Jim the Truck - a mercedes 1823

[nick disjunkt]

After a busy few weeks we're now in Brunswick, GA, waiting for the truck to arrive by boat

http://jimthetruck.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/yeehaw.html

I'll try to do a few retrospective blog posts about some of the work I did to the truck before we left the UK.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-85tx-kl_1SA/UrN9AMk6klI/AAAAAAAABbY/1tQk_q-S6t8/s640/IMG_0029.JPG

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KAz7dwYkyCw/UrONg-imP1I/AAAAAAAABcw/0uIW0lTd7RQ/s640/IMG_0052.JPG

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BNv-I-qnIiM/UrOQ3K9C3nI/AAAAAAAABdQ/8mV7DMRViug/s640/IMG_0065.JPG

 

[Iain_U1250]

I look forward to reading about your adventures, the truck looks great, and whatever is not finished or doesn't work, you can fix on the road now. Good luck and safe travels

 

[Joe917]

Hi Nick, sorry to hear Jim did not get here for Santa. I have been looking at your blog for a while, great work on the blog as well as Jim. When I had our MB-917AF shipped Italy to Halifax it arrived in Baltimore! The shipping gods don't care . The amount of work in details really adds up, I am finally getting to the electrics.My battery box restricts me to 2 8d batteries(500AH). I am quite jealous of your battery bank. My concern there is venting, you have detailed the build so well, but I maybe I missed it. If you missed it (which I doubt ) it should not be to hard to fix.
https://www.bdbatteries.com/hydrogenventing.php
Have a Merry Christmas and Happy new year.
Joe , Ottawa Canada
PS could be worse, you could be here, High temp today: minus 17 Celsius

 

[nick disjunkt]

I look forward to reading about your adventures, the truck looks great, and whatever is not finished or doesn't work, you can fix on the road now. Good luck and safe travels

Thanks Iain, most of the outstanding items weren't essential anyway. For example I didn't get to fit a television (we just watch films on the laptop instead), and I didn't get to add any comforts to the cab.

Hi Nick, sorry to hear Jim did not get here for Santa. I have been looking at your blog for a while, great work on the blog as well as Jim. When I had our MB-917AF shipped Italy to Halifax it arrived in Baltimore! The shipping gods don't care . The amount of work in details really adds up, I am finally getting to the electrics.My battery box restricts me to 2 8d batteries(500AH). I am quite jealous of your battery bank. My concern there is venting, you have detailed the build so well, but I maybe I missed it. If you missed it (which I doubt ) it should not be to hard to fix.
https://www.bdbatteries.com/hydrogenventing.php
Have a Merry Christmas and Happy new year.
Joe , Ottawa Canada
PS could be worse, you could be here, High temp today: minus 17 Celsius

Thanks Joe, Baltimore and Halifax were both marginally cheaper than Brunswick but I didn't fancy the December weather.

I probably didn't give hydrogen venting as much concern as it deserves but I certainly did consider it. I have hydro caps fitted to the Rolls cells which reduce the amount of gassing under charge, but they still need topping up fairly frequently so they are clearly still releasing hydrogen. The battery compartment is not sealed in any meaningful way and the intention is that any hydrogen released will just find it's way into the cabin, where the volume of air is great enough to dissipate it and mitigate the risk. The Electrical cabinet now has a big louver vent near the top and so the hydrogen shouldn't collect at the top of the cabinet. There is an unvented area at the top of the electrical cabinet which may need a fan fitting to clear trapped heat anyway. Sealing the electrical compartment and venting it externally would have been a better solution but I would have had to gland every cable entry point and used compression latches and seals for the hatch, all of which seemed like a bit of a ball ache at the time!

Nick

 

[k9lestat]

Hey Nick I shot you a pm.

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk

 

[nick disjunkt]

Hey Nick I shot you a pm.

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk

Sorry Tony, just noticed it. I was actually in Savannah yesterday with a rental car. I think we'll stay around the golden isles today but I'll call tomorrow, I don't want to disturb your families Christmas.

Nick

 

[k9lestat]

Lol well I was going to try invite yall for dinner. But call me anytime it's all good. We are not a formal bunch.

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk

 

[nick disjunkt]

Sorry for not updating as regularly as I should, but you can catch up on recent progress on the blog, here is the most recent post:

http://jimthetruck.blogspot.com/2014/01/farewell-florida.html

I've had a brake calliper sticking on one side of the rear axle, and lost air pressure when the main connector to the passenger air seat spontaneously disconnected, but have had no other issues with the truck yet. The state of one of my steer tyres is tempting a blowout so I'm going to need to shell out for a new tyre soon.

You can now track us using a Spot GPS Tracker here:

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0VGQRf62GPqKphIWEMGVrSQp3DIFT6NRS

We drove all the way south to Key West, before heading up the west coast of Florida via the everglades. We then hugged the coast through Alabama and Mississippi, stopped in New Orleans and are now visiting Austin, TX. When we leave we'll do a quick tour of the hill country and head to the border via San Antonio. I'd love to visit Big Bend but the border crossings that far west are a little sketchy and it'll make the journey to Saltillo a lot longer.

 

[ianc]

Nick, If you're looking fro a particularly quiet and easy crossing, I'd strongly recommend the Free Trade Bridge just south of Harlingen. It's mostly commercial and has none of the hustle and stress of most of the other crossings. Approx. coordinates are +26° 1' 52.25", -97° 44' 17.99"

Do make sure you have the Mexican Camping book by Church & Church. Apart from the camping sites, it also tells you how to avoid getting traffic violation tickets. Some Mexican cities have some very poorly marked truck routes and if you miss them you will get ticketed. Tampico is one that I particularly remember.

Have a great trip.

Ian

 

[nick disjunkt]

Nick, If you're looking fro a particularly quiet and easy crossing, I'd strongly recommend the Free Trade Bridge just south of Harlingen. It's mostly commercial and has none of the hustle and stress of most of the other crossings. Approx. coordinates are +26° 1' 52.25", -97° 44' 17.99"

Do make sure you have the Mexican Camping book by Church & Church. Apart from the camping sites, it also tells you how to avoid getting traffic violation tickets. Some Mexican cities have some very poorly marked truck routes and if you miss them you will get ticketed. Tampico is one that I particularly remember.

Have a great trip.

Ian

Hi Ian,

thanks for the suggestion. I'll probably take your advice on this issue as I have no experience of crossing into Mexico and first hand experience is always the best.

We planned to be in or near Mexico by now but out parking brake problem reoccurred so we've been delayed. I drove back to Austin and found a garage willing and able to work on the truck. The parts arrived yesterday so we should be on the move again next week.

Here's a post detailing our drive into Hill Country and our the problems with the brakes

http://jimthetruck.blogspot.com/2014/02/from-austin-to-austin.html

 

[Iain_U1250]

We find the same with MB parts in Australia. They cost four or five times as much as they do in the UK or Germany, and they take four to six weeks to get them. Luckily we can still buy from places like At-Vos or Merex and they will ship them to us, but we can't buy from a MB dealer due to MB new policies.

Hope you get the brakes fixed Nick, at least you have identified and found a way around the problem.

 

[nick disjunkt]

We're back on the Road again and have crossed into Mexico. The brakes seem to be repaired as the problem has not reoccurred.

http://jimthetruck.blogspot.mx/2014/03/jim-se-repara-y-ahora-estamos-en-mexico.html

http://jimthetruck.blogspot.mx/2014/03/crossing-border-into-mexico.html

 

[nick disjunkt]

Now in Zacatecas after a couple of days in the beautiful surroundings to Real de Catorce

http://jimthetruck.blogspot.mx/2014/03/real-de-catorce.html

 

[nick disjunkt]

I was relieved to see that the Sika rapid response unit are at hand in case any of the multitude of panels that I have glued with Sikaflex 221 come loose.

 

[Iain_U1250]

Fantastic, worldwide service as well. Hope they also help those of us who stuck their truck together with 252