MB 1120 Coming to America! Purchase, Build and Now Travel!
- Thread starter VerMonsterRV
- Start date
VerMonsterRV
Gotta Be Nuts
Started the day on the mooring, dinghied in with the folding bikes, rode the 4 miles to the Enterprise agent. Hired a car and drove about an hour and a half to the Brunswick GA port. After a brief security check and escort to the truck it was ours! Took a bit to get it started as whoever moved it off the ship also disconnected the battery? Once that was done and escorted to the gate we were on the way back to the boat. Took me a minute to realize that someone had put the truck in 4 Low, so was a bit slow going down the highway 
.
All in all getting the truck from Sweden was pretty painless. Our agent, Dan at http://www.awis.us/ really took care of us and handled not only the shipping but also all the import paperwork, all at what I think was a reasonable price. I plan to use his services again to ship in the new rims for the SRW conversion.
So, I talked last evening with the marina welder about the box, he wants is to store his equipment at the marina and is willing to swap taking it off for the box. Might throw in a custom battery box as the truck batteries are mounted in the fire box. I had to drive the truck about 70 miles back and all went well. I do know though that AC and sound deadening has moved up in priority. Once the box is off we will drive a couple hundred miles south to have the subframe built, the steel is already in and waiting for us to get there.
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.All in all getting the truck from Sweden was pretty painless. Our agent, Dan at http://www.awis.us/ really took care of us and handled not only the shipping but also all the import paperwork, all at what I think was a reasonable price. I plan to use his services again to ship in the new rims for the SRW conversion.
So, I talked last evening with the marina welder about the box, he wants is to store his equipment at the marina and is willing to swap taking it off for the box. Might throw in a custom battery box as the truck batteries are mounted in the fire box. I had to drive the truck about 70 miles back and all went well. I do know though that AC and sound deadening has moved up in priority. Once the box is off we will drive a couple hundred miles south to have the subframe built, the steel is already in and waiting for us to get there.
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View attachment 446678
VerMonsterRV
Gotta Be Nuts
Big day today but I did have a bit of a warning. Got up this morning and decided to run the generator to charge batteries on the boat. Alternator refused to put out amps. So went in to meet the guys to remove the firebox from the truck. Crane would not start, so we used jacks and blocks and got the thing off. Then, I started the truck to move it forward and it stalls after running rough, this just keeps happening. This is odd since since we got it it was running smoothly until now. My guess is I must have disconnected something important. I do know I had disabled the kill switch yesterday by accident and needed to shut down manually. I also know there are some air lines we cut that were for the equipment in the box. We also had to remove the engine batteries from the firebox and are now just sitting on the chassis rails. Any thoughts?? I'll plug the couple air lines but I would not think that would be the issue and enable the kill switch.
You think after 2 engine relayed issues in one day I would have postponed the box removal...
You think after 2 engine relayed issues in one day I would have postponed the box removal...
VerMonsterRV
Gotta Be Nuts
Oh, and I do not think the rough running is caused by me messing up the kill switch as I did that yesterday and it ran well this morning to get it over to the guys that pulled the box.
VerMonsterRV
Gotta Be Nuts
Quick update, I think I have gotten the issues with removing the firebox sorted. The rough running ended up being caused by removing the bowdon cables that controlled the throttle from the rear of the truck (for the PTO driven pump). Minor adjustment near the injector pump and all is well. The kill/exhaust brake switch was caused by a few air hoses I needed to cut, the truck came with a mast in the back that was air operated. Once plugged all is well. I am scheduled Monday morning at the fabricators to start work on the sub-frame. Hopefully by the end of next week it will be complete.
LostInTheWorld
Builder/Traveler
Your truck looks really great. That's a nice starting point to your project.
Michael
Michael
VerMonsterRV
Gotta Be Nuts
Thanks, it seems to be in pretty nice condition with the apparent flaws fixable (hopefully there are no hidden ones). Been running around trying to get the box off and road worthy again. Then of course trying to keep the boat going at the same time (this morning found a faulty "smart" regulator on the generator has gone bad) is taking some time.
VerMonsterRV
Gotta Be Nuts
Well, the highway is not a strong point. About 55mph is ok. Problem is we are in Florida now which means with no A/C the windows are down so a bit of a racket. Also, I am in the process of ordering the SRW rims from Germany. Will take about a month to get here, but the new tires will be a bit larger (and no snow studs) so hoping for a little higher speed (just did an online calc for speed change with the tire size change, 55mph with the current tires will be almost 65mph with the new size). Once we get the truck relocated to Vermont the interior will come out for refreshing, new seats and sound deadening. Hopefully also adding A/C if I can figure out how to mount the compressor. That will hopefully help with the noise and make things more livable.
Oh, got the grill back on today. It had some damage so I fixed it with epoxy and fiberglass. Then a quick paint to change from white to black.
Oh, got the grill back on today. It had some damage so I fixed it with epoxy and fiberglass. Then a quick paint to change from white to black.
Victorian
Approved Vendor : Total Composites
I hear you about the A/C.... We had some record high temeratures in Utah the last week and driving all day with the windows down is not an option... Have you considered retrofitting something like this one: https://totalcomposites.com/product/high-efficiency-off-grid-a-c-unit/ This would be easy to add.
VerMonsterRV
Gotta Be Nuts
Just a quick update as I am in the middle of drawing up the subframe plans (just did the final measuring) for the start of fabrication tomorrow morning. Can't wait to get it built and on and get the Total Composites box going.
We have also gotten a bit more progress in that the new SRW rims are on a pallet and ready to ship from Germany. Trick is trying to get the shipper to pick them up before the seller heads out on an European 1 month holiday!
We have also gotten a bit more progress in that the new SRW rims are on a pallet and ready to ship from Germany. Trick is trying to get the shipper to pick them up before the seller heads out on an European 1 month holiday!
VerMonsterRV
Gotta Be Nuts
So the rail on rail sub-frame fabrication has started. The fabricator has cut and drilled all the steel and tomorrow the welding starts.
Had new rear U-Bolts made today for the eventual spring pack removal/cleanup. Also found a used (in great shape) 50 gallon (189 liters) aluminum fuel tank out of a Sterling truck today for what seems like a good price ($200 including cap and mounts). I can pull the original ~18 gallon tank and put this back in the same spot, which will leave me with space for a second. Having 2 separate tanks has worked well for us on the boat so I plan to do this with this truck. 100 gallons should give us some pretty good range.
The shipper has picked the new rims up so they are on the way.
Stopped by a Freightliner dealer to check out some new air ride seats from Seats Inc. They had the "Legacy" model there which seemed a bit too fancy for us but found out they also offer the Heritage Lo series in cloth which looks pretty good. We need to smooth things out a bit.
Had new rear U-Bolts made today for the eventual spring pack removal/cleanup. Also found a used (in great shape) 50 gallon (189 liters) aluminum fuel tank out of a Sterling truck today for what seems like a good price ($200 including cap and mounts). I can pull the original ~18 gallon tank and put this back in the same spot, which will leave me with space for a second. Having 2 separate tanks has worked well for us on the boat so I plan to do this with this truck. 100 gallons should give us some pretty good range.
The shipper has picked the new rims up so they are on the way.
Stopped by a Freightliner dealer to check out some new air ride seats from Seats Inc. They had the "Legacy" model there which seemed a bit too fancy for us but found out they also offer the Heritage Lo series in cloth which looks pretty good. We need to smooth things out a bit.
siegerland
New member
Hello all of you,
just to your knowledge and only as a small complement to this great website: There is small but nice forum on this type of truck on the internet. Registration required to have full access. It is non commercial.
Would be nice to see one of you there to introducing his/her project. Questions welcome.
http://ln2-forum.de/
Gerhard Honer with study on LN2
Stefan (on MB 1317AK LN2 LK)
just to your knowledge and only as a small complement to this great website: There is small but nice forum on this type of truck on the internet. Registration required to have full access. It is non commercial.
Would be nice to see one of you there to introducing his/her project. Questions welcome.
http://ln2-forum.de/
Gerhard Honer with study on LN2
Stefan (on MB 1317AK LN2 LK)