VerMonsterRV
Gotta Be Nuts
Hi Ivivier, I pm'd you with the details.
MB 1120 Coming to America! Purchase, Build and Now Travel!
- Thread starter VerMonsterRV
- Start date
gregmchugh
Observer
here is how GXV protects the awning from getting snagged by branches, our awning is mounted at the top of the truck
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VerMonsterRV
Gotta Be Nuts
So one of today's projects was to replace the alternator with a higher output one (draw from the DC-DC charger and rooftop DC air con). Figured while I was at it might as well replace the belts on both the alternator and air pump. Sort of good access to the engine, but things are sure packed in tight. So I got the air pump belts off and moved over to the alternator. Removed them from the alternator and then... could not figure out how to get them off the crank pulley as the fan blades look to be in the way. Plus with the inter-cooler plumbing it is very tight. Is there some process (without taking a bunch of stuff apart) to get these belts off? I ended up putting the new alternator in and re-using the 2009 belts. At least the air pump now has new belts.
So, this is a 2 part question. A while back I replaced the fuel tanks. Well the original MB fuel sender would not work in the "new" tanks. So I asked on the LN2 forum and was told the sender should be 3 ohms empty, 180 ohms full. So I ordered a couple VDO fuel senders with those specs. They went right in but I can not get them to work. Here is a link to the senders I bought. The original MB wiring is 2 faded red wires with a white stripe. Any thoughts on how I need to wire these? I tried just connecting the leads to the senders and nothing happens. Would really be nice to know how much fuel is in the tank
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The motorcycle now has new tires and chain. Was running perfectly when I brought it over to the shop. Then after leaving the shop, 200 feet down the road it dies. Can't get anymore than idle without stalling. Guessing the carb has a blockage. Add that to the list. Probably should install an inline fuel filter.
If all works out we may be ordering some new parabolic rear springs from Germany tomorrow. The originals are shot (sagging even though we are nowhere near the capacity).
So, this is a 2 part question. A while back I replaced the fuel tanks. Well the original MB fuel sender would not work in the "new" tanks. So I asked on the LN2 forum and was told the sender should be 3 ohms empty, 180 ohms full. So I ordered a couple VDO fuel senders with those specs. They went right in but I can not get them to work. Here is a link to the senders I bought. The original MB wiring is 2 faded red wires with a white stripe. Any thoughts on how I need to wire these? I tried just connecting the leads to the senders and nothing happens. Would really be nice to know how much fuel is in the tank
.The motorcycle now has new tires and chain. Was running perfectly when I brought it over to the shop. Then after leaving the shop, 200 feet down the road it dies. Can't get anymore than idle without stalling. Guessing the carb has a blockage. Add that to the list. Probably should install an inline fuel filter.
Thanks for that, I had considered something like this, and also for the front 2 solar panels. We have already caught twigs up there between the panels and the roof. Might have to wait and see though as we are itching to have a bit of fun with the truck. So plan is go have fun, figure out what we need to change and take care of things.
If all works out we may be ordering some new parabolic rear springs from Germany tomorrow. The originals are shot (sagging even though we are nowhere near the capacity).
VerMonsterRV
Gotta Be Nuts
A little follow up on the sender. While cleaning out the shop in preparation for departure I came across the original MB sender board (glad I saved it, though completely forgot about it). It looks like it is supposed to be 33Ω empty and 245Ω full. Seems to be a bit rare as i have yet to find a replacement sender at those specs.
lvivier
New member
Have you tried contacting KUS? Their diesel senders come in 240-33Ω but they also say “for special ohm ranges, contact us” on their website: http://www.wemausa.com
VerMonsterRV
Gotta Be Nuts
Thanks for the tip, I posted this same question on the German LN2 forum. I was told you had to do what you say from the underneath of the truck. I know from the top you can't.
VerMonsterRV
Gotta Be Nuts
Well it is now official, we are underway west. After a bit of a scramble in N.C. we finally finished the Webasto hydronic heating system for the habitat. Really the last thing needed to make the truck livable in all temps. The initial startup went well with a single leak, from a crappy npt reducing bushing from Amazon. No way to tighten it enough, so a quick trip to Lowe's got me a couple of fittings that worked. So far it is working great, easily keeping the habitat warm in outside temps just below freezing, plus it is heating the domestic hot water. We have the water to water heat exchanger plumbed to the furnace but still need to tie in the engine coolant circuit so we can preheat the engine. That will wait a bit.
So, last evening we stayed at a campground in Smokey Mountains N.P. Funny thing is was that campground has 220 sites, and we were the only ones there! Perfect. Had a flock of turkeys around the area and went for a couple nice hikes.
Also, we are working with a German spring shop for some replacement rear leaf springs. They know these trucks and have paid for a production run of parabolic springs. As of today our new parabolic springs are ready for shipping. Will find out on Monday about the shipping, current plan is to have them shipped to Texas to a truck repair shop I have talked with. So while they are making the way across the Atlantic we will keep moving west and spend a bit of time in Big Bend.
Oh, the fuel sender. I sort of figured that the original sender that was marked 33 ohms - 245 ohms meant 33 empty, 245 full. Well the replacement one I got is 33 ohm to 240 and seems to work in reverse (full=empty). Guess I need to try number 3 sender, 245ohm to 33ohm. Another funny thing, in preparation I brought the motorbike to a shop for new tires and chain. I went to pick up the bike, road out of the yard and it stalled (never happened before, but I have not ridden it much). Seems like a fuel issue as it will idle, then when power is applied bogs out. Guess I need to pull the carb out and check it out.
So, last evening we stayed at a campground in Smokey Mountains N.P. Funny thing is was that campground has 220 sites, and we were the only ones there! Perfect. Had a flock of turkeys around the area and went for a couple nice hikes.
Also, we are working with a German spring shop for some replacement rear leaf springs. They know these trucks and have paid for a production run of parabolic springs. As of today our new parabolic springs are ready for shipping. Will find out on Monday about the shipping, current plan is to have them shipped to Texas to a truck repair shop I have talked with. So while they are making the way across the Atlantic we will keep moving west and spend a bit of time in Big Bend.
Oh, the fuel sender. I sort of figured that the original sender that was marked 33 ohms - 245 ohms meant 33 empty, 245 full. Well the replacement one I got is 33 ohm to 240 and seems to work in reverse (full=empty). Guess I need to try number 3 sender, 245ohm to 33ohm. Another funny thing, in preparation I brought the motorbike to a shop for new tires and chain. I went to pick up the bike, road out of the yard and it stalled (never happened before, but I have not ridden it much). Seems like a fuel issue as it will idle, then when power is applied bogs out. Guess I need to pull the carb out and check it out.
VerMonsterRV
Gotta Be Nuts
I will do that, but it was pretty easy as I installed a 6 gallon Kuuma water heater. It is a marine water heater so has a built in coolant coil (you see in the product page the "heat exchanger" fittings). I do not have a separate aquastat (yet, taking a wait and see approach if it is needed). I also replaced the standard 110v heating element with a 150 watt 12v DC one. Currently I have it wired to a breaker on the power panel, but the plan is to change that and wire it directly to one of the solar charge controller's divert load. Hopefully then able to heat hot water with excess solar. We used the DC element prior to the heating system being installed and it worked well, just had to manually watch the panel output and switch it on when the batteries were charged (took 4-5 hours to heat the water). The 6 gallon tank allows us 2 showers with hot water remaining. Also, once I get the engine coolant circuit plumbed into the water to water heat exchanger the plan is to be able to heat the habitat air/water using excess engine heat.
Another small project that I forgot to mention is we also put in a water tank monitor. Got a simple Votronic one and it seems to work well. Never had one on the boat and always wondered about how much water we had, but we had 2 tanks and a desalinator. Since we have a single tank now (and no desalinator) felt we really needed to know.
i have this in my caravan and its working fine. very easy to install.
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Neil
Observer
Fantastic news, well done. You can keep working on these trucks for ever if you don't watch yourself. There comes a time when you just have to get going. There is always a list of jobs to do on the road . Some get done , some don't.
Well done,
I am very interested in your new springs, did your model have the traditional 2 stacks on each side or where they always parabolic.
Neil
Well done,
I am very interested in your new springs, did your model have the traditional 2 stacks on each side or where they always parabolic.
Neil
VerMonsterRV
Gotta Be Nuts
Yup, we could have spent the next six months getting things perfect (or what we think is perfect at the time). One thing we learned with the boat is that as you use it your thoughts on what is needed changes. So somethings we decided to take a wait and see.
Our truck came with the trapezoidal 8 main leaves, 8 helper leaves 7.8 metric ton spring packs. The one spot on the truck that was rusty was the rear springs (very rusty). I took them apart when we painted the chassis and fixed a broken leaf (at the time I looked into getting new ones and since we were not in Europe it is difficult/expensive). So when we finally added all the weight back we are now resting on the helpers even though we are at just around 10k lbs on the rear axle. In my search for replacement springs I inquired on the German LN2 owners forum and was told about https://www.dff-autofedern.de/ in Germany. Harald there has been very patient with me (I do not know German and his English is just ok) as I really want these to be right as the shipping is a bit pricey (250kg) and time consuming (coming in a shared container on a ship). These will be aftermarket leaf springs and not MB. Some leaf spring shop in Germany is building a batch of them, not sure if they are all for Harald or not, but we had to wait for the production run to be complete. We are getting a spring pack with 4 main leaves and a single helper. Harald says it will improve the ride over the stock springs and return our ride height. He recommends parabolics for RV conversions (he also sells the standard trapezoidal springs). He is sending all bushings/bolts for the conversion. Here is a rough sketch of the springs we have sitting in Germany.
loonwheeler
Adventurer
Hi Jon,
Great progress and I have enjoyed following along.
How many hydronic matrix heat exchangers did you install and how many kW are they rated for each?
We have both hydronic and diesel air heater in our truck. We almost always use the air heater but have always wondered what the total capacity of matrix heaters others have installed for a system based around the hydronic heater. We have our hydronic heater (Espar Hydronic II D5) plumbed into the engine, hot water calorifier, and one small matrix heater. On our last trip when it was -10 C outside, the single (small) matrix heater was not about to extract enough heat out of the coolant loop to keep the interior above ~15 C or so.
Great progress and I have enjoyed following along.
How many hydronic matrix heat exchangers did you install and how many kW are they rated for each?
We have both hydronic and diesel air heater in our truck. We almost always use the air heater but have always wondered what the total capacity of matrix heaters others have installed for a system based around the hydronic heater. We have our hydronic heater (Espar Hydronic II D5) plumbed into the engine, hot water calorifier, and one small matrix heater. On our last trip when it was -10 C outside, the single (small) matrix heater was not about to extract enough heat out of the coolant loop to keep the interior above ~15 C or so.
Sitec
Adventurer
Hmmm.... Again you have me thinking! My spare truck/prime mover came with Parabolic Springs under the cab.... I wasn't going to bother fitting them, but now I'm wondering if it would be worth it. I however think that there'd be less weight on a prime mover front axle than a rigid 4x4 truck... Good to see you are on the road!! How long until you get to Australia?? My kitchen is still waiting for you...