but the dogs almost broke the window of the bedroom. The thin ice still covered the plants and the fallen leaves but the view of the country, the sky and the Andes range was spectacular. I thanked the dogs for pushing me out of bed early and changed a little the road for breaking the routine and ended up on top of a little hill, sweating like a cow despite the subzero environment.



When I could I went to the shop and found out that they had to move the cabin because they needed the chamber. The shop was a little crowded and it was not possible to get the cabin to its place aside the chassis so I decided to cover it with paper to protect the new paint against the sprayed paint that could possibly scape from the chamber.

[pairospam]

I profited of the cabin´s pijama and followed Edie’s pretty reasonable advice to finish the interior of the cabin before going on with other pieces. But it was not easy to get rid of all the rust of the floor and we worked two hours quiet hard with the powergrinder, sandpaper and brushes to take it off the steel. Once clean enough I applied a couple of hands of washprimer there where it was needed.




Edie asked if I wanted to apply some coating too, but I was not really on the mood. He then prepared some very thick primer and applied it at very low pressure, very slowly, virtually splurting it on the floor and leaving an interesting corrugated appearance. He asked me to apply the primer with the same technique on the whole surface. You have a longer arm, he said, and I bought it. Half an hour later, with aching hands and some ugly cramps of the arms, I finished the first coating. In the end I gave the floor four hands of primer. Looked good, no doubt.





While the different primer coatings dried up we profited of working on some other aspects of the cabin. I finished to clean the support of the windshield wiper and the roof hatch. It took me quite a bit of efforts, as always, due to the intrincated shapes. I also cleaned another piece that covered the wiper. So many pieces!

[pairospam]

When it was time, Edie prepared the paint and started to spray the primed floor. Of course, I sprayed the central parts where the short Ecuadorian did not reach and ended up painting the whole thing. Very carefully, four hands of finition paint were applied leaving 15 minutes by the clock between each other to allow it to dry enough to avoid drips. It looked pretty good, really. Unfortunately, just in the last passage, I slowed a little the paintgun move and the paint dripped. I was a little tired, of course, but that did not help with the frustration feeling that followed. Damn… it was so perfect!




Finally, after a few moments, I shrugged and accompanied Edie to prepare and washprime the other pieces that were the object of our affection that day. The paint of the cabin would eventually dry and harden and we would see what to do about the drips then.





Next Sunday morning was even colder, but the dogs were pretty happy to go out for a run. The colors of the declining vineyards were fantastic, and almost all the leaves of the poplars were down. Winter time. It was a good, long run.

[pairospam]

Well, life and this project go on with ups and down, as always.

I was at work the next Monday morning when I received a call from the shop. The guys needed the place where the cabin was sitting and they moved it without realizing it was loose over the trolley. I had taken out the restraints to allow for painting the floor and left it like this for the paint to dry up, so when they pushed the cabin it fell down from the pillars and one of them struck the motor tunnel from bellow. It was not much though enough to brake the paint on the surface. Ops. Fortunately one of the mechanics had a minor lesion on one hand and that was all; could have been worse. It was my fault not to warn the others but I did not imagine that they were going to paint anymore outside the chamber. Anyway, all in all, it was good luck.




I fixed the cabin again with the chains and went back to work. I would have to do a major repair instead of only the area of the drips now, but all happens for a reason and, with that, I kept up in my mind.

The Super Tenere had a minor but persistent leak of fluid from the left side front fork and I had bought the retainer to replace the defective one a few days before, but when I cleaned the bike to make the repair I found out that there was a couple of tiny though significant grooves on the surface of the inner tube. Damn… the tube was dead. I got a couple of recommendations on trying to save the tube using this and that trick but I opted for replacing the whole thing with a new piece and service both forks completely. So I called the dealer and ordered the parts and grounded the bike.



As on the past weeks, I had lots of things to do and no time for working on the truck. I had to go to Santiago again and the Africa Twin accompanied me once more, faithfully but with her still unresolved problem of detonations and irregularities over 4500 RPM, pretty annoying and inconvenient. It was not fun to run slowly on the highway but there were no big problems on the city streets. I like a lot the vintage look of the old lady among the Transformer-looking newer bikes and the elegant office buildings.



To make the situation worse, my colleague passed me his flu viruses and they knocked me down to bed for three days, feeling terrible. Well, having subzero temperatures and insisting in moving on the bike may have had something to do also, maybe. I had pretty good company, though, as cats and dogs took turns to sleep on the bed and guard my dreams during the illness. As you see there is no big problem for cats and dogs to share the place, especially with Gotye.




That Sunday I felt better enough to stand up and the day was so bright and warm that Carmen authorized me to invite her to lunch out… in the Montero, of course. We profited to make a little tour around the valley, enjoying the beautiful views of the country and the Andes range. Felt good after staying grounded for “so” long.



During the next week I prepared the cabin to make the repair of the tunnel of the engine. It was damn cold so no possibilities to paint it or anything else. Finally, I had decided to repair the dented spot and to sand the drips and repaint it all. I flattened out the metal and killed the shine of the recent paint with sandpaper #1200 according to Edie’s advice and masked what I was not going to touch.

[pairospam]

It was not amusing to sand the so good looking paint, believe me. I wanted to start with the assembling of the different components of the cabin, the isolation, electrics, the air conditioning, etcetera, instead of painting it again. It was like keeping going back endlessly.

Anyway, I did this and some other minor tasks and had to bring the Montero to inspection and servicing of the front drive train and steering. It was all okay, but took me one whole afternoon.



A new Saturday arrived and still was quiet cold and rainy. Edie and I dedicated the first hours to prepare a lot of pieces for painting them eventually, in case the sun shone again in the afternoon.

I found the box where I had put the hinges of the front grille, the good ones. They were missing since a few weeks and I was very happy to find them, as you may understand. As soon as I could I welded them to the grille and sprayed it with washprimer. I then passed the grille to Edie for the final undenting and the plaster work.




While Edie did his magic I grabbed the piece that I think was the worst of all: the cover of the brake fluid reservoir. It was badly rusted, especially on the hind face. I worked a lot with the usual and with inusual tools until I was satisfied, though it was not as perfect as I wanted. But seems that I always want too much…

[pairospam]

To my surprise, Edie did a major work on the grille. He wanted it to look perfect as it was the “face” of the truck. Good.



The sun did not show up and the afternoon become even colder so there was no chance to paint. There was no objection, though, for priming, so Edie prepared a good amount of primer and he started to spray it to the many pieces already prepared and washprimed. He showed me a very nice technique for applying the primer so I took over while he dedicated the rest of the working day to inspect and prepare the snorkel. Initially he wanted just to sand and to paint it, but there were many defects and grooves difficult to ignore so it was going to be a more complex job.




I went on with the priming of the pieces until the product was over. The parts looked much better and they would be more protected with the primer. Edie had departed long ago when the paintgun got empty, and I had to clean it myself, hmm…





One good thing to tell, though. Eduardo told me to check the wires coming out from the CDI of the Africa Twin. I did and found that two short and fine wires were a little scorched superficially from the electric shortcircuit of the beginning of 2016. Anyway, I cleaned them from the soot and wrapped them with a few turns of isolating tape. Magic happened and the bike accelerated from zero to max RPM without any detonation or coughing! After having disassembled half the bike looking for the problem it was just a matter of electricity jumping from one wire to another. Christ!

Asked my brother in law how the hell did he know what was wrong and he calmly looked at me with a grin in his face and said: I talked to her, and she told me what was the problem.

I trully believe him.

[a90]

Nice writeup, thanks Pairo. To bad damage was done to the newly painted cabin, but it is repairable.

Is it colder than normal in Chile ? And will it will get more cooler since winter has started today in the southern hemisphere ? Lets hope it warms up a bit so you can paint again.

Also I wonder, have you even considered a small sandblasting cabin for those small parts ? It must be quite a job sanding all that rust down to acceptable levels.

Keep writing !

[Rumpelstielzchen]

Great Job that you are doing, Pairoa, and my full respect for all the energy that you put into it!
The source of the trouble with the AfricaTwin beeing at the CDI would have been also my first guess, as my old lady RD03 always suffered from the same. My "new" RD07 is free of stuff like that, until now at least. But it has only 72.000 km yet...
Best regards!
Alex

[pairospam]

@ a90:

It is normal in this little town to have extreme temperatures, pretty high in the summer and quiet cold in winter. Actually, the highest and the lowest registers in Chile, though not as low as in certain places in Europe, and we seldom have snow in the city.

Regarding the sandblasting chamber, I do not trust the sandblasting shop anymore, especially in winter as they work in the open and pieces rust soon after sandblasted, and I have no place nor will to buy or fabricate a chamber for a few pieces. Maybe it is not a bad idea and I should reconsider it.

@ Rumpelstielzchen:

Thanks for the vibes. To note that I had inspected the wiring before but these two particular wires looked lightly covered with soot and the plastic isolation was in good condition. Anyway, yesterday I made a nice trip and having the old AT responding normally to the throttle, not as nervous as the XT1200, of course, was a pretty good feeling.

More to come as I can go on.


Pairoa

[waYne]

Hey Pairoa,

nearly 2 months silence about you and your project. The Fans are missing you
I hope you are fine and everything is well!

Cheers

waYne

Gesendet von meinem SM-G900F mit Tapatalk

[pairospam]

I am working... I am working...

[Bahnhofs-Emma]

Hi,

I am working... I am working...

good to hear, keep on the great work.

Best regards

Marcus

[pairospam]

Well, here I am, again. Things became a little slower, if such thing is possible, but still they seem to go on with this neverending story. As usual, lack of time has been the major cause of delay as the wills to finish this project never fade.

It was time to start with the isolation of the tunnel of the engine to begin with the preparation of the cabin for bigger and funnier jobs. I really wanted to use the elastomeric membrane I had bought some months before and I got the best surface I could get at that moment to make a copy of the outer lining of the central part of the tunnel. I had such an amount of pieces around that there was nowhere to put any more so the capot of a broken Ford was very useful.



Manipulating the material was quiet strange but making the replica was not really difficult. The old, hardened and broken linings would be replaced by the membrane with its excellent properties for dampening the sound, and the face exposed to the engine would be covered by the alluminium double-faced foil to increase the somewhat weak insulation of the membrane to the heat. Well… that was the plan.

I started with the tunnel because it was the only part of the insulation covering in still one single piece. Those were pretty cold days and thus the painting was delayed until there were better conditions.




By the way, I show you Eduardo’s renewed Mitsubishi L200. The pretty old truck looked great after all the restauration work, and you could not go around without receiving at least a couple of offers to buy it at every stop. Good.



Time passed and, working a few hours per week, and only if I could, I got a better surface to work on and made some order. The rest of the insulation pieces had to be cut and tailored according to the specific shape of the tunnel of the engine. As usual, slow but funny. Actually, it consumed a lot of time and getting the right shape was not easy at all, especially the sides.

[pairospam]

Ops. Double post.

[pairospam]

One of those weekends I decided to go out, for a change, and we went to the seaside, Carmen and I, just the day after a big sea swell that left many appartments and garages flooded in Viña del Mar and other cities along the coast. Of course, sea swells happen all the time but this was a big one. Anyway, it was a good trip and the food, the ride and the sunset were spectacular.




I do not remember well when it was, but there was finally an afternoon favourable for painting so I wrapped and masked the cabin, again, and applied other four layers of paint to the already prepared tunnel. At last, the cabin was painted. Christ… it was hard.




Happy with the paint job, no drips, I resumed the job of the linings and it occupied my time the next working sessions until all the internal surface of the tunnel of the engine was covered in rubber and alluminium.





We worked together, Edie and I, to prepare many other parts that needed to be painted, as the mudguards that I decided to paint matt black instead of grey as the frame. It was a little boring and time consuming but it had to be done. Some pieces were already painted grey and Edie profited to correct some imperfections that were left the first time.



I got the toy-jigsaw (left the professional one at home and was too lazy to go for it) and without thinking it a lot, would be tenth time, I cut the holes in the front bulkhead needed to allow the piping and stuff for the air conditioning to pass through. It was hard to do it, don’t know why at this point of the project, but it hurt.

[pairospam]

At the end of that Saturday there was a lot of pieces primed and ready for painting, and Edie was particularly affectionated to the snorkel as he said that preparing it was like caressing a woman´s thigh. Each one with his immagination.





And time was coming to begin to dress the cabin so I gathered the pieces I had kept in a lot of boxes all sparse by the shop. Fortunatelly they were all tagged and just had to collect them from around, though there were actually many boxes so I tried to focus in the pieces I would need first. But it was quiet a task to know what would be really the first thing to do, especially when the time left for working was so randomly available.



I wanted to start as soon as possible with the new systems, but to do that I needed to install the AC evaporator and fan case. To install it I needed to install the original linings under the dashboard, but to be able to do it I needed to put back in the locking mechanism of the front grille, the pass thru for the hydraulic systems hoses and so on.

For that reason the first I did was to grab the lock of the front grille and worked on it for a couple of hours until it was clean, straight and perfectly functioning. There is no “before” picture, but you can imagine the look of the thing before the loving session.



Once the lock was ready it was painted and I could think on isolating the inner side of the front bulkhead by glueing the alluminium sheet directly on it. A little extra isolation is always welcome. Then, I thoroughly washed and cleaned and repaired the linings, covered by a thick layer of dirt and grease which took me quiet a bit to get rid of.



I opened the appropriate hole for the AC piping in the lining and installed the lock. It was not plain and easy at all, as the rubber lining of the lock was dry and hard and shrunk, and I had to moisten and warm it up to get it properly shaped and fit the base of the lock. Nothing pretty difficult but, as usual, time consuming.




Edie, on his side, painted matt black the pieces prepared the week before and the result was quiet satisfying in general. The snorkel and the air deflector looked better than new (sorry for the crappy picture) although there were some problems with the many other little pieces that finally had to be re-painted. Mhhh…

[pairospam]

As part of the plan to fight the cabin’s high level of noise there was another technique to help the crew to survive it: to mask the noise with a good stereo sound. I put together a nice system, not the best nor near it, just a good sound system, and the parts began to arrive from different sources. The first to arrive was the amplifier, heavy as hell. Good piece of metal, so heavy that it made me rethink on where to put it safely.



Then came the autoradio. I wanted a single DIN sized device as there was no more place in the central console. Also, our experience with the DVD player of the Montero told us so, as we never actually use the DVD, and the big screen is almost never deployed except for making adjustements every time the battery is disconnected. On the other hand, the smaller and humbler the radio, the less it drives the attention of the motherf….s burglars. It just needs to sound good.



Sometimes I used to take home some work, in order not to be at the workshop all the free time. Many pieces needed cleaning, simply water and soap cleaning, and so I took them with me and did the job at home while “living” with the family. Good.



It worked well on the front so I started to glue more alluminium stuff on the rear wall. The mechanics and customers of the shop passed by and invariabily asked why I was doing that after having put so much attention to detail when painting the cabin. The answer was the same: If you make it, make it perfect whatever it is. Of course, when you mess up, you have to do it perfectly too.



Anyway, the cutting and glueing went on until I was almost high with the solvents of the glue. I payed special attention to the angles and curves and to take out all the air bubbles I could when glueing the stuff to the metal. I made it in different steps, different days, depending on the time available.



In the meantime, Franz Air Conditioner came and we discussed about the layout of the system to be mounted on the truck. He suddenly realized that there was a major problem and it was not possible to get it working well the way I had planned it. After a brief discussion, pointing to look for a suitable alternative, he left, promising to have a good solution for the problem sooner than later. It was all about the way the air, fresh and filtrated, was supposed to be managed by the device.

When everybody else left, the case of the fan and the evaporator remained, alone and disappointed, in its previously supposed place under the dashboard. I felt disappointed myself too.



Anyway, I went on and made a try to get everything ready for putting the front suspension of the cabin. In the end I left it for the last moment as it was necessary to mount all the components at once when the cabin was ready to get back on the frame, and for that it was still too early in time.



Many and different parts of the new cabin interior kept coming. The new front speakers, powerful enough to stand the amplifier work, arrived when I was at work. Heavy also them, they would be hosted by the new central console so there would be no fixing problems with them.



The rear speakers were already at home, and they were pretty big and powerfull and heavy too. I got them many years ago when I had the Nissan Terrano but they were so big that I could never install them, so they remained in their box since… say 2009.



The original plan was to modify and reinforce the lining of the back wall of the cabin with epoxy and fiberglass and to build-in strong points to fix the amplifier and the speakers, but it was obvious that it was too much weight and inertial strength for the lining to stand, so I finally decided to go back to basics and to use the original metallic tray of the truck to host and hold the amplifier and the big speakers. The tray was built pretty tough and it was in very good shape. Problem solved.

[pairospam]

It was said previously that we seldom have snow in the city though the temperatures are pretty extreme in San Felipe with respect of the rest of the country. Well, it snowed… and quiet a lot. It was something very, very unusual. You can see the entrance to the cattle where the Merkabah used to rest waiting for a better future, sometimes under 42º Celsius. The snow covered the countryside where we made a picnic two days before and of course it covered many cities of the central Chile, causing not little trouble, but it lasted just a few hours. Yes… the weather is crazy.




Thinking of extreme temperatures I continued with the insulation of the cabin, drinking hot tea by the litres to help fight the cold in the hostile environment of the workshop. I covered completely the rear wall with the alluminium stuff and, to make a pause from the vapors of the glue, I cleaned and prepared and installed a few delicate plastic pieces as the air inlet. Little acts like that felt like going to the moon and back. Well… I am a little crazy too.




The roll of elastomeric membrane was still pretty big and as soon as the inner face of the back wall was covered with the alluminium isolation sheet I began to cut and glue the pieces of membrane on. Pay attention, because it is not as easy as it seems, and it took me a few hours to finish the job.





Meanwhile, when possible according to the conditions, Edie prepared, repassed and painted other parts and pieces of the cabin.



When the back wall was ready I started the same process on the roof, but this time I cut and glued smaller pieces of alluminium sheet at a time to make it easier, more accurate and less exhausting. I was at it when I had a doubt: would the thick membrane be in conflict with the lining at some place?



The lining got from some less happy donor truck was held under the floor of the attic and I had no intention of taking it out from there except for installing it, hmm...

[pairospam]

So, I took the original lining, better said, what was left of the original lining of the Merkabah, and put it back in to test the spaces left between the lining and the roof. And there was enough at the most critical spot. Good.

It was not a crucial problem, of course, just a possible inconvenient, but it was better to know.




As I was at it, I went up and inspected for good the original (and only) lining of the rear wall that was kept leaning against something since the beginning of times. It looked not very healthy, and it would require modifications to match the pass-thru and the lack of windows. The last plan, among a lot, was to cut, patch, plaster, repair and paint the lining, but after a few thoughts it was clear that the best I could do was to patch and reinforce the lining on its back face with fiberglass and epoxy and to upholster it with a nice and clean tapestry.




Well, I finished to get the roof inner face covered with alluminium and went on with the elastomeric membrane the same way, meaning in little pieces. At some point I was done with the bloody isolation, and it felt pretty good.





Once the isolation of the cabin was ready I put my hands to work on the next step, one that promised to be very amusing: electrics.

Actually, I had given a lot of brain-time to the issue and I just wanted to start. Thus, collecting all the boxes with the pieces that would be put in the cabin was pretty exciting. After all this time, the electric bundle was a block of twisted wires and plastic that once taken out of its box stood on the bench as a brick. It was a good start.




The tray of the fuse blocks and relays was the one from Spare; Merkabah's was missing. Anyway, it had to be modified, as many other parts, to hold an extra fuse block taken, naturally, from Spare too. I really liked the old fashion look and simplicity of the ceramic Torpedo type fuses and, following the lines of the whole project, I wanted to preserve as much as possible the Merkabah as it was before. After all, it had lasted all that mistreatment for fourty years.

[pairospam]

Some wires taken time before from the chassis harness of Spare were the first to be temporarily fixed to the cabin following the planned path, using, when possible, the same color pattern shown on the original electric scheme of the truck.



There was a little problem, though. The fuse box to be put had the wrong circuit pattern, and I really wanted to use it, hmm...



After some cleaning and straightening I put the electric harness back where it belonged. Ah... they looked pretty well, all those wires around, though some showed signs of overheating and I had to make some patches, and a couple of connectors needed some help to keep in one piece. Not bad, all in all.






The difficulties to find time to work on the project were always present and the advances were scarse those days. In the meantime I collected elements and tools to go on: new LED bulbs, special sockets, electric terminals, etc.



I looked all over for the brass rivets I needed to modify the fuse block and obviously there was none around, and everybody looked back at me lifting an eyebrow when I showed the block. Old stuff, uh? I then did some research and decided to use alluminium rivets that had a pretty good conductivity and were suitable for the job. Some fine drill work and the donor block of Spare provided the little brass pieces needed to modify and repair the one that would survive and serve to handle the new systems of the truck. A little more poping up and the new fuse block was ready.

[pairospam]

The cables inherited from old radiologic equipment were taken out from their boxes, classified, prepared and cut, and I began to install the terminals in the old fashion way, and the bundle of wires to manage the new systems of the Merkabah started to take shape. The wires from the dashboard harness of Spare were of big help too.




I made a few cuts and bendings on the fuse tray and Edie gave it a couple of hands of primer and black matt paint. Once the tray was dry I grabbed it and started to make up the new electric harness, one cable at a time.





It was damn cold. Even the heat from the soldering gun was welcome. Edie worked in the paint chamber with a few heaters so he only had to worry about the solvent vapors and the paint.



The valve block for the management of the air suspension needed a lot of tiny wires and there was a few of them at hand so I prepared them and then continued with other components of the wiring, then I made a lot of super-hot tea. I continued adding cables to the already crowded dashboard untill it was late and the time to go came.

[pairospam]

Stuff for the new Merkabah kept being ordered and delivered. I got the alarm, a pretty simple one, and a couple of powerful horns to replace the ridiculous sound of the horn that the Merkabah carried when I bought her. I got also a few meters of a pretty bright LED stripe for illuminating the interior of the cabin and the engine bay, and other pieces.




And I kept on with the electric thing, taking good care of making a clear diagram of the connections and paths. Fortunately I had pretty much wires in very good condition to use, so I could select the lenght and color of the cables and play with them. As I said, it was quiet amusing.





At a given moment I made a few changes in the design of the air conditioner system and I had a meeting with Franz and we agreed that it was okay and it would work. On the other hand, putting another system would have been pretty expensive and quiet impractical at this point. I made a few modifications and cut the tubes that needed new fittings and waited for Franz to have time to install all the system.



One good thing was to finally find the so elusive rivet nuts and the riveting tool. There was only one importer in Santiago and I ordered a couple of hundreds of them just to make sure I won't ever be short of them.




Many days passed and the work on the cabin was almost zero. Only a few little jobs, and it seemed that nothing was done.

[pairospam]

Saturdays were another different stuff, though, and Edie and I took the doors down from the attic. The ecuadorian painter washed all the cumulated dust out of them, rechecked and plastered and sanded them again. Then he applied a few layers of paint and left them to dry. I handled him the big tools-tray of the cabin for him to prepare them for painting. There was a little rust, a lot of dust and some greasy and sticky thing in the bottom. Guac.




When inspected, the recently painted doors looked pretty well. The paint would need at least a couple of days to harden up enough to safely manipulate the doors. This gave me some problems with the paint team of the workshop next monday as they needed to paint other pieces and the dors were a little difficult to locate. Sorry.





The next item to be prepared and painted was the bumper with all its components. The central piece had been previously flattened out by the suscriber though still needed a lot of work to be perfect. I started to mark it for the cuttings necesary to avoid any conflict with the front winch, but we realized that it was pretty late so we make a little order and we left.



As my poor spine ached still after a few weeks of a recent episode of backache, due to an extra-effort at work this time, I was not in good conditions for a run with the dogs so I bought some pieces of wood and took them home to work in the living room. I went to the shop, again, and determined, for the tenth time, what the actual measures of the central console would be. I marked with some last minute modifications and cut the shapes out from the wooden panels. This time I used the professional jigsaw, though. Quiet a difference.

When I finished, the lateral panels of the console were almost ready and, supposedly, they will fit perfectly under the dashboard. As you know, the central console would eventually host the valves and the controls for the CTIS, the air suspension, the alarm, the AC, the sound system and some other stuff.




Next time I went to the shop I brang the cut panels and they indeed fitted pretty well.

[pairospam]

It was necessary, of course, to make a few adjustements that the powergrinder and some sanding worked out with no big trouble. As you can immagine, the big round holes were for the front speakers, and there would be on each side of the console, in the lateral projections or "boxes", a hole to fit the pollen filters. Two small pollen filters to allow the air of the cabin to be sucked by the ventilators and pushed through the evaporator and also through the heater. Good.

The initial idea with the famous console was to keep it as simple as possible, and I was trying hard to go that way. I was at it at the workshop when the mailman came in with the cables for the speakers of the sound system. I had studied a little the subject and decided to buy enough cable to get with it to the Box in case I wanted to do so. Who knows.



And, after a few weeks of patiently waiting, finally the spare for the front fork arrived from Japan. Ah... it was a good thing. As soon as I could I disassembled the Super Téneré, in the living-room, naturally, and took the forks to the shop to get both serviced and to replace the scratched tube and the retainers. It was an oily job and it had to be very precise because these guys from Yamaha leave very little space for errors. In the end both parts were clean and happy and I could not wait to assemble the bike to make a test ride. I will behave and save you from that and just say that it went pretty well and that the XT 1200 Z came back to life with all her allure and horsepower.





That said and done, I went on with the console that took me quiet a bit of time to build up even if simplicity was the rule of making, as you can see. The panel for the instruments, guess what... I made it from a thick steel sheet that was waiting, kneeling on the wall, rusting for quiet a long while.







I played a lot (and still I am) with the layout of the instruments as there was not plenty of room to put them as I would have liked, instead, there was just a limited volume to share between all the instruments, the radio, the lines of air and all the circuitry.

When I was done with the rough part of the making of the console, including the metal parts to fix it to the dashboard and between its components, I gave it the final touch, sanding corners and beveling where it was needed. It looked pretty good and I liked a lot the brief work with wood. When I was a boy I used to help my father in his furniture workshop and I still make my own furniture when I can.

[pairospam]

Next act: to collect the cover pieces of the dashboard. Ops. There was one missing, and the others were in bad condition, especially one that was rusted and covered with old glue. Fortunately I knew exactly where to find a spare of the missing piece and it took me only a few minutes to get rid of the superficial rust and the rocky glue.




Once all the metal pieces were ready I gave them two hands of black paint and took the parts of the console and the covers to the upholstery workshop. The old man promised to do a good job but he had to go to Santiago to look for the proper materials to work with. As you see, to live in the country has always some inconvenients, though I am glad not to live in a big city.

At present I am working on the wiring, putting some order and covering the bundles in orderly fashion to make it look and work without any fault. Hope it comes out well.

Hope you are all okay.

Regards.


Pairoa