Jim the Truck - a mercedes 1823
- Thread starter nick disjunkt
- Start date
nick disjunkt
Adventurer
haha! the wedding was great fun but only took 3 days out of truck work. My wife took two weeks of honeymoon time off work, and is spending all of it helping me finish work on Jim. I definitely have a keeper!
Work is going well, but I'm more concerned with finishing the truck on time than taking photos and blogging. The kitchen is nearly finished, I'm just working on the overhead cabinets now. I will blog it when I'm done. I've fitted a calorifier and have tested the hot and cold plumbing and the heater circuit, both to about 30 psi. When I've fitted the header tank I'll fill the heater circuit with coolant and commission the Webasto unit. I have had the Eberspacher air heater repaired and fitted with a high altitude kit so that I can get the truck warm in the mountains. I have also ordered the freshwater tank and can commission the hot and cold water supply when it arrives.
Work is going well, I apologise for the lack of updates.
I'll try to get some photos up tonight.
Nick
Work is going well, but I'm more concerned with finishing the truck on time than taking photos and blogging. The kitchen is nearly finished, I'm just working on the overhead cabinets now. I will blog it when I'm done. I've fitted a calorifier and have tested the hot and cold plumbing and the heater circuit, both to about 30 psi. When I've fitted the header tank I'll fill the heater circuit with coolant and commission the Webasto unit. I have had the Eberspacher air heater repaired and fitted with a high altitude kit so that I can get the truck warm in the mountains. I have also ordered the freshwater tank and can commission the hot and cold water supply when it arrives.
Work is going well, I apologise for the lack of updates.
I'll try to get some photos up tonight.
Nick
nick disjunkt
Adventurer
Sorry, I still have no time for a proper blog update, but here's how the kitchens looking.
The worktop is getting cut and I'll fit it tomorrow, then I just need to box and trim the windows and clad the wall.
I made a stupid mistake with the Eberspacher header thank (for the webasto water heater). It comes with a small pipe at the neck of the unit. I assumed this was a point to dump a small feed from the flow line to help auto bleed the system. It turns out that it isn't and is in fact an overpressure relief pipe. Pushing pressurised coolant into it made it leak badly before falling off! I now need to drain the system, fix the overpressure pipe, and drill a fitting for a bleed line. Other than this, the central heating system works fine. I could not fit enough radiators to effectively heat the interior in very cold weather but it'll take the chill off and will be fine in conjunction with the blown air heater. I have two unavoidable high spots in the plumbing and could only get the air locks out by clamping other sections of pipe work. If I have time I'll fit some bleed points at the high spots to make getting the air out easier.
The worktop is getting cut and I'll fit it tomorrow, then I just need to box and trim the windows and clad the wall.
I made a stupid mistake with the Eberspacher header thank (for the webasto water heater). It comes with a small pipe at the neck of the unit. I assumed this was a point to dump a small feed from the flow line to help auto bleed the system. It turns out that it isn't and is in fact an overpressure relief pipe. Pushing pressurised coolant into it made it leak badly before falling off! I now need to drain the system, fix the overpressure pipe, and drill a fitting for a bleed line. Other than this, the central heating system works fine. I could not fit enough radiators to effectively heat the interior in very cold weather but it'll take the chill off and will be fine in conjunction with the blown air heater. I have two unavoidable high spots in the plumbing and could only get the air locks out by clamping other sections of pipe work. If I have time I'll fit some bleed points at the high spots to make getting the air out easier.
nick disjunkt
Adventurer
It seems crazy but it was actually the most practical sink that I could find. Sure it's heavy and fairly fragile but it has a few things going for it. First issue is that with the gas locker under the sink I have less than 150mm height under the worktop, any other type of sink would be almost unusably shallow but because Belfast sinks are rested on the bottom and not on a flange, there is no issue with them sticking up above the worktop. I can therefore fit a decent sized sink in a space which is too small for a conventional stainless sink. The other benefit is that I can clamp a mangle straight onto the edge of the sink for wringing out my washing. The mangle was an idea I appropriated from Rob Gray, and I picked up a decent 60s one off eBay for about £20. It's not the easiest sink to fix securely in place but it has 3 holes in the bottom for draining out whatever they use to cast the hollowed out interior and so I've used 3 wall anchors to clamp the sink to the board beneath; it needs to be removable to access the tap connections behind it.
nick disjunkt
Adventurer
sorry, still no time to do a proper blog post, but here's a quick video showing some of my progress
nick disjunkt
Adventurer
Thanks both!
For anyone interested I had a chance to put the truck on a weighbridge today and it came out at 13,300kg. This is missing about 350kg of fuel, 100kg of passengers, 200kg of personal effects, and about 50kg of equipment, putting the total at around 14,000kg. This is fine by me, the total GVW is 18,000kg and front and rear axles of 8tonne and 13tonne respectively so I am well within weight limits. The weighbridge operates for a local waste management site and they were too busy to weigh the front and rear separately, I suspect that the front is at about 6tonne but I don't know for sure.
I wanted to keep below 15tonne total, although I wanted to be closer to 12tonne.
For anyone interested I had a chance to put the truck on a weighbridge today and it came out at 13,300kg. This is missing about 350kg of fuel, 100kg of passengers, 200kg of personal effects, and about 50kg of equipment, putting the total at around 14,000kg. This is fine by me, the total GVW is 18,000kg and front and rear axles of 8tonne and 13tonne respectively so I am well within weight limits. The weighbridge operates for a local waste management site and they were too busy to weigh the front and rear separately, I suspect that the front is at about 6tonne but I don't know for sure.
I wanted to keep below 15tonne total, although I wanted to be closer to 12tonne.
theburtseoni
Observer
Great truck, great project! I have enjoyed looking at your posts, pics and video. It looks like from your planned route thru the states that you will pass close to our "neck of the woods" out in SW Idaho. When you get close, send us an email and we can give you our phone number etc and you can stop and spend the night if needs be, and we can point you to good things to see around here. Our S Idaho property is right on highway 95 two miles north of the small town of Parma, which is about 45 miles west of Boise.
We have some friends from Germany who used to come to the states for thier vacation time every summer, and we used to point them to out of the way places to check out old ghost towns, remote wilderness areas, etc. They always told us that we seemed to know the best places to send tourists for the best look see around! We will look forward to your trip in the states, and perhaps getting to meet you! Dennis at dennyburt@hotmail.com
We have some friends from Germany who used to come to the states for thier vacation time every summer, and we used to point them to out of the way places to check out old ghost towns, remote wilderness areas, etc. They always told us that we seemed to know the best places to send tourists for the best look see around! We will look forward to your trip in the states, and perhaps getting to meet you! Dennis at dennyburt@hotmail.com
nick disjunkt
Adventurer
Cheers Dennis, I'll be sure to get in touch.
nick disjunkt
Adventurer
At last I have somewhere to mount the spare tyre. The carrier goes up and down with the tail lift, and can easily be swung pout of the way to use the platform or access the boot/garage space. It si the same concept used on small 4x4s like land drovers, but with a 150kg mounted spare, the engineering is very different. Fortunately I found a fabricator who can cut and fold 10mm steel with CNC machines.
http://jimthetruck.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/spare-tyre-carrier.html
http://jimthetruck.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/spare-tyre-carrier.html